SAVANNAH (Ga.) (AP) – The Georgia Supreme Court halted a Monday ruling that struck down the state’s near-ban of abortions, while it considered the state’s appeal.
The order of the high court came a week following a judge’s ruling that Georgia’s constitution prohibits abortions after six weeks, which is often before women are aware they are pregnant. Fulton County Superior Court judge Robert McBurney decided Sept. 30, that Georgia’s state constitution includes the right to make healthcare decisions.
The state Supreme Court halted McBurney’s ruling at the request of Republican Attorney General Chris Carr whose office is appealing.
In a dissenting view, Justice John J. Ellington argued the case “shouldn’t be predetermined to the State’s benefit before the appeal is docketed.”
Ellington wrote: “The State shouldn’t be in the business enforcing a law that has been determined to violate the fundamental rights guaranteed millions of Georgians under the Georgia Constitution.” “The status quo” that should be maintained, is the state of law before the challenged legislation took effect.
Clare Bartlett of the Georgia Life Alliance called the high court’s ruling “appropriate” and feared that women from other states might start coming to Georgia to have surgical abortions without it.
Bartlett stated that there is no right to privacy when it comes to abortion because another person is involved. She added: “It’s about protecting those who are most vulnerable and cannot speak for themselves.”
Monica Simpson, executive Director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective said that the state Supreme Court “sided with antiabortion extremists.” Monica Simpson’s group is one of the plaintiffs who are challenging the state law.
Simpson said that Georgians suffer every minute the harmful six-week ban on abortion is in place. “By denying our community members lifesaving care, we are putting their lives, health, and safety at risk. All for the sake and control of our bodies.”
Leaders of carafem in Atlanta, a provider of abortion services that had planned to expand their services after McBurney’s ruling, expressed their dismay at the reinstatement of the law.
Melissa Grant, Carafem’s chief operating office, said that the provider would continue to provide abortion services according to the letter of law. “But we are angry and disappointed, and hope that people will eventually come back to a more reasonable point of view that aligns itself with the people who require care.”
Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Brian Kemp in 2019, was one of a wave of restrictive abortion measures that took effect in Republican-controlled states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended a national right to abortion. It prohibited most abortions after a “detectable heartbeat” had been detected. Around six weeks into pregnancy, ultrasound can detect cardiac activity in the cells of an embryo that will become the heart.
The Georgia Supreme Court issued a one-page order on Monday that exempted a specific provision of Georgia’s abortion laws from being reinstated.
The court refused to explain why it ruled that the state could not enforce a section of the law which reads: “Health records must be made available to the district prosecutor of the judicial district in which the abortion is performed or the woman who has the abortion performed.”
Thirteen U.S. States now enforce bans on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, and four states ban abortions after the sixth week.
McBurney wrote that in his ruling, “liberty includes in its meaning, its protections, as well as in its bundle of right the power of woman to control their own body, decide what happens with it and inside it, and reject state interference in her healthcare choices.”
McBurney wrote: “When the fetus inside a woman is viable, and society can take care of and be responsible for this separate life, only then may society intervene.”
The judge’s ruling rolled back Georgia’s abortion restrictions to the previous law that allowed abortions up to viability, or roughly 22-24 weeks into a pregnancy.
Kemp, in a response to McBurney’s decision, said: “Once more, the will and representatives of Georgians have been overruled by one judge’s personal beliefs.” “Protecting lives of those who are most vulnerable is one of our sacred responsibilities. Georgia will continue being a place where the unborn lives are fought for.”
Abortion providers in Georgia and their advocates applauded McBurney’s ruling but expressed concern that the ruling would be overturned soon.
This story was contributed by AP reporters Kate Brumback and Jeff Amy in Atlanta, as well as Charlotte Kramon.
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