A Georgia judge struck down on Sept. 30 the state’s law barring abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, extending the cutoff on the procedure’s legal availability to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
The Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.
In that ruling, the high court’s justices found that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. But Georgia law does, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney held in his ruling.
“A review of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices,” McBurney wrote, declaring the law unconstitutional….