Sneak Attack on Abortion Rights in North Carolina
The GOP’s outrageous attacks on abortion rights and women’s health are spreading — and fast. After the dramatic showdown in Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) signed a budget that included nearly two dozen new restrictions on abortion rights. Then Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced that he would become the lead sponsor of the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban that passed the House of Representatives last month.
Abortion rights activists rallying in Texas on Monday.
The most devious attack, however, just came out of nowhere in North Carolina. As we’ve observed before, the state government has been taken over by right-wing extremists. One of the many extreme bills to emerge from the North Carolina House was an offensive and unnecessary ban on Sharia law in the state. (Unfortunately, these Republican anti-Sharia law bills have become something of a trend in recent years.) At the very last minute before a holiday weekend, the North Carolina Senate took this bill up, added sweeping restrictions on abortion that would probably shutter all but one of the state’s clinics, and sent the bill back to the House. Protesters shouted “shame!” as the legislation was pushed through the Senate.
Abortion rights activists protesting today in North Carolina as the GOP rushed through a draconian anti-abortion law.
In Texas, the GOP tried to change the rules in the middle of the game but they did so in front of thousands of activists in the state capitol and more than 100,000 people watching online. In North Carolina, the sneak attack on abortion rights prompted even the state’s Republican governor to rebuke legislators for trying to rush the abortion restrictions through.
This latest controversy comes after weeks of Moral Monday protests against other measures before the legislature, which now include a shocking attack on voting rights following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
BOTTOM LINE: The GOP has shown that it will resort to nearly any tactic, no matter how sneaky or unfair, in order to attack women and deny them the choice to exercise their constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion.