(GoRealNewsNow.com) – A Georgia Judge struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban as unconstitutional as Georgia’s constitution prohibits political interference with an individual’s abortion decision before visibility.
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney called the ban “arbitrary” and ruled that “liberty” in Georgia includes “the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.”
He also noted, “That power is not, however, unlimited. When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene.”
With the ban overturned, abortions in Georgia are now legal up until viability, usually around 22 weeks, though some premature babies have survived earlier.
The ban had made abortions illegal once cardiac activity was detected, usually at six weeks.
This marks the second time Georgia’s six-week abortion ban has been struck down. The first instance was in November 2022, shortly after the law came into effect in July of that year. The law has been blocked since 2019.
Following the judge’s decision, the state appealed to Georgia’s Supreme Court, which sent the case back to Fulton County.
According to the Society of Family Planning, under the prohibition, the state saw about half as many abortions each month compared to before the law,
Recently, some misleading news stories blamed the ban for the deaths of two women.
In one case, a woman who took abortion pills developed an infection after failing to expel all the tissue from her unborn twins. An Atlanta hospital took 20 hours to perform a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure, but by then, it was too late, and she died.
Media reports falsely linked the woman’s death to the abortion ban, suggesting that D&Cs were illegal under the law.
In reality, the Georgia law does not ban D&Cs, which are also used to treat miscarriages. The law defines abortion as causing “the death of an unborn child,” but the twins in this case were already deceased.
In another case, a woman who took abortion pills did not expel all the tissue from her unborn baby. She later died after taking a lethal mix of painkillers, including fentanyl.
Her family said she avoided seeking medical care “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions,” even though her treatment would have been legal under Georgia law.
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