Georgia has been in a life-or-death tug of war for the preborn the last couple of weeks. Last week, an activist Georgia judge declared the state’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act infringes on a woman’s “state constitutional rights,” changing the six-week heartbeat law to allowing abortion up until five months of pregnancy.  

His decision sounded like an activist speech that was supposed to be a legal rendering. Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney said, “When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then – and only then – may society intervene.”  

Of course, “viability” changes based on each state’s law and doesn’t have a concrete definition. Yet, McBurney has enough guts to call the LIFE Act, which protects preborn life after the child’s heart begins to beat, “arbitrary,” despite proven science.  

We would love to see Georgia pass a law that protects life from conception so we can protect ALL preborn life. But, if Judge McBurney thinks a heartbeat is “arbitrary,” he shouldn’t think “viability” is a consistent standard.  

With new, incredible technology, babies may be able to survive at even earlier ages as modern medicine advances. For example, in 2020, an Alabama baby broke a world record after being born at 21 weeks.   

However, as Students for Life of America (SFLA) has pointed out, viability can change according to whatever a state judge deems it. A child born at 21 weeks at a hospital in the middle of Manhattan likely has a better chance of receiving the medical care needed to help them survive than a child born at 21 weeks in a rural hospital. Does Judge McBurney think that the child born in Manhattan is more deserving of life?  

The fact of the matter is that the “viability line” is truly arbitrary, as viability can differ for each child depending on their location, the year in which they were born, and other factors. ALL human life is valuable – therefore, viability cannot be the line drawn by political abortion activists.  

McBurney also wrote that the heartbeat law is “inconsistent with … the proper balance that a viability rule establishes between a woman’s rights of liberty and privacy and society’s interest in protecting and caring for unborn infants.”  

Judge McBurney may not realize that human life begins at conception. Men and women existed as human beings from the moment sperm meets the egg – they didn’t magically become human or alive after 22 weeks in the womb. This means that disallowing us from protecting life before 22 weeks is actually creating an imbalance.   

No sane world would truly believe that a right to liberty and privacy outweighs a human child’s right not to be killed – especially by their parent – and society’s interest in protecting that child’s life. If one truly believes that society has a legitimate interest in protecting preborn children, then that should apply from the very moment those preborn children come into existence – at conception.  

McBurney also wrote that no legislator, judge, or “commander from The Handmaid’s Tale” should be able to tell women what to do with “their bodies.”  

No serious judge would ever reference The Handmaid’s Tale in a legal case about protecting human life and rights. Legislators have every right to make laws protecting preborn human children from being killed – the Supreme Court of the United States even said so in its Dobbs decision in 2022.  

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion … [it] does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. The Court overrules those decisions and returns that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” (emphasis added)  

This means, Judge McBurney, that the authority to create pro-life laws and protect preborn life – even from conception – currently belongs to the people and the lawmakers who were elected to represent the people. Pro-abortion judges do not have the right to overturn the will of the people based on their own activist beliefs.  

Let us not forget that McBurney also demeaned the sacred role of motherhood by referring to it as women serving as “human incubators,” “involuntary servitude,” and “compulsory labor.”   

McBurney then makes the accusation that it is “generally men who promote and defend laws like the Life Act.” If he took even a glance at the pro-life movement, he’d see how many women care about protecting life. In fact, many major pro-life organizations are headed by women, including Students for Life of America. His statement is a gross and ignorant misrepresentation of the pro-life movement.  

Not to mention that even if the pro-life movement was made up of or run by mostly men, abortion would still be morally wrong and an infringement on the human rights of a preborn child, and we would still have the right to protect those rights. This fact does not change because a judge misbelieves that women are not involved in this issue.   

Speaking of pro-life men, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr filed a legal motion with the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking them to reinstate the pro-life law. Kara Murray, Carr’s communications director, said in a statement Monday, “We believe Georgia’s LIFE Act is fully constitutional.”   

Carr’s stand for life worked. According to the Catholic News Agency, “The state Supreme Court in a 6 to 1 majority reinstated the heartbeat law pending ongoing litigation surrounding the law.”  

It turns out not everyone agrees with Judge McBurney’s immoral whims. Some believe human life begins at conception, and it should be protected from the moment it is created instead of at arbitrary lines like “viability.” Georgia’s LIFE Act was created, passed, and signed into law by the Georgia lawmakers elected to represent the people. As Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in his motion, “There is nothing legally private about ending the life of an unborn child.” We, the people, have a legitimate interest in protecting human life – and that right cannot be taken away by any activist, pro-abortion judge.  

As stated previously, we would love to see Georgia pass a law that protects life from conception so we can protect ALL preborn life. However, this reinstatement of Georgia’s heartbeat law is still a Pro-Life Generation win for the voiceless preborn children who will now have a chance to live.   

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