Doug Collins

• Consistently supported anti-abortion legislation during his time as a Member of Congress, including fetal personhood legislation. 
• Calls himself “unapologetically pro-life.” 
• Refused to commit to protecting a Biden-era policy that expanded abortion access at the VA.  

Collins was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2013. As a Representative, he joined various amicus briefs supporting litigation efforts to restrict access to abortion care, including the below.

• Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt: arguing in support of two provisions of a Texas TRAP law that placed onerous and medically unnecessary requirements on abortion providers and facilities. 
• June Medical Services LLC v. Russo: urging the Supreme Court to uphold a Louisiana Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law that placed onerous and medically unnecessary requirements on abortion providers, and to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Collins was first elected to serve in Georgia’s House of Representatives in 2007, serving Georgia’s 27th district (2007-2013). While in that role, Collins voted in favor of numerous bills that restricted abortion in Georgia, including a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks and another to require medically unnecessary ultrasounds before receiving abortion care, both of which ultimately were signed into law. 

Collins was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2013, serving Georgia’s 9th congressional district (2013-2021). During his time as a Representative, he consistently voted in favor of bills that would restrict access to abortion. In his last term in Congress, he cosponsored the below pieces of anti-abortion legislation.

• “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2019” (H.R. 20)
  • Prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions, or to subsidize health plans that cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person.
  • Prohibits federal health care facilities and federal employees from providing abortions.
  • Requires disclosure of any abortion coverage and related surcharges in health plans offered through the Affordable Care Act.
• “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” (H.R. 962)
  • Establishes vague requirements as to how abortion providers are to perform their jobs—mandating that they “provide the same degree of care to an infant born alive after an abortion or attempted abortion as they would to any other newborn”—coupled with criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for failing to comply.
  • Uses stigmatizing language and the threat of harsh penalties to shame patients and scare providers from providing safe, quality abortion care. 
• “SAVE Moms and Babies Act of 2019” (H.R. 4399)
  • Prohibits the approval of new abortion medications, bans investigational use exemptions for abortion medications, and imposes additional onerous regulatory requirements on previously approved abortion medications.
  • Requires in-person administration of medication abortion by certified health care practitioners and mandates reporting of adverse events.
  • Allows federal or state governments to impose further requirements or restrictions on abortion drugs.
• “Life at Conception Act” (H.R. 616) 
  • Enshrines fetal personhood into law in an attempt to ban abortion nationwide.

Consistently used problematic, false, and inflammatory rhetoric on abortion, such as:

• Collins attacks abortion rights activists and regularly uses stigmatizing language about abortion on social media. 
• During remarks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Collins questioned the idea that access to abortion is a right and used inflammatory language about abortion. 
• Collins identifies as “unapologetically pro-life.” 
• In addition to his support of gestational bans and fetal personhood, Collins has also expressed his desire to defund Planned Parenthood and prohibit federal funds from covering abortion care. 
• Immediately following her death, Collins attacked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg over her support of reproductive rights. 
• While announcing the VA’s plan to phase out gender-affirming care for veterans, Collins said that the “VA should not be focused on helping Veterans attempt to change their sex” and that transgender veterans could seek out the necessary care “on their own dime.” Collins is a vocal opponent of LGBTQ+ rights and legal protections. 

• Collins signed onto a letter from “pro-life legislators,” thanking President Trump for his efforts to support anti-abortion policies and requesting that he end taxpayer funding for human embryonic stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
• Collins joined a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury asking the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to change guidance that classified abortion as health care.

• As a Congressman, Collins was rated 100% by anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the National Right to Life Committee.