ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s abortion law, which took effect in 2022 and effectively banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order that the law violated the Georgia Constitution and concluded that “liberty in Georgia is in its meaning, in its protection, and in its bundle of Right includes a woman’s power to control her own body, to decide what happens to and in it, and to reject government interference in her health decisions.”
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade repealed and ended a national right to abortion, it opened the door for state bans. With some exceptions, 13 states now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Georgia was one of four countries where bans begin after about the first six weeks of pregnancy – often before women realize they are pregnant.
McBurney’s ruling would allow abortions up to at least 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Kara Murray, a spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, said he would immediately appeal to the state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court previously overturned a separate ruling by McBurney that had struck down the law on other grounds and could put Monday’s ruling on hold pending appeal.
“We believe Georgia’s act of living is completely constitutional,” Murray said.
The bans are felt deeply in the South, as many people live hundreds of miles from states where abortion procedures can be legally performed. If the Georgia ruling stands, it could open recent avenues for abortion access not only in Georgia, but also for people in neighboring states.
Georgia’s law was passed by the state legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019. However, it was initially blocked from taking effect until the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade repealed legislation that had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years.
Kemp has tried to temper his political influence in the past by trying to focus on maternal health. On Monday he attacked the verdict.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overridden by the personal beliefs of a judge,” Kemp said in a statement. “Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred tasks, 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 ignores higher court decisions to do whatever he wants,” she said in an interview. “And I don’t think it will last.”
Monica Simpson, executive director of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, celebrated the ruling.
“We have been in a deep defensive posture for a very long time since we saw these direct attacks here in the South, particularly on abortion access,” she said. “It feels like our work wasn’t in vain.”
While Carafem, an abortion provider in Atlanta, plans to expand its services as permitted in the next few weeks, co-founder Melissa Grant fears a reversal.
“Employees and customers will have to live with this possibility, which involves immediate change, and that can have devastating consequences for people trying to plan their lives and take care of their health,” Grant said.
Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women’s Health Center, another abortion provider in Atlanta, said they “will not turn away patients based on the presence or absence of fetal cardiac activity, and so as long as we are able to do that, we are confident that we will.” will be able to care for patients who need our services.”
Georgia law banned most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in the cells of an embryo, which eventually become the heart around the sixth week of pregnancy.
Before the law went into effect, there were more than 4,400 abortions each month in Georgia. According to the Society of Family Planning, the number has fallen by about 2,400 on a monthly average since the ban began in 2022.
The ruling means the state’s law will return to its previous status, allowing abortions up to about 20 weeks of pregnancy, McBurney wrote.
The right to privacy in the Georgia Constitution includes the right to make personal health decisions, he wrote.
“When a fetus growing inside a woman becomes viable, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then and only then can society intervene,” McBurney wrote.
An “arbitrary six-week ban” on abortions “is inconsistent with these rights and the proper balance that a rule of feasibility strikes between a woman’s rights to freedom and privacy and society’s interest in the protection and care of unborn children,” it says the arrangement.
Claire Bartlett, executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, expressed confidence that the Georgia Supreme Court would overturn McBurney again, saying he was wrong to try to “create an abortion right out of gaunt air by finding that it is enshrined in our constitution.”
“It is simply ironic that because of his decision on Georgia’s constitutional protection from the deprivation of a person’s life, liberty or property, which was the point of the argument, he chose to focus on a woman’s right to freedom instead “To focus on the child’s right to life,” Bartlett said.
Also because Georgia does not offer citizens the opportunity to place initiatives on the ballot, no referendum on abortion rights is planned for this year’s election in Georgia. But Democrats have focused on abortion because they appeal to women and suburbanites.
On September 20, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Atlanta to portray Republican Donald Trump as a threat to women’s freedom and lives and to warn that Trump would further restrict access to abortion if re-elected. It is also a central issue in the state legislative race as Democrats seek to capture Republican majorities.
Harris’ visit came after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died because they did not receive proper medical treatment for complications resulting from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies. Democrats argue that such deaths are a predictable consequence of restrictive laws
Harris has been vocal about abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s decision more than two years ago.
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Associated Press writers Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta and Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed reporting.
