District Judge Steve C. Jones, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

A federal judge in Atlanta has thrown out Georgia's abortion law, saying it violates constitutional rights.

District Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia on Monday granted summary judgment to SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other groups challenging the law passed by the Georgia General Assembly and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp last year.

The judge also denied the state's motion for summary judgment and enjoined the state and all defendants from enforcing the law created by House Bill 481.

The law bans abortion as soon as a health professional can detect fetal cardiac activity—which could be as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy—with limited exceptions for rape reported to police or a fatal medical condition.

The judge ruled that SisterSong and other civil rights and advocacy groups "have established that H.B. 481 is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it prohibits abortions at a pre-viability point in pregnancy."

"Pre-viability" is the standard first set decades ago by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and other rulings on a woman's right to make decisions regarding abortion.

Jones also ruled that the Georgia law is "unconstitutionally vague" and "violates the constitutional right to privacy."

"It is in the public interest, and is this Court's duty, to ensure constitutional rights are protected," Jones said.

"Because 'the constitutional liberty of the woman to have some freedom to terminate her pregnancy' is implicated here, the Court finds that a permanent injunction of H.B. 481 would not disserve the public interest," Jones said, ruling that SisterSong has satisfied all requirements to prove the case. "Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to a permanent injunction of the enforcement of H.B. 481 by Defendants and their successors in office."

"Georgia's abortion laws that were in effect prior to the passage of H.B. 481 remain in effect," Jones said at the end of a 67-page order. "As there are no further issues outstanding, the Clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment in favor of Plaintiffs and CLOSE THIS CASE."

Attorney General Chris Carr, charged with defending the state and H.B. 481, said his office is reviewing the order and will appeal but would not comment further Monday.

ACLU Georgia Legal Director Sean J. Young represents SisterSong.

"The district court blocked Georgia's abortion ban because it violates over 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and fails to trust women to make their own personal decisions," Young said after the ruling Monday. "This case has always been about one thing: letting her decide. It is now up to the State to decide whether to appeal this decision and prolong this lawsuit."

From the beginning, proponents of H.B. 481 staged it as a potential challenge to U.S. Supreme Court precedent on abortion. Carr and Solicitor General Andrew Pinson have relied on outside counsel: Consovoy McCarthy in Washington, D.C. The Consovoy team includes: Jeffrey M. Harris, Patrick Strawbridge and Steven Begakis.

Harris argued for Carr and Kemp in the most recent hearing last month, held through a videoconference. Elizabeth Watson of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation in New York argued for the plaintiffs, which also include the Feminist Women's Health Center, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

Watson resisted efforts to save parts of the bill—mainly a claim to legal standing for fertilized eggs—because she said the entire law is unconstitutional.

"They are seeking to ban abortion by making fetuses into persons," she said, contending that the provision would confuse other legal issues by amending hundreds of parts of the state Constitution.

Harris countered, "They just haven't met the burden to strike down this whole law."

Jones said at the hearing that he did not intend to decide until after the U.S. Supreme Court either adjourns at the end of June or rules in another pending abortion case: Russo v. June Medical Services.

The answer Jones said he was watching for in Russo was "whether abortion providers can be presumed to have third-party standing to challenge health and safety regulations on behalf of their patients absent a close relationship with their patients and a hindrance to their patients' ability to sue on their own behalf."

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on June 29 that the Louisiana law in question was unconstitutional.

Similar abortion bans have been blocked recently in other federal courts, including one in Tennessee on the same day.

Along with Young of ACLU Georgia, the winning legal team in included Elizabeth Watson and Susan Talcott Camp of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation in New York and Emily Nestler of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Plaintiffs also include the Feminist Women's Health Center, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

"This ban and the many other abortion bans being passed across the country are part of a coordinated, national strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade," Nestler said in a joint statement with Young Monday. "A similar abortion ban in Tennessee was blocked just earlier today. These states are hellbent on denying the women in their state bodily autonomy. Meanwhile, Georgia has the worst maternal mortality rate in the country. Black women in Georgia face the highest risk — they are 3.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. But instead of acting to help pregnant women, lawmakers are trying to ban abortion."

Watson — who argued for the plaintiffs in the Zoom hearing last month — said in the same statement that Georgia's law was "a blatantly unconstitutional and baseless attack on abortion."

"Georgia has one of the worst records in the country on Black maternal mortality — but instead of addressing that deadly crisis, Governor Kemp and anti-abortion politicians would apparently rather attack Georgians' reproductive freedom by passing a ban rooted in racism and misogyny," Watson said. "Georgians should have the right to access safe medical care whether they have decided to end a pregnancy or carry it to term, and we will always fight to make this a reality."