In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade and declared a federal constitutional right to abortion no longer existed. Abortion legislation was to be done in state legislatures. Abortion has become a contentious issue in the state legislatures and courts, Georgia among them.
On Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court halted a ruling by a Georgia superior court judge striking down the state’s near-ban on abortions. One reason for the Georgia supreme court ruling was to give the higher court time to considers the state’s appeal of the superior court’s ruling.
“The high court’s order came a week after a (district court) judge found that Georgia unconstitutionally prohibits abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy, often before women realize they’re pregnant.” The superior court opinion relied heavily on “privacy rights.” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Sept. 30 that “privacy rights under Georgia’s state constitution include the right to make personal healthcare decisions.”
As reported, the Georgia legislation “was one of a wave of restrictive abortion laws passed in Republican-controlled states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended a national right to abortion. It prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. “At around six weeks into a pregnancy, cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in an embryo’s cells that will eventually become the heart.”
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed it in 2019, but it didn’t take effect until Roe v. Wade fell.
McBurney wrote in his ruling 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 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.
The judge’s decision rolled back abortion limits in Georgia to a prior law allowing abortions until viability, roughly 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” Kemp said in a statement in response to McBurney’s decision. “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.”
