A US federal judge has reinstated a decades-old North Carolina ban on abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy, eroding protections in one of the  places women can obtain abortions in the southern United States.

District Judge William Osteen on Wednesday lifted an injunction he had imposed in May 2019 barring enforcement of the 20-week cutoff as a violation of the Supreme Court's 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade opinion that largely legalized abortion nationally.

The precedent set in Roe was overturned on June 24 by the Supreme Court in a case Dobbs v. Jackson, allowing all states to regulate abortion as they see fit, regardless of fetal viability.

"Neither this court, nor the public, nor counsel, nor providers have the right to ignore the rule of law as determined by the Supreme Court," Osteen said. 

The statute restored by Osteen includes exceptions that allow abortions for medical emergencies that pose a risk to the mother's life.

Osteen's decision defies the recommendations of all named parties in the 2019 case, which included doctors, district attorneys and the attorney general's office, who earlier this month filed briefs requesting he let the injunction stand.

After the Dobbs verdict, North Carolina, whose governor and attorney general are both Democrats and support access to abortion, has remained one of the South's few bulwarks when it comes to largely unrestricted reproductive health services. 

Women have traveled to North Carolina from nearby states with more restrictive abortion policies to terminate their pregnancies.  

Fuel to midterm election fire

The North Carolina ruling is likely to fan the flames from an already contentious midterm election year after the Supreme Court ruling pushed state-level politics into the spotlight. 

Abortion is seen as a main campaign issue heading into the November elections in which North Carolina Republicans aim to clinch the five additional seats they need for a supermajority to override vetoes of Democrat Governor Roy Cooper.

Cooper had signed an executive order on July 6 shielding out-of-state abortion patients from extradition and prohibiting state agencies under his control from assisting other states' prosecutions of those who travel for the procedure.

"Denying women necessary medical care in extreme and threatening situations, even if rare, is fundamentally wrong, and we cannot let politicians mislead people about the real-world implications of this harmful law," the governor said Wednesday.

South Carolina top court puts abortion ban on hold as it hears challenge

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, the state's highest court on Wednesday temporarily blocked the enforcement of its "fetal heartbeat'' law as it weighs a challenge to that law by a Planned Parenthood affiliate and other abortion providers.

In a unanimous decision, the five judges of the South Carolina Supreme Court did not express any opinion on whether Planned Parenthood is ultimately likely to prevail. However, they said the ban could conflict with the state's constitution.

"At this preliminary stage, we are unable to determine with finality the constitutionality of the Act under our state's constitutional prohibition against unreasonable invasions of privacy," the court wrote.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic President Jenny Black issued a statement saying, "We applaud the court's decision to protect the people of South Carolina from this cruel law that interferes with a person's private medical decision." 

dvv/sms (AP, Reuters)