Prohibition of Abortion in North Carolina Stricken: NPR

A law making it more difficult for women in North Carolina to have an abortion after 20 weeks is unconstitutional, said a federal judge.

The law, in force since 1973, prohibited abortion after 20 weeks, with few exceptions, to protect the mother's life. A 2015 amendment reinforced this exception, criminalizing abortion unless the woman's life or a "major bodily function" is in immediate danger. Abortion rights groups challenged the law, and on Monday, US District Judge William Osteen accompanied them.

The Supreme Court has rejected the laws that link the right to abortion to a specific week during a woman's pregnancy, but this is the first time that a judge has overruled the law of "The Supreme Court has made it clear that a state legislature can never set viability to a specific week but leave that determination to the doctors, "wrote Osteen.

The decision simply reaffirms the current law banning abortion restrictions related to certain weeks, said ACLU attorney Andrew Beck, one of the lawyers disputing the dated law, at the Washington Post.

But this also gives hope that abortion advocacy groups hope the courts will restrain some of the Republican-led state laws that have imposed new restrictions on abortion in recent years. months and last years. "Since there is so much anticipation that the [Supreme Court] will undermine or reverse Roe v. Wadeit is reassuring to see the abortion ban of 20 weeks in North Carolina canceled, "said Elizabeth Nash, head of state affairs at the Guttmacher Institute, To post.

The decision will come into effect in 60 days, giving the state time to appeal or propose different legislation. A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office said she was reviewing the decision.

Several states have recently passed laws banning most abortions after detecting a fetal heart rate, which can occur as early as six weeks of pregnancy. Last week, Mississippi signed such a ban. The week before, Kentucky lawmakers had enacted a similar ban, which was quickly blocked by a judge who ruled the law could be unconstitutional.

Although the 20-week ban imposed by North Carolina has existed for more than four decades, it has never been enforced, the judge said. But when the legislator decided in 2015 to tighten the law, it implied that it was more likely that the legislator had intended to enforce the ban, the judge wrote.

The state told the court that it was not planning to enforce the law. But in light of the 2015 amendment and the "vigorous defense of the state 's ban on constitutional grounds," state disavowal "provide little to say. insurance, "said the judge.

And the very fact that the law is in force has a deterrent effect, he said. It is likely that the state hopes to "ensure that the prohibition remains in the laws to dissuade doctors from performing abortions after twenty weeks …", wrote the judge.

According to Reuters, this decision "seemed to thwart a bill introduced earlier this year by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, which would have banned abortions after 13 weeks."