My mother was 23 when she accidentally got pregnant with me. It was 1982 and she was a student living in Atlanta, Georgia. She came from a privileged background and my dad was on a full academic scholarship; they decided to continue the pregnancy and were married six weeks later. But had she been less fortunate, or just wanted to take a different path in life, she would have had access to more abortion and family-planning services in Georgia then, nearly four decades ago, than I would if I faced a similar situation here today.
That’s the result of decades of Republican dominance in this Bible-belt state, where GOP lawmakers have pursued an ultra-conservative agenda: rejecting the expansion of Medicaid, blocking efforts to advance racial and social justice, restricting women’s ability to get family-planning services and much more.
Having grown up in London, and visiting (White, mainly Republican-supporting) relatives over the years, I’ve long regarded Georgia as a deeply conservative place. But since Joe Biden became the first presidential candidate to win both Georgia and the presidency itself since 1992, I’ve been re-learning what I thought I knew about the ‘peach state’. And now, back here for the critical Senate run-off election on Tuesday , I’m seeing how years of grassroots organising, combined with fast-changing demographics, are changing the game – and could deliver the US Congress to the Democrats.
