june 2023: reproductive freedom

On May 4, 2023, every Republican in the NC General Assembly voted for a law that:

- Reduces the availability of abortion from 20 weeks to 12 weeks

- Bans use of abortion pill after 10 weeks

- Requires 3 in-person clinic visits, 72 hours apart, to use the abortion pill

- Requires pregnant women to review an ultrasound of the fetus within 72 hours of an elected abortion

- Requires the attendance of a doctor to administer an abortion inducing pill

- Imposes $5000 fine for mailing abortion pills or providing telemedicine without a doctor present

- Adds other restrictions and criminal penalties - effective July 1, 2023

No Democrats supported this bill. Democratic Governor Cooper vetoed the bill, but the General Assembly Republican super-majority overrode his veto.

These NC restrictions were made possible because in June 2022 all six Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that had given women a right to abortion for the last fifty years. They gave each state legislature the power to determine reproductive freedoms in their state. All three Democratic-appointed justices voted to keep women’s constitutional right to abortion. 

61% of Americans support abortion rights.

59% of Americans disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

54% of likely voters in North Carolina strongly or somewhat oppose the NC General Assembly’s abortion bill, while only 40% strongly or somewhat support it.