Georgia physicians, reproductive health care providers, and advocates filed the lawsuit  SisterSong v. Georgia, in the Superior Court of Fulton County on June 26, bringing a state constitutional challenge against H.B. 481, a law banning abortion at approximately six weeks of pregnancy — just two weeks after a person’s first missed period and before many people even know they are pregnant.

The law bans abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy – before many people even know they are pregnant, and its scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2020. We have filed this lawsuit to stop the ban from becoming law.

In 2019, Governor Brian Kemp signed an abortion ban which was blocked until the 11th Circuit Court of appeals lifted the district court’s injunction. The federal appeals court also took a highly unorthodox action of putting the six-week ban into effect immediately, with no warning to health care providers and patients across the state even though this law criminalizes medicine, rather than waiting the standard 28-day period.

In states like Georgia, where the maternal mortality rate is much higher than in other states, especially among Black people, a six-week abortion ban is dangerous. Secondly, a forced pregnancy can derail people’s education and lives and can result in tremendous economic hardship for the pregnant person.