October 1, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state's abortion law, which took effect in 2022 and effectively prohibited abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order that the law violates Georgia's Constitution, finding that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.”
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended a national right to abortion, it opened the door for state bans. Thirteen states now bar abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Georgia was one of four where bans begin after about the first six weeks of pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
McBurney's ruling would allow abortions through at least 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Kara Murray, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, said he would immediately appeal to the state supreme court. The state high court earlier reversed a separate ruling by McBurney that had struck down the law on different grounds and could put Monday's ruling on hold pending an appeal.
“We believe Georgia's life act is fully constitutional,” Murray said.
Mike Griffin, public affairs representative for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, concurred. "There’s no doubt that the state Supreme Court and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have been clear on the Life Act. They both agreed that it was constitutional when it was signed into law because Roe was vacated, meaning it is to be treated as if it never existed to start with. Roe was not constitutional."
Georgia’s law was passed by state lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019 but it was initially blocked from taking effect until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had protected the right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.
Kemp has in the past tried to soften its political impact by trying to focus on the health of mothers. Monday, he attacked the ruling.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” Kemp said in a statement. “Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn.”
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, called the ruling “ridiculous.”
“This judge is an activist judge who is ignoring higher court rulings to do what he wants,” she said in an interview. “And I don’t think it’s going to stand.”
Georgia's law prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in an embryo's cells that will eventually become the heart at around six weeks into a pregnancy.
Before the law kicked in, there were more than 4,400 abortions each month in Georgia. That has dropped a monthly average of about 2,400 since the ban began in 2022 according to data from the Society of Family Planning.
The ruling means the law in the state reverts to its prior status, allowing abortions until roughly 20 weeks into a pregnancy, McBurney wrote.
The right to privacy in the Georgia Constitution includes the right to make personal healthcare decisions, he wrote.
“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene," McBurney wrote.
Claire Bartlett, executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, expressed confidence that the Georgia Supreme Court would again overturn McBurney, saying he wrongly attempted “to create a right to abortion out of whole cloth by finding that it resides in our Constitution.”
“It’s just ironic that based on his decision on Georgia’s constitutional protection against a person being deprived of life, liberty or property, which is what the argument was, that he chose to focus on a woman’s right to liberty rather than the child’s right to life," Bartlett said.
