US judge suspends South Carolina’s new abortion law

More than 75 women are scheduled to have abortions over the next three days, most of which would be banned under new law.

South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions was suspended by a federal judge on Friday on its second day in effect. Judge Mary Geiger Lewis put a 14-day temporary restraining order on the law and will renew it until she can hold a more substantial hearing on March 9 to decide whether to keep it from being enforced until Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against South Carolina is finished. Governor Henry McMaster signed the bill into law on Thursday, less than an hour after it was sent to him, but the national reproductive health services organisation sued even before the governor put ink to paper.