Georgia Six-Week Abortion Ban Ruled Unconstitutional
“Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy.” — Judge Robert McBurney
Case update: On October 7, 2024, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled to reinstate the six-week abortion ban effective at 5 p.m. that same day. The ban will remain in effect indefinitely while the state’s appeal proceeds in the Georgia Supreme Court. Read about the Georgia Supreme Court ruling here.
A Georgia state court ruled on September 30 that the state’s six-week abortion ban is unconstitutional and abortion is protected under the Georgia constitution’s fundamental right to privacy. The ruling by the Superior Court of Fulton County permanently blocked the ban, which prohibits abortion before many know they’re pregnant.
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,” said Judge Robert McBurney, writing for the majority. “Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy.”
The ruling in SisterSong v. State of Georgia allows Georgians to once again access abortion care in the state beyond the earliest weeks of pregnancy.
In its ruling, the court held that:
- The state constitution’s strong protection of the fundamental right to privacy prohibits political interference with an individual’s abortion decision before viability.
- The exclusion of mental health from the ban’s narrow medical emergency exception violates equal protection.
- Another provision of the law giving district attorneys broad access to the medical records of abortion patients also violates Georgians’ right to privacy.
The ruling comes just weeks after ProPublica reported stories linking the tragic and preventable deaths of two Georgia women, Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, to Georgia’s abortion ban.
“The Superior Court of Fulton County has rightfully struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban as a flagrant violation of Georgia’s longstanding and robust right to privacy, restoring access to abortion at a time when too many have been prevented from accessing this critical health care and from deciding what is best for their bodies, health, and family lives,” said Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The Georgia ruling cites a ruling in September in a separate case in North Dakota that the Center is litigating. In that case, a North Dakota judge struck down that state’s abortion ban as violating its state constitution. The win in Georgia builds on that victory.
More from Judge McBurney’s ruling:
> “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.”
> “Considering the compelling record evidence about the physical, mental, and emotional impact of unwanted pregnancies on the women who are forced by law to carry them to term. . . the Court finds that, until the pregnancy is viable, a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected, i.e., remains her business and her business alone.”
> “It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women — and. . . primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily black and brown women — to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the Government’s behest.”
Despite the victory for Georgians’ privacy and reproductive rights, the state’s attorney general has filed an appeal and may choose to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to reinstate the ban in the coming days.
Same State Court Struck Down the Ban in 2022
In November 2022, the same court—Superior Court of Fulton County—struck down the abortion ban, H.B. 481, as void and without legal basis, since it violated Roe v. Wade when it was enacted in 2019. The Georgia Supreme Court stayed the ruling days after, allowing the ban to take effect.
In October 2023, the state Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling, allowing the ban to remain in place and sending the case back to the trial court to rule on the plaintiffs’ other claims that the ban violates the Georgia Constitution’s rights to privacy and equal protection.
The state court ruled on those claims today, agreeing with the plaintiffs and blocking the six-week ban.
“This victory demonstrates that when courts faithfully apply constitutional protections for bodily autonomy, laws that restrict access to abortion and force people to continue pregnancies against their will cannot stand,” added Wang.
SisterSong v. State of Georgia was filed in July 2022 by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Georgia-based law firms Caplan Cobb and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore on behalf of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Feminist Women’s Health Center, Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., Atlanta Comprehensive Wellness Clinic, Atlanta Women’s Medical Center, FemHealth USA d/b/a carafem, Summit Medical Associates, P.C., Carrie Cwiak, M.D., M.P.H., Lisa Haddad, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., Eva Lathrop, M.D., M.P.H., and Medical Students for Choice.
Read more.
- Ruling by Superior Court of Fulton County, 09.30.24
- Case background and details: SisterSong v. State of Georgia
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