Hawaiian Judge In Georgia Presumes to Overturn the State's Six Week Law on Abortion, Citing... Roe V. Wade; He Says Roe Had Been In Effect When the Law Was Passed

Are You.

F***ing.

Kidding.

Me.

I don't expect this "reasoning" will survive an appeal.

A judge overturned Georgia's ban on abortion starting around six weeks into a pregnancy, ruling Tuesday that it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it was enacted three years ago and was therefore void.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney's ruling took effect immediately statewide, though the state attorney general's office said it filed an appeal. The ban had been in effect since July.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, which represented doctors and advocacy groups that had asked McBurney to throw out the law, said it expects abortions past six weeks of pregnancy to resume Wednesday at some clinics.

...

Kara Richardson, a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, said in an email that the office filed a notice of appeal and "will continue to fulfill our duty to defend the laws of our state in court."

Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said Tuesday was a "great day for Georgia women and for all Georgians."

"Today their right to make decisions for their own bodies, health, and families is vindicated," Young said in a statement.

Andrew Isenhour, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, said McBurney's ruling placed "the personal beliefs of a judge over the will of the legislature and people of Georgia."

"The state has already filed a notice of appeal, and we will continue to fight for the lives of Georgia's unborn children," he said in a statement.

Rep. Ed Setzler, the Republican from Atlanta suburb of Acworth who sponsored the law, said he was confident the state Supreme Court would overrule McBurney and reinstate the ban.

...

McBurney wrote in his ruling that when the law was enacted, "everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments -- federal, state, or local -- to ban abortions before viability."

Therefore, the state's law "did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now," he wrote.

The state had argued that the Roe decision itself was wrong and that the Supreme Court ruling wiped it out of existence.

McBurney did leave the door open for the legislature to revisit the ban.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the prohibition on abortions provided for in the 2019 law "may someday become the law of Georgia," he wrote.

But, he wrote, that can happen only after the General Assembly "determines in the sharp glare of public attention that will undoubtedly and properly attend such an important and consequential debate whether the rights of unborn children justify such a restriction on women's right to bodily autonomy and privacy."

Impeach and remove.

It's time to create our own #Resistance and pursue it mercilessly.

posted by Ace at 12:03 PM

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