The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday suspended a trial ruling that overturned the state’s near-ban on abortion while the highest court considers the Georgian government’s appeal.
A week ago, a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy, often before women even realize they are are pregnant.
Judge Robert McBurney ruled September 30 that the privacy rights guaranteed by the Georgia State Constitution include the individual right to make their own health care decisions.
Georgia’s restrictions were part of a wave of abortion laws passed in Republican-controlled states after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade and ended the right to abortion, which had been guaranteed throughout the United States for 50 years.
Georgia law prohibits most abortions once a “human heartbeat is detectable.” However, around six weeks of pregnancy, cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in the cells of an embryo which will eventually become the heart.
Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed the law in 2019, but it did not take effect until after the repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Justice McBurney wrote in his ruling a week ago that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections and in its set of rights a woman’s power to control her own body, to decide what happens to her and what happens inside herself, and to reject state interference in her health care choices.”
“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume the care and responsibility of this separate life, then, and only then, can society intervene,” the judge added. McBurney.
The judge’s decision therefore returned the limits of abortion in Georgia to the previous law, which authorized abortions until the fetus was viable, or approximately 22 to 24 weeks after the start of the pregnancy.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overridden by the personal beliefs of a judge,” said Governor Kemp. “Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities. Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn. »
Abortion providers and advocates in Georgia applauded Judge McBurney’s ruling but expressed concern that it could be overturned by the state Supreme Court.