Doctor challenging NC abortion pill restrictions accepts legislators’ intervention | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal. The author of this post is CJ Staff.

    The UNC Health doctor challenging North Carolina's abortion pill laws will not object to state legislative leaders taking part in her federal lawsuit.

    Dr. Amy Bryant "does not oppose" a motion to intervene filed Tuesday by Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. Bryant "will not respond at this time to their misplaced arguments regarding the merits," according to paperwork Bryant's attorneys filed Thursday.

    Bryant asked a federal judge to set March 24 as the deadline for legislative leaders to file a response to her lawsuit or a motion to dismiss the case. That date would "align the response times of all defendants who have yet to respond to the complaint."

    Legislative leaders filed their motion to take part in the lawsuit this week after N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein announced he would not defend state law in the case.

    The suit Bryant v. Stein, filed Jan. 25, targeted the attorney general, the Orange-Chatham County district attorney, the N.C. secretary of health and human services, and members of the N.C. Medical Board. The complaint did not mention legislative leaders, even though the General Assembly approved the disputed law.

    "The Legislative Leaders have an interest in upholding the validity of state statutes aimed at protecting unborn life, promoting maternal health and safety, and regulating the medical profession, " according to the motion from lawmakers' attorneys. "North Carolina law designates the Legislative Leaders as agents of the State for the purpose of intervening to defend these statutes. Routine application of recent Supreme Court precedent should make this a fairly simple issue."

    "This action seeks to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by usurping the authority of the people of North Carolina, acting through their elected representatives, to reasonably regulate abortion in their state," according to the motion. "It does so by challenging several commonsense health-and-safety laws that have been on the books for years, based on a new and incorrect argument that the FDA's decision to permit chemical abortion drugs to be marketed under certain conditions means that states cannot enact their own laws regulating the safety of chemical abortion for their citizens."

    The motion cites the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in Berger v. NAACP, in which the high court ruled, 8-1, that lawmakers could intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging the states' voter ID law.

    "The Supreme Court recognized the Legislative Leaders' significant protectable interest in protecting valid North Carolina laws and potential impairment if they are blocked from participating in a lawsuit about the validity [of] North Carolina laws," lawmakers argued.

    "This case proves the necessity and wisdom of North Carolina's choice about who can speak on the State's behalf in federal court," according to the motion. "Attorney General Joshua Stein is a named defendant who publicly opposes North Carolina's laws regulating abortion. He informed the Legislative Leaders that he [will] not defend the challenged laws in this case and will affirmatively support Plaintiff's challenge. That makes the Legislative Leaders' intervention even more important."

    Berger and Moore released a joint statement Tuesday about the intervention. "North Carolina's reasonable restrictions on chemical abortions are designed to protect women," Berger and Moore said. "However, the Attorney General has made it abundantly clear that when faced with the opportunity to uphold his oath or advance his political career, he will pick his career every time. Since Attorney General Stein won't do the job he was elected to do, legislative leaders will intervene in this case to defend our state's pro-life laws."

    Bryant, the plaintiff, also took part in a 2016 lawsuit that challenged other N.C. abortion laws, including the ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. That lawsuit proved successful for abortion advocates until the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs ruling.

    U.S. District Judge William Osteen "vacated and dissolved" his injunction against North Carolina's abortion law in August 2022. Osteen cited the Dobbs ruling in his decision.

    Osteen is also overseeing the Bryant v. Stein case.