Georgia Supreme Court upholds state ban on abortion after six weeks

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The Supreme Court for the southern US state of Georgia on Tuesday upheld a state ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, Atlanta News First reports. In its ruling the Georgia Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling by the Fulton County Superior Court that the state’s “heartbeat bill” was unconstitutional.

Georgia’s LIFE Act abortion law passed by the Republican-led state legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019. However, the law had been blocked from taking effect until the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, which had granted a federal right to abortion up to viability. Less than a month after the reversal of Roe in June 2022, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Georgia to enforce its ban on abortion after a heartbeat could be detected.

Following a challenge to the law filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled in November 2022 that Georgia’s abortion law was “unequivocally unconstitutional” because it was enacted in 2019, when Roe v. Wade allowed abortions until viability.

In its 6-1 decision Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court said the lower court had ruled incorrectly. “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.

The case has been sent back to the Fulton County Superior Court for the judge to rule on outstanding arguments raised by the ACLU in its lawsuit, including that the Georgia law violates residents’ rights to privacy.

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