A federal judge has ruled that North Carolina’s law banning abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, except in an urgent medical emergency, is back in force.
U.S. District Judge William Osteen’s decision on Aug. 17 eliminates an injunction he had issued against the 20-week abortion ban in 2019. He said that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on June 24 in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade—Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health—had erased the legal foundation for his 2019 ruling.
