This spring, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a bill that includes some significant pro-life measures, most notably limiting most abortions in North Carolina to twelve-weeks gestation. This process has been riddled with controversy and misinformation, but despite what some detractors are saying, this bill will truly protect women, children, and families.
This week on Family Policy Matters, host Traci DeVette Griggs welcomes Senator Joyce Krawiec and Representative Kristin Baker to discuss North Carolina’s newest pro-life law, and the impacts it is expected to have.
You can learn more about the pro-life law here.
This episode is a part of a series highlighting the pro-life movement in North Carolina. Tune in each week to learn more!
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Family Policy Matters
Transcript: What’s Happened In the North Carolina General Assembly So Far This Year
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Thanks for joining us today for Family Policy Matters. We are recording this interview for both the radio show and podcast and NC Family’s weekly video updates. If you’re interested in seeing the video version of this interview, sign up as part of our email list at NCfamily.org and you will receive an email when they are online every week. Our guests today are here to give us an update on this session of the North Carolina General Assembly. John Rustin is president of NC Family and Jerry Royall is NC Family’s Counsel. Both spend a lot of time at the General Assembly keeping an eye on what’s happening and working to influence laws on behalf of the families in our state. It’s amazing that when you hear about all of these important bills in the media, they’re portrayed as radical. But as we know when we actually read the text of the bills, which of course are always available to us on the NC legislature’s website at ncleg.gov, we find they’re actually common sense and reasonable. So let’s talk about some of those bills. Well, let’s talk first about a victory. There was a pro life victory in the legislature. What happened?
JOHN RUSTIN
Yes, well, there was and hopefully as you’re aware, we have had a great pro life victory in North Carolina. Senate Bill 20—The Care for Women, Children, and Families Act was passed by the legislature, of course was vetoed by Governor Roy Cooper, and the legislature overrode the governor’s veto. This bill is a major pro life victory in North Carolina. It essentially reduces the gestational age for illegal abortions in North Carolina from 20 weeks to 12 weeks. Of course, at the onset of the session, we were advocating strongly for a heartbeat bill in North Carolina, which would have reduced the legal gestational age for abortion about six weeks, it was clear as this bill and discussions were going on in both the House and the Senate, that that just was unfortunately not going to happen, and so they settled on 12 weeks. But this bill contains a lot of other provisions that will protect life in North Carolina, and also that will provide resources to give women and families that are facing crisis and unplanned pregnancies every reason to choose life instead of choosing abortion. Jere, do you have any other perspective?
JERE ROYALL
As you said, yeah, that was a compromise. We obviously wanted, and many others wanted, conception to be the time when the unborn child is protected. But there were a lot of good provisions that were added along with the 12 week restriction.
JOHN RUSTIN
And Traci, this bill is is literally going to save thousands of lives every year, and is going to again, provide resources. There’s $160 million dollars appropriated in this bill for improvements and enhancements to foster care, to adoption, to maternal care and lots of other important services in North Carolina, again, to give women and families that are facing crisis and unplanned pregnancies every reason to choose life. And so we’re really excited about it.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Yeah, and I think it answers some of those critiques from the other side that all we care about is getting the baby born. So this is providing a lot of those services.
JOHN RUSTIN
Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s so critical, because there are going to be more and more women carrying a child to term and we need to provide those practical services to them and also support in lots of different ways. So yeah.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Well let’s talk about going forward, then, there are a lot of bills that are important to North Carolina families that are being considered, talk about what those are.
JOHN RUSTIN
Well, a major bill is the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which I know a lot of our viewers and listeners care about. This bill clarifies and codifies parents fundamental rights to the care, custody, and control – using kind of legal terms – of their children, particularly in the arenas of education and health care. So this bill, Senate Bill 49, passed the Senate in early February and is awaiting action in the House. And we’re very, very hopeful that the house is going to take this bill up and pass it because parents do have a fundamental right to the care and upbringing of their children. But because that’s being challenged in lots of areas, especially in education and in health care, this bill does need to pass.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Okay, how about Opportunity Scholarships?
