Georgia governor forced to cancel Hollywood trip to avoid protesters

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, announced on Tuesday he would postpone a trip to Hollywood — which previous governors made annually to meet with Hollywood movie executives — due to intense blowback after Kemp signed a radical anti-abortion bill.

Kemp was scheduled to attend a Hollywood event on May 22 to promote Georgia’s large film industry, which contributed more than $9 billion to the state’s economy in 2018. The trip was scrapped after Georgia movie executives expressed fear that “tepid turnout and no-shows from studio chiefs could do lasting damage to the state’s movie-making business,” reports the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Several A-list actors, including Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Alec Baldwin, and Don Cheadle, said they would no longer work in Georgia after Kemp and the GOP-led legislature initiated an all-out assault on women’s health care. Other big names in the entertainment industry, including David Simon, creator of HBO’s “The Wire,” said they would not work in the state moving forward.

The bill they object to outlaws abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. Both women who seek abortions and doctors who perform them could be jailed for up to 10 years if they break the law.

This would also mean that women who have miscarriages could be jailed, because it’s not always clear whether a pregnancy loss is due to a spontaneous miscarriage or a self-managed abortion. If abortion is illegal and a miscarriage often looks like an abortion, then women can and will be arrested and prosecuted if their miscarriage is suspected not to be natural. That can mean spending time in jail even if charges are later dropped.

Even more draconian, the bill sneaks radical new language into state law that defines a fertilized egg as a person — which could have even more horrifying consequences, such as exposing women to prosecution for first-degree murder if they have either an abortion or a miscarriage.

The entertainment industry employs more than 92,000 Georgians and brings in billions of dollars every year. Kemp is endangering their jobs and livelihoods by siding against women and with the most radical wing of the anti-abortion movement.

In a recent interview, Kemp defended his decision to support the dangerous law by saying, “I can’t govern because I’m worried about what someone in Hollywood thinks about me.”

But when it came time to look those Hollywood folks in the eye, Kemp decided to turn tail and hide instead. Apparently, he does care what they think of him — and his vicious, anti-woman views — after all.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.