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The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday paused a ruling that had struck down the state’s near-total ban on abortions while it reviews the state’s appeal.
The Associated Press reports that the state high court’s order was issued a week after a judge determined that Georgia’s law unconstitutionally prohibits abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, often before women are aware they are pregnant.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled on September 30 that privacy rights under Georgia’s state constitution encompass the right to make personal healthcare decisions, the AP added.
The state Supreme Court suspended McBurney’s ruling at the request of Republican State Attorney General Chris Carr, whose office is filing the appeal.
In a dissenting opinion, Georgia Justice John J. Ellington argued that the case “should not be predetermined in the State’s favor before the appeal is even docketed.”
“The State should not be in the business of enforcing laws that have been determined to violate fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals under the Georgia Constitution,” Ellington wrote. “The `status quo’ that should be maintained is the state of the law before the challenged laws took effect.”
Clare Bartlett, executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, described the high court’s decision as “appropriate,” expressing concern that without it, women from other states might start traveling to Georgia for surgical abortions, the AP added.
“There’s no there’s no right to privacy in the abortion process because there’s another individual involved,” Bartlett said. She added: “It goes back to protecting those who are the most vulnerable and can’t speak for themselves.”
Leaders of carafem, an Atlanta abortion provider that had intended to expand its services following McBurney’s ruling, voiced their disappointment at the law’s reinstatement.
“Carafem will continue to offer abortion services following the letter of the law,” said Melissa Grant, the provider’s chief operating officer, according to the AP. “But we remain angry and disappointed and hope that eventually people will come back to a more sensible point of view on this issue that aligns with the people who need care.”
Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp in 2019, was part of a series of restrictive abortion measures that took effect in Republican-controlled states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating the national right to abortion.
The law prohibits most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present. Cardiac activity can typically be detected by ultrasound in an embryo’s cells that will eventually develop into the heart at around six weeks of pregnancy, said the AP.
Georgia has a separate criminal law that imposes penalties of up to 10 years in prison for providers performing illegal abortions, although women undergoing abortions are not subject to criminal charges. Additionally, the 2019 ban places physicians at risk of losing their medical licenses if they perform unauthorized abortions, the AP reported.
The Georgia Supreme Court’s one-page order on Monday exempted one specific provision of the state’s abortion law from being reinstated.
Without explanation, the court said the state can’t enforce a subsection of the law that reads: “Health records shall be available to the district attorney of the judicial circuit in which the act of abortion occurs or the woman upon whom an abortion is performed resides.”
Thirteen U.S. states are currently enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while four states prohibit abortions around the sixth week of pregnancy.
McBurney wrote in his ruling 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 healthcare choices.”
“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene,” McBurney wrote.
His ruling rolled back limits on abortion to a previous Georgia law capping abortions at 22 to 24 weeks. Kemp has blasted McBurney’s decision, saying: “The will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge.”