JERE ROYALL
Well, this is an area where more and more people are realizing we need to offer choices in education, and there’s great support across the state for this. So both chambers, the House and the Senate have bills proposing that. The House actually passed their version, the Senate version was not voted on, would expand things even more. Their’s actually would include all income levels. Now it would be on a sliding scale, the amount of these grants, but because the bill has not been taken up, many people are talking about the fact that it will be put in the state budget, which is what has happened in recent years. But either way, there is going to be a significant expansion of the scholarship grants, not an unlimited amount, but they are going to continue to increase the availability of these scholarships.
JOHN RUSTIN
Yeah, so expanding eligibility, so more children, more families will be able to choose the educational environment that’s best for their children, and also forward funding as the legislature is done so that there are appropriations set aside for Opportunity Scholarships for years in advance. So we’re really excited about this initiative, and the legislature is really continuing making North Carolina one of the leading states in the nation in school choice.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
So this is what critics have hammered on is the all income levels, that you’re going to be providing these scholarships, which have in the past may have been for people who are low income or who’ve had special needs children. So now we’re giving scholarships and taking these rich kids and paying for them to go to private schools. What’s the truth in that?
JERE ROYALL
Well, I mean it is but it’s on a sliding scale. But the reality is people are saying taxpayers are putting money into the state fund, and so it only makes sense that if people are choosing for their children to take another path that some of those resources should follow the child. I understand your point people are making but the reality is doesn’t it make sense to let resources but not as much of the state resources follow the child as they go to various schools?
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Okay. The next one, I think is Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
JOHN RUSTIN
Yes, and this bill is really designed to protect the health and safety of female athletes in middle school, high school, and college by designating sports teams as either male, female or CO Ed based on biological sex. And so there were similar bills introduced in both the State Senate and the State House, those bills passed their chamber of origin. So the Senate bill passed the Senate, the House bill passed the House, but neither chamber has taken up the other chambers bill yet. So since there is clearly support in both chambers for this legislation, we fully anticipate that this bill will be taken up in either the House or the Senate, and that bill will be passed.
JERE ROYALL
Quick note on that, John, that doesn’t normally happen. Usually, one chamber passes a bill sends it over to the other. In this case, as you say they did pass their own version. The main difference is the House version includes college sports, so it remains to be seen how they’re going to work out that difference.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Okay, so this is primarily about transgender individuals trying to play on a sport that doesn’t match their birth gender. So we’ve got another bill that’s similar prohibiting gender surgeries on minors. What’s happening with that?
JOHN RUSTIN
Right, well, this is House Bill 808, which passed the House in early May, has not been considered by the Senate yet. The original version of this bill, and there’s a companion Senate bill, would prohibit the administration of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and the performance of gender reassignment surgeries on minors in North Carolina. So the House took up their bill, they took out the puberty blockers or the chemical portions and kept it as just prohibiting cross sex surgeries on minors and sent that bill over to the Senate. We’re hopeful that the Senate will take up their version of the bill or reinstate the chemical treatment prohibition as part of this bill. Because these drugs, these chemicals, and these surgical procedures are irreversible and sterilize the individuals who receive these services. And it’s just not a good thing for especially our youth to be subjected to. And so individuals who are dealing with gender dysphoria certainly need support, they need compassion, they need care, but they don’t need irreversible surgeries and chemicals in their bodies.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Okay, so these two bills are not proof that Republicans hate transgender individuals, is that what you’re saying?
JOHN RUSTIN
Yes, that is correct.
JERE ROYALL
It is, it’s showing true care for people. As John said, they’re permanent changes. There’s no proof. I mean, more and more. We’ve seen it over in Europe, other parts of the world that they’ve been on this path and have seen, they’re coming with negative outcomes. This is bringing harm to people’s lives. So it is, it’s really showing compassion. One other quick note too, John, it remains to be seen how their work out the difference, the House version did still have a provision in there, even though it didn’t keep the chemical part, where no state funding would go towards any kinds of treatments.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Yeah, it is interesting that the United States is doing much more radical things with individuals who believe themselves to be transgender than even European countries. Some of these countries we expect to be far out there.
