N.C. State Senator: Our Abortion Law Is Even Worse Than It Appears | Opinion

Has your government ever ripped away one of your fundamental rights? Despite my impassioned plea on the North Carolina Senate floor, it happened to me this week.

I've experienced five pregnancies: three ended in miscarriage. Each time, because of Roe v. Wade, I trusted I would get the medical care I needed.

But now that Republicans used their veto-proof majority in the North Carolina General Assembly to enact severe abortion restrictions, many women and girls here will be forced to remain pregnant against their will and/or face near insurmountable hurdles in order to get reproductive health care.

It's hard to believe that my government would do this to me, my daughters, my friends, and their daughters. This abortion ban is a slap in the face, a muzzle on our mouths, and a straitjacket on our bodies.

Thirteen of the Senate's 17 women are Democrats, but Republicans wrote Senate Bill 20 in secret, without our input. They used procedural tricks to pass this ban faster than anyone thought possible: limiting public comment, avoiding committee review, and blocking all amendments. My Senate Democratic colleagues and I pushed back, holding the floor for over six hours, using every tool we had to try to stop this ban. Republicans got angry and shut us down.

Why did they take extraordinary measures to evade scrutiny? Two reasons: because even the bill sponsors couldn't answer questions about the bill's vague and conflicting language and because abortion bans are unpopular. Most Americans believe Roe v. Wade should not have been overturned and most North Carolinians think we should have kept our current law in place (allowing abortion up to 20 weeks with exceptions thereafter). Opposition was building from business leaders, medical societies, faith leaders, obstetricians, and voters. As people learned about SB20, public outcry got louder. Republicans acted before public pressure got too intense.

Most people discover they're pregnant around week six to eight. SB20 makes medication abortion (the safest and most common method) illegal after week 10 and makes all abortions illegal after week 12 (except for narrow exceptions). That leaves a small window for a pregnant person to make a big decision. Under SB20, the clock is ticking. She can't afford the time to consult her family, doctors, or pastor. With only 14 abortion clinics here, wait times for appointments are long.

SB20 enacts medically unnecessary steps patients must endure before they can get an abortion, including undergoing a mandatory ultrasound, hearing a biased script dictated by politicians, attending multiple in-person visits to the doctor, reporting private medical records to

the state, and delaying care at least 72 hours (the longest waiting period in the US). Even sexual assault victims and patients who pregnancies go wrong must comply with these barriers.

Clinics in North Carolina may not meet the new regulations, forcing them to close. SB20 also requires that abortions after 12 weeks occur in a hospital, which is more expensive and harder to access. Twenty percent of North Carolina counties do not have a hospital.

Taken together, these unnecessary new rules create near-insurmountable barriers to care.

The bill sponsors defend their 12-week ban by pointing out that it includes exceptions. Don't be fooled. Doctors tell us that exceptions don't work in practice. Pregnancy is complicated and medical care is time sensitive. The exceptions in SB20 are a ploy by extremist politicians trying to seem moderate.

Case in point: the narrowly defined "medical emergency" exception will force pregnant patients to wait until they are at acute risk of dying before doctors can provide the abortion care they need. Under SB20, treatment for cancer, a severe mental illness, drug addiction, or even a fetal death don't qualify for the exception. So, as the patient waits to enter sepsis or her vital signs crash from preeclampsia, doctors will check with lawyers to see if they can act. A classic example of how politicians make terrible doctors.

Second case in point: the rape and incest exception is so narrow that many victims—mostly children—will be forced to remain pregnant. SB20 requires that once victims realize they are pregnant, they must get to a physician, find the courage to tell the doctor what happened, go through the new restrictions, and complete the procedure—all before the arbitrary 20 week deadline. If the clock runs out, they must remain pregnant, regardless of how young and traumatized they are. Additionally, doctors' reporting obligations will kick in, triggering mandatory interaction with police for that child. It's cruel.

SB20 goes into effect on July 1. Many pregnant people will become health care refugees, forced to seek care in other states, if they can afford to do so. Others won't have options, stuck with unwanted or unsafe pregnancies in life-threatening scenarios. The government should never force anyone to accept the risks of pregnancy and childbirth.

SB20 will discourage doctors from practicing in North Carolina, leaving fewer providers to care for a higher number of pregnant patients. Bans like this lead to substandard medical care and higher rates of maternal mortality.

If Republicans have their way, more severe bans are next. They gaslight us, saying these restrictions are for our protection. We do not want this heavy-handed interference masquerading as "care for women."

I remember when I believed Republicans stood for small government and personal freedom. But in doing this to North Carolina's women and girls, it's clear Republicans cannot claim to stand on those principles anymore.

State Sen. Natasha Marcus is in her third term, representing District 41 (D- Mecklenburg County) in the North Carolina Senate. She lives in Davidson, NC.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.