A Georgia judge today declared the state’s heartbeat law unconstitutional. The law protect unborn babies who have a detectable heartbeat.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued a decision declaring Georgia’s 2019 Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act or LIFE Act unconstitutional.  McBurney’s decision comes after a 2023 Georgia Supreme Court decision that allowed Georgia’s heartbeat law to stand.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, told LifeNews that the riling defies both federal and state supreme court rulings.

She told LifeNews, “In an act that defies reason, this activist judge has decided to ignore the 2023 decision of the Georgia Supreme Court that declared the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act constitutional. This judge has chosen to make rulings based on his own beliefs rather than the law and higher court judgments.”

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In 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court determined that the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs was controlling and that Georgia’s LIFE Act was constitutional.

Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone agreed with the condemnation of the decision.

“The judge ruled that ‘liberty’ in the Georgia Constitution includes a woman’s right to control her own body, but he makes no mention of the person whose body will be torn apart and disposed of as medical waste. These are people with beating hearts.

“Interestingly, the judge recognizes the ‘separate life’ once the baby in the womb reaches viability and says that life can be protected. The ruling is absurd. All life deserves to be protected.

“The ruling is also out of line with the Dobbs decision, which puts abortion policy in the hands of the people and their elected representatives, and makes clear that it is a mistake to consider abortion to be some kind of hidden right under broader and otherwise valid rights to liberty or privacy or equality.”