A Georgia judge on Monday annulled the state’s abortion law that came into force in 2022 and prohibits the termination of pregnancy after six weeks of gestation.
Fulton County Superior Court Justice Robert McBurney ruled that “freedom in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its set of rights, the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what she happens to your body and in your body, and to reject state interference in your health care decisions.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the historic Roe v. Wade put an end to the federal right to abortion, enshrined since 1973, and opened the door for states to legislate on the matter, restricting or protecting it.
Fourteen Republican-governed states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions. Georgia was one of four where the ban goes into effect after the first six weeks of pregnancy, before most women realize they are pregnant.
The impact of these bans has been deeply felt in Southern states, where many people must travel hundreds of miles to other places where abortions are legal.
The Georgia law was approved by the state Congress, with a Republican majority, and signed by Governor Brian Kemp – also a conservative – in 2019, but its entry into force was blocked until the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The law prohibits most abortions after a “detectable human heartbeat” is recorded. Cardiac activity is detected with an ultrasound in the cells within the embryo that will eventually become the heart around six weeks of pregnancy.
McBurney wrote that his ruling means state law now reverts to what it was before the rule passed in 2019. “When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume the care and responsibility for that life separated, then, and only then, can society intervene,” the judge wrote in his ruling, which can be appealed.
An “arbitrary six-week ban” on abortions “is incompatible with these rights and with the appropriate balance that a viability standard establishes between women’s rights to freedom and privacy and society’s interest in protecting and caring for unborn babies,” the magistrate concluded.
