ACLU files lawsuit arguing Georgia’s abortion ban violates state constitution
The ACLU of Georgia filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state’s new six-week abortion ban.
Last week, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Georgia’s abortion law, which was originally passed by the General Assembly in 2019, to take effect. The law, HB 481, bans abortions at about six weeks, except in the cases of reported rape or incest or if the mother’s life is at risk.
The federal court determined that the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade cleared the way for the law to take effect, and rejected arguments that the definition of “personhood” in the law was too vague.
“This abortion ban sends the distrubing message that Georgia is closed to women seeking equal opportunity and basic rights to make private decisions about their future,” said Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, in a news release from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The ACLU argues in the lawsuit that HB 481 was void from the start because it violated federal constitutional precedent when enacted in 2019, and a change in federal law can’t revive it. The challenge also states that the law violates Georgians’ rights to privacy under the state constitution that prohibits interference with their life, body and health.
The lawsuit argues that the state constitution’s right to privacy “inherently encompasses an individual’s decision whether to carry a pregnancy to term.”
The ACLU also included a state constitutional challenge to a provision of Georgia law, which was expanded by HB 481, that grants district attorneys access to the medical files of anyone who seeks an abortion without a subpoena.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are a coalition of Georgia-based doctors and advocates including the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, which is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “improve institutional policies and systems that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities.”
Georgia’s abortion ban is particularly dangerous, the news release said, because of the state’s high maternal mortality rate, especially among Black Georgians.
“SisterSong and our partners have been in the fight against Georgia’s six-week abortion ban from the beginning,” SisterSong Executive Director Monica Simpson said in the news release. “And today we are sending a clear message that we’re not giving up.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 3:15 PM with the headline "ACLU files lawsuit arguing Georgia’s abortion ban violates state constitution."
