The bill, narrowly approved Friday by the Georgia House, would outlaw most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy when many women are not even aware they are pregnant.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, has vowed to sign the bill into law.
“Georgia values life,” he said. “We stand up for the innocent.”
So far this year, 13 US states have studied or approved versions of the “heartbeat bill,” though judges in Kentucky and Iowa have blocked such laws.
But pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood say the growing legislative push is just part of a concerted effort to bring the issue before a Supreme Court which – with two conservative members named by President Donald Trump – appears increasingly receptive to the anti-abortion message.
Abortion is one of the most politically divisive issues in the country, and votes like Georgia’s appear certain to thrust it into the centre of heated political debate ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
The country’s major human rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union, has vowed a legal challenge to the Georgia legislation.
“If Gov. Kemp signs this abortion ban bill into law, the ACLU has one message: we will see you in court,” said Andrea Young, ACLU’s executive director for Georgia.
‘Wildly out of step’
The pro-choice group NARAL called the legislation “cruel and unconstitutional,” saying it was “wildly out of step” with the will of most Georgians, would “criminalize abortion, harm women and families across Georgia and gut the protections promised to women in Roe v. Wade,” the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.
But one anti-abortion group, Georgia Right to Life, said on its Facebook page that the new legislation does not go far enough.
“Children conceived by rape or incest, or those predicted not to live to birth, are no less human, no less sacred,” it said.
Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights group, said the more right-leaning makeup of the Supreme Court – since Trump appointed jurists Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the nine-member panel – was the key factor behind the recent legislation.
NARAL and others stressed that many national and international companies that do business in Georgia – from Coca-Cola, which is based in Atlanta, to the many Hollywood studios that now film TV shows and movies there – would oppose the state’s move.
Some 50 Hollywood celebrities have threatened in an open letter to stop shooting in the state if the bill becomes law.
Stars including Alec Baldwin, Amy Schumer, Ben Stiller and Mia Farrow said they would “do everything in our power to move our industry to a safer state for women” if the bill becomes law.
“For the first time, there’s a prospect of real economic consequences for an anti-abortion measure,” columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times.
Such pressure has been effective at times in the past.
In 2016, when the Georgia legislature passed a bill allowing churches and religious charities to decline services to people if it would violate their religious beliefs – a bill is seen as targeting same-sex couples – Hollywood figures and sports leagues threatened a boycott. Then-Governor Nathan Deal vetoed the bill.
Now, in anticipation of a possible adverse ruling from the Supreme Court, some left-leaning states are moving to enshrine abortion protections in their constitutions.
A bill passed in February by Vermont’s lower house would protect abortion rights even if Roe v Wade is overturned.
The measure appears likely to become law.
The Illinois legislature is studying a bill to require insurers to include abortion in their health coverage, and a new law in New York would allow termination of pregnancy in the third trimester if the fetus is unviable.
“Each side in the divide is going to use whatever influence it can muster,” Goldberg wrote while cautioning that “if Roe falls, liberals won’t like what follows, but conservatives might not either.”