Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of North Carolina Values Coalition | Facebook.com/NCValues
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of North Carolina Values Coalition | Facebook.com/NCValues
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of North Carolina Values Coalition, took to Twitter to express her support for a new law that took effect in North Carolina on July 1, which prohibits abortion after 12 weeks.
"Hooray for the thousands of unborn babies who will get to take their first breath! Starting today," Fitzgerald wrote July 1.
The Care for Women, Children and Families Act reduces the previous limit of 20 weeks, according to ABC News. However, the bill includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and certain anomalies, the report stated. Despite North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's opposition to the bill, lawmakers voted to override his veto, CNN reported.
State Rep. Tricia Cotham, a former Democrat who had supported abortion, changed parties on April 3 to become a Republican, and also supported the bill, citing care she received after suffering an ectopic pregnancy.
"Some may call me a hypocrite since I voted for this bill," she said. "In fact, Senate Bill 20 affirms the life-saving care I received in that dire situation," she said.
State Rep. Julie von Haefen expressed her disdain for the law's passage.
"This dangerous abortion ban will harm people providing & seeking abortion in North Carolina, and no amount of marginal changes will give North Carolinians back their right to bodily autonomy that anti-abortion politicians have stripped away," von Haefen wrote on Twitter. "This is a sad day in our state."
Cooper's office issued a statement condemning the legislative override on May 16.
"Strong majorities of North Carolinians don’t want right-wing politicians in the exam room with women and their doctors, which is even more understandable today after several Republican lawmakers broke their promises to protect women’s reproductive freedom," Cooper said in the statement. "For the last two weeks, Republican sponsors of this abortion ban have strenuously argued that it is much less restrictive than we warned, so we will now do everything in our power to make sure that’s true. North Carolinians now understand that Republicans are unified in their assault on women’s reproductive freedom and we are energized to fight back on this and other critical issues facing our state. I will continue doing everything I can to protect abortion access in North Carolina because women’s lives depend on it."
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