COLUMBIA, S.C. — A lawsuit challenging South Carolina's new ban on most abortions is “likely to succeed," a judge wrote Friday, ruling that abortions can continue until the lawsuit is resolved.
About a dozen other states have passed similar or more restrictive abortion bans, which could take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court — with three justices appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump — were to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court decision supporting abortion rights. Federal law supersedes state law.
Earlier this month, attorneys for the state argued that the law should be allowed to take effect while the lawsuit is ongoing. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Walt Wilkins, the prosecutor for two counties in the conservative Upstate, previously wrote in court papers that a prior U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions “suggests that a preliminary injunction should be denied here" and that the lawsuit would likely not withstand legal scrutiny.