North Carolina AG won't defend abortion pill restrictions

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein won't defend state restrictions on dispensing abortion pills that are being challenged in a lawsuit and instead will argue the restrictions are preempted by federal regulations protecting access to the pills, Stein's office said Monday.

The decision by Stein, a Democrat, means Republican legislative leaders who want to keep the restrictions would have to seek to formally intervene in the federal lawsuit, which was filed by Amy Bryant, a physician who prescribes the drug mifepristone.

The lawsuit filed in January in U.S. District Court in Durham, and a separate lawsuit challenging limits on abortion pills in West Virginia, are considered the openings of legal battles over access to the medications. A Texas lawsuit poses a threat to the nationwide availability of medication abortion, which now accounts for the majority of abortions in the U.S. The case filed by abortion opponents seeks to reverse FDA approval of mifepristone.

Bryant's lawsuit seeks to block enforcement of state laws and rules that it says interferes with the ability to provide mifepristone to patients. The lawsuit cites the authority that Congress gave to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate the FDA-approved drug.