A federal judge on Monday permanently blocked Georgia’s 2019 “heartbeat” abortion law, finding that it violates the U.S. Constitution.
What We Know:
- U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled against the state in a lawsuit filed by abortion providers and an advocacy group. Jones had temporarily blocked the law in October, and it never went into effect. The new ruling permanently enjoins the state from ever enforcing House Bill 481.
- In his ruling, Jones said that part of the law “violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
- The state sought to ban abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present, with some limited exceptions. Cardiac activity, or a heartbeat, can be detected by ultrasound as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. A legal challenge said that this is before many women even realize they’re pregnant. The bill narrowly passed the Georgia General Assembly amid intense lobbying for and against.
- The lead plaintiff in the case was SisterSong, an Atlanta-based group that fights abortion restrictions on behalf of African American and other women of color. They called the ruling a “huge win for bodily autonomy.” Others who supported the new ruling said it proves their contention that the measure was unconstitutional.
- “No one should have to live in a world where their bodies and reproductive decision making is controlled by the state,” SisterSong Executive Director Monica Simpson said in a statement.
- Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who had supported the restriction, immediately vowed an appeal. “We will appeal the court’s decision,” Kemp said in a statement. “Georgia values life and we will keep fighting for the rights of the unborn.”
- The prospects of an appeal are uncertain though, as of last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down other abortion restrictions from Louisiana.
- “Today is a tremendous victory for the women of Georgia and for the Constitution,” American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia legal director Sean Young said. “Politicians have no business telling women or couples when to start or expand a family. This case has always been about one thing: Letting her decide.”
- Jones refused to leave any parts of the law in effect, which would have also granted personhood to a fetus, giving it the same legal rights as people have after they’re born. The law declared an embryo or fetus a “natural person” once cardiac activity can be detected, saying that is the point where “the full value of a child begins.” That would make the fetus a dependent minor for tax purposes and trigger child support obligations.
- U.S. Supreme Court precedent for nearly five decades held that states could not ban abortion prior to the viability of a fetus. Since Georgia’s law does just that it is unconstitutional, the law’s opponents argued. The state argued that the law promoted fetal well-being.
- After two new conservative justices were appointed to the Supreme Court, there have been several attempts to create fresh legal challenges to abortion. By a 5-4 vote back in June, the high court struck down another of those challenges involving strict abortion regulations from Louisiana.
- At least eight states passed so-called heartbeat bills or other sweeping bans in 2019, including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee, with South Carolina still considering one. All of the new bans joined the fate of earlier heartbeat abortion bans from Arkansas, North Dakota, and Iowa in being at least temporarily blocked by judges. Louisiana’s ban wouldn’t take effect unless a court upholds Mississippi’s law.
Women in Georgia can currently seek an abortion during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
