Jason Bateman has confirmed he will no longer work in the state of Georgia if the ‘heartbeat bill’ is passed into law.
A little bit of background on the bill in case you’re not up-to-date.
The bill would make abortion illegal after six weeks – a point when most women don’t even know that they’re pregnant. Women would also be prosecuted if they tried to get an abortion out-of-state.
According to Vox, anyone who performs an abortion will face up to 10 years in prison and there have even been some suggestions that women who have abortions could face murder charges.
If the foetus has a ‘heartbeat’, a doctor is prohibited from performing an abortion unless it is necessary to save the mother’s life or “to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
There is also no exception for rape or incest in Alabama, but there will be in Georgia. Faith2Action, who call themselves “the nation’s largest network of pro-family groups” say it shouldn’t matter if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest because “no other law allows for the killing of an innocent child for the crime of his or her father”.
Vox also reports that the term “heartbeat” bill is a misnomer because the foetus doesn’t actually have a heart at the six-week point. The cardiac activity that doctors can detect at that point (and only through a transvaginal ultrasound) is from tissue called the foetal pole.
Co-Founder of Shout Your Abortion, Lindy West, made a great point on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah about the whole thing:
“Anti-choice people are not trying to stop abortion. They are trying to legislate who can and cannot have abortions. Because conservative politicians — their wives and mistresses and daughters are always going to be able to get an abortion somewhere.
“All criminalising abortion will do is keep people trapped in poverty for generations. That’s the goal, and if that wasn’t the goal they would spend their time and money on comprehensive sex education, free birth control, and free contraception.”
OK, so back to Jason Bateman.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jason said, “If the ‘heartbeat bill’ makes it through the court system, I will not work in Georgia, or any other state, that is so disgracefully at odds with women’s rights.”
Bateman is currently filming his Netflix show Ozark and HBO’s The Outsider in Georgia and if other actors and filmmakers should follow in his footsteps by protesting the ban, it will have a serious effect on Georgia’s economy.
You might not know this, but most movies and TV shows you probably watch are shot in Atlanta and this is great for their economy.
Avengers: Endgame, Infinity War, and most other Marvel films, as well as The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, The Haunting of Hill House, Baby Driver, and so many others, were all shot in Atlanta, so losing all that work from the film and TV industry would seriously hurt.
While it would be great if the film industry had the power to make the lawmakers change their minds, it would also cause a lot of suffering to those who work on those films and TV shows and need those jobs to put food on the table.
We just hope for the sake of everyone involved the bill doesn’t pass.
And let’s just remember…