JOHN RUSTIN
And Traci, in a related bill, there’s also legislation that would protect the rights of conscience of healthcare providers in North Carolina. It’s a very broad bill, but part of the intention of the bill is to address and protect physicians and others in the healthcare industry from being forced to engage and participate in these kinds of administration of drugs and surgeries on minors. So that is House Bill 819, the Medical Ethics Defense Act. We do have conscience protections in North Carolina protecting doctors, physicians, health care providers from participating in abortions. And this would extend that in a much broader sense. So we are hopeful that this bill will be taken up because that’s really important not only to prohibit minors from participating, but if adults are seeking these kinds of treatments that, if a healthcare provider objects to it on religious, ethical or moral grounds, they should not be forced to participate in it. So another important bill.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Okay. So the final one that our organization is watching is called The REACH Act, and as someone who loves history and thinks that we all need to learn more about our Founding Fathers and some of the founding documents, I love this one. But explain what that is.
JOHN RUSTIN
Well, The REACH Act would require three credit hours of instruction on American government and our founding documents as a prerequisite for graduation from North Carolina universities and community colleges. So the title of the bill is Reclaiming College Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage, the acronym for that is REACH, so that’s where The REACH Act comes from. And there were bills introduced in both chambers to do this. There have been discussions, but no final action taken yet on this legislation by the General Assembly.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Right, and why is this important?
JERE ROYALL
Well, as we’re seeing now, they’ve done surveys and asked people basic questions about government. And sadly, the responses are almost shocking. And this is where people are going, “Okay, we see this is a problem.” As citizens of this country, we need to understand our system of government, we all need to participate. And that’s what course we’re about. And we appreciate the fact that so many of you work together with us within our government. But if people don’t understand how the government system works, they’re not as likely to be involved and interested. And so this is an important part of helping people see what does it mean to be a citizen of this country, of this state?
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
Right. And I think this is why it’s important for all of us to be an educated electorate. This is why getting involved with NC Family, signing up for those emails and actually reading them when they go into your email box is important because you’re continuing to educate yourself and how you can be active.
JOHN RUSTIN
We’ve got a couple more issues to talk about. I know we’re running short on time. Of course, gambling has been a huge focus of the legislature. Unfortunately in recent weeks, as we are having our discussion today, the sports gambling and horse racing bill has passed the General Assembly and has been sent to the governor. He is expected to sign the bill in the coming days. And it’s just very unfortunate because we know the tremendously negative impact that the legalization of sports gambling in North Carolina is going to have, especially on our young adults and youth. The legislature is also considering bills and discussing bills that would place casinos in North Carolina and also legalize Video Lottery terminals or basically video poker machines under the auspices of the state lottery, we are fighting these bills like the dickens and I’m just heartbroken to see the sports gambling bill and the horse racing bill pass the legislature. If this is an issue that is of concern to you, please keep your eyes and ears open for alerts from the Family Policy Council as we move further into the session, because these bills are likely to come up quite quickly.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
And then the last one is medical marijuana, which I think is just ridiculous that we’re actually still talking about this. We know all the evidence that shows that it’s not healthy to have this legalized marijuana. Talk about what’s happening in North Carolina.
JERE ROYALL
Well, it passed earlier this year in the Senate as the House has not brought it up yet. We and you and many others continue to inform our members of the legislature of the house, just as you’re saying Traci, about the realities. All major medical groups are saying, “No, let us be the ones who approve medications. This we’re finding harm, not help.” And again, thank you for your involvement, because the more they’re hearing, the more they’re being encouraged with the facts and the truth. We’re understanding that opposition is continuing to grow. So this coming week, we’ve heard they may be voting in the House within the caucus of Republicans where if it’s defeated there, then that will be the end of the bill, which is what needs to happen. So we all are going to keep working together to inform, encourage them which goes back to your whole point about being involved with government, looking out for our neighbor, caring for one another. This is one more way we can do that.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS
And y’all it’s so valuable that we have these people up there, you know, advocating on our behalf. So thank you very much for all the good work that you guys do.
JOHN RUSTIN
Thank you, Traci. I appreciate that.
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Family Policy Matters
Transcript: Caring for Women, Children, and Families: Part 1
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. This summer marks one year since the US Supreme Court reversed its nearly 50 year old Roe v Wade decision that had legalized abortion on demand nationwide. We’re excited to bring you a series of interviews with North Carolinians who represent the many facets of the pro life movement here in our state. Today we’re speaking with State Senator Joyce Krawiec and State Representative Kristin Baker, two lawmakers who were instrumental in ushering in a life-saving law in North Carolina entitled SB 20—Care for Women, Children, and Families Act, a law that limits abortion to 12 weeks in our state. We’re also joined by NC Family legal counsel, Jere Royall. This episode is part one of a two part series. so make sure to tune in next week to catch part two. Well, our first question is to our distinguished lawmakers, thank you so much for your good work, could you start by telling us why this particular policy issue is important to you, Senator Krawiec?
