As previously reported by Stylist, the so-called ‘heartbeat bill’ bans abortion after six weeks, well before many even realise they’re pregnant.

“The Senate affirmed Georgia’s commitment to life and the rights of the innocent unborn,” Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp said of the bill in a statement.

“I applaud the members who supported the heartbeat bill’s passage for protecting the vulnerable and giving a voice to those who cannot yet speak for themselves.”

It should come as no surprise that many have likened the bill to the restrictive laws seen in The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian tale which offers up a bleak world in which women’s ability to control their own reproduction, and particularly to access safe abortion, is non-existent. This idea is introduced gradually over time: in the book, for example, Offred sees the bodies of hanged doctors who have carried out abortions and comments that “in the time before… such things were legal.”

She also, in chapter eight, witnesses the funeral procession of a miscarried foetus – and, towards the end of the book, notes that there are no ultrasounds or scans carried out in Gilead.

“What would be the point of knowing, anyway?” she tells us. “You can’t have them taken out; whatever it is must be carried to term.”

Image: Getty

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