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candi miller
Judge Strikes Down Georgia's Six-Week Abortion Ban in 'Absolutely Epic Ruling'
"Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy," Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision.
Sep 30, 2024
Reproductive rights defenders cheered Monday's ruling by a Georgia judge striking down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that means the medical procedure will be legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney excoriated the LIFE Act, which was signed into law in 2019 by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and prohibits abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The so-called "fetal heartbeat" law—a medically misleading term—is applicable before many people even know they're pregnant.
Other states including Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio passed similar "heartbeat" laws in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, which occurred in 2022 when the tribunal's right-wing supermajority issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
"Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote," McBurney wrote in his ruling. "Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have."
"It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could—or should—force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another," the judge said.
"It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women—and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily Black and brown women—to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government's behest," McBurney added.
As Jessica Valenti noted on her Abortion, Every Day Substack, "the ruling comes just weeks after ProPublica's investigation into the deaths of two women killed by Georgia's abortion ban, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
As NBC Newsreported Monday:
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs in 2019 soon after Kemp signed it into law. As it faced the legal challenge, in 2022, McBurney ruled that year that the law violated the U.S. Constitution in 2022 and struck it down. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, soon took up the case and allowed it to remain in effect. The case was sent back to McBurney, who found the law in violation of the state's constitution.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement that Monday's ruling is "a significant step in the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia."
"We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy," Simpson continued. "At the same time, we can't forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller."
"For years, Black women have sounded the alarm that abortion bans are deadly," she noted. "While true justice would mean Amber and Candi were still with us today, we will continue to demand accountability to ensure that their lives—and the lives of others who we have yet to learn of—were not lost in vain."
"We know that the fight continues as anti-abortion white supremacists will stop at nothing to control our bodies and attack our liberation," Simpson added. "We are ready for them and will never back down until we achieve reproductive justice: the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, the human right to have children, or not, and raise them in safe and sustainable communities."
Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that McBurney "has rightfully struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban as a flagrant violation of Georgia's longstanding and robust right to privacy, restoring access to abortion at a time when too many have been prevented from accessing this critical health care and from deciding what is best for their bodies, health, and family lives."
"For too long, the ban has caused a public health crisis, as evidenced by the testimony plaintiffs presented at trial and devastating stories recently reported about the preventable deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman," she continued. "Today's ruling is a step toward ensuring that people can access and clinicians can provide critical healthcare without fear of criminalization or stigma."
"This victory demonstrates that when courts faithfully apply constitutional protections for bodily autonomy, laws that restrict access to abortion and force people to continue pregnancies against their will cannot stand," Wang added.
Since the Dobbs ruling, 13 states have passed abortion bans with limited exceptions and 28 states have prohibited the procedure based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
However, there has been tremendous nationwide pushback against abortion bans, with voters opting to uphold reproductive rights every time the issue appears on state ballots—including in conservative Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio.
As many as 10 states could have abortion rights measures on the ballot in this November's election, which at the top of the ticket pits reproductive freedom champion and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against former Republican President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three right-wing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and who critics fear would sign a national abortion ban if one were passed by Congress.
Trump also said he would allow states to monitor people's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban.
Kemp's office slammed McBurney's ruling.
"Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge," Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. "Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn."
Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is expected to appeal to the state Supreme Court to block Monday's ruling.
"We are prepared to continue fighting this case regardless," the Center for Reproductive Rights vowed on social media, "and we will NOT back down from this fight."
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Trump 'Is the Architect of This Crisis,' Says Harris of Women Killed by Abortion Bans
"He is proud? Proud that women are dying?" said the vice president. "Proud that doctors and nurses could be thrown in prison for administering care?"
Sep 20, 2024
Speaking at a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to two women from the state whose deaths have been deemed by health experts as "preventable" and the result of the state's six-week abortion ban.
Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, said the Democratic presidential candidate, are doubtlessly just two of many people who have died because they couldn't access abortion care since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—and she blamed former Republican President Donald Trump for their deaths.
"This is a healthcare crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis," said Harris. "He brags about overturning Roe v. Wade. In his own words, quote, 'I did it and I'm proud to have done it.'"
"He is proud? Proud that women are dying?" she said. "Proud that doctors and nurses could be thrown in prison for administering care? Proud that today, young women have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers? How dare he."
Harris shared the stories, reported on this week by ProPublica, of Thurman and Miller, who both died in 2022 after medication abortions did not entirely expel the fetal tissue from their pregnancies.
Thurman spent 20 hours in a hospital growing increasingly sick from sepsis while doctors dangerously delayed performing a dilation and curettage (D&C), a common procedure used for miscarriage and abortion care, due to Georgia's six-week abortion ban. While the ban includes an "exception" to safe the life of a pregnant person, the law's language only makes clear that doctors can perform a D&C for someone having a miscarriage.
The law stopped Miller from seeking healthcare after suffering the same rare complication as Thurman. The mother of three acquired pills for a medication abortion online but did not expel all the fetal tissue and was "bedridden and moaning" for days before her husband found her unresponsive, next to her three-year-old daughter.
Miller's family said she had not sought care "due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions."
At the event on Friday, Harris said that "at least two women—and those are only the stories we know—here in the state of Georgia, died because of a Trump abortion ban."
The vice president noted that Trump said last month he plans to vote against Amendment 4 in his home state of Florida—a ballot measure that would outlaw pre-viability abortion bans in the state.
Harris warned voters not to believe the claims by Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), that they don't support making abortion illegal across the nation, a proposal made by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) months after Roe was overturned.
"The stakes are so high," said Harris, "because if he is elected again, I am certain he will sign a national abortion ban."
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