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: This has been so important for so long, and we have prayed so long for Roe v Wade to be overturned that it was just a blessing to have the opportunity to work on legislation that will fit North Carolina and that will save babies in North Carolina. Long before I got into the Senate, I was working on this issue. So I feel very blessed having been in a place and time where we could get this done. So it’s an answer to a lot of prayers for many, many years.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Representative Baker?
REP. KRISTIN BAKER: Well, Traci, thank you. And I appreciate all you all are doing and it’s a pleasure to be with you. So as some of you may know, I am a child psychiatrist by training. So as a conservative Christian physician, this particular bill is extremely important to me. I, as a Christian, believe that the fingerprint of God is on every life at conception, and it’s something I’ve always believed, and I think we’ve all found it a blessing to have the opportunity now, with the overturn of Roe v Wade, to dialogue about this, and to reach out to try and save these lives. And I think that, in addition, as a physician, I understand the need for good medical care, no matter what path a person is pursuing. And then, of course, as a psychiatrist, understand the significant challenge of an unwanted pregnancy. When that happens, it’s traumatic, no matter what the circumstance. And so it’s been a privilege to be involved in these discussions as a psychiatrist to try and raise awareness that no matter what path a woman chooses, we absolutely need to support her. We need to support her emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and in a concrete manner in terms of taking care of the needs she and her baby will have as she journeys forward. So those are my, that’s my interest, and it’s been a privilege to work on this with my colleagues.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Well, let’s talk specifically about SB 20 entitled Care for Women, Children, and Families Act. It’s made headlines limiting abortion after 12 weeks of gestation, but of course it does a lot more than that. It’s also made headlines in some negative ways, which I think will be a nice opportunity for you to set us all straight on exactly what the law does. Senator Krawiec?
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: First let me go back a little bit and tell you how we crafted the legislation. We put a working group together on the Senate side, and we worked for months on crafting a legislation that would save babies, that would address the abortion issue in North Carolina, and would also going forward help moms be able to keep their babies to raise them and to have the things that they needed to make certain that they could keep those babies, to encourage them. So we put a lot of child welfare in there. We put a lot of workforce in there. We just did everything we could think of that would help moms with babies. We’re a very diverse group in the Senate, and we had some who wanted a conception bill, some who wanted the heartbeat bill, and then we had some who don’t want to do anything. And so we had to kind of walk a fine line to craft something that we could get the votes that would override a veto, which we knew would happen. So it was – a lot of thought went into it. A lot of discussion, the policy was probably the most difficult we’ve ever had to craft, because there were so many opinions, and it’s a very personal issue to many of us. So most of us, well all of us, were willing to talk to each other and just craft through something. My final thought was, “I’m going to take whatever I can get to save babies, whatever that might be, however many babies we can save, and that’s the bill I’m going to support.” And that’s how we ended up with SB 20. The final product, I think, was an excellent piece of legislation.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Okay, now it was immediately, almost, followed by lawsuit by Planned Parenthood, which, of course, is the largest abortion provider in North Carolina and across the nation. So tell us about that. What was that lawsuit about? Was there any merit to it? And how are y’all responding to that?
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: We knew there would be a lawsuit, so in crafting our legislation, we tried to do all that we could to make it as strong legally as we could, as well. The lawsuit was filed, the court – and I’m not a lawyer, so a lot of this is Greek to me – but the court seemed to think that there were some ambiguities, there were some things that weren’t very clear. So that was what we did yesterday, we tried to address some of those with some amendments. We want a piece of legislation that will withstand a court challenge, which we knew was coming. So we were trying to do whatever we can to make certain that it’s as strong legally as it can be.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Go ahead, Jere.
