ATLANTA — Less than a week after a federal appeals court allowed Georgia’s restrictive abortion law to go into effect, activists and providers have taken their challenge of the statute to state court.
The ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week allowed Georgia’s 2019 law to be enforced. That means most abortions are no longer allowed once a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity, typically about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.
The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other abortion rights groups and providers sued Georgia in 2019 after the Legislature passed the law. Many of those same groups are now suing in Fulton County Superior Court citing the state’s constitution, which some legal experts have said grants more expansive rights to privacy than the U.S. Constitution.
