Foolish ultrasound law costs N.C. $1 million

This is one heckuva use for North Carolina’s emergency fund, which is supposed to cover natural disasters. Instead, $1 million of the money will go for attorneys’ fees for losing a federal lawsuit that overturned one of the most insulting pieces of legislation in North Carolina history.

Republicans won control of the General Assembly and in 2011 passed a law requiring that women seeking abortions be required to view a narrated ultrasound of a fetus’s image before the procedure.

It was an invasion of privacy and an interference in the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship. Federal courts ruled the measure unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the state.

Game, set, match. And $1 million in attorneys’ fees for the plaintiffs who won the case against the state.

This was nothing more than a flight of fancy by right-wing Republicans who used the abortion issue as a political convenience, something not uncommon in this and other states where GOP lawmakers seem to care little for the settled law of Roe V. Wade.

Republicans don’t even admit they were wrong to pursue this bill or to defend their action in court. They’re blaming Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose office did defend the state, as if the legislation were his idea. Cooper, running for governor, is likely to make Republicans pay in more ways than one for this foolishness.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Foolish ultrasound law costs N.C. $1 million."