By Hunter Hines
Christian Action League
RALEIGH – Demonstrating what’s most urgent today, two members of the North Carolina House have filed as their first bills, legislation that would protect and preserve the life of the unborn.
Representative Keith Kidwell (R-Chocowinity) submitted his bill, HB 28 – Prohibit Abortions After 13 Weeks, Friday, February 5th. Representatives Michael Speciale (R-New Bern), Michele Presnell (R-Burnsville), have also signed on as primary sponsors.
Kidwell’s bill bans abortions after 13 weeks unless there is a medical emergency. Current law in the Tar Heel state allows for abortion within 20 weeks, except for emergencies.
According to WRAL News, Planned Parenthood spokesperson Alison Kiser complains that Kidwell’s proposal “would be the earliest ban in the U.S. outside of some that have been blocked by the courts. This is a medically unnecessary and an arbitrary cutoff to women’s ability to access safe and legal abortion care.”
Kidwell, however, vows to fight for his bill, arguing that it’s in keeping with his strong pro-life stance. In a Press Release provided to the Christian Action League, he refers to the measure as the “NC Quickening Bill (Feeling of Life).”
“Since the Supreme Court’s decision of Roe v. Wade, more than 56 million unborn children have died by abortion. Sadly, the Supreme Court declared it could not resolve ‘the difficult question of when life begins,’ this is why I have written and introduced what I am calling the NC ‘Quickening Bill (Feeling of Life) ,” said Kidwell.
“Quickening” is a view held by some that say abortions should not be done when there is evidence of life, such as when the baby begins to move on its own inside the womb. Quickening is an old English word referring to the giving of life. Concerning the abortion debate, the “quickening” view says that when fetal movements are apparent in the uterus, this is evidence of a living soul. Therefore, an abortion performed after this time would be a homicide.
“The good people of North Carolina are not prepared to have what has happened in New York happen here at home,” said Kidwell, “We need to work together towards eliminating abortion, not expanding it to the point that we kill infants in the hospital beds…This genocide will not happen in North Carolina.”
Rep. Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus) also filed his bill, HB 22 – Woman’s Right to Know Addition/Ashley’s Law, on Friday, February 5th. His measure shares the same primary sponsors as Kidwell’s HB 28, along with Kidwell himself.
Pittman’s pro-life bill would require that women seeking an abortion in North Carolina be notified, as a part of the state’s informed consent law, the effects of a drug-induced abortion from a recipe of mifepristone and misoprostol may be reversed and the baby’s life saved by flooding the woman’s system with progesterone. The law would provide a means for a woman to change her mind midway through the abortion procedure.
In a drug-induced abortion, the physician administers the drug mifepristone, which blocks the progesterone receptor. Afterward, misoprostol is administered, which is a medication that opens the woman’s cervix and causes uterine contractions to expel the dead child.
Used up to about 10 weeks of a pregnancy, the numbers of women seeking a medical abortion (drug-induced) are increasing. Approximately 45% of all eligible abortions today are performed in this manner.
Kiser also told WRAL News that the reversal procedure for an abortion touted in HB 22 “has not been proven by any credible research or medical evidence to be effective or even safe.”
But Pittman sites a peer-reviewed study that contends intramuscular progesterone and high dose oral progesterone are effective in reversing the medical abortion process, “with reversal rates of 64% and 68%, respectively,” and with no apparent risk of congenital disabilities to the fetus or health risk for the mother.
Pittman told the Christian Action League that anyone who claims to be pro-choice ought to support his bill. It provides a woman with the choice to change her mind about abortion at the most critical moment. “She needs to know that choice is an option,” he said.
Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, said he was delighted to see two pro-life bills at the start of the 2019-2020 Legislative Biennium.
He said he did not want to disparage Kidwell’s proposal, but it’s just an observation to note that it will likely run-up against resistance from pro-lifers. “Although his bill would save many lives and end the practice of late-term abortions, as well as address a question the U. S. Supreme Court didn’t address about when life begins, most pro-lifers hold that life starts at conception,” Creech said.
Creech added, “In my estimation, Pittman’s legislation poses a very tough question for Liberals, and those on the political Left who support the practice of abortion: ‘If you support choice, why not support women being informed of another choice – the choice to abort an abortion? That is unless you have only been talking about one choice – the death of the unborn child.”