Elected officials in Cobb County and Georgia reacted along predictable partisan lines Friday to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
By a 6-3 vote, the Court reversed Roe v. Wade, which in 1973 gave women a constitutional right to privacy under the 14th Amendment.
Friday’s ruling (you can read it here) upheld a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The Supreme Court also struck down a 1992 ruling, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, that reaffirmed federal abortion rights.
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” concluded the court majority, all appointed by Republican presidents.
The three dissenting votes were from justices appointed by Democratic presidents. The ruling had been anticipated after a draft majority ruling written by Justice Joseph Alito was leaked to the Politico publication in May.
In Georgia, abortions are illegal after 20 weeks from fertilization (or 22 weeks after a woman’s last menstrual cycle), with exceptions for a threat to the mother’s life or if a baby’s health is severely compromised.
In recent years, the GOP-dominated legislature has been trying to impose more severe restrictions.
In 2019, HB 481, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, or the so-called “heartbeat bill” was passed that made abortion illegal in Georgia once a doctor could detect cardiac activity in a fetus (typically around six weeks).
That bill, sponsored by State Rep. Ed Setzler, an Acworth Republican, and Ginny Erhart, a Republican from West Cobb, is considered one of the harshest in the nation.
It contains exceptions for rape and incest, if the life of the mother is endangered or if a doctor determines a fetus is not viable for medical reasons.
But women also must file a police report in the case of rape or incest.
The law was struck down by a federal judge in 2020 on constitutional grounds. The state appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said last year it could not issue a ruling until the Supreme Court decided the Mississippi case.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is up for re-election this year, hailed the Supreme Court ruling as “a historic victory for life.”
By mid Friday afternoon, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr had filed notice with the 11th Circuit in Atlanta to lift the stay on the law. Unlike some other states, there is not an automatic trigger provision for the Georgia law.
“There is, simply put, nothing left of the Plaintiff-Appellees’ argument that Georgia law imposes an unconstitutional burden on the practice of abortion,” said the notice.
Stacey Abrams, Kemp’s Democratic opponent in the November general election, said that “if you’re a woman in Georgia, you should be terrified right now.”
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who is up for re-election in November, said that “I’m outraged by the Supreme Court’s decision. As a pro-choice pastor, I’ll never back down from this fight. Women must be able to make their own health care decisions, not politicians.”
His Republican opponent, former UGA football star Herschel Walker, who supports a total ban on abortions, said the court ruling “sends the issue of abortion back to the states, where it belongs. I stand for life and Raphael Warnock stands for abortion . . . I won’t apologize erring on the side of life.”
Two pro-life Republican lawmakers from East Cobb opposed the heartbeat bill. State Rep. Sharon Cooper and Sen. Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, retired medical professionals, said at the time that the bill would be ruled unconstitutional.
Kirkpatrick was out of town attending a funeral and was formally excused from voting when the bill came up for final Senate action. Cooper, the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, voted no on final passage.
East Cobb News left messages with Kirkpatrick and Cooper on Friday seeking comment.
U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, a Marietta Democrat who represents East Cobb in the 6th Congressional District, denounced the Supreme Court ruling.
“Today, every woman in America has been made less free,” she said in a statement issued by her Congressional office. “Today, extremists on the Supreme Court have stripped away a woman’s right to make choices about her own reproductive health care. Today, our nation’s highest court has rolled back the clock and stripped women of their liberty.
“Today, SCOTUS overturned a half century of precedent, and Dobbs will now join Plessy as one of the most regressive decisions in our nation’s history.”
The latter is a reference to Plessy v. Ferguson, an 1896 Supreme Court “separate but equal” ruling that upheld segregation laws, saying they didn’t violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
That ruling lasted for several decades, longer than Roe v. Wade, which prompted widespread activism from Christian conservatives and evangelicals.
The Cobb Republican Party posted a message on its Facebook page with a group photo of the Supreme Court saying “Prayers answered!!!” On Twitter, the message was “Life Wins!”
In 2018 Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to speak to the national March for Life rally in in Washington. His three Supreme Court justice nominees made up half of the majority that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Bryant Wright, the retired pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in East Cobb, tweeted “PTL! 50 years, at last a long awaited answer to prayer that every life is created in the image of God.”
The Catholic Church of St. Ann posted on its Facebook page a response from Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Atlanta hailing the ruling, saying that “No matter how the court ruled today, we will never stop working to protect women and their babies. Whether or not abortion is legal, we want women to know that we are here to support you, to accompany you and to love you and your babies.”
Related:
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- McCormick beats Evans in 6th Congressional GOP runoff
- Federal lawsuit challenges Cobb school board redistricting
- Georgia primary ballot questions deliver lopsided results
- Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge re-elected; other local results
- East Cobb Republican incumbents roll in primaries
- East Cobb Cityhood referendum defeated in landslide
- State Rep. Mitchell Kaye sworn in at Georgia Capitol
- East Cobb News Politics & Elections page
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