The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled in favor this Monday of the Republican authorities, who had appealed the decision of a trial judge to restore the authorization of abortion around 20 to 22 weeks.
The Supreme Court of the US state of Georgia has reinstated a law banning abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy, suspending the decision made by a trial judge.
The debate on the limits of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) is at the heart of the campaign for the elections of November 5. The spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, reacted by denouncing “chaos and confusion for women and doctors” created by the very restrictive laws adopted following the Supreme Court decision in June 2022.
Republican candidate Donald Trump prides himself on having, through his appointments of three conservative judges to the Supreme Court of the United States when he was president, brought about the cancellation of the federal guarantee of the right to abortion. Through this reversal of half a century of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has given states full latitude to legislate in this area.
“Arbitrary ban”
In Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp was thus able to bring into force in July 2022 the previously inapplicable provisions of a 2019 law prohibiting – with rare exceptions – abortion beyond the period at which it can be detected a first cardiac activity, approximately six weeks of pregnancy.
On September 30, Judge Robert McBurney nevertheless overturned this law, considering that the Constitution of Georgia guarantees “the power of a woman to control her own body”even if this power is not “not unlimited”. “When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume the welfare and responsibility for this separate life, then, and only then, can society intervene”he estimated.
Denouncing “an arbitrary ban on terminations of pregnancies at six weeks”a threshold where “many women are completely unaware that they are pregnant or at best are unsure”the judge had restored the authorization of abortion until the viability of the fetus, i.e. around 20 to 22 weeks. But state Republican officials appealed the decision. The Supreme Court of Georgia therefore satisfied them until it ruled on the merits.
The media ProPublica reported in September on the death of a 28-year-old woman in a Georgia hospital in August 2022, attributing it to a lack of care caused by restrictive abortion laws in that state.
