Judge strikes down Georgia law that banned abortion

Photo: Brynn Anderson Archives Associated Press Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney looks at documents, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta.

Kate Brumback – Associated Press in Atlanta

Posted at 1:51 p.m.

• United States

A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s abortion law, which took effect in 2022 and banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia includes within its meaning, protections and set of rights a woman’s power to control her own body, to decide what happens to her outside and inside, and rejects state interference in health choices.”

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When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended the nation’s right to abortion, it opened the door to state bans. Fourteen states now ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Georgia is one of four where the bans take effect after about the first six weeks of pregnancy—which is often before women realize they are pregnant.

The impact of the bans has been felt deeply across the South, with many people having to travel hundreds of miles to get a legal abortion in another state.

The Georgia law was passed by state lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, but its implementation was blocked until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had protected abortion rights in the country for nearly 50 years.

The law banned most abortions once a detectable human heartbeat was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound of an embryo around the sixth week of pregnancy.

McBurney wrote that his decision means the state law is returning to its pre-2019 rules.

“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume the care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — can society step in,” McBurney ruled.

An “arbitrary six-week ban” on abortions “is inconsistent with these rights and with the proper balance that a viability rule strikes between a woman’s rights to liberty and privacy and society’s interest in protecting and caring for the unborn,” the order states.

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