Georgia’s abortion law worsens maternal health crisis
As a mom and a genetics researcher, my guiding principle is that science saves lives — when we develop the tools to prevent suffering, we use them.
In 2024, 18 weeks into my second pregnancy, my water broke and my doctors told me my expected baby could not survive. I was hemorrhaging and facing sepsis. The procedure I needed, which is performed safely in hospitals across this country every day, could have immediately spared my family immense trauma and prevented my pregnancy from becoming a near-death experience.
My doctors knew exactly what to do — yet Georgia’s law stood in their way. They were forced to watch me deteriorate, legally able to act only once my life was at immediate risk.
Georgia’s abortion ban blocks doctors from using the lifesaving knowledge we already possess, worsening our maternal health crisis. It nearly left my child motherless.
Politicians don’t belong in the exam room. I strongly support Reproductive Freedom for All in their work to elect reproductive freedom champions like Sen. Jon Ossoff, who demands accountability for patients like me, forced into medical crises by extreme laws.
AVERY DAVIS BELL, DECATUR
Record high temps only beginning of climate change
The AJC’s “Records shattered as summer heat hits Southwest in March” quotes a scientist: “This is what climate change looks like.” I would add: “This is only the beginning.”
Climate change is accelerating, as are the costs from extreme weather, insurance, lowered property values, and human health. Picture climate change as a hungry tiger catching you defenseless in the wilderness with your child. You might be able to run away, but your child would be left at the mercy of the tiger.
Your failure to hold government and fossil fuel companies accountable for climate action dooms your child’s future to huge climate-related costs, poor health, and a world outside the “Goldilocks” zone. Are you too busy with your life to care?
Many voters were persuaded to vote for Trump because the fossil fuel companies used the money you pay at the pump to influence his election, thus, furthering their deadly interests. Trump is using almost $1 billion in taxpayer money to allow planned leases for cheaper wind energy on the East Coast to be abandoned in favor of fossil fuel projects.
Later this year, you will have the opportunity to vote to stop this insanity. Vote for our children!
JOHN W. SHACKLETON JR., ATLANTA
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