(LifeSiteNews) — A total of 19 states have filed an amicus brief to defend Georgia’s heartbeat law from the attacks of pro-abortion activists.
In a December brief submitted to the Supreme Court of Georgia, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, and representatives from 17 other states voiced their support of the Peach State’s heartbeat law protecting unborn babies from abortion after a heartbeat is detected.
“The elected representatives of the people of Georgia enacted the LIFE Act, which generally bars providers from performing abortions after the unborn child develops a detectable heartbeat,” the document reads. “That law violates neither Georgia’s right to privacy nor its Equal Protection Clause.”
The LIFE Act was put in place after the Georgia Supreme Court stepped in to overturn a lower court decision blocking the law as “unconstitutional.”
RELATED: Georgia Supreme Court restores heartbeat law after activist judge declared it ‘unconstitutional’
Now 19 states have stepped up to defend the Georgia law and help restore a culture of life to the United States.
“Far from a hidden thought whispered in the confines of the home, the effects of abortion ripple throughout society, from the women who endure it, to the medical staff who perform it, to the unborn lives extinguished by it,” the document stated.
“Yet Appellees invoke Georgia’s general right of privacy in an attempt to revive Roe in Georgia,” it continued. “Amici States—Indiana, Florida, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming—have a strong interest in defeating that bid to ‘short-circuit’ Georgia’s ‘democratic process’ by invalidating an abortion law enacted by ‘the people’s elected representatives.’”
“Like other States, amici have enacted laws regulating abortion and have experienced the benefits of allowing ‘legislative bodies’ to ‘draw lines that accommodate’ the ‘competing interests’ that abortion presents,” it continued.
“Given that experience, amici States are firmly committed to ensuring that citizens nationwide may decide for themselves how to regulate abortion,” the states declared. “Even more, amici have a substantial interest in the proper development of both privacy and equal-protection jurisprudence. Amici submit this brief to ensure that those constitutional principles are not construed to eclipse the will of the people.”
Enacted in 2019, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act forbids abortions of fetuses with heartbeats (which develop as early as six weeks) except in cases of rape, incest, physical “medical emergencies,” and pregnancies deemed “medically futile.”
The law became enforceable when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years later, although pro-abortion activists continued their efforts to tear it down through the courts.
However, in September, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney declared the LIFE Act “unconstitutional” because “the liberty of privacy means that [pregnant women] alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.”
RELATED: Judge strikes down Georgia’s 6 week abortion ban as ‘unconstitutional’
Thanks to Georgia Supreme Court, the LIFE Act is still in place while the appeal to overturn the law makes its way through the courts.
Abortion – the destruction of an innocent unborn baby – is always gravely immoral and never needed nor justifiable for alleged “health” reasons. Human life begins at conception.