Georgia Supreme Court Restores State’s 6-Week Abortion Ban
The New York Times
The ban will resume while the court considers an appeal to a decision that had briefly allowed greater access to abortions in the state.
The Georgia Supreme Court reinstated on Monday a state law that prohibits abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy while it considers an appeal to a lower-court decision that had briefly allowed greater access to the procedure.
The law, called the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, or the LIFE Act, was set to take effect again at 5 p.m. on Monday.
Six of the justices agreed in full with the majority ruling, and another only in part. One justice did not participate and another had been disqualified from participating in the case.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, states were left to regulate the rules around abortion. Since then, about 20 states have banned or restricted the procedure, effectively ending the practice in the South. Many lawsuits have been filed to challenge those new standards.
On Sept. 30, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of the Fulton County Superior Court overturned the Georgia law because he found that it violated the State Constitution, which he wrote protected the rights 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.”
The judge’s decision allowed the procedure to continue in Georgia up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, giving women in the state and across the South a short window during which they could obtain an abortion past six weeks. Many women do not even realize they are pregnant at six weeks.
