North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Saturday vetoed a 12-week abortion ban that the state legislature passed, setting up a confrontation between the state’s competing parties and branches of government.
The veto faces a steep battle: Republicans hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers in the North Carolina legislature and could override his veto to enact the abortion ban. However, Cooper and the state’s abortion rights supporters hope to sway a Republican lawmaker in either chamber to allow the state’s current abortion law — which allows most people to get abortions for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy — to stand.
The 12-week ban, known as Senate Bill 20, was rapidly pushed through both chambers on May 4 in a 48-hour process that circumvented the usual process for legislation in the state. It is not as restrictive as some other states’ proposals, including the six-week ban that failed in Nebraska and the near-total ban that failed to advance in South Carolina.
The bill includes exceptions, allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy and for life-threatening fetal anomalies up to 24 weeks. It adds tens of millions of dollars toward maternal health and child care.
But the measure also has several other restrictions and conditions that abortion rights lawmakers and activists oppose. They include requiring patients to have an additional in-person consultation before an abortion and increased regulations for clinics that could threaten the licenses of those that can’t afford major upgrades.
The popularity of the new bill isn’t reflected in the state’s public opinion, according to the polling firm PRRI. It found only 33 percent of North Carolinians favored or strongly favored the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling, last year.
Cooper has his sights set on four state Republican lawmakers who previously expressed support for the current law to help uphold his veto: Sen. Michael Lee, Rep. Ted Davis, Rep. John Bradford and Rep. Tricia Cotham, a former Democrat who spoke on the North Carolina House floor in 2015 about her own experience getting an abortion. Cotham, who just recently switched her affiliation to the Republican Party, voted in favor of the 12-week ban.
“What we’re going to do is call them out. Look, there are four Republicans, four Republicans, who said they would protect women’s reproductive freedom during the campaign,” Cooper said earlier this week on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “All we need is one of them. We can block this disastrous legislation and then we can wait for the next battle.”