PolitiFact’s Maria Briceño rode to Sen. Jon Ossoff’s defense on Friday to try to blunt accusations from Rep. Mike Collins that Ossoff is a pro-abortion radical. According to Briceño, it is false to say Ossoff “backs abortion ‘up until and past birth’” despite Ossoff’s own voting record and legislation indicating otherwise.
Bricño cited how “Ossoff voted along party lines to advance S. 4132, but the measure failed, 49-51. The bill said the government cannot prohibit abortions before fetal viability or after fetal viability when a provider determines the patient’s life or health is in danger.”
She also observed how, “A year later, Ossoff, who is married to an OB-GYN, co-sponsored S. 701 to essentially do the same thing. The bill never advanced to a vote.”
Bricño then erred when she wrote, “Both pieces of legislation explicitly prohibited abortion restrictions before fetal viability. The bills permitted pregnancy termination up until delivery, but only when healthcare professionals determined doing so would preserve the mother’s life or health.”
That’s not true. S. 701 said, “A State may provide additional circumstances under which post viability abortions are permitted under this paragraph.”
Nevertheless, Bricño continued, “The 2025 Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act that Ossoff voted against said that in cases in which a failed abortion resulted in birth, health care practitioners must provide the same level of care they would provide a baby born in a typical childbirth scenario. Democrats who opposed the measure said denying care to infants is already illegal.
Again, that’s not entirely accurate. The 2002 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act that Brincño alluded to and that Democrats love to cite did not have legally defined standards for care, reporting mandates, or criminal enforcement mechanisms. The 2025 bill did.
Bricño also concluded that Ossoff’s debate statement that he supports the Roe v. Wade standard is more relevant than his voting record, “Supporting Roe’s ruling that said access to abortion is a federally protected right is not the same as supporting abortion up to the moment of birth.”
If Ossoff really believed that, then his voting record would be different.
