The Georgia Supreme Court has at least temporarily reinstated the state’s ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy while it considers the state’s appeal of a lower court ruling that voided a three-year-old law.
The state is appealing a decision last week by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney who ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it was signed into law in 2019, when Roe v Wade and other U.S. Supreme Court precedents were in place that prohibited laws against abortion before viability.
On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe and the 50-year Constitutional right to abortion with its opinion in Dobbs v Jackson.
Georgia’s Attorney General filed a petition to appeal McBurney’s ruling shortly after it was issued, simultaneously asking the state Supreme Court to temporarily “stay” the lower court ruling and reinstate the six-week ban in the meantime.
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the lead plaintiff in the case, called the court’s decision “disappointing and deeply frustrating,” but added, “We were not surprised.”
