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jessica valenti
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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Texas Approves Abortion Only After Woman Sues to Prove Medical Emergency
"Texans deserve to exercise reproductive freedom without fighting legal battles and without legislative interference in their lives," said the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Action.
Dec 07, 2023
Reproductive rights groups expressed relief Thursday that one woman in Texas was permitted to get abortion care after a Travis County judge granted a temporary restraining order to circumvent the state's pro-forced pregnancy laws, but said it was "unforgivable that she was forced to go to court" to request urgent medical care.
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a lawsuit against the state last week on behalf of Kate Cox, a Dallas resident, who had just learned at 20 weeks pregnant that her fetus had the fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18, as well as a spinal abnormality and other health issues.
Cox's case is the first in which a pregnant plaintiff has asked a court for an emergency abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
In court this week, Cox's lawyer, CRR senior staff attorney Molly Duane, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that Cox had had to go to the emergency room with cramping and fluid loss in the two days since she filed the lawsuit.
Since learning of the fetal diagnosis last week, Cox has sought emergency medical care four times due to her symptoms but doctors have been unable to provide her with legal abortion care due to the ban that took effect two months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Before Thursday, Cox's only options under Texas law were to have a Caesarean section after carrying the pregnancy to term—even as her health grew worse—or to have labor induced in the case of the fetal heartbeat stopping.
"Due to Kate's medical history," said CRR, "her OB-GYNs warned her that continuing to carry the pregnancy could jeopardize her health and future fertility."
Advocates including Duane and author Jessica Valenti expressed outrage at the arguments presented by the state—which, notedSlate journalist Mark Joseph Stern, "will likely appeal to try to block Cox's abortion."
Jonathan Stone, the lawyer representing Texas, told Gamble that "the only party that's going to suffer an immediate and irreparable harm in this case if the court enters a TRO [temporary restraining order] is the state," because the government would not be able to make its case in a regular hearing.
"The abortion once performed is permanent and cannot be undone," Stone said. "The plaintiffs are going to obtain permanent relief in this case through this TRO application without any evidence being considered by this court and in full-blown evidentiary hearing."
The state also claimed that Cox was not at a particular risk for life-threatening complications, despite her doctors' advice.
"These arguments are frankly stunning," said Duane. "The state goes as far to characterize her claims as 'a frivolous assertion of harm.'"
Cox's lawyers added that "the harm to Ms. Cox's life, health, and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone."
Cox "should never have had to fight in court for her life, her health, and her future," said U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). "This is the result of the GOP war on reproductive freedom. And it must be stopped."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said after Gamble's ruling was announced that while the TRO "purports" to allow an abortion to proceed, it "will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas' abortion laws."
"Most women are not able to do what Kate has done—many Texans have been forced to continue pregnancies that put their lives at risk," said Duane. "That is happening every day across Texas. As long as abortion is banned, pregnant people will suffer."
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Kidnapping Charges for Idaho Teen and Mother Seen as Test Case for 'Abortion Trafficking' Law
"Prosecutors seeking to test out laws like this are likely to go after people who won't garner much sympathy from the public," wrote one author and abortion rights activist.
Oct 31, 2023
An Idaho teenager and his mother who allegedly took a 15-year-old girl to neighboring Oregon for an abortion without parental knowledge or consent are facing felony kidnapping and other charges in a prosecution viewed as a test case for the state's "abortion trafficking" statute.
In April, Idaho became the first state in the nation to pass a so-called "abortion trafficking" law, criminalizing the transportation of pregnant minors within the state for the purpose of obtaining an abortion or abortion medication. While 18-year-old Kadyn Swainston and his 42-year-old mother Rachael Swainston of Pocatello were not charged under the law—perhaps because it is being challenged in court—author and activist Jessica Valenti noted that "prosecutors used theexact language of the trafficking law in the kidnapping charge."
"It's actually a pretty slick move, allowing prosecutors to charge the two with abortion trafficking without citing the statute specifically in case it gets blocked," Valenti wrote on her Substack.
The Idaho State Journal reported Monday that Kadyn Swainston has been charged with rape, second-degree kidnapping, and three counts of producing child sexually exploitative material—all felonies.
Rachael Swainston is charged with second-degree kidnapping, trafficking in methamphetamine, two counts of possession of a controlled substance, and one count of harboring a wanted felon—also all felonies.
If convicted of the most serious charges against them, the Swainstons could receive life prison sentences. According to Pocatello police, a woman contacted them in June claiming that her 15-year-old daughter—identified in court records as K.B.—had been raped by Kadyn Swaintston, who had been in a consensual relationship with the girl since he was 17 years old but as an adult allegedly ran afoul of the state's statutory rape law. The woman told investigators that the Swainstons took K.B. to Bend, Oregon for an abortion, without her knowledge or consent.
Idaho
law bans most abortions—with conditional exceptions for rape, incest, and when the pregnant person's life is endangered—and allows private citizens to sue anyone who "aids or abets" the procurement of an abortion and awards them $10,000 if they win their case. Fifty years of federal abortion rights were erased in June 2022 with the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling.
Valenti noted that police obtained permission from K.B. to track her phone's geolocational data to the area of the Planned Parenthood clinic where she had her abortion.
While executing a search warrant at the Swainstons' home, police also found more than 40 grams of methamphetamine there, as well as fentanyl and psychedelic mushrooms, and photos showing Kadyn Swainston and K.B. engaging in sex acts. They also found and arrested a man wanted on an outstanding warrant on meth trafficking charges who was staying in the home's storage shed.
"It's not surprising that the people at the center of this case seem to be having a really difficult time—we know that the most marginalized among us are much more likely to be charged or targeted by law enforcement in abortion-related cases (and all others)," wrote Valenti. "We also know that prosecutors seeking to test out laws like this are likely to go after people who won't garner much sympathy from the public."
"The hope," she added, "is that people will be a little less outraged over an objectively outrageous law."
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