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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from North Carolina to revive a requirement that abortion providers show and describe an ultrasound to a pregnant woman before she has an abortion. The justices left in place an appeals court decision that said the 2011 North Carolina law was “ideological in intent” and violated doctors’ free-speech rights. The measure was championed by conservative Republicans in the state legislature, who overrode a veto from the then-Democratic governor to approve the law. (6/15)

The Supreme Court’s one-sentence order, as is the custom, gave no reasons. Justice Antonin Scalia noted a dissent, also without saying why. The order left in place an appeals court ruling that had held the law unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment. (Liptak, 6/15)

The Supreme Court has not decided a major abortion case since 2007. But a round of abortion restrictions passed by state legislatures across the country may be leaving the justices with little choice but to weigh in on the subject next term. The justices for weeks have been considering at their private conferences whether to accept a case from Mississippi that would effectively close that state’s only abortion clinic. (Barnes, 6/15)

A North Carolina law that would require women who want an abortion to have an ultrasound scan prior to the procedure suffered a final defeat Monday, when the Supreme Court refused to review the case. A federal judge declared the law illegal in early 2014. The controversial law had been placed under an injunction soon after it took effect back in 2011. It was struck down on the grounds that it reflected ideological, rather than medical, priorities and violated doctors' right of free speech. (Chappell, 6/15)

Mandatory ultrasound laws have been increasingly popular among conservative legislatures who have taken aim at abortion access in recent years. Abortion-rights activists have protested that the laws are attempts to “personify the fetus” and to make the procedure more costly. Ten states require ultrasounds before abortions, and three require the woman to see the images. (Ferris, 6/15)

Attorneys who represented Texas doctors in a lawsuit against the state’s 2011 abortion sonogram law are considering their legal options following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday decision not to revive a similar North Carolina law. The high court refused to reconsider a North Carolina appellate court's decision striking down a state law that would have required doctors to perform an ultrasound on a pregnant woman and describe the fetus before she could obtain an abortion. Texas has a similar sonogram law — which has been upheld by a federal appeals court. (Ura, 6/15)