North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory campaigned on the claim that he wouldn't support new laws restricting abortion. But now that the Republican has been in office a few months, guess what he's doing? Yup,
he's signing a new set of
abortion restrictions that Republicans attached to a motorcycle safety bill in the state House.
Senate Bill 353 eliminates insurance coverage for abortions for city and county employees, as well as from the state’s federal health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act.
And while language in previous versions of the bill requiring abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers has been modified, the current measure mandates that state health officials come up with similar rules to more strictly regulate clinics, and so the impact is likely to be the same.
As Raleigh’s News & Observer notes, only one of the state’s 16 abortion clinics currently meets such standards.
North Carolina
voters are not happy with the bill, the process by which it was hustled through the legislature, or the governor. But that won't matter for women, whose access to abortion will nonetheless be severely limited.
Voters, meanwhile, should take note: When a Republican candidate for governor says some piece of the Republican agenda isn't a priority for him and he isn't interested in signing a bill on it, it won't take long for his priorities to change once in office. That's how it was for former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on anti-union laws, and it's what we're seeing with McCrory in North Carolina on abortion.