Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted last week that Hollywood should boycott Georgia if an anti-abortion bill pending in the state House passes. Now, she’s got almost 50 actors to agree with her.
Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin, Don Cheadle, Rosie O’Donnell, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, Mia Farrow, and others signed a petition addressed to Gov. Brian Kemp and state House Speaker David Ralston. Georgia’s “heartbeat bill,” which would prevent abortions after six weeks, has got lots of New Yorkers and Californians up in arms.
Celebrities love to care about select issues in the Peach State, but they only do it when the virtue signaling is convenient for them. Last fall, lifelong Californian Will Ferrell campaigned for gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams before the midterm elections. After Abrams lost, Milano made her first threat to boycott the state.
The film industry is huge in Georgia, home to box office hits such as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” But that doesn’t mean the state should cave to a handful of leftist actors’ demands.
Currently, a woman can get an abortion in Georgia up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. H.B. 481 shortens that period to about the time a baby’s heart begins to beat, and it makes exceptions for cases of rape and incest. It’s not a case of controlling women’s bodies, as a state representative ludicrously tried to argue. And it’s definitely not a case of government overreach, as the actors claimed in their letter. Governments are generally charged with both protecting human life and regulating the practice of medicine, after all.
“This dangerous and deeply-flawed bill mimics many others which have already been deemed unconstitutional,” they wrote. “As men who identify as small-government conservatives, we remind you that government is never bigger than when it is inside a woman’s body or in her doctor’s office.”
Never mind the amusing grammar error that identifies the celebrities writing the letter, not the politicians, as male, small-government conservatives. The abortion procedure involves two human beings, which makes it more than just another medical operation. If you don’t believe that, though, it makes sense to write, as the actors did, that they “cannot in good conscience continue to recommend our industry remain in Georgia” if the bill passes.
Not content to frame the bill as a constitutional injustice, however, the actors treat it as “evil” and assert a moral imperative to kill the legislation.
“We can’t imagine being elected officials who had to say to their constituents ‘I enacted a law that was so evil, it chased billions of dollars out of our state’s economy,’” they wrote.
If the film industry leaves the state over a bill aimed at protecting children, the evil won’t be Georgia’s.
