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A GOP-proposed state constitutional amendment in North Carolina is seeking to make abortion completely illegal, adding in “protections” for people who commit murder in order to stop a person from obtaining the procedure.
Currently, abortion is banned in North Carolina beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy. The proposed amendment, sponsored by Republican state Reps. Keith Kidwell and Ben Moss, Jr., declares that “a distinct and separate human life begins at the moment of fertilization,” defining personhood as beginning at that point.
Despite the amendment dubiously saying that its definitions are based on “indisputable scientific fact,” the document’s authors provide no evidence backing their claims. Indeed, the scientific consensus is that a pregnancy does not begin until implantation, and, even then, defining an embryo as a legal “person” with protections that outweigh the pregnant individual’s rights is factually disputed, a far right talking point that threatens not just abortion rights, but also reproductive care in general.
But the proposal by Kidwell and Moss goes further. By defining a fertilized egg as a person, the amendment includes additional language that would essentially legalize the murder of someone planning or participating in an abortion in the state.
“Any person has the right to defend his or her own life or the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person,” the amendment reads.
Critics lambasted the proposal as a violent and deeply problematic means to limit abortion in the state.
“This new North Carolina House bill would jail or authorize the murder of women due to their personal use of birth control, such as an IUD,” journalist Jackie Singh wrote on X, alluding to birth control methods that prevent pregnancies by making implantation nearly impossible.
The proposed amendment is also “a ‘get out of jail free’ card for men who want to murder their partners,” Signh added. “All they have to do is prove the women intended to use birth control or have an abortion.”
Jessica Valenti, author of the Abortion, Every Day newsletter on Substack, also decried the proposal.
“Let’s be clear — this means it would be perfectly fine to kill an abortion provider, an activist, or even someone who drives a friend to the clinic,” Valenti wrote. “Anyone who helps a woman get an abortion could be murdered, and their killer could claim it was justifiable.”
Although the measure is unlikely to advance very far in this legislative term, Valenti added that it should still be taken “very, very seriously.”
The proposed amendment in North Carolina is “laying the groundwork now for laws they want to pass in ten or twenty years. With bills like this, Republicans are giving us a roadmap — why in the world would we ignore it?” Valenti said.
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