SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday (Oct. 7) halted a ruling striking down the state’s near-ban on abortions while it considers the state’s appeal.
The high court’s order came a week after a Fulton County judge found that the state’s six-week abortion ban was unconstitutional and violated a woman’s rights to “liberty of privacy.”
The state Supreme Court put the lower court’s ruling on hold at the request of Republican state Attorney General Chris Carr, whose office is appealing.
In comments for Baptist Press, Allison Cantrell, senior policy associate for the Ethics & Religious Liberty, said the ruling was right one.
“As Southern Baptists, we believe that every life, regardless of ability or stage of development, is made in God’s image,” Cantrell said. “We celebrate laws like the LIFE Act that protect as many lives as possible now, even while we continue to pray and work towards a day when abortion at all stages is both illegal and unthinkable.”
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John J. Ellington argued that the case “should not be predetermined in the State’s favor before the appeal is even docketed.”
“The State should not be in the business of enforcing laws that have been determined to violate fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals under the Georgia Constitution,” Ellington wrote. “The ‘status quo’ that should be maintained is the state of the law before the challenged laws took effect.”
Clare Bartlett, executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, called the high court’s decision “appropriate,” saying that without it, women from other states would begin coming to Georgia for surgical abortions.
“There’s no there’s no right to privacy in the abortion process because there’s another individual involved,” Bartlett said. She added: “It goes back to protecting those who are the most vulnerable and can’t speak for themselves.”
Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, was one of a wave of abortion measures that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. It prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present.
Georgia has a separate criminal law that makes illegal abortions punishable by up to 10 years in prison for providers, but not for women having abortions. In addition, the 2019 law puts physicians at risk of losing their medical licenses if they perform unpermitted abortions.
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From The Associated Press. May not be republished. AP reporters Kate Brumback, Jeff Amy and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta contributed to this story.
