North Carolina House approves GOP’s 12-week abortion ban. Here’s what happens next.

A Republican proposal to ban abortion after 12 weeks in North Carolina cleared the House in a contentious vote Wednesday evening, less than 24 hours after the bill was announced and released to the public.

The Care for Women, Children, and Families Act, a 46-page bill that Republicans unveiled Tuesday evening as the product of more than three months of private talks between GOP lawmakers, passed the House in a 71-46 vote.

No Republicans voted against the bill, and no Democrats voted for it.

The bill was introduced Tuesday as a conference report to an existing bill, which has allowed it to fly through the legislature without having to go through the normal process that typically involves multiple committees and lawmakers offering amendments. The Senate debated the bill Thursday and was expected to vote in the afternoon to send it to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has vowed to block it, but will likely see his veto defeated now that Republicans have a supermajority in both chambers.

Under current law, abortions are allowed up until 20 weeks of gestation. The GOP proposal would bring that down to 12 weeks with exceptions up to 20 weeks for rape and incest, up to 24 weeks for “life-limiting” fetal anomalies, and without limit if a physician determines that the mother’s life is in danger due to a medical emergency.

Debate on the bill began just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday, after the House had made its way through more than 50 other bills that were on the agenda.

Republicans said that a 12-week ban represented a “mainstream” answer to the abortion question, and argued that millions of dollars included in the bill to fund services to support parents and children, including child care, foster care and contraception, as well as paid parental leave for teachers and state employees, showed that it was a holistic approach.

“It is it is a middle-of-the-road position in so many ways. It is a position that puts North Carolina consistent with probably most of the free world,” House Speaker Tim Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican, told reporters after the vote.

Democrats slam ban, rushed process

Rep. Ya Liu, a Wake County Democrat, talked during the session about complications she experienced while having her own children. She said her son was born at 27 weeks and had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit before coming home. A year later, Liu said she had her second child, and was considered a high-risk patient due to her son’s premature birth.

When she was 15 weeks pregnant with her daughter, Liu said her baby received a positive result on a genetic test. Fortunately, it turned out to be a false positive.

“But, could you imagine how scared we were?” Liu asked lawmakers.

For many other women, Liu said, their pregnancy doesn’t have a happy ending.

House Minority Leader Robert Reives, meanwhile, objected to how quickly Republicans advanced the bill to the House floor, without allowing Democrats to offer amendments. He said that Republicans bringing up “the most important thing we vote on this session” within 24 hours was “unthinkable.”

“That’s not democracy. That’s actually the antithesis of democracy,” Reives said. “And it’s not about whether people agree with you, it’s not about whether the issue you fight for you feel in your heart is right. The whole point of a deliberative body is to allow dissent.”

Before House members voted, Rep. Julie von Haefen, a Democrat from Apex, led her caucus in a rare procedural protest. According to the state constitution, a General Assembly member “may dissent from and protest against any act or resolve which he may think injurious to the public or to any individual, and have the reasons of his dissent entered on the journal.”

After she lodged her protest, every other Democrat followed suit.

“I know that we are all united for the women of our state on this issue,” von Haefen said of House Democrats in comments to reporters after the vote. “And we all stood strong today, showing the people here in the gallery and in the public that we are united on this issue — that we’re here to fight for them.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 9:56 PM.

Avi Bajpai

The News & Observer

919-346-4817

Avi Bajpai is a state politics reporter for The News & Observer. He previously covered breaking news and public safety. Contact him at abajpai@newsobserver.com or (919) 346-4817.