ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a decision that overturned the state's abortion law.
The law has been in effect, however, after the Supreme Court initially reinstated the abortion ban while considering the case.
The law, which was signed back in 2019, did not go into effect until Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Once the law was set to go into effect, a Fulton County judge ruled to overturn the state’s ban on abortion.
Judge Robert C.I. McBurney held in a decision in November 2022 that the ban was invalid because it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent at the time it became law.
The judge had based his holding in a legal principle called ab initio - basically, you can't pass an unconstitutional law even if it later becomes constitutional.
The Georgia Supreme Court in an opinion released Tuesday held that that was wrong, writing, "the trial court erred in concluding, based on since-overruled decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, that the LIFE Act violated the U.S. Constitution when the Act was enacted."
“The holdings of United States Supreme Court cases interpreting the United States Constitution that have since been overruled cannot establish that a law was unconstitutional when enacted and therefore cannot render a law void ab initio,” Justice Verda M. Colvin wrote in the majority opinion.
McBurney did not rule on a more substantive claim brought by challengers to the abortion law, which is that the Georgia Constitution provides for a "right to privacy" that would render the abortion law unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court has now "sent the case back to the trial court to consider the merits of the other challenges brought by opponents of the Act."
This is a developing story. Check back often for new information.
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