Georgia Judge’s Abortion Decision Will Reverberate Across The South, Albeit Temporarily

Last updated: 2024/10/01 at 1:38 AM

Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney issued an order Monday striking down the state’s six-week abortion ban and allowing the procedure to be performed again in the state up until 22 weeks of pregnancy.

The order means that Georgia is now one of the most permissive states in the South when it comes to abortion access, joining Virginia, the only other state in the region that allows the procedure up until about 26 weeks of pregnancy — though Georgia’s status as such is likely only temporary.

“A review of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrates that 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 health care choices,” McBurney wrote. “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.”

McBurney’s order Monday means that the state of Georgia can no longer enforce the six-week ban on abortion that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in 2019, but that did not take effect until 2022 around when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade.

Monday’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought back in 2019 by abortion advocates, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs after Kemp signed the extreme restrictions into law. The case has since worked its way through the courts, in a journey the Atlanta Journal-Constitution breaks down here. McBurney ruled in 2022 that the 2019 law violated the U.S. Constitution and struck down the ban. The Georgia Supreme Court later reversed McBurney’s 2022 decision.

In his order Monday, McBurney noted that the six-week ban is dangerous given that most people do not know they are pregnant at that stage of the process. He also noted that the ban has had a disproportionate impact on women of color of Georgia — a bleak and disturbing reality that has gotten renewed publicity in recent weeks after ProPublica reported on the cases of two women who died in Georgia when they couldn’t access legal care. Vice President Kamala Harris has been particularly vocal about Georgia’s egregious ban in recent weeks as well.

“It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women – and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily black and brown women – to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government’s behest,” McBurney wrote.

While the Monday order gives abortion advocates in the state a moment to breathe, it is likely a temporary moment of reprieve for those seeking care, both in Georgia and for those in neighboring states where the procedure is outlawed who may rush to Georgia to seek care in coming days. Per Laurie Sobel, the associate director for women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who spoke to The 19th:

“[Georgia is] going to be the closest place for people [to access abortions] in a lot of states,” Sobel said, adding that she believes the state will appeal the decision.