ATLANTA, GA – The pro-abortion effort to strike down Georgia’s “heartbeat law” suffered a severe blow last week when the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 6-1 to uphold the law for the second time since Roe v. Wade was struck down. Georgia’s High Court vacated a lower judge’s second attempt to render the six-week abortion ban unconstitutional and ordered that judge to reassess whether the abortion activists who brought the case even have standing to do so in the first place. Georgia’s “Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act,” or LIFE Act, continues to protect unborn babies with a “detectable human heartbeat.”

In the order, the Georgia Supreme Court told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney to reconsider whether the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a national abortion activist group headquartered in Atlanta, has standing to challenge the law in light of another Georgia Supreme Court decision. Recently, in Wasserman v. Franklin County, the state’s High Court eliminated third-party standing in Georgia courts. The Court noted that a plaintiff may not sue in Georgia courts by just merely asserting the rights of a third party but have to assert his or her own rights to be able to sue.

With the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a national right to abortion in 2022, and now with the Georgia Supreme Court’s third-party ruling, this leaves pro-abortion advocates in the state questioning whether they can sue on behalf of their patients and examining under what rights can they challenge the “heartbeat law” at all. If Judge McBurney determines SisterSong lacks standing under Georgia’s new legal framework, the case could be dismissed. If he continues to side with the pro-abortion plaintiffs, then it could end up back at the state’s supreme court for a third time.

In October 2023, Judge McBurney first ruled that Georgia’s 2019 LIFE Act was invalid because it was enacted under the binding precedent of Roe v. Wade, which had conferred a national right to abortion in the first trimester. Essentially, Judge McBurney determined an unconstitutional law can’t stand even if it becomes constitutional later. The Georgia Supreme Court quickly overruled Judge McBurney 6-1 citing that the U.S. Constitution has a “fixed meaning” and the 2022 Dobbs decision rescinded the “egregiously wrong” Roe decision and is now the controlling precedent. 

Georgia’s High Court then sent the case back to Judge McBurney to consider the merits of other legal arguments against the law. In September 2024, Judge McBurney ruled again agreeing with pro-abortion advocates that the LIFE Act violates Due Process and Equal Protection rights by infringing on a person’s privacy and autonomy. The Georgia Supreme Court did not rule on these merits when it vacated Judge McBurney’s most recent decision deciding only to focus on the issue of standing. 

Liberty Counsel had filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of the Frederick Douglass Foundation and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference that serve members of the African American and Hispanic communities in Georgia and across the United States. Liberty Counsel noted that the century-old eugenics movement continues today in the abortion industry under the guise of the modern “reproductive justice” and “family planning” movements. Namely, this is accomplished through the distribution of the abortion pill Mifepristone, which is disproportionately used to target Black, Hispanic, and disabled communities.

Liberty Counsel concluded, “The LIFE Act directly addresses these harms by affirming the equal dignity and value of all human life, rejecting the eugenic ideology embedded in abortion advocacy, and protecting vulnerable populations from targeted eradication. Upholding this law is consistent with Georgia’s constitutional tradition and furthers its compelling interest in safeguarding the rights and lives of its most defenseless citizens—the unborn.”

At least three other states have six-week “heartbeat” laws, such as Florida, Iowa, and South Carolina, which all have been upheld by their respective state supreme court. 

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Georgia’s ‘heartbeat law’ protects the most vulnerable and there is nothing unconstitutional about that. There is no right to cruelly kill defenseless children in the womb. Abortion harms women physically and emotionally and kills defenseless children in the womb. Abortion is also a tool of modern-day eugenics rooted in racism to eliminate certain races and people. Georgia’s abortion ban protects countless women and innocent unborn lives.” 

For more information about state laws protecting unborn life, visit Liberty Counsel’s website here.