Brian Kemp offers healthcare workers protection from lawsuits -- except those who work in abortion care facilities

Using his emergency powers this Tuesday, Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order limiting the state's hospitals and medical workers' legal liability during the coronavirus pandemic. But as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, he added a special provision that excludes abortion care workers from those protections.

"The order signed Tuesday renews authority first granted in April that designates hospitals and frontline medical staffers as 'auxiliary emergency management workers' and provides them additional legal protection from personal injury lawsuits during the pandemic," AJC reports. "For the first time, however, the Republican also specifically exempts from protection the medical employees who perform abortions. His office said in a statement the decision will not affect facilities that doctors use to perform abortions."

According to Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce, it should "come as no surprise that elective abortions are not emergency management activities."

"Abortion providers are undeserving of enhanced liability protections because they are doing nothing to fight COVID-19 in Georgia," she added.

Read the full report over at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.