Abortion, a Deeply Personal Decision
“Abortion is a deeply personal decision,” observed Rep. Tricia Cotham in 2015. “My womb and my uterus is not up for your political grab. Legislators–you–do not hold shares in my body, so stop trying to manipulate my mind.”
How times have changed in 2023. Cotham recently switched parties, giving Republicans a veto-proof supermajority that was able to ram through a bill in 48 hours with devastating new restrictions on abortion access in North Carolina. SB20 was touted by Republican women as a “pro-woman” and a “holistic” approach to supporting both women and their unborn children, stating that it’s time to catch up with the “science” that affirms parenthood before birth.
Essentially, GOP women stood as the face of the bill, when the numbers tell us it was actually men behind the bill stripping female reproductive rights. Touting a few initiatives baked into the measure such as paid parental leave, covering the cost of birth control for low-income individuals, helping to pay for child care, and “lowering maternal mortality,” these women tried to put a pretty face on a bill that all research and data tell us will result in higher maternal mortality and more forced pregnancies, not only in NC but for the rest of the South which depends on our state for access to abortion services.
The bill bans abortions after 12 weeks gestation, a time when the fetus is nowhere near viability outside the womb. This cuts down access to abortion care by 8 weeks in our state, where wait time for an abortion before this new ban was already at 4 weeks. Most people do not even know they are pregnant until after 6 weeks. So, girls and women, if you find out you have an unwanted pregnancy, make your appointment right away, cobble together the money for the procedure, do the required in-person appointment visits and sit through the mandatory 72-hour waiting period to really think about what you’ve done (and maybe change your mind), and you just might make it to have the procedure before that 12-week cutoff date. But probably not. It’s worth noting that the legislators spent less time debating this bill than the 72 hours a woman has to wait to get an abortion!
SB20 also makes it harder to get a medication abortion, which is approved prior to 10 weeks. These medically unnecessary restrictions show the hypocrisy of those behind the law. Think about it: if the problem is abortions after 12 weeks, why make it harder to get abortions up until 10 weeks?
Doctors and healthcare professionals are furious with the bill’s claim to be “pro-women” and “pro-science,” when it is clear it is anything but. One local OB GYN stated anonymously that (s)he has been inserting IUDs for graduating high school girls. These are girls who are not yet sexually active, (s)he stated. They are just terrified. As graduating seniors headed to university they fear that nonconsensual encounters such as date rape or sexual assault, both of which are not uncommon in college, could leave them with unwanted pregnancy. SB20 has an exception for rape, but in most states the woman has to press charges against her rapist to qualify for that exemption. For many reasons, young women often do not call the police to report rape. And, according to Carolina Forward, the bill actually significantly narrows the exemptions for rape, incest, and fetal abnormalities.
My own daughter, 25 years old, is considering having her tubes tied pre-emptively, saying she’d rather take that choice from her future self than allow someone else to make that choice for her. How incredibly sad, in a state where we once forced sterilization procedures onto young women deemed “unfit” to reproduce as part of a state-wide eugenics program, that we’ve come full circle to a place where they would rather sterilize themselves than have their reproductive choices taken from them by their government.