RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s GOP leaders gave more indications Tuesday of what abortion legislation might look like if Republicans gain a supermajority this fall.
The General Assembly has a Republican majority, but not a supermajority needed to override vetoes from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has given states power over their abortion laws. North Carolina bans abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, a law recently upheld in court.
Republicans haven’t said much about what kind of abortion legislation they’ll propose in the 2023 legislative session.
Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said Tuesday the issue would come up next year. He told reporters before a no-vote legislative session that while he won’t talk about the Republican Senate caucus’s internal discussions, he suggested senators listen to their constituents.
Berger said a total abortion ban “has never been my position.”
“I’ve been pretty clear that I think that North Carolina law, I would support a law that allows an exception for rape, exception for incest, an exception for danger to the life of the mother, an exception for if the fetus will not survive. If there was medical evidence that the fetus would not survive, I would support those exceptions,” Berger said.
Both Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have said they want to “protect the life of the unborn.”
Berger said the legislature is charged with where to draw the line.
“I think that’s really what the question is. And so I would like to see us look at that. I think, I personally think that five months is too far down the road,” he said. But Berger said he wants to hear more from constituents and fellow Republican senators.
The Senate is two seats short of a supermajority.
Asked about where he thinks the line should be in terms of trimesters, Berger said: “I would say that after the first trimester, the state has has an absolute interest in regulating the incidence of abortion.”
Moore has said previously that once there is a heartbeat, he personally believes abortion should not be allowed. He said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe that would effectively ban all abortions.
But he said giving details would be “starting to go down this road that we’re not ready to go down because I want to have a stakeholder process with the other 119 members of this House.”
Moore said he’d like to find consensus on an abortion bill, and not just from Republicans. “If you look at other legislation that deals with life: OK, most of those bills that we’ve passed have been bipartisan, sometimes just a couple (Democratic votes), sometimes more,” he said.
Berger also said that there should be consequences for those who intentionally violate the law, but does not think that should include the mother, which law currently does not.
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