North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban is worse than you think. Here’s why | Opinion
After months of discussion, Republican lawmakers rolled out a bill that would ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy in North Carolina, with some exceptions.
That sounds bad enough — but it’s even worse than you think.
In addition to limiting when and why a person can choose to have an abortion, Senate Bill 20, deceptively titled the “Care for Women, Children and Families Act,” creates additional burdens for those seeking to safely terminate a pregnancy even within the first trimester — as well as for health care providers.
North Carolina already has strict informed consent laws that require a 72-hour waiting period between the initial consultation and the actual procedure in a doctor’s office. Currently, the consultation is able to occur by phone, so patients do not have to be physically present. Senate Bill 20 would change that, mandating that the initial consultation occur in person. That creates significant burdens for working people, people traveling from out of state and anyone else who cannot afford or manage a multi-day trip.
The bill also includes forced ultrasounds — a requirement that was passed by the General Assembly a decade ago but later blocked by a federal court. Providers would have to perform an ultrasound at least four hours prior to the procedure and describe the image to the patient in real time. Only a handful of states require this to happen prior to an abortion procedure.
It would also require multiple in-person visits for medication abortion. Not only would a patient have to schedule an in-person visit for the consultation and for the first dose of medication to be administered, the law would also require a follow-up appointment to happen within seven and 14 days. Appointments are already difficult to get in North Carolina due to increased demand in a post-Roe world.
Yet medication abortion is so safe and effective that in many parts of the country, no in-person doctor visit is required and the pill can simply be sent through the mail. (The bill also creates a $5,000 fine for any person or organization caught sending the abortion pill to someone directly through the mail.)
Though the bill is touted as one that allows abortion throughout the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, medication abortion would only be legal during the first 10 weeks. The abortion pill can currently be prescribed up to 11 weeks of pregnancy, providers say. And after 12 weeks, all abortions would have to occur in the hospital. Currently, abortions can be performed in a clinic until the 20-week mark.
The bill also places new licensing requirements on abortion clinics across the state, which are already heavily regulated. A representative for Planned Parenthood told lawmakers Wednesday that none of the organization’s clinics in North Carolina currently meet those requirements.
In a statement opposing Senate Bill 20, the North Carolina Medical Society said that the bill is “administratively burdensome and proposes a complex set of regulations that are not evidence-based and will impede patient access to medical care.”
It is already difficult to obtain an abortion in North Carolina. Only nine of the state’s 100 counties even have an abortion clinic — 14 clinics exist to serve the whole population, in addition to the many patients who travel from out of state. Only certain medical providers are allowed to administer abortions — regardless of whether the abortion is medical or surgical. The procedure itself is expensive and often not covered by insurance.
In a committee hearing Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Jay Chaudhuri called the bill an “example of government overreach and red tape designed to make it as difficult as possible for a woman to get an abortion.”
“I was wondering why you didn’t allocate money for women to hire a lawyer to navigate all these new laws y’all put in place,” Chaudhuri said.
Of course, a rotten process yields rotten results, and that’s exactly what has happened here. Republican lawmakers drafted this bill in secret, with seemingly no input from the medical community, Democrats or the public. One Republican senator told Democrats in the bill’s lone committee hearing that they weren’t consulted because Republicans already knew what they would say.
The 46-page bill was substituted into an unrelated bill, so it could bypass the typical committee hearing process and there was no opportunity to amend it. It passed the House Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after the bill was actually released to the public. By Thursday, it had passed the Senate and was on its way to the governor’s desk. Start to finish, the whole process took less than 48 hours.
Senate Bill 20 is more than just a 12-week abortion ban. It will restrict access to all abortions, regardless of when they occur, and that will have devastating consequences.
Abortion is health care, and Republicans are stripping it away.
Paige Masten is a Charlotte-based opinion writer and member of the Editorial Board.
