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Jimmy Williams
A Georgia judge has struck down the state’s controversial abortion law, which prohibited most abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, deeming it unconstitutional and restoring the state’s abortion rights to their pre-2019 status. The decision comes after years of legal battles following the law’s passage in 2019 and its eventual implementation after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled on Monday that the state’s abortion law, which took effect in 2022, infringed upon women’s rights to bodily autonomy and liberty as protected by the state’s constitution. “Liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights 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,” McBurney wrote in his decision.
The six-week ban, also known as the “heartbeat law,” had sparked significant debate and protests. Under the law, abortions were banned once cardiac activity could be detected in the embryo, which typically occurs around six weeks into a pregnancy. Many women do not realize they are pregnant by this time, making the law one of the most restrictive in the country.
Judge McBurney’s ruling emphasized the inconsistency of such an “arbitrary six-week ban” with the rights of women to privacy and liberty. He asserted that state intervention should only be allowed once a fetus reaches viability — a stage when it can survive outside the womb, which typically occurs around 24 weeks into pregnancy. “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,” McBurney wrote.
The ruling effectively returns the legal landscape in Georgia to what it was before the law’s passage in 2019. This decision ensures that abortions are legal in the state until the point of viability, granting women significantly more time to seek the procedure.
Georgia’s law was originally passed under Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, but it had been blocked by courts until the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 overturned the national protections of Roe v. Wade. That ruling allowed states like Georgia to impose abortion restrictions, which led to the law taking effect.
The impact of the law had been felt acutely in Georgia and across the South, where restrictive abortion policies forced many women to travel hundreds of miles to access care in states where the procedure remained legal. Georgia was one of four states where abortion was banned around the six-week mark, contributing to what advocates described as a healthcare crisis for pregnant women in the region.
Monday’s ruling is expected to face appeals, as anti-abortion advocates and state officials, including Gov. Kemp, have voiced their commitment to protecting what they see as the rights of unborn children. However, abortion rights advocates have hailed the decision as a victory for women’s health and reproductive freedom.
Legal experts suggest that the ruling could set a precedent for future cases involving restrictive abortion laws in other states. As the national debate over abortion rights continues in the wake of the Dobbs decision, Judge McBurney’s ruling will likely draw attention from both sides of the political spectrum.
For now, McBurney’s decision means that Georgia women will once again have access to abortion care up to the point of fetal viability, without the constraints of the six-week ban.
