Pitts: After Roe, NC legislative races will determine if abortion remains legal

With N.C. House and Senate races in November, voters will consider plenty of major issues: Among them, a push for Medicaid expansion; teacher pay and recruitment; K-12 education; and economic development, especially in rural areas.

But for people who feel most strongly about abortion and who are on either side of the divide, there is no more important election than these state races.

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Yes, there are also mid-terms for Congressional seats. But when it comes to whether abortion stays or goes in North Carolina, the state is the whole ballgame.

It is stark. It is black-and-white.

North Carolina will go one way or the other, and it starts with which political party wins in November.

Five conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protections for an abortion last month in a ruling on a case out of Mississippi that overturned Roe v. Wade (1973). North Carolina is an outlier among southern states in that it still allows abortion providers to operate for the immediate future. Our state has become a destination for southern women who need such services.

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Some southern states have already enacted bans set to begin when Roe ended, while others are working on bans that will go into effect soon.

As everyone should well know by now, power is split in North Carolina — between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and an N.C. General Assembly controlled by Republicans.

Currently, Cooper can veto bills from the state legislature he does not like. That would include any attempt at banning abortion. That all changes if the GOP wins enough seats in November to override his vetoes.

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If that happens, we can expect Republicans to pursue a ban on abortion as soon as practicable.

Even before Roe fell in June, activists on both sides of the abortion debate were talking about the importance of the fall election with clear eyes.

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Jason Williams, director of the anti-abortion North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition, told a reporter for the USA Today Network in May that they planned on knocking on 450,000 doors before the November election. Tara Romano with Pro-Choice North Carolina told the same reporter, “As it stands right now, we have the numbers we need to be able to uphold a veto” but said how the election turns out will determine what abortion access remains available.

Already, the stakes have been laid out.

On Thursday, Cooper signed an executive order designed to protect abortion access in the state. The order noted that other states “may seek to impose criminal or civil penalties on health care workers or entities that provide reproductive health care services” and “may seek to impose criminal or civil penalties on people who travel to North Carolina to access reproductive health care services.”

North Carolina, the order assures, will not be doing that.

The order is not the sort of government action that Republicans had sought from the Cooper administration.

On June 25, a day after the Supreme Court decision, Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore asked N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein to allow a ban on abortions after 20 weeks to go in effect. The law was blocked by a judge in 2019 because of Roe.

What the Republicans received a week later from Stein — who is often talked about as a likely candidate for governor in 2024  — was a letter stating his commitment to protect reproductive rights. He said a review on the 20-week ban would be completed in days or weeks.

The balance of power in the General Assembly after November will be important for reasons other than whether our state shuts down abortion providers. The specifics of how a ban will work could have great impact on women’s reproductive rights and maternal health care.

We already see this in other states, where tough restrictions have gone into effect.

Ohio made national news when a 10-year-old rape victim had to be carried to another state for an abortion. The law there paid no attention to the sexual assault or the grave health risk posed to a girl that young giving birth.

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Will laws be designed to allow for abortions in the case of ectopic pregnancies, where the child is not viable and continuing with the pregnancy will kill the mother?

It all will come down to who is sitting in the seats, writing those laws.

I would think anyone else wanting a say in the matter will surely vote this fall.

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Pitts: NC legislative races will determine if abortion remains legal