Top NC GOP leader slams the door on abortion proposal. ‘It’s not a serious bill.’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- House Bill 1232 would ask voters to recognize life as beginning at fertilization.
- The proposal would make willfully destroying that life punishable as murder.
- House Speaker Destin Hall said the bill has no chance of moving and isn’t serious.
After gaining traction on social media, a House bill that would have asked voters in November whether to enshrine stricter abortion laws in the North Carolina Constitution attracted attention in the state and beyond. Top House leadership, however, dismissed the proposal this week as “not a serious bill.”
The bill in question is House Bill 1232, which was filed by Rep. Keith Kidwell, a Beaufort County Republican, earlier this month. If passed, the bill would have asked voters if they are for or against a “constitutional amendment to recognize that a distinct and separate human life begins at the moment of fertilization, and this individual person is entitled to the protection of the laws of the State from the moment of fertilization until the moment of natural death,” The News & Observer previously reported.
Had voters been in favor of the measure, the state Constitution would have been amended to add a section stating that “new human life is recognized by the State as an individual person” and is entitled to protection under state law. The amendment would also have said that anyone who “willfully seeks to destroy the life of” another, or succeeds in doing so, “shall be held accountable for attempted murder or for first-degree murder.” In addition, it states that any person has the right to defend their own life or the life of another “even by the use of deadly force.”
Kidwell, who was defeated in his March primary, has introduced similar legislation in previous sessions, but those efforts have gained little traction in the General Assembly.
And once more, it is going nowhere, according to House Speaker Destin Hall.
Asked about the abortion bill on Tuesday by The N&O, Hall said, “It doesn’t have any chance of moving at all, and I don’t think there’s literally any member of our caucus who wants it to move. Representative Kidwell might, but no, it’s not going to move, it’s not a serious bill.”
It’s not the first time Kidwell has tried.
During the 2023 debate over tightening North Carolina’s abortion laws, which at the time allowed abortions through 20 weeks of pregnancy, Kidwell introduced legislation that would have prohibited abortion in nearly all cases, allowing an exception only when the mother’s life was in danger. Republican lawmakers ultimately coalesced around a different proposal that barred most abortions after 12 weeks while permitting exceptions for rape, incest, certain fetal anomalies and medical emergencies.
Kidwell filed another bill in 2025 to ban abortion after conception with no exceptions, other than to preserve the mother’s life. That also did not move, and Hall said there was no interest in it.
The N&O previously reached out to Kidwell but did not hear back.
