A federal judge refused to seal a courtroom in a lawsuit aimed at gutting South Carolina’s heartbeat abortion law, ruling that the public’s right to watch the case unfold beats a doctor’s request for secrecy.
Quick Take
- Judge Richard Mark Gergel denied a motion to close the courtroom while plaintiff Dr. Jane Doe testifies in Bingham v. Wilson.
- Doe can still testify under a pseudonym and get limited redactions of identifying details in the transcript.
- The lawsuit targets South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban, claiming its medical exceptions are too vague for doctors to follow.
- Only two of the original five doctor-plaintiffs remain after other claims were dropped or withdrawn.
- The judge said public access matters even more because of what the case is about.
Judge Rejects Bid To Shut Courtroom Doors
Judge Richard Mark Gergel ruled on October 16, 2026, that the courtroom will stay open while Dr. Jane Doe testifies in the case challenging South Carolina’s abortion restrictions. Doe’s lawyers had asked for three protections: use of a pseudonym, a closed courtroom during her testimony, and redacted transcripts. Gergel granted two of the three but flatly denied the request to shut the public out entirely.
The judge said the public’s right to watch the proceedings was especially strong given what the lawsuit is about. He found that nothing in the record justified closing the courtroom and that other safeguards could protect Doe without locking the public out. That is a notable check on efforts to hide court proceedings from the taxpayers who fund them and the citizens whose laws are being challenged.
Abortion Doctors Challenge South Carolina’s Heartbeat Law
The lawsuit, Bingham v. Wilson, takes aim at South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban. The plaintiffs argue that the law’s exceptions, which allow abortions to prevent death or serious injury to the mother or in cases of fatal fetal anomalies, are written so vaguely that doctors cannot apply them with confidence. The Lawyering Project, which backs the suit, claims this vagueness scares doctors away from treating seriously ill patients altogether.
South Carolina lawmakers passed the heartbeat law to protect unborn children once a heartbeat can be detected, generally around six weeks into pregnancy. Pro-life voters in the state fought hard for that protection. Now a small group of physicians is using the federal courts to try to unravel it by arguing the law’s wording is too confusing to follow in practice.
Lawsuit Has Shrunk Since It Began
The case looks far weaker than when it started. Five physicians originally filed suit, but courts dismissed their free-exercise claims, and all but two of the doctors withdrew from the case entirely. Only Dr. Doe and one other plaintiff remain to carry the challenge forward to a bench trial. That steep drop-off suggests the broader legal attack on the heartbeat law has lost steam even as it heads toward trial.
What Partial Privacy Protections Mean
Doe will still testify without her name being read aloud in open court, and parts of the transcript involving her education or professional background may be blacked out. The court’s earlier order in the case found that protecting Doe and her family from possible retaliation could be balanced against the public’s interest in open trials through these narrower steps, rather than a full lockdown of the courtroom.
Abortion providers nationally have reported harassment for years, and courts often weigh that history when doctors ask for some privacy. But Gergel’s ruling draws a clear line: limited, specific protections are one thing, but locking the public out of a courtroom entirely in a case challenging a state’s abortion law is another matter altogether.
Why Open Courts Matter
This ruling is a win for government transparency, even inside a lawsuit aimed at weakening a pro-life law. Open courtrooms let citizens see how judges handle challenges to laws passed by their elected representatives. When a case seeks to strike down or water down a law like South Carolina’s heartbeat protections, the public has every right to watch that fight play out in full view, not behind closed doors shielding one side’s witness from scrutiny.
The bench trial will proceed with Doe’s identity partly shielded but the courtroom itself open to anyone who wants to attend. South Carolina’s heartbeat law remains in effect while the case continues, and the outcome will determine whether a shrinking group of plaintiffs can convince a federal judge that the law’s lifesaving exceptions are too unclear to stand.
Sources:
reason.com, postandcourier.com
