Georgia Supreme Court sends lawsuit challenging abortion law back to lower court

Maya T. Prabhu, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Feb 20, 2025

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Georgians awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the state’s abortion law will have to wait longer after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling has put the future of the case in jeopardy.

The Georgia Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments next month in a lawsuit filed by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other abortion rights advocates and providers challenging the state’s abortion ban, but on Thursday the state’s highest court sent the case back to a lower court judge.

Justices cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning previous federal guidance which allowed entities to sue on behalf of someone else. By a 6-1 vote, the justices decided Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will have to reevaluate the lawsuit and decide if the abortion rights advocates and providers have the right to sue.

Last fall, McBurney ruled that the state’s law, which took effect July 2022, was unconstitutional because it violated a woman’s right to liberty by taking away her ability to decide what to do with her body. But the Georgia Supreme Court put a hold on his ruling and scheduled arguments in the case to issue its own ruling.

SisterSong sued the state in 2022, saying the law violated a woman’s right to privacy under the state’s constitution shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had granted a constitutional right to abortion for nearly 50 years.

In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law that bans most abortions once medical professionals can detect fetal cardiac activity. That typically occurs at about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. The overturning of Roe cleared the way for Georgia’s abortion law to take effect.

Thursday’s state Supreme Court order could upend the lawsuit completely if McBurney finds the abortion rights advocates and providers don’t have the right to sue on behalf of their patients. If that happens, opponents of the law would have to begin the legal process again, if they wish to continue the challenge.

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