A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s abortion law, which took effect in 2022 and bans abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections and in its set of rights the power of a woman to control her own body , to decide what happens to him externally as well as internally, and rejects State interference in health choices.”
When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended the nation’s right to abortion, it opened the door to state bans. Fourteen states now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions. Georgia is one of four where bans take effect after about the first six weeks of pregnancy — which is often before women realize they are pregnant.
The impact of the bans was felt deeply in the South, with many people having to travel hundreds of miles to obtain a legal abortion in another state.
The Georgia law was passed by state lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, but it was blocked from taking effect until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, who protected the country’s abortion rights for nearly 50 years.
The law prohibited most abortions once a detectable human heartbeat was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by embryo ultrasound around the sixth week of pregnancy.
McBurney wrote that his decision means state law is returning to its pre-2019 rules.
“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume the care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — can society intervene,” McBurney said. .
An “arbitrary six-week ban” on abortions “is inconsistent with these rights and with the appropriate balance that a viability rule strikes between a woman’s rights to liberty and privacy and the interests of society to protect and care for unborn children,” the order states.