Fulton County judge defies Georgia Supreme Court, strikes down state’s six-week abortion ban

10/08/2024 / By Laura Harris

A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has ruled that the state’s six-week abortion ban is “unconstitutional,” even after the Georgia Supreme Court upheld it in 2023.

The LIFE Act, which had been signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, had restricted abortion procedures after six weeks, once a fetal heartbeat could be detected, with limited exceptions for pregnancies deemed “medically futile,” and for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest.

In November 2022, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled the law was “unequivocally unconstitutional” because it was enacted in 2019 before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and abortions were still federally protected. However, in October 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected McBurney’s ruling.

“When the United States Supreme Court overrules its own precedent interpreting the United States Constitution, we are then obligated to apply the Court’s new interpretation of the Constitution’s meaning on matters of federal constitutional law,” Justice Verda Colvin wrote for the majority at the time.

However, McBurney defied the state’s highest court by reaffirming his decision and declaring that the LIFE ACT violated the state constitution on Sept. 30.

McBurney argued that only women should have the authority to make decisions about their pregnancies before fetal viability. He stressed that legislators, judges or other external parties should not dictate such choices.

“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could – or should – force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another,” McBurney wrote in the ruling.

This, in turn, reopens access to abortion in Georgia up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. It also potentially sets up another legal battle as the state government may seek to appeal the decision in a higher court. For now, Georgia joins the ranks of states where abortion remains accessible beyond the six-week mark, though the debate is far from over.

Pro-lifers criticize McBurney’s decision

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization in the United States, strongly criticized the decision and called McBurney an “activist judge” for ignoring previous rulings from both federal and state courts. (Related: Trump faces backlash after criticizing DeSantis’ 6-week abortion ban.)

“In an act that defies reason, this activist judge has decided to ignore the 2023 decision of the Georgia Supreme Court that declared the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act constitutional,” said Carol Tobias, the president of NRLC. “This judge has chosen to make rulings based on his own beliefs rather than the law and higher court judgments.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said his office would immediately appeal the ruling to the state supreme court.

Read more stories about abortion at Abortions.news.

Watch InfoWars‘ Harrison Smith discussing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) claim that abortion is an economic issue below.

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