Georgia attorney general appeals ruling striking down state’s abortion ban

Georgia’s Republican attorney general has appealed a judge’s ruling from earlier this week that struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban.

Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court to reinstate the law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy while the court is considering the appeal.

On Monday, Judge Robert McBurney of Fulton County enjoined the law and stated that abortions must now be regulated as they were before Georgia’s 2019 law took effect in July 2022 after Roe v. Wade was struck down. His ruling means abortions are allowed to happen until fetal viability at about 22 weeks of pregnancy.

McBurney said Georgia’s state constitution guarantees the right to “liberty,” which includes a person’s right to make decisions about their own health care. However, that liberty is not unlimited, he argued.

“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,” McBurney wrote.

After McBurney’s ruling, some Georgia clinic officials said they would begin accepting patients who wanted an abortion and whose pregnancies were past six weeks, The Associated Press reported.  

In his appeal, Carr’s office said the case was going straight to the Georgia Supreme Court because the case “involves a challenge to the constitutionality of a state law.”

“We believe Georgia’s LIFE Act is fully constitutional, and we will immediately appeal the lower court’s decision,” Kara Murray, a spokesperson for Carr’s office, said in a statement to The Hill.

Monday’s ruling marks the second time McBurney has struck down the state’s abortion ban. In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed the ban into law, but implementation was blocked until the Supreme Court overturned Roe and returned power to the individual states.

The law banned abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks and is often before many people know they are pregnant.

Updated on Oct. 3 at 7:08 a.m. EDT