The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider North Carolina's bid to reinstate legislation requiring women to undergo a narrated ultrasound before an abortion after the law had been declared unconstitutional by a federal appellate court last year, United Press International reported.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in December that the rule violated women's and doctors' free-speech rights, the newswire detailed.

"A physician must display and describe the image during the ultrasound, even if the woman actively 'avert(s) her eyes' and 'refus(es) to hear,'" Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote at the time. "This compelled speech, even though it is a regulation of the medical profession, is ideological in intent."

North Carolina lawmakers had countered that requiring narrated ultrasounds would provide important information to women making an irrevocable decision, Reuters noted. Following the circuit court's rulings, they approved other restrictions, including legislation that requires pregnant women to wait three days between consulting a doctor and having an abortion.

Supporters of the ultrasound law, meanwhile, told the news service that they were disappointed by the Supreme Court's refusal to hear their case.

"It makes no sense that federal courts would block a woman's access to life-saving information, which results in over 70 percent of women changing their minds about abortion after seeing their unborn child on an ultrasound screen," said Tami Fitzgerald, who heads the North Carolina Values Coalition.

Abortion-rights activists, on the other hand, lauded the justices' decision.

"Doctors shouldn't be forced to humiliate a woman and disregard their best medical judgment in order to provide an abortion," said Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project.

The nation's highest tribunal followed custom and did not provide an explanation for its vote not to review the North Carolina law, SCOTUSblog noted. Consequently, "its action was not a reliable indicator of how the Justices would have ruled on the issue had they taken it on," Supreme Court expert Lyle Denniston explained.