The Georgia Supreme Court has reinstated the state’s strict limitations on abortions.
A lower state court had previously overturned the abortion law, which bans the procedure at roughly six weeks of pregnancy, calling it “unconstitutional.”
The law in question, Georgia’s 2019 Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This normally takes place around six weeks of pregnancy.
The decision by the state’s Supreme Court puts Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s ruling that the law is “unconstitutional” on pause while the state appeals.
“The State of Georgia’s Emergency Petition for Supersedeas seeking a stay of the order of the Superior Court of Fulton County in the above-styled action is hereby granted,” the order reads.
According to a report from The Hill, “McBurney cited the fact that the ban was signed into law three years prior to the Supreme Court’s decision to eventually overturn Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to have an abortion.”
McBurney wrote, “the supreme law of this land unequivocally was – and had been for nearly half a century – that laws unduly restricting abortion before viability were unconstitutional.”
Pro-abortion groups are outraged at the decision.
“While disappointing and deeply frustrating, we were not surprised when the Kemp administration filed a petition for an emergency stay following last week’s ruling,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the lead plaintiff in the case, according to a report from Axios.
“The governor and attorney general of Georgia are doubling down to control access to reproductive health care, and while the stay was granted, we will not stop fighting until this ban that is steeped in white supremacy is gone.”
The Supreme Court also denied the pro-abortin groups requests for 24 hour notice before the ban is reinstated.
