Judge overturns Georgia 'heartbeat' law banning most abortions
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A judge ruled on Tuesday that Georgia’s law banning most abortions after six weeks, adding that it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it was enacted three years ago and was therefore void.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that according to precedent, a law that was unconstitutional when it was passed remains unconstitutional. That applies to Georgia's 2019 abortion bill, known as the LIFE Act, or the "heartbeat bill," colloquially.
McBurney's ruling took effect immediately statewide.
"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," McBurney wrote.
The abortion bill made abortion after six weeks a felony in most cases, even though such a law was clearly illegal and "such bans were banned," according to McBurney. Therefore the law was invalid from the beginning and remained so even when the Supreme Court ruled such restrictions to be constitutional.
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Within hours, the office of the Attorney General in Georgia filed a brief notice of appeal, asking the Supreme Court of Georgia to review 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 Kara Richardson, spokesperson for Attorney General Chris Carr, in an email.
The ban had been in effect since July after the Federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the abortion law – blocked under the federal court decisions at the time it was passed – could finally be put into law after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade.
The law prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present, effectually banning most abortions in Georgia before many people knew they were pregnant. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will eventually become the heart around six weeks into a pregnancy.
The ban included exceptions for rape and incest, as long as a police report was filed, and also allowed for abortions when the mother’s life was at risk or if a medical condition rendered a fetus unviable.
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McBurney’s ruling follows the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, which represented doctors and advocacy groups, asking McBurney to strike down the law and a two-day trial held in October.
Their lawsuit, filed in July, alleged that the ban violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy and liberty by forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women in the state.
While McBurney did not rule on that claim, his decision agreed with a different argument made in the lawsuit — that the ban was invalid because when it was signed into law in 2019, U.S. Supreme Court precedent under Roe. v. Wade and another ruling allowed abortion well past six weeks.
“Today’s ruling recognizes that the legislature’s decision to take away abortion access across our state was in clear violation of the law,” Andrea Young, executive director of ACLU of Georgia, said in a news release. “We hope that the Georgia Supreme Court affirms that right, and in doing so affirms the long-standing Georgia rule that the legislature cannot pass laws that disregard our constitutional protections.”
The Superior Court of Fulton County declined to issue an injunction on the law while the case was litigated. The ruling Tuesday, however, makes it clear that the parts of the law limiting abortion were illegal at the time they were passed and are therefore illegal still.
"If the courts have spoken, clearly and directly, as to what the law is, as to what is and is not constitutional, legislatures and legislators are not at liberty to pass laws contrary to such pronouncements," the decision reads.
The ruling would not prevent the state legislature from passing a similar or even more restrictive ban under the new constitutional framework of Dobbs v. Jackson, the ruling earlier this year that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Still, the organizations that brought the suit celebrated the ruling as a win.
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“After a long road, we are finally able to celebrate the end of an extreme abortion ban in our state,” Monica Simpson, executive director of Sister Song, said in a news release. “While we applaud the end of a ban steeped in white supremacy, it should not have existed in the first place."
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion organization, condemned the ruling.
"Shame on Judge McBurney for ignoring the will of the voters and imposing his own pro-abortion bias on Georgia instead," SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a news release.
The topic of abortion was a key issue in Georgia’s U.S. Senate contest between Democr Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Walker, who opposes abortion, was accused by two women in October of paying for them to have the procedure. He denied both allegations.
The race is headed to a runoff in December.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia law banning abortion 6 weeks into a pregnancy is overturned