Abortion in North Carolina: What Happens Here?
Photo courtesy of National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).
As the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) debates its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the future of abortion rights in America hangs in the balance.
A draft decision on the Dobbs case was leaked May 3, 2022, to the news site Politico, and the uproar online and in public spaces across the country has yet to subside. While a decision upholding Dobbs and overturning Roe would eliminate Federal protection of the right to an abortion, it would not create a Federal prohibition; what it would do is allow states to ban abortion outright if they chose. After the draft decision was leaked, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper tweeted “Now more than ever, governors and state legislatures must stand up for women's healthcare.”
Many states stand poised to roll back a freedom American women have had for fifty years with “trigger” laws that have been passed with the express intent to create bans as soon as a decision overturning the Roe precedent was handed down from SCOTUS.
What would happen in North Carolina?
The Tar Heel state does not have a specific trigger law waiting to take effect. The states surrounding us do, and assuming North Carolina legislators do not enact a ban (not a safe assumption, with Republicans controlling the state legislature), those seeking abortion who live in South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia may consider North Carolina a nearby safe haven.
North Carolina does have a list of restrictions on abortion already in effect that make the procedure harder to obtain. Those include:
A mandatory 72-hour waiting period, during which the physician who will perform the abortion must inform the patient of the risks of “infection, hemorrhage, cervical tear or uterine perforation, danger to subsequent pregnancies, including the ability to carry a child to full term, and any adverse psychological effects associated with the abortion.”
Mandatory parental consent for minors, waivable only if she appears before a judge (which would, of course, add time to her pregnancy that could make an abortion riskier).
A ban on abortions in which “a significant factor” in the choice is the sex of the “unborn child.”
Prohibition of the sale of the remains of an aborted fetus.
Most consequentially, the coverage of abortions through health insurance purchased via an Exchange created through the Affordable Care Act. This last prohibition does include exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
Similarly, no state funds can be used for an abortion as part of a “governmental health plan or government-offered insurance policy,” which would cover Medicaid and Medicare, as well as government employees.
North Carolina does have a limit on abortions after 20 weeks; once that mark has passed, abortions can be obtained only in hospitals for emergency reasons. Governor Roy Cooper has already vetoed stricter abortion bills passed by the Republican majority since he came to office in 2016, but if the NC GOP wins more seats in the midterm elections the party could regain a supermajority, which would make any laws passed in the legislature virtually veto-proof.
At the same time, the Tar Heel state has a poor record of protecting the health of women who are pregnant or might become pregnant, and doesn’t do much better at protecting children. 29 counties have no physicians who specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. 718,164 people, 7% of the state’s population, live in those counties. According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, our infant mortality rate is 6.8 per 1,000 born—8th-worst in the U.S. Mississippi, the state that brought the Dobbs case to SCOTUS, has the worst.
The Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly has blocked expansion of Medicaid since it first became available despite the opportunity it offers to provide health care to lower-income pregnant women and children. Expansion could provide care for those who can’t afford to purchase insurance but make too much to qualify for Medicaid as it now stands in North Carolina. Current eligibility requirements disqualify a family of four making more than $36,908, or a single person making more than $18,075.
The state legislature is considering expansion, with Republicans FNALLY acknowledging the benefits of the $1.5 to $2 billion that would come to the state in federal funding. The state is ninth-highest in the proportion of our population that has no health insurance, and many of those uninsured are children—6% of whom have no coverage in North Carolina.
In short, while the legislature ponders whether to restrict abortion further in a deeply purple state, the people Republicans claim to want to protect continue to go unprotected.
