Abortion in North Carolina
Abortion in North Carolina is legal. Abortion related legislation existed in North Carolina by 1900, including a therapeutic exception. Research was being done about abortion nationally using North Carolina data to derive to estimates in 1967. State Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws were in place by 2013. North Carolina abortion laws have been before the federal judiciary, including in March 2019 when U.S. District Judge William Osteen formally struck down North Carolina's life of the mother only 20-week abortion ban. The number of abortion-providing facilities in North Carolina, including freestanding abortion  clinics, has declined over the years, with: 114 facilities providing abortion care in 1982, 86 facilities providing abortion care in 1992, 27 facilities providing abortion care in 2014 (16 of which were freestanding abortion clinics), and 26 facilities providing abortion care in 2017 (14 of which were freestanding clinics). The total number of abortions in the state have generally declined over time, with a 36% decrease from 1980 to 2013. There is an abortion rights activist community in the state, with women participating in the #YouKnowMe movement, and in the #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. There is also an anti -abortion rights movement in the state, which has included an act of violence. In 2017, Lindsay Beyerstein and Martyna Starosta directed "Care in Chaos", a short documentary that centered around the experiences of an abortion clinic director dealing with daily anti-abortion protesting outside of an abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina. This documentary won the category of "best documentary short" at the Nevada International Film Festival. Terminology. The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal  sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons. Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political  framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion". Context. Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 "New England Journal of Medicine" study found such a link.  At the same time, a 2011 study  by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening. According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health.  These states also tended to resist  expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States. History. In 1967, a group of North Carolina-based researchers published estimates for the number of abortions performed in the United States; using data from North Carolina, they estimated that 699,000 induced abortions had been performed in 1955 and that the annual number had risen to 829,000 in 1967. Thousands of  women came from out of state in 2015 to get abortions in North Carolina and Georgia. 14.5% of all abortions in Georgia that year were for out-of-state residents, while 7.5% of all abortions performed in North Carolina were performed for out-of-state residents.  This contrasted to neighboring South Carolina, where only 5.9% of abortions performed in the state involved out-of-state residents. One of the biggest groups of women who oppose legalized abortion in the United States are southern white evangelical Christians.  These women voted overwhelming for Trump, with 80% of these voters supporting him at  the ballot box in 2016. In November 2018, during US House exit polling, 75% of southern white evangelical Christian women indicated they supported Trump and only 20% said they voted for Democratic candidates. Legislative history. By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. In the late 1960s  and early 1970s, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina and Oregon made reforms to their abortion laws, with most of these states providing more detailed medical guidance on when therapeutic abortions could be performed. In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions in addition to abortion clinics. Nebraska and North Carolina had laws prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks. This law was still in place in mid-2019. Judicial history. The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's "Roe v. Wade" ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the  first trimester. U.S. District Judge William Osteen formally struck down North Carolina's 'life of the mother only' 20-week abortion ban in March 2019.  His judgement pushed the date of which abortions could be performed to the date of viability, which is later for many women. Clinic history. Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by 28, going from 114 in 1982 to 86 in 1992. In the period between 1992 and 1996, the state ranked second in the loss of number of abortion clinics, losing 27 to have a total of 59  in 1996. In 2014, there were 27 facilities that provided abortions of which sixteen were abortion clinics. In 2014, 90% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 53% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were 26 total abortion-providing facilities (with 14 total clinics including 9 Planned Parenthood clinics, of which 5 offered abortion services) in a state with a population of 2,335,631 women aged 15–49. Not all people who seek abortion care in North Carolina are residents of the state , as clinics in cities near the borders attract people seeking abortion care from other states. Statistics. In the period between 1972 and 1974, the state had an illegal abortion mortality rate per million women aged 15–44 of between 1.1 and 1.9. In 1990, 774,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2010, the state had three publicly funded abortions, of which were all federally funded and none were state funded. The abortion rate in North Carolina increased between 2011 and 2014 by 3%. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were 1,110 abortions, 1380  abortions for black women aged 15–19, 310 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 160 abortions for women of all other races. In 2014, 49% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 7.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. Between 2014 and 2017, there was a 3% decline in the abortion; it went from 15.1 to 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Abortions in North Carolina represent 3.4% of all abortions in the United States . Abortion rights views activities. Activism. In May 2019, women from the state participated in the #YouKnowMe movement. Amanda Payne of Durham was one of the women from the state sharing her story, saying, "I probably would have had to drop out of high school. [...] My boyfriend, who ended up being my husband, he had low-paying jobs. We didn't have anything. I don't think my life would be what it is today if I had continued that pregnancy." Protests. Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019 . On November 2020, Reiley Baker, a UNC Chapel Hill student from Charlotte, started a petition to stop a prayer walk organized by Love Life. The petition was signed by 137,000 people on change.org over three days. "They’ll travel back to their communities across North Carolina and possibly spread COVID-19," Baker told "The Charlotte Observer". Anti-abortion views and activities. Social media. 26-year-old Wendy Counts is a volunteer at A Preferred Women's Health Center of Charlotte, an abortion clinic in North Carolina. "As a Defender, we hold up parking signs and talk over the protesters in hopes  that the patients don't hear them," she told BuzzFeed. "When I'm an Escort, we help patients from their cars to the door with an umbrella to shield them from seeing/hearing the protesters." One day, Wendy was working as a Defender when she heard a protester named Jennifer call a patient a coward. Wendy responded to Jennifer by saying "You're supposed to be spreading love and light, yet you are tearing down a person who is dealing with so much already." Another clinic volunteer witness the situation and decided to film Wendy's reaction to Jennifer's  comment. The video was uploaded it to TikTok, getting millions of views. The TikTok became very popular on other social media platforms and Wendy's unique "sky daddy" became a trend. Violence. An incident of anti-abortion violence occurred at an abortion clinic in Greensboro, North Carolina, on March 17, 1991.