By Dave Andrusko
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Doris L. Downs
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Doris L. Downs last Friday granted the ACLU’s request to preliminarily enjoin Georgia’s version of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The law, passed May 1, 2012, was scheduled to go into effect January 1.
Georgia was the sixth state to enact this life-saving law, whose original version was crafted by constitutional experts at National Right to Life. The Pain-Capable law makes it illegal to perform an abortion on an unborn child who is developed enough to feel pain.
In “Lathrop v. Deal,” the ACLU took the state to court on behalf of three abortionists, arguing that the law violates the state’s privacy protections as provided for in the Georgia Constitution.
Blooming News reported that in his filing, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens argued that the ACLU lawyers “are asking the court to find a right to abortion in the state’s constitution that is separate and distinct from that found in the federal document.” The attorney general noted, “A careful review of the text and history of the Georgia Constitution will reveal that such a right does not exist.”
The Georgia legislature added a weakening amendment late in the process that pro-lifers did not support. However, if allowed to go into effect, the law is still expected to save the 1,000 to 1,500 unborn children who were being killed in late abortions in abortion mills in the Atlanta area. Atlanta has developed into a center for late abortions in recent years.
The pain bill took shape when National Right to Life attorneys analyzing Supreme Court decisions saw an opening to pass new legislation not previously allowed by earlier Courts’ interpretations of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.