(The Center Square) North Carolina is expected to remain a top abortion destination in the South following two rulings handed down Friday in a federal lawsuit challenging a new state law.
Judge Katherine Eagles permanently blocked a part of the bill that would have required doctors to record the location of a pregnancy before prescribing the abortion pill, saying it would be difficult to enforce properly. Eagles issued an injunction blocking the bill last year.
In another provision of the law, Judge Eagles ruled that abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy must be done in a hospital, a change from his previous order.
Eagles is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Her ruling concerns the so-called Care for Women, Children and Families Act, or Senate Bill 20.
Overall, most of the laws enacted on Dec. 1, the first year of this legislative session, remain in place following the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, including a provision banning abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, up from 20 weeks earlier, except in cases of rape, incest or “life-threatening abnormality.”
Three southern states (South Carolina, Georgia and Florida) restrict abortions to six weeks after conception, while Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana and West Virginia restrict abortions to six weeks after conception, and in Virginia, three months after the last menstrual period.
To read more from the Washington Examiner, click here
Further up the Atlantic coast, west of the Mississippi River, abortion laws are less strict.
The plaintiffs are Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and others, including Dr. Beverly Gray of Duke Health. State Attorney General Josh Stein, state Health and Human Services Secretary Cody Kinsley and state Sen. Phil Berger, who is the Senate President pro tempore, are the defendants, so-called intervening defendants. Lawyers for the state Assembly's Republican leaders have been defending the law on behalf of the Department of Justice in Stein's absence.
