You Can Get an Abortion in Georgia Again—for Now
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of reproductive health providers in the state, says they expect Georgia to ask the state Supreme Court to reinstate the six-week ban as soon as this week.
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Since 2022, Georgia has enforced a six-week abortion ban. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) first signed the ban into law in 2019, but it couldn’t take effect until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years later. As of this month, we now know the ban directly resulted in at least two confirmed, preventable maternal deaths. And on Monday afternoon, a Fulton County judge finally struck down the abortion law, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported.
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,” Judge Robert McBurney wrote, in a ruling that lifts the six-week ban and now allows abortion until 22 weeks. “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 stressed that when a pregnancy becomes viable, “then—and only then—may society intervene.” To be clear, no pregnancy is the same and “fetal viability” isn’t an arbitrary term or pregnancy marker.
BREAKING: In a Monday decision, Fulton Judge Robert McBurney rules Georgia’s roughly six-week abortion ban is unconstitutional and blocks it from being enforced.
More to come. pic.twitter.com/kvGxGIGeyC
— Sam Gringlas (@gringsam) September 30, 2024
Nevertheless, McBurney’s ruling marks a major if not temporary relief after nearly two years of Georgia’s brutal near-total ban. The ruling is a result of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, together with the ACLU, ACLU of Georgia, and Planned Parenthood, on behalf of organizations and reproductive health clinics including SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Feminist Women’s Health Clinic, Atlanta Comprehensive Wellness Clinic, and Planned Parenthood Southeast. However, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is expected to block the ruling and reinstate the six-week ban as early as this week. “We are prepared to continue fighting this case regardless, and we will NOT back down from this fight,” CRR wrote on Monday afternoon.
A spokesperson for Kemp condemned the ruling on Monday: “Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge. Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn.”
Earlier this month, ProPublica reported on the first two abortion ban-induced maternal deaths, both in Georgia, as state maternal mortality committees across the country finally begin to assess post-Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health data. Tellingly, both women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, were Black women. Both were also mothers to young children when they died in 2022, just weeks after Georgia’s six-week ban took effect. Thurman and Miller both took abortion pills and experienced complications that would have been treatable with a dilation and curettage abortion procedure—but Georgia’s ban rendered this procedure a felony punishable with prison time and their care was delayed until it was too late.
“Amber and Candi should be here today. Georgia’s extreme abortion ban is to blame for their deaths and the needless pain and suffering of countless others who have been denied access to timely abortion care,” CRR said in a statement. “These cruel laws should never have been in place to begin with.”
CRR also celebrated that McBurley found that a provision of the abortion ban offering district attorneys increased access to abortion patients’ medical data violates their constitutional right to privacy. Miller’s family told ProPublica that Miller refused to seek medical help as she experienced complications from her medication abortion because she feared being prosecuted.
This ruling comes just two weeks after devastating reports linked the tragic and preventable deaths of at least two women, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, to the state’s oppressive ban.
— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) September 30, 2024
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, called the ruling “a significant step in the right direction,” but stressed that “every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the consequences, especially our Black and brown communities.”
Georgia’s ruling follows a similar ruling in North Dakota earlier this month, where a judge blocked the state’s total abortion ban, asserting that the state Constitution “guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health, and autonomy.” While advocates and health care providers celebrated the ruling, like Simpson, they also stressed the significant damage incurred by North Dakota’s ban couldn’t be repaired overnight, especially as the ban has left the state without any abortion providers. Meetra Mehdizadeh, another staff attorney at CRR, told reporters at the time, “The destructive impacts of abortion bans are felt long after they are struck down.” Several abortion providers have remained in Georgia providing abortion services through the sixth week of pregnancy, though most patients may not realize they’re pregnant at that point.
It’s highly unlikely this ruling in Georgia will go unchallenged by the state, and while some relief from the abortion ban right now is a massive victory, legal advocates continue to have their work cut out for them.