Georgia
Georgia Supreme Court Reinstates 6-Week Abortion Ban
Topline
Abortion is now banned once more in Georgia after six weeks right into a being pregnant, because the Georgia Supreme Courtroom revived the state’s restrictive abortion legislation Wednesday—no less than quickly—per week after a state choose declared it was unconstitutional.
Abortion rights advocates maintain indicators to protest the Supreme Courtroom’s choice within the Dobbs v Jackson … [+]
Key Information
The Georgia Supreme Courtroom issued a one-page ruling granting the state authorities’s request to pause a decrease court docket order that declared the ban illegal whereas the case is appealed, which means the legislation will return into impact whereas a lawsuit in opposition to it performs out.
Fulton County Superior Courtroom Choose Robert McBurney dominated on November 15 the six-week ban was illegal as a result of it was enacted in 2019, when abortion was nonetheless authorized nationwide beneath Roe v. Wade, although the U.S. Supreme Courtroom has since overturned that ruling.
Abortion rights advocates and physicians sued to overturn the legislation in July after a federal court docket allowed it to take impact, arguing that the legislation violated the Georgia Structure and its privateness protections along with being unconstitutional on the federal degree when it was first enacted in 2019.
SisterSong Ladies of Shade Reproductive Justice Collective, the lead plaintiff within the lawsuit, has not but responded to a request for remark.
Large Quantity
34,988. That’s the variety of abortions that had been carried out in Georgia in 2021, the latest 12 months for which information is offered, in response to state information cited by the Atlanta Journal Structure. That quantity is 3,740 greater than in 2020, and it’s doubtless extra abortions can be carried out within the state in 2022 if the process had remained authorized, given abortion is now banned in lots of neighboring Southern states comparable to Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Essential Quote
When Georgia’s six-week abortion ban was enacted in 2019, “in every single place in America, together with Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state, or native — to ban abortions earlier than viability,” McBurney wrote in his ruling putting down the ban, as quoted by the Related Press. Which means the six-week ban “didn’t change into the legislation of Georgia when it was enacted and it isn’t the legislation of Georgia now.”
Key Background
The Georgia case is a part of a proliferation of lawsuits which have challenged state-level abortion bans in state courts after the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade in June, as abortion rights advocates have turned their consideration to difficult legal guidelines beneath state Constitutions now that they will’t be challenged in federal court docket. Along with Georgia, state bans have been no less than quickly paused in Indiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Louisiana, Utah and Texas since June, although a few of these legal guidelines have since been allowed to take impact once more in subsequent court docket rulings. Georgia is now considered one of greater than a dozen states that no less than largely outlaws abortions, however it’s the solely state that has a six-week ban in impact as a substitute of a complete abortion ban in any respect factors throughout a being pregnant, as comparable legal guidelines in South Carolina and Ohio stay blocked in court docket.
Additional Studying
Choose Tosses Out Georgia’s Six-Week Abortion Ban (Forbes)
Georgia asks court docket to right away reinstate abortion ban (Related Press)
100 Days Since Roe V. Wade Was Overturned: The 11 Largest Penalties (Forbes)
Indiana Supreme Courtroom Retains Abortion Ban Blocked—Right here’s The place State Lawsuits Stand Now (Forbes)