One year later: GSU law professor on the overturning of Roe v. Wade

June 23rd, 2023

A small group, including Stephanie Batchelor, left, sits on the steps of the Georgia state Capitol protesting the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 26, 2022. The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday, Nov. 23, reinstated the state's ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.
Ben Gray / Ben Gray

Saturday marks one year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade– the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.

Since the Supreme Court’s divided decision in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the nation has seen major changes to abortion access.

The ruling gave individual states the power to set their own individual abortion policy.

Georgia’s current law bans terminating a pregnancy once a doctor can detect cardiac activity at around six weeks. The Georgia Supreme Court will decide whether the state’s restrictive abortion law violates the constitution.

On Friday’s edition of “Closer Look,” Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis discusses life after the high court’s ruling and what challengers of the law will have to prove in lower courts.

“While the Georgia litigation is still pending before the Georgia Supreme Court and I that’s going to be drawn out for some time,” Professor Kreis. “ You know, there are cases that have been successful to make that argument that the right to privacy and the right to medical decision-making is so fundamental, so important and the consequences of taking that decision away from patients and doctors has been so damaging that we need to recognize that as matter of state constitutional law .”