\n<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The judge wrote in his order that \u201cliberty 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”.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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. <\/p>\n
When Judge McBurney reviewed the case in 2022, he struck down the law, ruling that it violated the US Constitution. <\/p>\n
The Georgia Supreme Court later took up the case, however, and allowed the six-week limit to stand. <\/p>\n
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'”.<\/p>\n
“[D]oes a Georgian\u2019s right to liberty of privacy encompass the right to make personal healthcare decisions? Plainly it does,” the judge wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n
Gov Kemp’s office criticised the judge’s ruling on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce 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. <\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
This ruling could affect more than just Georgians, however. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
These laws have meant people in the region sometimes travel hundreds of miles to states like North Carolina, Kansas and Illinois for legal abortions. <\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women, called the ruling “a significant step in the right direction”.<\/p>\n
“We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy. At the same time, we can\u2019t 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.”<\/p>\n
Thurman and Miller were named in a pair of ProPublica reports<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n