Judge blocks Georgia law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy

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By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -A state court judge on Monday blocked a Georgia law banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, finding it violated the rights to privacy and liberty guaranteed by the state constitution.

The order from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney allows abortions to resume for now, though the state can appeal to have the law reinstated.

The law bans almost all abortions after a “human heartbeat” is detected, typically around six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. It was passed in 2019 but did not take effect until the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned its longstanding Roe v. Wade precedent, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.

McBurney’s ruling comes after a trial in a lawsuit challenging the law brought by the Atlanta-based SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

“Today’s win was hard-fought and is a significant step in the right direction towards achieving Reproductive Justice in Georgia,” SisterSong executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement, while adding that “every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented SisterSong in court, said it would fight any effort by the state to appeal.

A spokesperson for Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, said the state “will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn.”

“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge,” the spokesperson said.

McBurney previously blocked the abortion ban in November 2022 on narrower grounds, but the state’s Supreme Court quickly overturned that ruling and sent the case back to McBurney for trial.

In Monday’s decision, McBurney said the Georgia law violated women’s basic rights. He ruled that the state could ban abortion only after fetal viability.

“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,” he wrote. “Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.”

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Chris Reese, Alexia Garamfalvi and Rosalba O’Brien)