August 21, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – As Georgia fights to defend the legality of its ban on aborting babies with beating hearts, state Attorney General Chris Carr took the opportunity to affirm that Georgia does not recognize abortion as a legitimate form of medical practice.

“It is well-settled that ‘a fetus is a living organism within the womb, whether or not it is viable outside the womb,’” the Republican AG argued in a motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. “Accordingly, a State may properly recognize that an unborn child is alive even before ‘viability’ and— consistent with its power to protect unborn life—may prohibit the killing of that child by restricting certain types of pre-viability abortions.”

“Defendants [meaning the state] deny all allegations in the complaint that killing a living unborn child constitutes ‘medical care’ or ‘health care,’” Carr declared.

The filing was a motion opposing the so-called American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and Planned Parenthood’s request for an injunction against enforcing the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, which forbids abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, except in cases of rape, incest, physical medical emergencies, and pregnancies deemed “medically futile.”

The law, which will ban abortions in all other cases as early as six weeks into a pregnancy if allowed to take effect in January 2020, is one of several state-level measures posing a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade’s “viability” threshold. That’s made it a target of intense opposition, particularly a boycott push by various celebrities and entertainment companies.

As the motion notes, long-settled biological criteria and numerous mainstream scientific and medical textbooks establish that a living human being is created upon fertilization and is present throughout the entirety of pregnancy (which a number of abortionists and pro-abortion activists actually admit).

“Health care,” moreover, is traditionally defined as the treatment of physical or mental illness or injury, to prolong life and restore or maximize an individual’s physical or mental well-being. Abortion, by contrast, is the intentional killing of one individual (the child) for the perceived benefit of another individual (his or her mother).

The vast majority of abortions are not sought for reasons that could be defined as “health care,” but rather for career, financial, relationship, or lifestyle considerations. Rare medical situations can require delivering a baby early or administering life-saving treatment that could indirectly harm him or her, but experts such as pro-life OB/GYN Dr. William Lile and reformed ex-abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino agree that abortion itself is never medically necessary.

“The act’s primary objective is to advance Georgia’s interest in protecting the life of the unborn, an objective the act pursues through restrictions on abortion, as well as other tax and child support provisions designed to promote the well-being of unborn children,” Carr argued. “The LIFE Act seeks to advance a critical government interest in protecting unborn human life in a context that has not been squarely addressed by the Supreme Court.”