Georgia is the fourth state to enact a fetal heartbeat law this year. Like in other states, it is expected to face a legal challenge, which supporters hope will lead to a re-evaluation by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide.
Kemp, a Republican, said in a signing ceremony at the state Capitol that his administration is prepared for a court fight.
“Our job is to do what is right, not what is easy,” he said.
The Georgia legislation is but the latest front in a wide-ranging battle over abortion rights being waged this year across Republican-controlled state legislatures in the Midwest and South. Conservative lawmakers see the realignment of the Supreme Court as presenting their best opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
The Georgia law, which would take effect in 2020, prohibits most abortions once doctors can discern a fetal heartbeat, a milestone that occurs before some women know they are pregnant. In practice, the limit on abortion in Georgia will now be six weeks of pregnancy, instead of 20 weeks.
Exceptions are allowed to prevent death or serious harm to the woman, and in cases of rape or incest in which a police report has been filed.
The law’s critics said they intend to target Republicans for defeat, especially those from the demographically shifting northern suburbs of Atlanta who supported the bill in the General Assembly.
“Georgians will fight back in the courtroom and at the ballot box & win,” Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018, said in a tweet Monday.
Governors in Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio signed bills similar to Georgia’s this year. They have not gone unchallenged: A federal judge is expected to hear a challenge to the Mississippi law later this month, and a judge in Kentucky blocked the law there.
Similar measures in Iowa and North Dakota have been found unconstitutional.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.