Saturday, December 27, 2014

4th Circuit Panel Unanimously Rules NC Pre-Abortion Ultrasound Law Unconstitutional; State Vows to Seek Supreme Court Review

Slate: North Carolina’s Outrageous Abortion Requirement Is Struck Down, by Dahlia Lithwick:

A conservative judge sticks up for medical ethics and the First Amendment.

A panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals voted today to strike down a highly controversial North Carolina law requiring doctors and ultrasound technicians to perform an ultrasound, display the image of the sonogram, and specifically describe the fetus to any pregnant woman seeking an abortion, even if the woman actively “averts her eyes” and “refuses to hear.” The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and others challenged the law, which was enjoined last year by a lower federal court.

Today, in a unanimous decision authored by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a three-judge panel affirmed a lower court’s determination that the law is a compelled speech provision that violates the First Amendment rights of providers. . . .

The Washington Post: N.C. abortion restriction violates free speech, judges rule, by Sandhya Somashekhar:

. . . Several other states, including Virginia, have ultrasound requirements, with some requiring women to undergo internal “transvaginal” ultrasounds before obtaining an abortion. Only a handful, however, have gone so far as North Carolina, and courts have had mixed opinions about such laws,upholding them in Texas and striking them down in Oklahoma.

On Monday, the North Carolina attorney general’s office said they would ask the Supreme Court to take up the matter to resolve the conflicting opinions in Texas and Richmond. . . .

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The opinion is available here.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/reproductive_rights/2014/12/4th-circuit-panel-unanimously-rules-nc-pre-abortion-ultrasound-law-unconstitutional-state-vows-to-se.html

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