A federal district judge has blocked two provisions of a new North Carolina law that bans most second—and third-trimester abortions.
While leaving most of the new law in place, Judge Catherine Eagles, appointed to the bench by President Obama in 2010, halted a provision that would have required abortions after the beginning of the second trimester to take place in hospitals. The judge also prevented “enforcement of a rule that doctors must document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus before prescribing a medication abortion,” the Associated Press reported.