A Georgia judge on Monday struck down a state law barring abortions after six weeks.
The ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert CI McBurney is unlikely to be the final word, as the case is expected to ultimately be decided by the Georgia Supreme Court.
However, for women seeking abortions in Georgia, in 2022 the US Supreme Court decided Roe v. The ruling means greater access, at least temporarily, to a practice that has been largely inaccessible in the South since the hunt was abolished.
Judge McBurney found the six-week abortion ban passed in 2019 unconstitutional in Georgia, and his ruling reverts to allowing the procedure up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
“Our high courts’ reexamination of interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrates that liberty in Georgia is understood in its meaning, its protection, and its bundle of rights to include a woman’s power to control her own body and decide what happens to it. That includes rejecting state interference in her health care choices. must,” Justice McBurney wrote in his 26-page ruling.
“That power is not unlimited,” the judge continued. “When the fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, and society assumes care and responsibility for that individual life – only then – can society intervene.”
When the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision struck down the federal constitutional right to abortion in 2022, it kicked the question of abortion up to the states. Since then, many of them have enacted abortion bans, and many lawsuits have been filed to challenge those bans, with abortion rights advocates arguing that the bans are unconstitutional under state guarantees of privacy, health, liberty or family planning.
What makes the Georgia case notable is that the state’s legislature approved a ban on abortion six weeks after the abortion — when most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant — in 2019, three years before the TOPS decision.
Last year, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the law — known as the Living Children’s Fairness and Equality Act, known as the LIFE Act — when the state legislature approved the law, rejecting arguments by doctors and advocacy groups that the law was invalid and unconstitutional.
But it sent the case back to a lower court based on the question of whether the state’s constitution protects the right to privacy, and whether that right includes abortion, setting the stage for Judge McBurney’s ruling on Monday.
Shortly after the judge’s ruling, the state indicated it would appeal the case directly to the state Supreme Court.
“We believe Georgia’s pro-life law is fully constitutional and will immediately appeal the lower court’s decision,” said Cara Murray, a spokeswoman for Chris Carr, a Republican who is Georgia’s attorney general.
The ongoing battle in the courts will make abortion a key campaign focus in the 2024 race, especially for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia.
Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, traveled to Georgia a few weeks ago to visit the family of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman with sepsis who waited more than 20 hours for medical attention and an incomplete medical abortion.
Ms Thurman and another woman, Candy Miller, died due to delays in medical care due to government abortion restrictions. ProPublica reports. Their deaths occurred within months of Georgia’s law taking effect.
In a conference call after Monday’s ruling, abortion providers and advocates applauded the ruling but sounded a note of caution.
“Make no mistake, we still have a long way to go,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, which filed the Georgia case. “This victory is a necessary step in our fight to win physical autonomy.”
