Georgia AG to appeal judge's ruling to overturn 6-week abortion ban
Georgia’s attorney general plans to pursue an appeal after a judge overturned Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that the law was “unconstitutional” at the time it was enacted.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney's 15-page ruling Tuesday stemmed from a July lawsuit led by abortion advocacy group SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
McBurney agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that Georgia’s heartbeat bill violated the state’s right to privacy and liberty by "forcing women to remain pregnant." He also supported the claim that the law was invalid because it violated the U.S. Constitution since Roe v. Wade was still in place at the time of its enactment. Abortion, however, is not listed as a right in the Constitution.
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In his ruling, McBurney stated that “per controlling Georgia precedent,” the relevant legal environment to consider is “not our current post-Roe Dobbsian era but rather the legal environment that existed when H.B. 481 was enacted.”
“At that time — the spring of 2019 — everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state or local — to ban abortions before viability,” he wrote.
The judge contended that the abortion ban “did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now.”
The Georgia heartbeat bill, also known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, bans abortions after a baby's heartbeat becomes detectable. However, the bill makes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, threats to the mother’s life or if the baby is unviable.
While the law was passed in 2019, a federal law declared it unconstitutional and struck it down. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer, declaring there is no constitutional right to abortion, the law went into effect after a federal appeals court overturned the lower court ruling on July 20.
With McBurney’s decision Tuesday, Georgia’s abortion law reverted to its pre-ban level, which allowed for abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Kara Richardson, a spokesperson for Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Chris Carr, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that the office intends to take action against the ruling.
“We have filed a notice of appeal and will continue to fulfill our duty to defend the laws of our state in court,” said Richardson who provided CP with a copy of the appeal.
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, celebrated the decision, telling The Washington Post that Georgians should take time to see these “wins when the opposition is working so hard to push us back.”
Planned Parenthood Southeast, which has four clinics operating in Georgia, revealed that it is working with its operations and legal team to “immediately” resume services, according to The Washington Post. Amy Kennedy, the group’s vice president of external affairs, said they have been “flooded” with calls since Tuesday’s ruling.
Carafem, which operates a network of telehealth services and one location in Atlanta, Georgia, also began discussions with its legal team after the announcement of the decision. Melissa Grant, Carafem’s chief operating officer, said the organization is “listening carefully” to its legal advisers but needs “a little bit of time to regroup.”
Andrew Isenhour, a spokesman for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, however, condemned the ruling on Tuesday, saying that it “places the personal beliefs of a judge over the will of the legislature and people of Georgia.”
Kemp is the Republican governor who signed the Georgia heartbeat bill into law in 2019.
Another pro-life voice that opposed the ruling was Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who said McBurney’s decision was “ignoring the will of the voters and imposing his own pro-abortion bias on Georgia instead.”
In a previous interview with CP, Tara Sander Lee, the director of Life Sciences at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, responded to Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abram’s claims that there is no heartbeat at six weeks by explaining that the human heart starts beating 22 days after fertilization.
"A baby's heart is actively beating at six weeks gestation and will have already beat nearly 16 million times by 15 weeks," said Lee. "In fact, at six weeks, when Stacey Abrams says a heartbeat doesn't exist, that baby's heart is actually beating at about 110 beats per minute."
"Most American parents have seen their baby's beating heart during prenatal ultrasound and discussed it with their obstetrician.”
"The mainstream media can perform Olympic-level semantics gymnastics all they want, but most Americans instinctively understand that a developing human organ which beats rhythmically and pumps blood throughout the body is, in fact, a heart."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com.
