Georgia’s 6-Week Abortion Ban Is Struck Down

A Georgia judge on Monday struck down a state law effectively prohibiting abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy.

The ruling, by Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, is unlikely to be the final word because of the expectation that the case will ultimately be decided by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Still, the ruling means that women seeking abortions in Georgia will have greater access, at least temporarily, to a procedure that has become mostly inaccessible in the South since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Judge McBurney found that the six-week abortion ban, which was passed in 2019, violated Georgia’s Constitution, and his ruling returns the state to allowing the procedure up until about 22 weeks of pregnancy.

“A review of our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections and 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 health care choices,” Judge McBurney wrote in his 26-page ruling.