ATLANTA — There is joy and relief on one side, and disappointment and even anger on the other side now that Georgia’s Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s controversial “heartbeat” abortion restrictions should remain in place.
That means no abortions are allowed, in most cases, once there is a fetal heartbeat--often at six weeks into the pregnancy.
But the court also opened the door for abortion-rights advocates to try one more time to overturn the law.
The court is giving abortion rights advocates the chance to go to a lower court, to try to convince the judge—Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney—that the abortion restrictions should be overturned, based on a different legal argument. It’s the issue of whether Georgia’s restrictions violate the right to privacy in the state constitution.
But there is also a potential Catch-22 for advocates:
If McBurney does overturn the law, the case could end up before the state Supreme Court again, on appeal--the same court that just upheld the law.
Republican State Senator Ed Setzler of Cobb County, who authored the law in 2019, is confident that the state Supreme Court will not overturn it.
“The LIFE Act balances those privacy interests, the difficult circumstances women find themselves in, but you’re counterbalancing that with a basic right to life of a child,” Setzler said Tuesday. “I think the Supreme Court's going to recognize this right to life is really inviolate at the point of a heartbeat as the General Assembly has passed.”
Abortion rights advocates like Senate Democrat Elena Parent of DeKalb County are pushing for a statewide referendum to let voters decide the issue--which Republican leaders at the Capitol will not let happen.
“I have no doubt that if that were the case, that women's rights, women's reproductive rights, would be restored,” Parent said.
Ultimately, she is not optimistic that opponents will be able to overturn the law unless Democrats win a majority in the legislature and take the Governor’s office.
“With a very conservative-leaning Supreme Court, a vast majority of the members appointed by Republican governors, we would expect that abortion rights faces an up an uphill battle,” she said.
And advocates on each side are gearing up to continue their fight.