ATLANTA — Advocates on both sides of the women’s reproductive rights issue weighed in on the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling to allow the state’s six-week abortion ban to stay in place.
Representatives with the Georgia Right to Life organization said they had mixed reactions, “While Georgia Right to Life supports the strong pro-personhood language included in the legislation, it sadly creates a two-tiered framework for determining which children in the womb will be allowed to live and which will not.”
ARC Southeast, a reproductive care organization, said the ban “…will not stop abortions in Georgia — it will only stop safe, legal abortions, forcing birthing people into oppressive and complex scenarios to receive the care they deserve.”
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“This is a setback, absolutely,” former state senator and reproductive rights advocate Jen Jordan told Channel 2′s Audrey Washington on Tuesday.
But Suzanne Guy with the Life Initiatives and Values Organization said she believes the ruling is positive.
“I consider today a great victory,” Guy said.
Next, a lower court will hear arguments on the question of whether the right to privacy in Georgia’s constitution protects a right to abortion.
“Georgia has had a right to privacy constitutionally recognized,” Jordan said.
“This bill and everything that it embodies really makes women second-class citizens.”
Guy said despite the court sending the case back to a Fulton County Judge, she remains optimistic.
“We will keep on doing what we’ve always done,” she said.
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In a statement, the president of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Group called the ruling a victory.
The president wrote that the decision, “...ensures that tens of thousands of children with beating hearts will continue to be protected from brutal abortions. It is the latest vindication of the will of Georgians, who have compassion for both babies and mothers...”.
Advocates with the Feminist Women’s Health Center also responded, saying, “It is heart-wrenching that we are being forced to turn patients away who need abortion care beyond the earliest weeks of pregnancy.”
“Abortion is an essential component of reproductive health care, and this law is putting people’s lives at risk. We will continue to fight this ban on behalf of our patients and our communities.”
Next, a Fulton County judge will address each part of the law to determine its constitutionality.
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