In April 2023, Callie Beale Harper learned she was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. She and her husband already had a young son at home, and Callie, an artist and woman of deep faith, began dreaming about life with two more little ones.
“A lot to think about, but super exciting,” she recalls. “I immediately started to look at the double carriers.”
Within weeks, joy quickly turned to grief. At about 13 weeks, testing showed the male twin had “severe structural anomalies.” Her doctor said these anomalies were “incompatible with life.” He would not survive to birth and worse, the fluid building up around him put his healthy twin sister, and Callie herself, in life-threatening danger.
Her doctor recommended a selective reduction, a procedure which would protect both mother and daughter, as soon as possible. Then came words no patient should ever hear: her physician could not provide this care in Georgia. “He advised me to seek care outside of Georgia, because Georgia’s restrictive law tied his hands,” Callie said.
Shut Out at Home
Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, HB 481, took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Those promoting the law say it contains exceptions for medically non-viable pregnancies and threats to the life of the mother. Callie’s situation met both. However, the treatment she needed was unavailable and her doctors could not even provide a referral to another provider. Callie reached out to her providers a year after her experience to learn what the landscape is like from their perspective. A genetic counselor told her, in her experience, in order to gain the exception it took “very deep pockets, and even then weeks of waiting, which most women in crisis pregnancies do not have to spare.”
“I didn’t understand why I didn’t qualify for the exceptions,” Callie said.
On her doctor’s advice, she booked appointments in three different states at once, keeping every option open until the procedure was complete, because abortion laws in other states kept changing as well. The earliest appointment, in New York City, was four weeks away. Her husband kept working so the family would not lose its health insurance, and Callie carried the logistical burden of the ordeal on her own.
The Complications Her Doctors Warned About
The complications her doctor feared arrived. At 19 weeks, after she returned home from the procedure in New York, Callie lost her amniotic fluid and began bleeding and contracting. In the emergency room, she overheard ER staff say she could not be moved to the labor and delivery unit because she was not yet 20 weeks along. Hours passed. Staff moved her back to the waiting room.
“I screamed at the top of my lungs,” she said. “I gripped the back of the wheelchair, and I screamed, ‘My daughter is alive, and I need help.'”
Only then was she moved to labor and delivery, and the next morning, a specialist told her she was turning septic and her pregnancy might have to end to save her life, which would mean losing her healthy daughter as well. Twice a day, Callie’s blood was drawn and each time she waited to learn whether the numbers meant life or death for her baby girl. After several days, her levels finally began to fall.
During the next ten weeks, she was hospitalized ten times. In October 2023, her daughter Kit arrived at just 27 weeks, dangerously premature, with a brain bleed, a lung disorder and retinopathy of prematurity, a condition which could have threatened her vision for life.
Today Kit is strong and smart, a little girl who loves her stuffed animals, her neighbor’s chickens and singing. “Kit is a miracle and every day I am grateful to be her mother,” Callie said.
While Kit’s survival is a gift, it is certainly not proof the current system works. A maternal-fetal medicine specialist said Callie’s risk of complications would have been significantly lower if she had received the medically recommended care in Georgia when it was first indicated.
Speaking Out to Protect Other Mothers
Callie, who now lives in Savannah, has turned her family’s pain into purpose. In March 2025, she shared her story during an oversight hearing conducted by U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff in Atlanta. She has written about her experience as a storyteller with Free & Just, partnered with Protect Our Care, and uses her art, including garments she sews herself, and her social media to show Georgians what these laws look like inside real hospital rooms.
Callie Beale Harper with U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff
“Georgia’s six-week abortion ban made it impossible for me to receive the care I needed, and my daughter and I almost died because of it,” she has said in public speeches and testimony. “Laws like Georgia’s do not protect women, they endanger us. These laws force us to suffer needlessly, to scramble for care across state lines, and to endure financial and emotional burdens on top of medical crises.”
“The trauma, the fear, the pain… it was unbearable,” she said of her own experiences. “The sheer terror of not knowing if I would survive, and if my daughter would survive… all of it was a direct consequence of a law which failed to recognize the urgent realities of maternal health care.”
Raised Southern Baptist, Callie speaks with compassion to neighbors who hold deep convictions supporting their differing views about abortion. Those beliefs, she said, come “from love, and care, and deeply held values,” but what happens to mothers, or their babies in the womb, is not “black and white.” Laws like the one currently enforced in Georgia will never accommodate the complexities of real-life medical emergencies, she asserts.
She also has a warning for anyone who believes this could never touch their family: “It’s only a matter of time before someone you know, and love, is faced with this reality.”
Callie’s story is one of far too many. Georgia women Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died after being unable to receive timely care due to the six-week abortion ban. Avery Davis Bell, who spoke beside Callie during the Ossoff hearing, testified her doctors had to wait until she was “actively dying” before they could act.
How We Restore Reproductive Freedom
The surest path to restoring reproductive freedom runs through the ballot box. Republicans now hold the slimmest margins in the Georgia General Assembly since first taking full control of state government in 2005. Almost three dozen legislative seats are “open” this year, which means November 3 offers the opportunity to significantly change the face of power in Georgia.
Georgia WIN List proudly stands with pro-choice Democratic women up and down the ballot who will fight for patients and their doctors:
- Keisha Lance Bottoms for Governor has pledged to restore a woman’s right to choose.
- Tanya Miller for Attorney General is a strong advocate for reproductive freedom. A former prosecutor and civil rights lawyer, she brings years of courtroom experience to her pledge to act as “the people’s lawyer” representing every Georgia woman and her family.
- Thirty WIN List endorsed 2026 legislative candidates are running in districts currently held by Republicans, the majority of them long-serving incumbents, many of whom have not faced a serious opponent in years. Every seat we FLIP brings Georgia closer to a legislature ready to repeal the ban and return medical decisions to women and their doctors.
Make Your Plan, and Join Us
Early voting continues through Friday, October 30. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Find your early voting location or regular polling place for Election Day at mvp.sos.ga.gov. Make your personal voting plan and include a friend.
Then help us finish strong! Your gift to Georgia WIN List helps elect the pro-choice Democratic women who will make sure no Georgia mother ever again has to scream for help in an emergency room while her doctors’ hands are tied.
