Attorneys who represented Texas doctors in a lawsuit against the state’s 2011 abortion sonogram law are considering their legal options following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday decision not to revive a similar North Carolina law.
The high court refused to reconsider a North Carolina appellate court's decision striking down a state law that would have required doctors to perform an ultrasound on a pregnant woman and describe the fetus before she could obtain an abortion. Texas has a similar sonogram law — which has been upheld by a federal appeals court.
“We are in the process of evaluating our legal options in light of today’s order out of the Supreme Court which allowed strong lower court rulings to stand,” said Julie Rikelman, litigation director for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed suit against the sonogram law in North Carolina and Texas.