Judge strikes down law banning abortion in Georgia

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its body of rights, a woman’s power to control her body, and to decide what happens to it externally as well as internally,” and rejects state interference. In healthy choices.

When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade In 2022, it ended the national right to abortion, opening the door to a state ban. Fourteen states now prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with a few exceptions.

Georgia is one of four states where the ban goes into effect after approximately the first six weeks of pregnancy — which often happens before a woman even realizes she is pregnant.

The impact of the ban was deeply felt in the South, where many people had to travel hundreds of miles to obtain a legal abortion in another state.

Georgia's law was passed by state lawmakers and signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, but was blocked from taking effect until the Supreme Court overturned the ruling. Roe v. Wadewhich has protected the right to abortion in the country for nearly 50 years.

The law prohibits most abortions once there is a detectable human heartbeat. Heart activity can be detected by fetal ultrasound around the sixth week of pregnancy.

M^e His decision means state law reverts to pre-2019 rules, McBurney wrote.

“When the fetus grows inside the woman and reaches the stage of vitality, and when society can assume care and responsibility for this separate life, then – and only then – can society intervene.”^e He didn't make me bigger.

The “arbitrary six-week ban” on abortions “is inconsistent with these rights and with the appropriate balance that the continuity rule strikes between women's rights to liberty and privacy and society's interests in the protection and care of unborn children,” the order said. Countries.