Just a week after a Georgia judge blocked a six-week abortion ban and restored widespread access to abortion in the state, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday reinstating the ban.
The ban went into effect at 5pm local time on Monday and will remain in effect pending litigation over it.
Abortion rights supporters quickly denounced the decision, which left two Georgia mothers, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candy Miller, who died without access to legal abortions. The decision was made a few weeks after the news broke.
“Georgians suffer every time this harmful six-week abortion ban is implemented,” Monica Simpson, executive director of the Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, said in a statement. said. SisterSong Women of Color Reproduction Justice Collective is a plaintiff in the legal battle over the ban.
Simpson added, “When we deny people in our communities the life-saving care they deserve, we put their lives, safety, and health at risk, all because of power and control over our bodies.” ” he continued.
Last week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that Georgia’s six-week ban, which makes abortion illegal before most people realize they are pregnant, is unconstitutional.
“Women are not collectively owned community property whose disposition is determined by majority vote,” McBurney wrote in a blistering 26-page opinion. “Forcing an unwanted, non-viable fetus to term is a constitutional violation of a woman’s freedom and privacy, even taking into account the rights of a non-viable fetus. It would be a violation of rights.”
McBurney’s ruling allows abortion providers in Georgia to perform abortions up to about 22 weeks of pregnancy. In the week before the six-week ban was in effect, abortion clinics and their advocates said they saw an increase in interest in booking abortions.
But Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Chris Carr quickly appealed McBurney’s ruling. Only one judge on Monday partially dissented from the ruling reinstating the ban. One of the judges did not participate, while the other was disqualified from participating in the case.
“Fundamentally, the state should not enforce a law it finds violates the fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals in the Georgia Constitution,” Justice John Ellington wrote. “The “status quo” that must be maintained is the state of the law before the law in question came into force.”
In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more than a dozen states have banned most or virtually all abortions. Abortion has also become a major issue in presidential elections, including in Georgia, where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are vying to win.
