A harsh new abortion ban won’t pass in NC, but you still should be alarmed | Opinion
A small group of Republican lawmakers wants North Carolina to have one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the entire country.
Legislation introduced this week would ban abortion after conception with no exceptions, except when necessary to save the life of the mother. It also contains strict penalties for anyone involved in performing or attempting an abortion, including a minimum $100,000 fine and felony charges punishable by life in prison.
The bill, which was also filed last legislative session by members of the House Freedom Caucus, isn’t going to go anywhere. House Speaker Destin Hall already said that the bill won’t be heard in committee. But it is an example of how attempts to restrict reproductive freedom have become more extreme in recent years, emboldened by the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Keith Kidwell, introduced an identical bill in 2023, at the start of the last legislative session. It wasn’t his first time introducing a bill like this — he’s filed anti-abortion legislation in each of his four terms in the legislature. But this bill is more extreme than some he’s filed in the past. In 2021, he introduced legislation that would ban abortion after there is a detected heartbeat. In 2019, the bill he introduced was a 13-week abortion ban. Neither of those bills contained the harsh punishments that this one does, either.
The penalties outlined in this bill are some of the harshest in the country, and far harsher than neighboring states. Even states like South Carolina and Georgia, whose abortion laws are stricter than North Carolina’s, don’t currently punish doctors or patients with hefty fines or lifetime prison sentences if they break the law. (There are proposals to do so, however.)
That gradual movement toward more draconian legislation is exactly why people in North Carolina are scared. It’s a deeply unsettling thing to realize that the rights you once thought were sacred are in fact fragile. Roe v. Wade was settled law for nearly 50 years before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 2022. For years, advocates worried about the potential for it to be reversed, only to be told that it would probably never happen. Roe was safe. Then it wasn’t.
It’s also why a bill introduced in 2021 that proposed the death penalty as a punishment for abortion put so many people on high alarm. Sure, it never had a chance of passing. But it was unsettling enough to know that there are elected officials out there who actually believe policy like that is worthwhile.
So it’s understandable why people would be on edge in a moment like this. We know that overturning Roe wasn’t the only goal of the anti-abortion movement. We know that there is a subset of people in North Carolina who still think a 12-week abortion ban isn’t enough. The overturning of Roe and the flurry of laws that accompanied it at the state level, didn’t satisfy them. It only emboldened them. This bill, and the evolution of its author’s stance on abortion, are proof of that. Across the country, states that already have rather strict bans on abortion are actively seeking ways to restrict it even further, testing the limits of what public opinion and the courts will let them get away with.
To be clear, Republican leaders in both chambers have said the state’s abortion laws likely won’t be modified this session. But they haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of it happening in the future. Hall also told reporters Tuesday that he believes “we need to give some more time to see” how the current 12-week ban is working. That’s not exactly reassuring.
We’re not living in normal times anymore. Things that could once be waved off as conservative pipe dreams and liberal alarmism are suddenly becoming our new reality. It’s why North Carolina Republicans seem poised to pass another House Bill 2 nearly 10 years after an intense wave of backlash pressured them into repealing the first one. The political math isn’t adding up for Republicans on abortion right now. But who’s to say it won’t change in the future? These days, you can never really be sure.
This story was originally published April 9, 2025 at 3:00 PM with the headline "A harsh new abortion ban won’t pass in NC, but you still should be alarmed | Opinion."
