Handful of Democrats stand with GOP on bad-faith “born alive” bill

Even though Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed the latest Republican abortion bill, a handful of North Carolina Democrats are standing with the NCGOP in support of this bad-faith attack on health care.

Reps. Garland Pierce and Charles Graham have said they would vote to overturn Cooper’s veto. Sen. Ben Clark, who originally supported the legislation, said he would vote to sustain the veto. Three other Democrats who originally supported the bill haven’t said whether they would vote with the Republicans on an override.

Although the GOP no longer has super-majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, they may still be able to scrape up the two-thirds majority necessary to overturn the veto if the Democrats break ranks. No matter what happens, one thing is clear: SB 359 is part of an extreme agenda that seeks to ban abortion outright.

• Since the Republican supermajority was elected in 2010, North Carolina has passed some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. Now Republicans are trying to threaten doctors with criminal action and shame patients over a practice that is not based in the reality of abortion care.
• We all want families to have access to the best medical care available. Healthcare providers work every day to ensure people have access to safe, compassionate, high-quality health care and information.
• This legislation, on the other hand, is written by politicians not doctors. This is not how medical care works, and it’s irresponsible to imply that it is. Politicians in Raleigh are trying to shame patients and criminalize doctors for a practice that doesn’t exist. We all deserve accurate medical information based on science and not politics.

This bill criminalizes doctors and is not based in science or reality. It’s yet another part of the anti-women’s health majority and Republican leadership’s attacks on health care.