ON HOLD

Judge Pauses South Carolina’s New Abortion Ban

Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit challenging the new law’s constitutionality, but its future is uncertain.

A judge in South Carolina has put the state’s new six-week abortion ban on ice—one day after the state’s governor signed it into law. After Gov. Henry McMaster signed the ban, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. On Friday, Judge Clifton Newman put a temporary block on the ban and sent the case to the state’s Supreme Court. In the meantime, a previous law limiting abortions after 22 weeks will remain in effect. The state’s Supreme Court previously ruled against a similar ban, but revisions in the new bill and a change in the court’s makeup leave the new ban’s future uncertain. Its passage would mean women in southern states that have implemented heavy-handed anti-abortion laws would have to travel farther out of state to seek legal care.