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N.C. Republicans pass 12-week abortion ban, setting up showdown with governor [1]

['Caroline Kitchener', 'Rachel Roubein']

Date: 2023-05-04

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RALEIGH — Republicans in North Carolina on Thursday granted final passage to a bill to ban abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, in a hasty and highly unusual process that allowed lawmakers to push through the legislation from start to finish in less than 48 hours. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The measure would significantly narrow the window for legal abortions in a state that has become a critical access point for people seeking the procedure. But it is less restrictive than the GOP-backed bans that have ended abortions across much of the South — a response, Republicans here said, to the political backlash they observed across the country.

The bill passed the state Senate with a vote of 29-20 after it was approved by the House late Wednesday night — setting up a showdown with Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who told The Washington Post late Thursday that he would veto the bill but only after a delay of up to 10 days so the public could “digest this very complicated, burdensome legislation that they haven’t had a chance to even see.” Republicans now hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers, after a House Democrat switched parties last month, and say they have the votes to enact the law over Cooper’s objection.

This week’s events follow several failed attempts to pass strict abortion bans in other, more conservative states. Last week, a near-total ban failed to advance in South Carolina, while a six-week ban fizzled in Nebraska, amid fears that additional abortion restrictions could prompt backlash from voters.

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North Carolina Republicans said they hope the 12-week ban will become a model for the rest of the country, portraying the bill as a “mainstream” alternative to abortion bans that outlaw abortion earlier in a pregnancy. It is the first new abortion ban to pass since the fall of Roe v. Wade that does not outlaw all or most abortions, allowing roughly 90 percent of abortions to continue.

State Sen. Amy Galey (R) said the proposal offered a compromise that a wide swath of Republicans, and maybe even some Democrats, could get behind.

“We can’t live at the extremes,” Galey said in an interview. “Ultimately, this country has got to find its way to finding somewhere that we can agree to disagree and move on to other issues.”

Republican lawmakers repeatedly cited a poll conducted by a policy organization tied to the North Carolina GOP that showed a majority of the state’s residents support a ban on abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy — a key tool, several Republicans said, in assuring members that signing onto the proposal posed little political risk.

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Public opinion surveys have showed widespread support in the state for abortion rights. PRRI, a polling firm, showed that just 33 percent of North Carolinians supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The new legislation would establish exceptions for rape and incest through 20 weeks, along with an exception for lethal fetal anomalies through 24 weeks and a general exception for the life of the mother. Unlike many other abortion restrictions, the ban is coupled with tens of millions of dollars in funding for child care, foster care and paid family leave — money that GOP lawmakers said was added to address criticisms from abortion rights advocates that conservatives often seek to ban abortions but fail to support mothers and babies.

The bill, Senate Bill 20, also includes numerous other restrictions, beyond the 12-week limit, that would make abortion significantly more difficult to access. Democratic lawmakers expressed particular concern about a provision that would require patients to have an in-person consultation with a doctor at least 72 hours before an abortion, in addition to the visit required for the abortion itself.

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The additional in-person visit would make it harder for out-of-state patients to travel to North Carolina, which has become a destination for people seeking abortions across the South in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in June. In the first two months after the landmark decision, North Carolina experienced a greater spike in abortions than any other state.

“Instead of working to eliminate barriers for women, especially for rural women and working women, to access the care they need, Senate Bill 20 doubles down on increasing restrictions here in North Carolina,” Sen. Sydney Batch (D) said on the Senate floor Thursday.

The passage of the 12-week abortion ban in North Carolina, which currently allows abortions until 20 weeks of pregnancy, was the culmination of months of highly secretive meetings in the Republican caucus, where lawmakers struggled to agree on an abortion ban that could win enough votes to override a veto.

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Cooper told The Post that he and his office plan to protect his veto by seeking to peel away the Republicans’ narrow supermajority — focusing pressure on a handful of moderate Republicans who pledged to protect abortion access during their campaigns.

