The Georgia Supreme Court struck down a ruling made by a lower court that found the state's restrictive six-week abortion ban law invalid.
The decision leaves limited access to abortions in the state unchanged, at least for now. In a statement last November, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said that the state's abortion ban was "unequivocally unconstitutional" because it was enacted four years ago.
Georgia's Six-Week Abortion Ban
It was when Roe v. Wade allowed abortions well past six weeks and comes as Georgia's law bans most abortions after roughly six weeks. The state's Supreme Court made a 6-1 decision that said McBurney was wrong.
Justice Verda Colvin wrote for the majority and said that when the United States Supreme Court overruled its precedent interpreting the Constitution, they were obliged to apply the new interpretation on matters of federal constitutional law.
In a news release, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia said that the opinion disregards "long-standing precedent that a law violating either the state or federal Constitution at the time of its enactment is void from the start under the Georgia Constitution," as per the Associated Press.
The group represents doctors and advocacy groups that previously asked McBurney to throw out the law. However, the ruling of Georgia's Supreme Court does not change abortion access in the region and will not be the last word on the state's ban on the procedure.
Previously, the Georgia Supreme Court allowed enforcement of the ban to resume while it considered an appeal of the lower court decision. The lower court judge has also not ruled on the merits of other arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the ban. This includes violating Georgia residents' rights to privacy.
The Georgia Supreme Court's latest ruling on Tuesday will return the case to McBurney so he can consider those arguments. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was the one who signed the ban and hailed the recent ruling.
McBurney previously argued that the law was void from the start and that the measure did not become law when enacted and could not become law even after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, according to CBS News.
Legal Challenge on Ban of Procedure
State officials who challenged that decision noted the Supreme Court's finding that Roe v. Wade was an incorrect interpretation. Georgia's law bans most abortions once a "detectable human heartbeat" is present.
Typically, cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will eventually become the heart as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. This means that most abortions in the state were effectively banned at a point before many women even knew that they were carrying a child.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released a statement on Tuesday morning after the court issued its latest ruling. He said they were pleased with the decision and will continue defending the constitutionality of Georgia's LIFE Act.
This year, other states' supreme courts have ruled in various ways. In some situations, North Dakota and Oklahoma found that their state constitutions protected the right. However, Idaho ruled that its Constitution did not protect abortion, according to the New York Times.
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