Gabrielle Russon
Floridians could get more access to abortion after a Georgia Judge knocked down the state’s six-week abortion ban and ruled it unconstitutional.
Abortion rights advocates say women are traveling hundreds of miles to access treatment after Florida’s own six-week abortion ban went into effect in May.
Georgia lawmakers passed the Living Infants and Fairness Equality (LIFE) Act, which criminalized most abortions starting at about six weeks. The law was allowed to go into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
However, with Monday’s court ruling, Judge Robert McBurney struck down the law in Fulton County Superior Court.
“When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene,” he wrote. “An arbitrary six-week ban on (post-embryonic cardiac activity pregnancy) terminations is inconsistent with these rights and the proper balance that a viability rule establishes between a woman’s rights of liberty and privacy and society’s interest in protecting and caring for unborn infants.”
The state plans to appeal.
“We believe Georgia’s LIFE Act is fully constitutional, and we will immediately appeal the lower court’s decision,” said Kara Murray, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr.
Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective filed the lawsuit to challenge Georgia’s law.
With six-week abortion bans in Georgia and Florida, Floridians have been accessing abortion pills through mail or traveling as far away as North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Chicago and New York to access medical treatment, advocates said.
On the ballot this November is an initiative that would enshrine abortion rights into the Florida Constitution. To pass, however, it needs at least 60% of the vote.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is personally opposed to Amendment 4, has been accused of inappropriately using state resources to fight it. He argues Amendment 4 is written vaguely and will deregulate the abortion industry and make Florida a safe haven for women from other states who want abortions.
8 comments
Ruth Lesdeth
October 1, 2024 at 10:19 am
The tally of sacrificed children ever rises. Herod the Great would be so proud.
John Cunniff
October 1, 2024 at 11:06 am
Your bias is showing. You include a link to Yes on 4, but not No on 4, so just for balance: https://votenoon4florida.com/
Cheesy Floridian
October 1, 2024 at 3:53 pm
thank you
cassandra was right
October 2, 2024 at 7:24 pm
Read the amendment. The “NO” website is extremist nonsense. All the points on the site are false, misleading, and dangerous to women and girls.
Even saying abortion is the only medical procedure not requiring parental consent is a lie. Childbirth doesn’t require anyone’s consent! Stop repeating the lies!
As to “allows abortion at any point”? To save a woman or girl’s life and health. No more begging to be allowed to live or keep our health! No more 10 year olds forced to be pregnant! Bans are immoral! These “NO” extremists should be shunned by decent people.
Vote YES on 4!
yew oweme
October 2, 2024 at 8:01 pm
JOHN CUNNIFF, right wing anti womens rights freaks are not at all balanced in their approach. there is no balance on taking peoples human rights away like white christian nationalist are doing when they are able. are you one of them? i thought so.
Cindy
October 1, 2024 at 11:13 am
All that running around should be a turn off to a heated night
cassandra was right
October 1, 2024 at 1:53 pm
Here’s WHAT THE JUDGE ACTUALLY WROTE:
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.
…It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could–or should–force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”
—Judge Robert McBurney
Cheesy Floridian
October 1, 2024 at 3:59 pm
A judge with common sense
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