“All we need is one Republican in either chamber to vote with us and we can override the veto,” Cooper said. He added that his office would be closely watching Rep. Ted Davis (R), who has promised to protect abortion rights — and who abstained from voting in the House on Wednesday night.

The governor added that Republicans were “trying to dress this up as a reasonable 12-week ban. It’s not.”

Many Democrats said they were surprised when the proposal was unveiled at a news conference Tuesday night. Rather than introducing the proposal as a new bill, as is typical, Republicans instead gutted a different piece of legislation and inserted the 46-page abortion bill, allowing them to circumvent the usual committee process, which can take weeks or months.

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“I just don’t believe this is how democracy should work,” House Minority Leader Robert Reives (D) said in a hearing on Wednesday. “This affects the rights of one half of the population of this state.”

Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue (D) said the maneuver would “work well in an autocracy — in Russia or China.”

The text of the bill was so tightly held that only House and Senate leadership and a handful of other members had a copy in their possession, according to several lawmakers and advocates. If they wanted to review the language, most Republicans had to go to the office of someone who had a copy of the bill — and they were forbidden from making their own copies or taking pictures.

Even within groups of Republicans helping to draft the bill, deliberations were so secret that participants had to turn in their papers after every meeting, one lawmaker said.

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The secrecy was intended to minimize abortion rights protests at the State Legislative Building around the passage of the bill, several GOP lawmakers said. But the process was also selected to prevent far-right legislators from introducing an amendment that would replace the 12-week limit with a six-week ban, according to a person familiar with internal discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Despite the secrecy, hundreds of abortion rights supporters descended on Raleigh on Wednesday afternoon, attending a rally held by Planned Parenthood and eventually forming a line that stretched around the entire State Legislative Building. Inside, protesters flooded the rotunda and filled up the gallery, at one point chanting “abortion rights now.”

One man held a poster that called out Rep. Tricia Cotham (R), the former Democrat who recently switched parties.

“This bait and switch is not what we voted for,” the poster read. “Shame on Cotham.”

Abortion rights advocates drew attention to the additional restrictions embedded within the legislation that would make abortion more difficult to access.

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“Anti-abortion politicians have rolled up a ban on abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy into a far-reaching bill with new, severe restrictions that will make it much harder to provide abortion care and for patients to get an abortion even before 12 weeks,” Jillian Riley, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a statement.

Many antiabortion advocates were frustrated that the legislation did not impose stricter restrictions on the procedure.

A survey administered by Republican leadership to each GOP member showed that a plurality of Republican lawmakers in North Carolina supported an abortion ban after cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy, according to a person with direct knowledge of the results. Some Republicans said they supported a ban at conception, while others said they preferred a 12-week ban or leaving the limit at the previous 20 weeks.

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Early in the year, Republican hard-liners began discussing the abortion issue with a handful of Democrats who have voted for antiabortion legislation in the past, including several ministers of Black Baptist churches. Even before Cotham switched parties, antiabortion advocates said they were confident they would be able to convince at least one Democrat to vote for what they call a “heartbeat bill.”

But a sizable group of moderate Republicans refused to consider a six-week ban, according to the person familiar with internal discussions. Many in the group were keenly aware of the political backlash to strict abortion bans that has been mounting since the Supreme Court ruling, the person said.

In the months since Roe was overturned, voters have repeatedly demonstrated their strong support for abortion rights, striking down antiabortion amendments even in conservative states such as Kentucky and Kansas. The 2022 midterms, in which a number of Democrats won competitive races after making abortion rights a central issue, were widely viewed as a danger sign for Republicans.

Heading into the 2023 legislative session, North Carolina was in a unique position. With a Republican-led legislature and a Democratic governor, the state needed far more votes than others to pass abortion restrictions.

To get the moderate Republicans on board, Galey said, more right-leaning lawmakers had to make compromises.

While Galey would have personally preferred a more restrictive abortion law, she said, “I don’t represent a party of one.”

“I represent 205,000 to 210,000 people and I have to consider their views,” Galey said. “You have to do what’s right for North Carolina.”

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[1] Url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/04/north-carolina-abortion-ban/

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