A state Superior Court judge in Georgia has overturned a law banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s ruling took effect immediately statewide, making abortions legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, which represented doctors and advocacy groups that had asked McBurney to throw out the law, said it expects abortions past six weeks of pregnancy to resume at some clinics this week.
The ACLU filed its lawsuit in July, seeking to strike down the ban on multiple grounds. They claim it violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy and liberty by forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women in the state. However, McBurney did not rule on that claim.
The judge ruled that the law which took effect in 2019 was invalid because Roe v. Wade had not yet been struck down. McBurney did leave the door open for the legislature to revisit the ban.
Kara Richardson, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, said in an email to the Associated Press that the office filed a notice of appeal and “will continue to fulfill our duty to defend the laws of our state in court.”
Andrew Isenhour, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, said McBurney’s ruling placed “the personal beliefs of a judge over the will of the legislature and people of Georgia.”
“The state has already filed a notice of appeal, and we will continue to fight for the lives of Georgia’s unborn children,” he said in a statement.
State Rep. Ed Setzler, the Republican from the Atlanta suburb of Acworth who sponsored the law, said he was confident the state Supreme Court would overrule McBurney and reinstate the ban.
The law prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound very early in a pregnancy, coming from the heart cells in the unborn person that will eventually become the heart around six weeks into a pregnancy.
Georgia’s law was passed by state lawmakers and signed by Kemp in 2019 but had been blocked from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed Georgia to begin enforcing its abortion law just over three weeks after the high court’s decision in June.
Abortion clinics had remained open in the state, but providers said they were turning many people away because the cardiac activity had been detected. They could then either travel to another state for an abortion or continue with their pregnancies.
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