The current restrictions on abortion in Georgia should remain in place, the state Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
That means most abortions will continue to be banned once a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity, typically around six weeks of pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant, while the Fulton County Superior Court considers other arguments made by abortion advocates and providers about why the restrictions should be lifted, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other abortion rights groups and providers argued that when the state statute passed in 2019, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land and the state constitution does not allow the Legislature to enact statutes that violate the law.
The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed a right to an abortion until a fetus was viable outside the mother’s body, was overturned in 2022.
The state argued that it didn’t matter if the law was not constitutional when it passed the General Assembly in 2019, it is now in line with the law as established when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the 1973 decision had been wrong all along.
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