While the ruling was widely expected, Democrats are now bracing for new efforts to restrict access to the procedure and predicting they will help mobilize supporters behind President Joe Biden and other abortion rights backers in 2024.

“Most Georgians don’t support the six-week abortion ban and think that some access should be available,” said state Rep. Shea Roberts, an Atlanta Democrat who has publicly shared the story of how she had an abortion 16 years ago.

“Considering it’s an election year,” she said, “I believe any further restriction will only hurt them at the polls.”

It’s tricky territory for Republicans, who acknowledge that efforts to curtail abortion rights in other states helped bolster Democratic turnout in the 2022 midterms — and could have contributed to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection win in Georgia.

Some GOP leaders are pressing for patience ahead of another presidential vote as the legal feud over the law is still unsettled. The 6-1 ruling addressed only whether the law was void when it was enacted — not its underlying constitutionality.

“I’m confident that we will prevail on those legal challenges,” Republican state Sen. Max Burns of Sylvania said in an interview. “But I would be cautious about making adjustments at this time.”

A post-Roe world

The ruling puts political pressure on Gov. Brian Kemp, who championed the 2019 law but faced urgent calls from grassroots conservatives to tighten restrictions, or ban the procedure entirely, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

The debate four years ago over abortion legislation divided many rank-and-file Republicans and passed the House with one vote to spare. Now Republicans have a thinner majority in the Legislature and are seeking to protect GOP incumbents in competitive suburban Atlanta districts.

It also tests Kemp as he looks to play a more prominent role in national politics. The governor has said he personally supports a more sweeping ban on abortions, though he has given contradictory statements about what steps he would take in a second term.

During a 2022 debate against Democrat Stacey Abrams, Kemp said he “would not” push for additional abortion limits. But weeks later, at another debate, he wouldn’t say whether he would support new efforts to tighten access to abortion.

While Kemp has declined to comment further on the pending litigation, his advisers said he won’t push new abortion limits in 2024.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones echoed that view in an interview Wednesday, saying he was “proud” of the 2019 legislation and not planning to push more limits to the procedure during next year’s legislative session.

“The Legislature passed it. The Supreme Court upheld it. It’s a good piece of legislation, and I think we just move on from here,” Jones said.

A GOP ‘consensus’?

Some anti-abortion advocates aren’t quibbling with that stance. Cole Muzio of the Frontline Policy Council, a conservative advocacy group that’s allied with Kemp, said he hopes Republicans will focus on “continuing to build a growing pro-life consensus.”

He said that includes improving adoption services, strengthening the foster care system and tightening rules limiting women from receiving the abortion pill through the mail, instead of a wholesale ban.

“I firmly believe we will see a day where abortion is no more, but it will take time for the culture to get there,” Muzio said.

Smith, the abortion opponent who chairs a key House judiciary panel, urged Republicans to rally behind legislation he introduced this year that would expand public benefits for pregnant women and young mothers.

“If I am going to have the stance I have on abortion,” Smith said, “I must have the stance to support the rights of pregnant mothers and those needing help with rearing children.”

Some expect the caution won’t last — and that it will come back to haunt Republicans.

Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont enshrined abortion protections in their state constitutions last year, while abortion rights supporters rejected efforts in Kansas to end abortion safeguards at the state level. Fred Hicks, a veteran political strategist, predicted Republicans will be inviting a similar backlash if they take up new limits in Georgia.

“The question is not whether or not the Republican Legislature will pursue more restrictions,” Hicks said, “but when.”