If you were worried about the country turning into one big Handmaid's Tale scenario, you can sleep a little easier tonight. A federal judge blocked the bill from going into effect while it's being challenged. The restrictive law, which would ban abortion after a heartbeat is detected in the fetus, was supposed to go into effect on January 1st of next year. Abortions would be illegal at around six weeks into pregnancy, a point where many women don't even know they're pregnant. Currently, Georgia allows an abortion up to the 20th week of pregnancy, and that's the way it's going to stay for now.
In his ruling, Judge Jones noted that the U.S. supreme court has "repeatedly and unequivocally" held up Roe vs. Wade, and that the Constitution allows a woman to receive an abortion about 24 weeks into her pregnancy. "By banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, HB 481 prohibits women from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy at a point before viability," District Judge Steve C. Jones said.
The bill also would also count a fetus as a person once the heartbeat was detected, counting the fetus as part of the population of Georgia before they were born. Judge Jones had a problem with this change as well. "HB 481 changes the definition of a natural person in Georgia, but defendants have been unable to point to any guidance for law enforcement or the judiciary on how to implement that change throughout the code," Judge Jones wrote.
The federal judge's ruling comes after an intense debate over the bill. Despite an outcry against HB 481, it was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May. Both the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and Planned Parenthood sued the state of Georgia in June, shortly after the bill was signed. Other attempts at restrictive abortion laws in Arkansas and Mississippi have also been blocked.
The groups that moved to prevent the ban from going into place are celebrating. "To the countless Georgians who spoke out against this ban and were ignored, we promised to keep fighting every step of the way and we have," Staci Fox, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Southeast said in a statement. "To our partners, we promised we were in this together and we are. To Governor Kemp, we promised to see you in court, and we did. But most importantly, to our patients, we promised to protect access to safe, legal abortion and together we have."
RELATED: Who are the 1 in 4 American women who choose abortion?
The bill still has to go through the courts, and its fate has yet to be determined. But for now, the block on the ban should come as good news for those opposing the restrictive rule.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.