United States – A state court judge on Monday temporarily halted a new law in Georgia that will prevent women from getting an abortion if they are more than six weeks pregnant, arguing that this decision infringes upon the rights to privacy and liberty enshrined in the state constitution, as reported by Reuters.
The decision of the law was temporarily lifted by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, allowing the continuation of abortions, but the state has a chance to appeal for the law to be put back into force again.
Legal Background and Implications
The law effectively outlaws nearly all abortions once a ‘Human heartbeat’ is established, commonly at six weeks pregnant, before many women even realize they are pregnant. However, it was signed in 2019 but was never implemented throughout the United States until the U.S Supreme Court newly repealed Roe v. Sollten die einzelnen Staaten die Entscheidung darüber treffen, ob das Waden urteil das Abtreibungsrecht bundesweit garantiert hatte.
McBurney’s decision stems from a trial in a legal action to strike down the law by the Atlanta-based SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
“Today’s win was hard-fought and is a significant step in the right direction towards achieving Reproductive Justice in Georgia,” SisterSong executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement while adding that “every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long.”
The case was brought before the court by the Center for Reproductive Rights for SisterSong, which said it would not allow the state to appeal in any way.
A spokesman for the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, added that ‘Georgia will remain a state where people will continue to defend the lives of unborn babies’.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” the spokesperson said.
Future Considerations
In November 2022, McBurney banned the abortion ban, claiming that it violated numerous different parts of the constitution because of enforced and narrower grounds. Still, the state Supreme Court quickly reversed that decision and remanded the case back to McBurney for trial.
In Monday’s verdict, McBurney held that Georgia regulation infringed on the rights of women. He commented that the state could only outlaw it after the fetus could survive outside the womb, as reported by Reuters.
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,” he wrote. “Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.”