A federal judge has ruled that a North Carolina law banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
District Judge William Osteen of the Middle District of North Carolina ruled Monday that the law ran afoul of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. Osteen wrote that his decision aligns with other states’ cases concerning the constitutionality of similar bans.
“[A] state is never allowed to prohibit any swath of pre-viability abortions outright, no matter how strenuously it may believe that such a ban is in the best interests of its citizens or how minimal it may find the burden to women seeking an abortion,” Osteen wrote in his decision.
The law in question was a decades-old abortion regulation that was amended in 2016 to allow narrow exceptions to the ban.
The court’s ruling will take effect in 60 days, Osteen said, to allow the state adequate time “to either pass legislation or challenge this decision on appeal.”
“North Carolina’s ban was written by politicians to intimidate doctors and interfere in a woman’s personal medical decisions,” said ACLU of North Carolina Senior Staff Attorney Irena Como. “We’re glad the court blocked this harmful and restrictive measure while affirming that people have a constitutional right to make their own decisions about their pregnancy.”
This decision comes on the heels of numerous proposed abortion bans across the country, often called “heartbeat bills,” as the procedure would be banned after the point at which a fetus’ heartbeat can be detected. Such bills have been proposed in Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Tennessee.
