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Highlighting Election Stakes, Top Georgia Court Revives 6-Week Abortion Ban
"We don't have to guess what another Trump presidency will bring, Georgians and millions more are living it."
Oct 07, 2024
Just a week after Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban with an "absolutely epic ruling," the state Supreme Court on Monday reinstated House Bill 481, demonstrating what's at stake in next month's U.S. elections.
In a 6-1 decision, the Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay sought by Republican state Attorney General Christopher Carr. The so-called Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act took effect again at 5:00 pm on Monday. The high court left in place the judge's decision to block prosecutors' broad access to abortion patients' medical records as the case proceeds.
"It is cruel that our patients' ability to access the reproductive healthcare they need has been taken away yet again," said Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women's Health Center, in a Monday statement. "Once again, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy and deny them care that we are fully capable of providing to change their lives."
"This ban has wreaked havoc on Georgians' lives, and our patients deserve better," she continued. "The state of Georgia has chosen to subject our community to those devastating harms once again, even in light of the deadly consequences we have already witnessed. We will keep fighting to protect our patients, their health, their rights, and their dignity—in the clinic, in the Capitol, in the courts, and in the community."
The state and national ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Georgia-based law firms have challenged H.B. 481 on behalf of Jackson's group as well as multiple providers and organizations including Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
"Today's ruling is an egregious example of how far anti-abortion lawmakers and judges will go to strip Georgians of their fundamental rights," stressed Jaylen Black, vice president of communications and marketing of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "As our state and region have been battered by Hurricane Helene and chemically polluted air quality, they're focused on causing more harm rather than prioritizing time-sensitive recovery efforts. At every turn, they choose to put their own agendas above our health and well-being."
The Georgia law—which prohibits abortion after cardiac activity can be detected, which is before many people even know they are pregnant—is one of several strict bans that have been enacted or allowed to take effect since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade in June 2022.
Reproductive freedom has been a key topic of the 2024 election cycle, at all levels of politics, including and especially the presidential contest. Former Republican President Donald Trump has bragged about appointing half the justices who overturned Roe but also unsuccessfully tried to distance himself from the most extreme abortion bans.
Meanwhile, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly stressed her support for reproductive freedom and attacked her opponent for his role in rolling it back, including in a speech in Georgia last month and a Sunday appearance on Call Her Daddy, a podcast whose primary audience is younger American women.
During Harris' September speech, she paid tribute to Georgia women whose deaths health experts have said were "preventable" and the result of the state's six-week abortion ban. Critics of the high court's new ruling also pointed to their deaths.
"Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists. Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer," asserted SisterSong executive director Monica Simpson. "Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health—all for the sake of power and control over our bodies. This decision is unconscionable, especially after the loss of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, two Black women who would be here today had this ban not been in place."
"This ban is rooted in white supremacy and intensifies an already dire situation in Georgia, where Black women are more than twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications compared to white women, largely due to the absence of Medicaid expansion, a shortage of OB-GYNs, and a healthcare system rife with inequities since its founding," she continued. "Despite all evidence that this ban is killing us, the court sided with those more interested in limiting our access to care than seeing us live and thrive."
Simpson declared that "now, we need everyone to turn their pain into action and vote with these issues in mind this November."
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, also responded to the Georgia high court's ruling by emphasizing the importance of electing Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, next month.
"Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died because of this abortion ban," she
said on social media. "We fight back in their memory and the countless other women across the country who have their freedoms at risk. 29 days until we elect repro champions to fix this mess starting with VP Harris and Gov. Walz."
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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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Ohio Woman Won't Be Charged After Miscarriage But 'This Doesn't Undo the Harm'
"Criminalizing a woman for miscarrying at home shouldn't have happened in the first place," said SisterSong. "Our fight for reproductive justice isn't over."
Jan 11, 2024
While welcoming that an Ohio woman who miscarried a nonviable fetus last year won't face a felony charge of abuse of a corpse, reproductive rights advocates on Thursday highlighted Brittany Watts' experience as further proof that, as Jane's Due Process put it, "pregnant people still live with the threat of prosecution in the current oppressive environment."
The Trumbull County grand jury's decision to not indict Watts—who miscarried at her Warren home in September at just over 21 weeks pregnant—comes after the 34-year-old's case garnered national attention amid battles over reproductive freedom that have ramped up in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
"Let's be clear that this doesn't undo the harm, and the case shouldn't have been pursued in the first place," the group Pregnancy Justice said after the grand jury's decision. "This is why advocacy matters. As long as prosecutors feel obligated to criminalize pregnancy, there will be more cases like Brittany's. When we fight collectively, we can win."
SisterSong similarly declared that "we're relieved Brittany Watts will NOT be criminalized for having a miscarriage. It's wild to us that we even have to say something like that, because... criminalizing a woman for miscarrying at home shouldn't have happened in the first place."
"Our fight for reproductive justice isn't over," the organization stressed. "We will continue to demand a world where we have the autonomy to make decisions about our bodies."
The Afiya Center pointed out that Black women like Watts face "a higher risk of maternal mortality and morbidity."
"Let’s be clear—Brittany Watts should never have been charged with a felony because of her pregnancy outcome," the center said. "The criminalization of Black folk who miscarry sets a dangerous tone and poses a threat to the health of ALL Black pregnant folk."
Watts and her attorney, Traci Timko, also emphasized the need for broader change on Thursday.
"From the start of this case, I have argued that the charge was not supported by Ohio law and that Brittany was being demonized for something that takes place in the privacy of women's homes regularly," Timko said in a statement. "No matter how shocking or disturbing it may sound when presented in a public forum, it is simply the devastating reality of miscarriage.”
"We thank the public for the outpouring of love and support Brittany received. To the countless women who reached out to share their own devastating stories of pregnancy loss—Brittany read every one of them and felt a sisterhood to each of you," the lawyer said. "The emails, letters, calls, donations, and prayers—they all played a part in empowering and getting her through each day. It is our hope and intention to make sure that Brittany's story is an impetus to change."
The Associated Pressreported that while speaking at a pre-planned event on Thursday, Watts said: "I want to thank my community—Warren. Warren, Ohio. I was born here. I was raised here. I graduated high school here, and I'm going to continue to stay here because I have to continue to fight."
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