A judge in Georgia just issued the abortion ruling that should have come from the Supreme Court

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.J. McBurney agreed that every life is worthy of protection — including the lives of pregnant women and girls

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

Last Monday, a Fulton County Superior Court judge declared Georgia’s Living Infant’s Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act unconstitutional. This decision came after The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Collective filed a suit against the State of Georgia, challenging the state constitutionality of the LIFE Act.

The LIFE Act was passed back in 2019. The law banned all abortions if a fetal heartbeat could be detected—typically around six weeks of pregnancy—unless there is a “medical emergency.” The law also criminalized any abortions that took place after a heartbeat could be detected. As the plaintiffs’ initial motion noted, six weeks of pregnancy is about “two weeks after a person’s first missed period” (the most common indicator of pregnancy).

When it was signed into law, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) described it as “a declaration that all life has value, that all life matters, and that all life is worthy of protection.”

---

This Substack is about civic education. Keeping it going depends 100% on reader support. Please consider upgrading to paid—and thank you!

---

While Judge Robert C.J. McBurney agreed that every life is worthy of protection, he did not agree that performing abortions after a heartbeat could be detected amounted to a felony.

Instead, he argued, under Georgia law, “the baseline rule is clear: a legally competent person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does — and does not do — in terms of health, hygiene, and the like.”

What is the LIFE Act?

The exact words of the LIFE Act are as follows:

“No abortion is authorized or shall be performed if an unborn child has been determined in accordance with Code Section 31-9B-2 to have a detectable human heartbeat except when: A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that a medical emergency exists.…”

The bill also provides an exception when “The probable gestational age of the unborn child is 20 weeks or less and the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest in which an official police report has been filed alleging the offense of rape or incest.” The final exception is when “A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that the pregnancy is medically futile.”

In sum, the bill completely strips women and girls of their right to choose. The “exceptions” are hardly helpful. As the initial motion from the plaintiffs in SisterSong v. Georgia stated, “The Act’s exceedingly narrow exceptions fail to mitigate the harm for even the most vulnerable Georgians.”