North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he will veto a proposed bill that would ban abortions after 12 weeks.
According to House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, House and Senate Republicans came to a consensus on legislation that would enact the legislation.
Currently, state law prohibits abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy with the exceptions of circumstances involving rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or when the life of the mother is at risk.
Those exceptions remain in the new legislation, which Cooper has called an attack on women’s freedom to choose.
Final votes on the legislation will take place in the House on Wednesday and in the Senate on Thursday before going to Cooper’s desk.
Republicans, however, hold a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate.
In the 2022 election, Republicans gained a supermajority in the Senate by two seats, while the House failed to gain a supermajority.
‘Pro-Family Measures’
According to Berger, the legislation will not only put limitations on second and third-trimester abortions but also provide $160 million for childcare access, paid parental leave for teachers and state employees, maternal health, and additional “pro-family measures.”The bill includes criminal provisions that make it a Class D felony with a $250,000 fine for physicians who don’t medically assist babies after a failed procedure.
Anyone caught supplying or illegally advertising abortion-inducing drugs is subject to a $5,000 fine.
“The criminal punishment for assaults on pregnant women will be increased, the misdemeanor crime of domestic violence will be created, and the 10-year GPS monitoring for certain repeat and violent sexual offenders will be bumped up to lifetime monitoring,” Berger said.
Berger pointed to a poll that showed 57 percent of North Carolinians support the legislation that would ban abortion after the first trimester.
The bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Joyce Krawiec, called the bill a beginning to “the process of creating a culture that values life.”
Cooper, however, disagreed, calling it Republican overreach that—in alluding to the reversal of Roe v. Wade—erodes “even further the freedom of women and their doctors to make deeply personal health care decisions.”