mobanmarketDOUGLAS COUNTY, GA — The Democratic Women’s Council of Douglas County has planned a protest rally for 5 p.m. Friday, May 31, on the stairs of the courthouse in Douglasville over recent comments by District Attorney Ryan Leonard. The prosecutor said mothers can be charged with murder under Georgia’s new “heartbeat bill,” that curbs abortions in most cases.
Leonard made the comments to The Daily Report at Law.com, on May 22. “You normally go after the most culpable people for a crime,” Leonard said. “Who actually took the life of the human being? That would be the doctor. Who is the next most culpable? The mother.”
Leonard said he thinks it’s more of a stretch to prosecute office staff or husbands and boyfriends who drive women to clinics and offer moral support. But for women and their doctors should beware, he said.
“Personally, I’m not itching to prosecute people under this law,” Leonard told Daily Report at Law.com. “I don’t think anybody else is either. But I think it’s improper to say I’ll never prosecute anybody under the law,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury to say, ‘I don’t like this law and I’m not going to enforce it.'”
Leonard said in a statement to Patch, “As with any news story, people are picking and choosing the comments they want to emphasize. I have been clear since the beginning that my primary purpose in speaking out was in response to prosecutors who issued blanket statements refusing to enforce HB 481.
“HB 481 is a new law in the State of Georgia and as such, there is no direct legal authority interpreting the statute and outlining how the law should be applied,” Leonard said in the staement. “Accordingly, lawyers, judges and in my case District Attorneys should apply the law as they honestly interpret it. It is not the province of District Attorneys to unilaterally decide the law is unconstitutional and issue blanket refusals to enforce HB 481.
“Prosecutors may have differing interpretations of who may be punished under the law and how they should be punished, but they are wrong to outright refuse to apply the law in any manner, under any circumstances,” the DA’s statement continues. “As things stand right now, HB 481 is a valid Georgia law and will go into effect at the first of the year. If presented with a case implicating HB 481, I intend, to the best of my ability, to apply the law to the specific facts and circumstances – just as I do in every case.”
Representative Kimberly Alexander, who serves District 66, which encompasses Douglas County and the southeast section of Paulding County, told Patch she will be at the rally.
“For me, this rally is to shed some light on what the DA said,” she said. “I’m a representative of Douglas County and I live here. The ink is not yet even dry on the legislation and it will be challenged in a court of law. And here we have a DA talking about prosecuting women. Other counties are saying they won’t prosecute women.
“It’s concerning,” she said. “Me, as a woman, I think we have to speak out. This is an unconstitutional attempt to change something that was established over 40 years ago. When you’re talking about prosecuting women, that concerns me.”
Leonard told Patch, it is the right of citizens to protest, he’s just doing his job.
“As far as the protest that is scheduled for this afternoon, that is their right,” he said. “The basis for their protest is their disagreement with the law itself. My job is to follow the law not to pass laws. It is likewise not my job to unilaterally declare laws passed by a different branch of state government invalid or unconstitutional.”
Leonard’s entire statement is at the bottom of this article.
Leonard reportedly told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a May 23 article, the new restrictions could be used to prosecute pregnant women who have the procedure. Although the bill’s sponsors say it should not be used to seek charges against women, he said the law does not explicitly exclude women.
Alexander added that, “The Georgia Law on Abortion does not indicate prosecution of a woman it indicates the person convicted of administering criminal abortion can face up to 10 years in prison, so how is this being interpreted by the DA? Additionally, the Georgia Court of Appeals indicates that this applies only to third parties and not the woman seeking abortions. Not to mention that this law will ultimately be determined in the court of law.
“Why is it that this DA in this county appears to be so anxious to prosecute women on this bill when so many DA’s in Georgia have indicated they will not prosecute the woman,” she said. “Very concerning!”
Ingrid Landis-Davis, rally coordinator, and member of the Democratic Women’s Council of Douglas County, said Leonard does not represent the people of Douglas County.
“The current DA was not elected but appointed by former Governor Deal, at the last minute, after the qualifying deadline for the election, in which there was a very qualified woman planning to run for the position,” she said. “We believe that he does not represent the people of Douglas County since if he had actually run as a candidate, he would have lost.
“Douglas County demands representation that reflects the citizenry and not a political appointee leading the District Attorney’s office who was not elected, who is willing to criminalize a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” she said.
The bill, authored by a suburban Atlanta Republican lawmaker, would allow abortions in cases where the mother’s life or health is in danger, or in cases of medical emergency. It also says an unborn child at any stage of development in the womb would be included in state population-based counts.
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