JULIE VON HAEFEN: Senate Bill 20 - An assault on freedom and women's bodies

EDITOR'S NOTE: Julie von Haefen is serving her third term in the N.C. House of Representatives. She is a Democrat representing Wake County. 

This is a dark time in North Carolina. The devastating ban on abortion passed last week in our General Assembly will not only prevent people from getting the care they want and need but will have dangerous ripple effects throughout the healthcare system. Make no mistake; Senate Bill 20 will harm women.

Across the country, bans like this are denying patients lifesaving care when pregnancies go wrong. Patients have received substandard care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other treatments because of the uncertainty created by restrictive laws like this one. The evidence from other states that have banned or restricted abortion in the wake of Dobbs clearly indicates that abortion bans lead to substandard medical care and higher maternal mortality rates.  Abortion restrictions are especially dangerous in North Carolina, where our maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the country.

Pregnancy is not a benign condition. It has serious and complicated impacts on health and for some people it can even be dangerous.  Patients are 10 times more likely to die giving birth than during an early abortion.  No one should be forced to risk their life to carry a pregnancy to term.  A person’s health, not the politicians sitting in the General Assembly,  should guide their important medical decisions at all stages of pregnancy.

North Carolina already had more barriers to accessing abortion than most states in the country. This bill, while it would move the current 20 week ban to a 12-week ban, would also create even more burdensome barriers to accessing care, including: Three in-person visits to clinics by patients (when none are medically necessary); A 10-week limit on medication abortion (when it is currently safely used up to 11), and; Additional and complicated requirements that are designed to make providing abortion and miscarriage care unworkable for providers.

When you prevent providers from being able to do their jobs, you are harming and isolating patients, no matter how much anti-abortion lawmakers claim to care about them.

The requirements of this bill are absolutely cruel. They intimidate providers by targeting doctors and abortion clinics by criminalizing medical decisions. Abortion bans create a culture of fear that keeps doctors from providing the standard of care they were trained to provide.

No doctor should live in fear of criminal prosecution in the event a prosecutor questions their medical judgment. However, no matter what lawmakers do, this ban will NOT stop people from accessing abortions.

All anti-choice politicians are doing is making North Carolina a more dangerous and deadly place for women and pregnant people because this cruel bill will end up forcing people to carry life-threatening pregnancies for far longer than they should ever have to, endangering people’s lives and their ability to have future children.

But, truly one of the most insulting things about this bill is the absolute lack of trust in women. In this bill, lawmakers are saying that women cannot make healthcare decisions without the state forcing them to read printed information. They are saying that women can’t understand their decisions unless they sign specific paperwork. They are forcing people to sit with the information for 72 hours because, apparently, the bill sponsors don’t believe that women can make decisions without forcing us to wait and “think about it.”

This bill is callous and insulting; it is harmful; it is medically unnecessary, and; it is disrespectful to me and every other woman who can make her own healthcare decisions. I don’t need to be protected. I can make my own decisions.  North Carolina women can make their own decisions.  We DO NOT need politicians to do it for us.

The bottom line is that by banning abortion in this way, the government is forcing people into untenable situations with serious consequences for their health, their families, their lives, and their futures. Bodily autonomy and self-determination are fundamental human rights that we should and must respect.

I strongly object to this egregious assault on our freedom and I object to this assault on our bodies.

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