U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles — who previously filed an injunction blocking the hospitalization requirement in North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban — upheld the new law forcing women seeking abortions to be hospitalized for the procedure.
In the same ruling, Eagles did strike down the provision of the law requiring abortion providers to show proof of an intrauterine pregnancy (IUP) to receive treatment.
“The provision requiring providers to document the existence or probable existence of an intrauterine pregnancy before a medical abortion is unconstitutionally vague,” Eagles wrote in her latest order. “The requirement does not give medical providers sufficient notice of the required conduct, and it does not include sufficient standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Therefore, the statute violates the plaintiffs’ due process rights.”
This ruling came as a result from a lawsuit brought forth by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Duke Health Dr. Beverly Gray. Eagles had ruled on the suit previously, barring the hospitalization and proof of IUP requirement until the next scheduled ruling date.
Eagles concluded requiring surgical abortions to be in hospitals “does not violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to equal protection or due process.” The justice said while the evidence presented shows required hospitalization will put more low-income, marginalized people at reproductive age in harm’s way, there’s no longer any legal standing to allow for clinics like Planned Parenthood to perform these procedures.
“Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, there is no fundamental right to abortion, and the General Assembly need only offer rational speculation for its legislative decisions regulating abortion,” Eagles wrote.
Attorneys for the state who were defending the abortion ban argued the reason for requiring hospitalization for surgical abortions was “to provide safe conditions for women who seek abortions beyond the first trimester,” according to court filings.
“Women who have post-12-week surgical abortions may experience life-threatening complications that require hospitalization,” the state argued. “What’s more, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT) admits that it has transferred women from its facilities to hospitals due to complications from post-12-week surgical abortions that it could not treat at its facilities.”
Planned Parenthood reported seeing over two million patients across the nation. Of the 9.13 million cases covering the entire nation, only 392,715 of those involved medicinal or surgical abortions. The organization has also reported a demand increase of over 700%, making it even harder for women to get access to not just abortions, but affordable reproductive healthcare in general.
North Carolina Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein filed a friend-of-the-court brief in March hoping to ensure people can access abortions, especially in medical emergencies. He has also said if he’s elected as governor, he would advocate for a return to Roe v. Wade and vowed to veto any legislation restricting reproductive healthcare access, unlike his opponent.
“[Mark Robinson] has expressed support for a total ban on abortion ‘for any reason,’” he said to The News & Observer. “Abortion is an extremely personal decision that should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor — not politicians in Raleigh and certainly not Mark Robinson.”