The day after U.S. Senate Republicans blocked an effort to codify nationwide access to contraception, key Georgia Democrats held a news conference touting President Joe Biden’s stance on reproductive rights.
Former state Sen. Jen Jordan attended the conference Thursday afternoon and joined “Politically Georgia” on Friday.
“Look, things are tough right now, right? Things are messy and complicated and hard,” Jordan said.
“But there is one thing that isn’t hard, and it’s that we should all agree that contraception should be available to women,” she said, mentioning that men need access to health screenings and condoms as well.
Jordan says reproductive rights are an issue Democrats should hone in on this election cycle.
“I would talk about contraception, contraception, contraception,” Jordan said.
Then Jordan, who ran for Georgia attorney general in 2022, losing to Republican Chris Carr, added: “I would talk about public health. I would just yell from the rafters.”
Before her bid for attorney general, Jordan became a national figure in 2019 when Georgia was debating what became its restrictive abortion law in the state Senate.
Jordan told the hosts that at that time she wondered about its long-term effects on reproductive issues.
“We talked about during the fight over HB 481 in terms of what are the real implications of allowing these abortion bans,” Jordan said.
“Allowing the government to kind of insert itself into these kinds of decisions, which are health care decisions, right? What are the implications kind of downstream? And (now) all of that is happening,” she added.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago left states to decide limits on abortion. Legal ramifications of the ruling have since dipped into other reproductive issues, such as contraception and in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
During the past legislative session, Democrats in the General Assembly pushed a state-level measure to protect IVF that never gained traction. But a bipartisan group of House lawmakers rallied behind a nonbinding resolution on the matter.
“It’s not a good thing in terms of women, right, in trying to bring women back into the Republican fold, but it’s also not a good thing for business. I mean, IVF is big business in metro Atlanta,” Jordan said.
Christina Matacotta for the AJC
Christina Matacotta for the AJC
On the national level, Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon told “Politically Georgia” he doesn’t expect abortion to eclipse the economy in this year’s race to the White House.
Jordan disagrees.
“Being able to make a decision about when you have a child is so important in terms of women being able to actually earn money,” Jordan said. ”All of these things are economic in nature.”
She added: “We are just going to regress if Donald Trump is elected. And folks need to get that straight.”
Monday on “Politically Georgia”: Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleague Ernie Suggs and Emory University professor Andra Gillespie join the show.
About the Author
