A judge in Georgia has struck down the state’s abortion law that has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy since it took effect in 2022.
Georgia’s Life Act was fully nullified by Judge Robert McBurney’s decision, meaning that the state must now allow abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
The judge wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia” includes “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”.
Georgia passed the Life Act in 2019 but it only came into force in 2022, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and opened the door for state bans.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective filed the original lawsuit with other plaintiffs in 2019, shortly after Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, signed the act into law.
When Judge McBurney reviewed the case in 2022, he struck down the law, ruling that it violated the US Constitution.
The Georgia Supreme Court later took up the case, however, and allowed the six-week limit to stand.
The case has since returned to Judge McBurney, who found this time that it violated the state constitution after a review “of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty'”.
“[D]oes a Georgian’s right to liberty of privacy encompass the right to make personal healthcare decisions? Plainly it does,” the judge wrote in his decision.
Gov Kemp’s office criticised the judge’s ruling on Monday.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” Garrison Douglas, Kemp’s spokesperson, said in a statement.
“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.”
This ruling could affect more than just Georgians, however.
It could open up abortion access in the US South, where several Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed laws that have severely limited access to abortion procedures.
These laws have meant people in the region sometimes travel hundreds of miles to states like North Carolina, Kansas and Illinois for legal abortions.
Judge McBurney noted the danger a six-week limit could have on women in his order, writing that “for many women, their pregnancy was unintended, unexpected, and often unknown until well after the embryonic heartbeat began”.
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women, called the ruling “a significant step in the right direction”.
“We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy. At the same time, we can’t forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long – and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.”
Thurman and Miller were named in a pair of ProPublica reports that found their deaths were connected to Georgia’s abortion ban. Their cases have been highlighted by Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has made reproductive rights a centerpiece of her campaign for the White House.
