A federal appeals overturned a decades-old North Carolina law that bans abortions after the twentieth week of pregnancy, saying it was unconstitutional and posed a threat of prosecution on providers who are operating within the law, the Washington Post reports.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit unanimously overturned the 1973 law, and sets up a Supreme Court case going at the heart of the viability argument in Roe v. Wade.  In the past few years, Republican-led states have passed legislation that has far more restrictive timeframes for women to seek an abortion, including “heartbeat” bills that would prevent a woman from seeking an abortion at six weeks, before many women may realize they are pregnant.

The judges involved in the case:  Judge Diana Motz, a nominee of President Bill Clinton,  Judge Albert Diaz, a nominee of President Barack Obama, and and Judge Julius Richardson, a nominee of President Donald Trump.

“As a nation we remain deeply embroiled in debate over the legal status of abortion. While this conversation rages around us, this court cannot say that the threat of prosecution to abortion providers who violate the law is not credible,” Judge Diana Motz wrote in the 15-page opinion.

While the law had been in place since the 1970s, the challenge to the law was filed in 2015 after North Carolina further restricted the list of reasons to justify an abortion after 20 weeks.

The lawyers for the state did not mount a legal justification for the 20-week ban, instead opting to claim the case was moot because no providers had been arrested for violating the law and therefore, the plaintiffs did not have standing.