North Carolina The Republicans successfully killed the Democrats from Governor Roy Cooper 12 week ban abortion you in on Tuesday, paving the way for the restriction to soon become law.
When the legislature held an override vote Tuesday, all Republicans voted for the 12-week abortion ban in the Senate. 30-20and the House, 72-48 ― confirming that the state’s vast Republican majority had the power to override Cooper’s veto. All four Republicans Cooper had considered as potential swing votes—State Representatives Tricia Cotham, John Bradford, and Ted Davis Jr., as well as State Senator Michael V. Lee—voted to ban abortion.
Protesters at the state house immediately began chanting “Shame! Pity! Too bad!” after the override was successful. The Republican leadership cleared the galley.
The 12-week ban and its additional restrictions related to medical abortion will take effect on July 1. Other parts of the legislation are expected to take effect at different times later this year.
Cotham changed party earlier this year, giving Republicans their critical veto-proof supermajority. The former Democrat was once an outspoken advocate for abortion rights, including sharing her own abortion story on the House floor in an impassioned plea against the abortion restriction in 2015. Earlier this year, she cosponsored a bill to codify abortion protections in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade last summer.
copper banned the 12-week abortion ban at a rally in Raleigh on Mother’s Day weekend, surrounded by doctors, advocates and fellow Democrats.
“We have heard from Republican lawmakers that this bill is a blanket compromise,” Cooper told the crowd. “Let me tell you something: Conventional bills are not written in secret, they are locked away, introduced in the dead of night, kept out of the public eye, shielded from any amendments, and then passed in less than 48 hours. ”
The governor traveled to several swing districts in recent weeks after Republicans promoted the ban on abortion through the legislature in just 48 hours. Cooper, who has voiced support for abortion rights during his tenure, hosted several roundtable discussions on reproductive health and encouraged voters to call their elected officials and ask them to maintain their veto.
During his six years in office, Cooper has successfully vetoed more than 50 bills.
But Cotham’s party switch, plus the national wave of anti-choice political rhetoric since the fall of Roe, led Cooper and his fellow Democrats to failure. A 12-week abortion ban will likely have devastating consequences not only for North Carolinians, but for much of the Southeast as well, as the state has become a safe haven for abortion care since the U.S. decision. the Women’s Health Organization Dobbs v. Jackson.
The state has experienced a 37% increase in abortions since Roe fell, the highest percentage increase of any state. Florida, the state with the second highest increase in abortions since Dobbs, is also contemplating a six-week abortion ban that is likely to take effect in July. These restrictions are expected to only create more barriers to care, forcing those who can to travel further for abortions and others to continue unwanted pregnancies.
North Carolina Republicans wrote closed-door abortion ban and unveiled it earlier this month to the surprise of many voters in the state. Instead of introducing a new law, Republican lawmakers quietly put the 46 page abortion restriction in an unrelated piece of legislation. The move allowed anti-abortion lawmakers to bypass the committee process, where most public testimony is heard, and go directly to the vote.
“Republican senators know that talking about abortion is bad for them,” said state senator Sydney Batch (D) he told the Huff Post on Monday. “They want this to be done as quickly as possible. They want to keep this annulment and they want to stop talking about abortion.”
The ban on abortion at 12 weeks comes with a long list of other restrictions, including a 72-hour waiting period, a ban on medical abortion after 10 weeks, and a requirement that patients visit a clinic twice before to receive abortion care. There are exceptions for rape and incest up to 20 weeks pregnant and an exception for lethal fetal anomalies up to 24 weeks. There are also exceptions for the life of the pregnant person, and the bill clarifies that the removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not defined as an elective abortion.
The ban requires that any abortion performed after the 12-week point, under the exceptions, must be performed in a hospital. It is worth noting that exceptions to the abortion ban often do not work in practice and sometimes represent a strategy by anti-choice legislators to make an extreme bill seem more reasonable.
There is only 14 abortion clinics in North Carolina, which means that 91% of counties do not have a clinic. And the legislation will impose new licensing requirements for abortion clinics, potentially closing some.
“He Republican Party has shown that they will not stop until all Americans lose their reproductive freedom, and the North Carolina Republican Party has shown it once again, republicans our rights cannot be trusted,” Heather Williams, acting chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement Tuesday night.
“This move by North Carolina’s vast Republican majority will affect abortion access for more than 10 million people in the state and will have a ripple effect across the region and the country,” Williams added. “State democrats Everywhere is fighting this extreme agenda, and Republicans will pay for their attacks on our liberties at the ballot box, just as they did last cycle.”