NC’s 12-week abortion ban would ‘effectively ban many abortions altogether,’ says governor

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said Sunday that the Republican-backed 12-week abortion ban would ban “many abortions altogether” due to requirements the lawmakers embedded in the bill.

“They’ve dressed this up as a 12-week ban, but it’s really not,” Cooper said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “They rammed through a bill in 48 hours with no public input, with no amendments, that drastically reduces access to reproductive freedom for women.”

“It will effectively ban many abortions altogether because of the obstacles that they have created for women, for clinics, and for doctors,” he continued. “They have tried to disguise the disastrous impacts of this bill, but we’re going to expose them. This bill has nothing to do with making women safer and everything to do with banning abortions.”

Cooper has vowed that he will veto the bill after North Carolina lawmakers approved the proposal last week, which will ban most abortions at 12 weeks. The bill includes exceptions for rape and incest through 20 weeks and would allow exceptions for fetal life-limiting anomalies through 24 weeks.

The governor also said the bill includes provisions that will make it more difficult for any women to receive an abortion, like the requirement for someone to get three in-person doctor visits before moving forward with an abortion.

“And what this legislation is going to do is going to prevent many women from getting abortions at any time during their pregnancy because of the obstructions that they have put here,” he said. “Many of these clinics are working very hard to treat women and now they’re going to have many new medically unnecessary requirements that I think many of them are going to have to close.”

Even if he vetoes the bill, it will be sent back to the legislature where the Republicans hold a veto-proof supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature after a House Democrat switched parties and joined the GOP last month.