Georgia Abortion Law Struck Down as Unconstitutional

10/01/2024|2 minute read

Key Takeaways:

• On September 30, the Superior Court of Fulton County held that the Georgia Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act (the LIFE Act) is unconstitutional.
• Georgia's abortion law has reverted to what it was prior to the passage of the LIFE Act.

On September 30, the Superior Court of Fulton County held that the Georgia Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act (the LIFE Act) is unconstitutional on both due process and equal protection grounds. Accordingly, Georgia's law with respect to abortion reverts to what it was prior to the passage of the LIFE Act. A copy of the court's decision can be found here.

Right to Liberty of Privacy

The Constitution of the State of Georgia states that "[n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law." This provision of the Georgia Constitution protects Georgians' right to the "liberty of privacy," which includes the right to control what happens to and within one's own body.

The court found that because the LIFE Act infringes on a woman's fundamental rights to "make her own healthcare choices and to decide what happens to her body, with her body, and in her body," it must serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored to achieve that end. Though the state's interest in protecting "unborn" life is compelling, the court was not persuaded that the LIFE Act was appropriately narrow in scope to protect the interests at stake. Because of the physical, mental and emotional impact of unwanted pregnancies on the women who are forced by law to carry them to term, the court found that until the pregnancy is viable, a woman's right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected. Thus, the LIFE Act failed to strike the appropriate balance between protecting the woman's liberty interest and protecting Georgia's interest in "unborn" life.

The court further found that the requirement that "[h]ealth records shall be available to the district attorney of the judicial circuit in which the act of abortion occurs or the woman upon whom an abortion is performed resides" unconstitutionally violates patients' right to privacy by empowering prosecutors to obtain personal medical information without sufficient process.

Equal Protection

The equal protection clause of the Georgia Constitution "prohibit[s] the state from creating a classification which arbitrarily divides similarly situated citizens into different classes and treats them differently." The court provided that because the rights involved in the application of the LIFE Act are fundamental, differential treatment "can be justified only when it is sufficiently related to a compelling state interest."

The court found that the LIFE Act impermissibly segregates and treats differently classes of women by treating pregnant women with mental health emergencies differently than women with physical health emergencies. The court concluded that "[a] law that saves a mother from a potentially fatal pregnancy when the risk is purely physical but which fates her to death or serious injury or disability if the risk is "mental or emotional" is patently unconstitutional and violative of the equal protection rights of pregnant women suffering from acute mental health issues."

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