Political Rewind: The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade — here's what it means for Georgia

Caption

Abortion-rights protesters regroup and protest following Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, federally protected right to abortion, outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases.

Credit: (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

The panel: 

Amy Steigerwalt, @DrSteigerwalt, professor of political science, Georgia State University

Andra Gillespie, @AndraGillespie, Associate Professor of Political Science & Director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University

Donna Lowry, @donnalowrynews, Host, Lawmakers, GPB News

Greg Bluestein, @bluestein, political reporter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The breakdown: 

1. The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. 

• This morning, in a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a strict Mississippi abortion law. 
  • That decision overturned a decades-old case Roe v. Wade, which was the basis for legal abortion across the United States.
• You can get live updates and reactions from GPB.org's live blog.

2. What does this mean for abortion access in Georgia? 

• Georgia has a six-week abortion ban that was signed into law in 2019 by Governor Brian Kemp.
  • It has been held up in federal court awaiting this decision from the Supreme Court. 
    • The bill contains exceptions if a doctor deems a pregnancy "medically futile." 
    • It also has exemptions for victims of rape and incest, but only after they've filed police reports and only for fetuses younger than 20 weeks old.
    • This law also doesn't criminalize miscarriages.     
• Georgia doesn't have a trigger law to outlaw abortion, so challenges to HB 481 would have to work their way through court.
  • Until that time, abortion is legal in the state up to 21 weeks and 6 days. 
    • Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has already filed a to move the law forward.

3. Justice Clarence Thomas has issued an opinion marking this case as precedent to overturn gay marriage.

• Georgia-born Justice Thomas' opinion stated the court "should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.
  • The 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut protected the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. 
  • In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Lawrence v. Texas invalidating sodomy laws nationwide.
  • And 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges held the right for same-sex couples to marry.

4. How will voters react to this landmark case during midterms?

• An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in January showed about 68% of Georgia voters opposed overturning Roe.
• Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams said she was "appalled as a woman, and a Georgian" at the Supreme Court's ruling. 
  • Gov. Kemp released a statement calling it "a historic victory for life."
    • GPB News' Donna Lowry says Kemp faces pressure to call a special session. 
• At the level of the state legislature, House Speaker David Ralston released this statement championing bipartisan issues:

Monday on Political Rewind: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Patricia Murphy joins our panel.