Judge Overturns 6-Week Abortion Ban For Violating U.S. Constitution

0
595

Georgia’s recently installed abortion ban at six weeks has just been overturned. Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney ruled that the peach state’s law violated the American Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The state law made abortion illegal after a “detectable human heartbeat.” An ultrasound can detect beats in embryo cells at approximately six weeks.  Those cells will eventually form themselves into a human heart. That meant abortions in Georgia were banned before most women had any idea they were even pregnant.

The state implemented the ban in July after the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overturned Roe v. Wade and half a century of precedent. SCOTUS handed the states the final decisions of how to install their own laws.

Judge McBurney’s decision was an outcome of a lawsuit to end the ban. The suit offered a number of grounds for legal basis. The judge stated that the Georgia ban violated the state’s “right to privacy and liberty by forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women in the state,” according to the local news organization GPB.

Physicians and advocacy groups filed the lawsuit last July. It also claimed that the Georgia ban on abortions past six weeks was “invalid:”

‘Georgia’s abortion ban was invalid because it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it was enacted.’

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed the law into existence in 2019. However, it had been blocked waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision. After the highest court in the land overturned Roe v. Wade, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let the state begin enacting the 6-week abortion law nearly immediately after SCOTUS’ final decision.

Judge McBurney addressed the consequences of such a state law:

‘[E]verywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state, or local — to ban abortions before viability.’

The judge continued:

‘[The state law] did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now.’

The spokesperson for Georgia’s attorney general (AG) Kara Richardson told The Axios:

‘[The AG’s staff will] pursue an immediate appeal and will continue to fulfill our duty to defend the laws of our state in court.’

Screen-Shot-2022-11-15-at-2.19.43-PM Judge Overturns 6-Week Abortion Ban For Violating U.S. Constitution Abortion Featured Politics Top Stories Women's Rights

The Guardian looked at how an American abortion ban would affect people “around the world:”

‘The end of the right to abortion in the United States will have devastating consequences around the world. A half-century ago, the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision inspired a new era of reproductive freedom in dozens of countries. The court’s reversal will empower anti-abortion voices everywhere, threatening reproductive freedom and the right to control one’s destiny. ‘

Screen-Shot-2022-11-15-at-2.11.00-PM Judge Overturns 6-Week Abortion Ban For Violating U.S. Constitution Abortion Featured Politics Top Stories Women's Rights

Attorneys for the state argued that the original Roe decision was in error, and SCOTUS corrected that mistake, but they were overruled.

Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.


Christie writes Gloria Christie Reports & Three White Lions Substack newsletters and a Three White Lions podcast available on Apple, Spotify, etc. She is a political journalist for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress). Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions her book on Amazon Kindle Vella and the Gloria Christie Three White Lions podcast on Apple, Spotify, etc.