ATLANTA — Georgia's ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected is back in effect after the State Supreme Court reinstated it Wednesday as the legal battle continues to work its way through the court system.
The reaction from both sides was swift, with pro-life advocates celebrating the decision and pro-choice advocates saying their patients will now have to make difficult decisions.
With the back-and-forth surrounding this ongoing battle moving so quickly, healthcare providers said they were scrambling to contact their patients today.
Megan Gordon, an attorney and pro-choice advocate for the Feminist Women's Health Center, said that she's frustrated by the persistent whiplash between both sides as they keep alternating decisions on such an important issue.
"This chaos is bad for Georgians," she said. "It's confusing and Georgians deserve better, they deserve clarity and honestly they deserve abortion access."
However, people in the right-to-life movement said it's not a political issue, but that it's the law. Mike Griffin, a spokesman for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board said the decision declares that it goes back to the states and that the legislature is to rule on these decisions. He believes that the back-and-forth for abortion access in the state should end now.
"People that are pro-abortion want to keep abortion if it's only for one day," he said. "Those of us that are for life, we're for it if we can keep a life for one day."
The Feminist Women's Health Center said they didn't have any procedures scheduled for Wednesday, but they did have multiple on the schedule for Saturday. Due to the new ruling, those have now been canceled.