RALEIGH — The lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s 12-week abortion limit law has been amended by the plaintiffs following updates to the law made by the General Assembly.
On June 30, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on a single section of Senate Bill 20, which passed into law on May 16 following a veto override. Eagles’ TRO covered the documentation requirement for doctors on the use of abortion-inducing drugs.
Eagles will hold the next hearing on the case on Sept. 21.
After the lawsuit was filed, the legislature made some modifications to the new abortion law through another piece of legislation signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper on June 29. House Bill 190 mainly made technical changes, revised verbiage or updated statute citations.
Some changes were more substantive, such as language added to the procedure consent form required in the law to include “specific information for the physician’s hospital admitting privileges, and whether the physician accepts the pregnant woman’s insurance.”
Additionally, reporting requirements regarding the performing of surgical or medical abortion were changed from three days to 30 and another section dropped the time period of “70 days” related to ascertaining the gestational age of an unborn child prior to distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Dr. Beverly Gray, updated their complaint by acknowledging the changes made to the abortion law by House Bill 190 (cited as “the Act” in the amended complaint) have resolved some of their issues in their initial filing but state two challenges remain intact and Gray was adding a new allegation.
“As a result of the changes to the Act, many of Plaintiffs’ original claims have been resolved. However, (1) Plaintiffs maintain their due process challenges to the IUP Requirement; (2) PPSAT maintains its due process and equal protection challenges to the Hospitalization Requirement 1; and (3) Dr. Gray adds to the Amended Complaint allegations about the vagueness of the Induction Abortion Ban,” the amended complaint states.
The “IUP Requirement” referred to by the plaintiffs is the law’s required documentation of an “intrauterine pregnancy” prior to an abortion procedure.
“The IUP Documentation Requirement will harm patients by preventing them from accessing medication abortion before an intrauterine pregnancy can be seen on ultrasound,” the plaintiff’s amended complaint claims. “This may delay patients’ access to abortion care, unnecessarily exposing them to increased medical risk, or compel them to consider a procedural abortion, even though for some patients, medication abortion offers important advantages over procedural abortion.”
The plaintiffs continue to object to the “hospitalization requirement” in the law that states certain allowable abortions provided after the 12-week limit have to be conducted in a hospital instead of an abortion center. That requirement, unless blocked, will go into effect on Oct. 1.
Gray’s allegations about the “vagueness of the Induction Abortion Ban,” include a “lack of clarity” on whether a hospital can conduct an abortion using medications for “a rape or incest survivor” after the 12-week limit.
