In a major turn of events, Georgia’s six-week abortion ban has been struck down. On Sept. 30, a Georgia judge ruled that the ban — also known as the LIFE Act — was unconstitutional, blocking the enforcement of a law that’s been on the books since 2019, but only enforced since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The ruling means that, for now, abortions are legally allowed up to 22 weeks in the state of Georgia.Â
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who serves in Georgia’s largest county, which includes the city of Atlanta, made the ruling. “Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy (or even equal protection), this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body,” he wrote in his ruling. “That power is not, however, unlimited. 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.”
This wasn’t McBurney’s first time speaking out against Georgia’s abortion law. In November 2022, after the law was enacted, McBurney ruled that the law violated Georgia citizens’ constitutional rights. However, the state filed an appeal to his ruling won, reinforcing the law in October 2023. However, the Supreme Court later had to rule on issues related to the enactment of this law, including privacy rights related to abortion, which with what McBurney’s currently ruling centered on.
Georgia’s six-week ban, which prevents abortions before many people even know they’re pregnant, has already been shown to have severe consequences in Georgia. Reports indicate that the number of abortions in Georgia has been reduced by 50% since the law’s enforcement, according to data from abortion and contraception science organization the Society of Family Planning. Further, while the six-week ban includes exceptions when the life of the mother is at risk, recent reports have indicated the ban has in fact been detrimental to pregnant people who needed abortion care in order to save their own lives. September reports from ProPublica revealed that two Georgia women, 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller, died in what Georgia’s official maternal mortality review committee ruled “preventable” deaths because of Georgia’s restrictive abortion laws.Â
BREAKING: A state court struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, allowing clinics to resume essential care in the state.
This is a victory for our right to abortion.
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 30, 2024
Currently, Georgia has no way for citizens to vote directly on issues like abortion. The state does not provide citizen-initiated ballot measures, a contrast from states like Ohio, which voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution in 2023. Thus, citizens can only impact abortion rights by voting for representatives who support abortion, or via lobbying state officials to protect it.Â
While McBurney’s ruling is a victory for abortion supporters in Georgia at the moment, it’s expected that the attorney general will appeal to the Supreme Court again. In fact, the Georgia attorney general’s office released a statement in response to the ruling, saying, “We believe Georgia’s LIFE Act is fully constitutional, and we will immediately appeal the lower court’s decision.”
Undoubtedly, this battle will continue to play out in the courts over many months. For now, abortion access is significantly easier to come by for Georgians and those who come to Georgia for abortion care.