Georgia Supreme Court reinstates six-week abortion ban

The Georgia Supreme Court decided on Monday to reinstate the state’s six-week gestational age limit on abortion only one week after it had been overturned by a lower court.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, appealed to the state Supreme Court for emergency relief on Wednesday to review Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s decision to overturn the state’s six-week ban.

The state Supreme Court granted the ban to be put back in effect indefinitely while the state’s appeals case goes through the normal channels.

The ruling issued by seven of the nine state Supreme Court justices was unanimous, with Justices Andrew Pinson and Nels S.D. Peterson not participating.

“Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists,” said lead plaintiff Monica Simpson, executive of the reproductive rights organization SisterSong. “Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer.”

Georgia’s anti-abortion law prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, at which point fetal cardiac activity can usually be detected via ultrasound.

The law was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in 2019 and only took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, giving authority over abortion policy to the states.

The six-week ban does contain exceptions for rape and incest, as well as for the life and physical health of the mother, but exceptions to abortion restrictions have come under heavy scrutiny from abortion-rights advocates, particularly in Georgia.

Last month, ProPublica reported the August 2022 death of Amber Nicole Thurman , a 28-year-old Georgia resident and mother of a 6-year-old boy who died due to complications from abortion pills.

Thurman waited 20 hours to receive a dilation and curettage procedure, or D&C, to resolve the complications from her medication abortion, which abortion-rights advocates blame on confusion in the medical community following the implementation of Georgia's abortion ban.

Thurman’s case has become a flashpoint in the debate over abortion policy during the 2024 election cycle at the national level and within the 10 states that have abortion-rights amendments on the ballot next month.

The court ruling that struck down the six-week ban described abortion as a “healthcare choice” and would have restored abortion rights up until the point of fetal viability, when the child could survive outside of the womb, at approximately 22 to 24 weeks gestation.

Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represented abortion-rights advocates in the case, said Monday’s reinstatement of the ban “only doubles our resolve to keep fighting.”

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“Gov. Kemp and Attorney General Carr told the state Supreme Court that reinstating an abortion ban that is literally killing Georgia women would not cause ‘much harm,’ and the state Supreme Court apparently believed that cruel lie,” Kaye said.

Kemp’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.