A new ruling from Judge McBurney in Georgia overturning the abortion ban and allowing the procedure to continue is amazing.
“While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State — and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work — the balance of rights favors the woman.”
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.”
“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could — or should — force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”
“When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then — and only then — should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it.”
“There is nothing so urgent or important to the State about the medical records of women who end pregnancies that the privacy rights of those women — and the Fourth Amendment protections that attach to those rights — can be bulldozed away by statutory enactment.”
“…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 healthcare choices.”
“Accordingly, Section 4 of the LIFE Act is hereby DECLARED unconstitutional. The State and all its agents, to include any County, Municipal, or other local authority, are once again ENJOINED from seeking to enforce in any manner the LIFE Act’s PECAP termination ban in Georgia.”
Sadly, I’m quite confident the Georgia Supreme Court will overturn this ruling. But damn. That is exactly the reasoned argument against banning abortion. It’s just obvious.
Here is the full ruling: s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2517…