According to Georgia’s Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, “liberty” by the state’s definition is “the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.” Under this notion of belief, the judge ruled on Monday to strike down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, which McBurney considered “arbitrary” in the first place.

HB 481, also known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act (the Life Act), protects unborn children from abortion after six weeks. McBurney, however, believed “certain provisions” of this to be “unconstitutional,” as he stated in his ruling. He added, “The baseline rule is clear: a legally competent person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does — and does not do — in terms of health, hygiene, and the like.”

The judge went on to state how “at some point, the pregnancy acquires its own rights that deserve protection,” but he quickly argued that “we struggle mightily — and not always peaceably — with determining when that point arrives.” However, due to McBurney striking down the Life Act, it is now legal in Georgia to abort a child up to viability, which can be as late as 22 weeks into pregnancy. This is despite the fact that “younger babies have survived outside the womb,” The Daily Wire pointed out.

Notably, this ruling comes only a matter of weeks after the highly controversial stories circulated media outlets about two women in Georgia who died. As The Washington Stand previously reported, “ProPublica’s Kavitha Surana and Ziva Branstetter both accused pro-life laws in Georgia of being responsible for the tragic deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.” But experts were quick to address the fact that these stories had been heavily manipulated, and have since clarified that these deaths were not due to pro-life laws but to taking the chemical abortion pill — a process the pro-life medical experts have warned against for years.

But regarding HB 481, the recent strike down is the result of a multi-year battle between those who want the bill enforced and those who want it eradicated. The Daily Wire added that Monday’s decision “is the second time Georgia’s six-week abortion ban has been struck down. The first time was in November, 2022 shortly after the law took effect the previous July. The law had been blocked since 2019.”

In an exclusive comment to TWS, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America State Policy Director Katie Glenn Daniel stated, “This new ruling denies the humanity of unborn children with beating hearts and would legalize late-term abortion in Georgia,” which she noted “is wildly out of step with voters.” According to Daniel, this is yet another example of “an activist judge [overriding] the voters’ elected representatives to impose his desired outcome.”

In fact, as Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, shared with TWS, the Life Act proved that “legislators in the state of Georgia chose to protect unborn babies after their hearts beat.” Yet, “In a sweeping act,” it was this judge that “decided they cannot do so.”

“What a sad day for the people of Georgia,” Szoch lamented. “It’s hard to fathom the mental gymnastics that someone has to do to conclude that stopping another’s heartbeat is about control of a woman’s own body.” However, as “this judge was previously reversed by the Georgia Supreme Court,” Daniel emphasized, he “should be reversed again.” Until then, this case can serve as an example of “the consequences of judicial activism and pro-abortion misinformation,” which “are dangerous for women and deadly for unborn babies.”

In increasingly dire circumstances, Szoch concluded, “The pro-life movement must work to change hearts, minds, and law, and bring about the day when every unborn child is protected from the moment of fertilization.”