Georgia Supreme Court allows abortion ban to go into effect
The law had been challenged by Sistersong
Georgia’s Supreme Court allowed the six-week abortion ban to take effect on Tuesday. It will now go back to a lower court to review the facts of the case.
The law, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, went into effect in July 2022. Still, only a few months later, it was struck down by Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County, who called the ban “unequivocally unconstitutional,” according to reporting done by the Georgia Reporter. The case had been known as Sistersong v. State of Georgia.
The legislature enacted the law in 2019. Previously, the plaintiffs in the case had challenged the law because it had violated Supreme Court precedent, which Roe v. Wade governed at the time.
The court gave its reasoning in its decision.
“The United States Constitution, not the United States Supreme Court, is the source of the Constitution’s meaning,” it said. “The United States Supreme Court has no power to amend the Constitution through interpretation, and the text of the United States Constitution has not been amended since the LIFE Act was enacted.
“Thus, the United States Constitution means today what it meant when the LIFE Act was enacted in 2019, even if the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution has changed. As a result, the trial court erred in concluding that, even though the LIFE Act complies with the United States Constitution today, the LIFE Act violated the United States Constitution when the LIFE Act was enacted.”
In a news release, Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, called the decision devastating.
“This abortion ban has forced Georgians to travel across state lines at great expense or continue the life-altering consequences of pregnancy and childbirth against their wills,” Simpson said. “In a state that already has OB/GYN deserts, one of the highest maternal mortality rates, especially for us as Black women, and cruel anti-trans legislation, this decision only further disregards us, our bodily autonomy, and our lives.”