On Monday, a state court judge declared unconstitutional Georgia’s Living Infant’s Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, a 2019 law that bans abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected (typically around six weeks of pregnancy) absent a “medical emergency.”

In signing the bill into law, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) characterized it as “a declaration that all life has value, that all life matters, and that all life is worthy of protection.” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.J. McBurney agreed with Kemp that every life is worthy of protection. The difference is that he includes the lives of women and girls, too.

McBurney’s 26-page ruling thus demolished Justice Samuel Alito’s reasoning for the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed Roe v. Wade and virtually erased women’s interests from the abortion equation under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. He also exposed the cynicism of the Dobbs majority’s assertion — parroted by former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail — that it was merely sending the question of abortion “back to the states.”

McBurney’s ruling applied the Georgia state constitution to strike down its law, rather than the federal Constitution, which is now controlled by Dobbs. But his analysis of the Georgia constitution fits the federal one just as well.

Under Roe, legislative restrictions on abortion were put through a classic constitutional balancing test, with women’s constitutional interests on one side of the scale and the state’s interests on the other. The Roe majority opinion described the interests of women — which in theory the state should........

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