RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that a provision in North Carolina’s abortion laws that requires doctors to document the location of a pregnancy before prescribing abortion pills must be permanently blocked, affirming that the provision is too vague to be reasonably enforced.
Implementation of that requirement was halted last year by U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles until a lawsuit challenging parts of the abortion law passed by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in 2023 played out. Eagles now says a permanent injunction could be issued at some point.
But Eagles on Friday restored enforcement of another provision she had previously blocked, requiring abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy to be performed in hospitals. In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, she wrote, lawmakers “need only to provide rational speculation for their legislative decisions regulating abortion.”
In this case, lawmakers argued that the hospital requirement would protect maternal health by reducing risks for some women who may experience serious complications after 12 weeks, Eagles said. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a doctor who initially filed the lawsuit offered “credible and largely undisputed medical and scientific evidence” that the hospital requirement “will make such abortions unnecessarily more dangerous and expensive for many women,” Eagles added.
But “plaintiffs have not denied every conceivable basis the General Assembly could have had for enacting the hospitalization requirement,” Eagles, who was nominated to the judiciary by President Barack Obama, wrote in quashing a preliminary injunction on the hospitalization requirement.
Unlike challenges in other states like South Carolina and Florida that sought to strike down abortion laws entirely, the Eagles’ decisions mean most of North Carolina’s abortion law, which has been updated since the end of Roe v. Wade, remains in effect. GOP state lawmakers overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto and passed the law in May 2023. It significantly limited access to abortion, from the state’s previous ban on most abortions after 20 weeks to 12 weeks. The hospital requirement would apply to exceptions to the 12-week ban, such as in cases of rape or incest or “life-limiting” fetal abnormality.
Eagles confirmed Friday that they had blocked the provision in the abortion law that requires doctors to document the “intrauterine location of a pregnancy” before prescribing a medical abortion.
Attorneys representing House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, who defended the law, argued that the documentation protected the health of women with ectopic pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies can be dangerous, and if they rupture, the symptoms can mimic those expected from a medical abortion, the ruling said.
But Eagles wrote that medical abortion does not increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy. And she remained adamant that the law is unconstitutionally vague, leaving abortion providers open to claims of breaking the law — and possible penalties — if they can’t find an embryo on an ultrasound because the pregnancy is so new.
The provision “violates plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to a fair trial,” she wrote.
Spokespeople for Planned Parenthood, Berger and Moore did not respond to emails seeking comment Friday evening. The Eagles’ pending final ruling could be appealed.
Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, abortion rights advocate and 2024 gubernatorial candidate, was officially a defendant in the lawsuit. But lawyers for his office had asked Eagles to block the two provisions, largely agreeing with Planned Parenthood’s arguments.
The lawsuit was originally filed in June 2023 and included other challenges to the abortion law that lawmakers quickly addressed with new legislation. Eagles issued a preliminary injunction last September blocking the two provisions that were still up for debate Friday. Eagles said last month that it would issue a final decision in the case without going through a full trial.
North Carolina remains a destination for many out-of-state women seeking abortions, as most states in the southern U.S. have passed laws banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — before many women know they are pregnant — or a near-total ban.
