Jen Jordan, the Democratic candidate for Georgia Attorney General and a current state Senator, launched her first television ad Monday.
The ad includes positive messaging about Jordan’s commitment to protecting Georgia families while also going on the offensive toward her Republican opponent, incumbent Attorney General Chris Carr, over his anti-abortion track record.
“After school, I worked at my mom’s beauty shop and I’d listen to the women talk about their lives, their fears. Today, they’d be worried that Chris Carr cares more about investigating miscarriages and putting doctors in jail than protecting our families from rising crime,” the ad begins with Jordan’s narration over images of a woman sweeping a beauty salon.
“I’m Jen Jordan, and I’ve spent my life taking on the powerful. I fought to crack down on sexual assault and child predators. I’ll be an Attorney General who will keep our families safe,” she concludes in the ad.
https://twitter.com/senatorjen/status/1579457407692210183
Jordan has been vocally opposed to Carr’s abortion stance, regularly criticizing him for supporting Georgia’s fetal heartbeat abortion ban.
The Georgia Legislature in 2019 passed a bill banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, essentially blocking all abortions after about six weeks into a pregnancy, which is before many women even know they’re pregnant. The law allows for exceptions in cases of rape or incest if a police report is filed.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia paused the law in 2020 arguing it violated constitutional protections on abortions enacted by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe earlier this year, an appeals court overruled the pause.
Carr not only supported putting the Georgia law into effect, he filed notice requesting the District Court’s decision be reversed and the ban allowed to be implemented.
“I believe in the dignity, value and worth of every human being, both born and unborn. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs is constitutionally correct and rightfully returns the issue of abortion to the states and to the people – where it belongs,” Carr wrote in a statement following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The law contains technical language allowing for the prosecution of those who violate it. Democrats, including Jordan, claim that means pregnant women could be prosecuted.
However, Carr says that was not the law’s intent.
“There is absolutely nothing in the life act that suggests a pregnant woman is going to get prosecuted for anything. In fact, it’s about providers, not pregnant women,” Carr said last month, according to NBC affiliate station WXIA-TV in Atlanta. “It’s preposterous for anyone to suggest that a pregnant woman would get prosecuted under this law. Just read it. Just read the law.”
Jordan has been an outspoken critic of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe, and maintains Georgia’s law is unconstitutional. She said, if elected, she would not use taxpayer funds to defend the law, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The abortion debate has become a boiler plate topic this election cycle as women’s reproductive rights advocates signal the alarm about the erosion of women’s access to health care. And with Georgia’s restrictive abortion law now in place, the issue is likely to be a top issue in the Attorney General’s race.
A recent WXIA-TV poll of Georgia voters showed the two candidates performing within the survey’s margin of error, but gave Carr a 4-point advantage at 40% to 36%. Perhaps not surprisingly, Jordan leads among women, while Carr leads among male voters.