JERE ROYALL: Thank you. It was excellent how y’all responded so quickly in the Senate with members and staff, as a lawsuit, I know it was just filed a week ago. And that’s a wonderful part of how the legislative process works is allowing for technical corrections to be made in legislation. I know yesterday, that, like you say is what the very end of the session, that house bill that related to health and human services was an appropriate place for these corrections to be made in the pro life legislation. And as you’re asking Traci, what was done yesterday was a good, quick response to hopefully allow this law to go into effect, which it’s scheduled to do July 1st in part. Once again, Senator Krawiec was, well she’s been a leader on this legislation that she’s described all the way through. We work together with other groups trying to develop legislation, but they’re the ones who came together to put together legislation that could bring together people with different viewpoints. And that’s again, where her leadership and as she says, she’s been and others have been praying about this for years. And it’s where I believe, you know, God has placed her and others in the role that they currently are in to be leaders on this vital legislation.
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: And Traci, we felt so blessed to have so much support from the pro life community. And we knew the final vote on that bill, the pro life people were filled in the gallery, and it was such a blessing to us to have that support, because it was not what many of them wanted. They wanted a stricter bill, but they all came together and gave us the support that we needed to get it finally done. So we were so thankful for that.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: I understand that the difference between the Heartbeat Bill and the 12 week came down to a really close call. Can you tell us just how close that was,
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: I would say of our working group, there were more that wanted a heartbeat bill. And to those who wanted the heartbeat bill, that was already a compromise because they believe life begins at conception. So they were willing to compromise on a heartbeat bill at six weeks. But we had some that were not willing to do that, and we knew we had to have the votes, we could not lose one single vote because it wasn’t just that we have to get a majority it was that we have to have a supermajority to override the veto. So everybody was willing to come together to get whatever we could get to save as many babies as we could possibly save.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: This is happening all over the country, isn’t it? I know you’ve been very busy and focused on North Carolina laws, but we’re seeing some of this and other states across the country where they’re having to reevaluate what they thought was going to happen after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: Exactly. One thing that I found most interesting during the debate on SB 20, we constantly kept hearing that this legislation was going to shut down all the abortion clinics in North Carolina, and women were not going to be able to get abortions. I thought that was a tremendous admission that those centers are just not what they need to be, because the only thing that the legislation addressed was that they meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers, which is exactly what they are. Yet they admitted very quickly and very loudly that this was going to shut down all abortion clinics in North Carolina. Well, that says to me that the other side is always saying they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, was all a farce. Because if you wanted those facilities to be safe, you would certainly have embraced that portion of the bill, if nothing else, rather than attack it.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Senator Krawiec, could you just give us a few more details on the provisions that are provided in the bill beyond the restrictions on abortion?
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: Some of the provisions that I was most excited about were the childcare. We put $60 million, I believe, in the budget for the things that we included in SB 20. There’s going to be a lot of childcare services for women, there are some educational avenues for them to attend school to get special training. We have parental leave for state employees. Just a lot of good things that moms need, and that aren’t available right now. And we want to make those readily available and for them to have access to them, and for them to know that they’re there. So that might even be their first choice is to keep their baby rather than to even consider abortion, if they’re aware of all of the things that are in the bill that will help them be able to take care of their babies and to plan for their future. It won’t be giving up their future – they can still go to college, they can still get their degree, they can still do what they had planned to do. We have a lot in there on adoption services, it’s very difficult to adopt. That’s why many people adopt from other countries, because it is difficult. We’re trying to streamline that process and make it much easier for folks who want to adopt.
JERE ROYALL: And the way I guess I would describe it is it truly is a comprehensive pro life bill. And just as it says in the title, it’s caring for women, children, and families. Obviously it is about the unborn child, but it’s also about the mother and their family. And just as you just described, a lot was put in the bill to care for the women and the families as well as the unborn child.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Jere, as legal counsel for NC Family, Senator Krawiec mentioned earlier about the coalition and how important that was, especially in getting the override to the governor’s veto. How important did you see that being as one of the people that was involved in that coalition?
JERE ROYALL: Initially, we worked together for over a year, a number of pro life groups and individuals trying to put together proposed legislation that we could take to leaders like Senator Krawiec to have as hopefully a helpful resource for them as they develop the legislation. And it’s interesting, our process was very much like theirs. We started out, everybody in the coalition understands not only from God’s word, but also from medicine and science, that human life begins at conception. But then, as in all lawmaking processes, you have to look at reality. But we realized North Carolina, being in a situation we are where the governor already had vetoed any pro life legislation, knew he would, needed a supermajority vote that the coalition agreed to pursue the heartbeat bill which move things out to six weeks. So then when we saw that reality was, the compromise might be a 12 weeks, it was a challenge for people just as Senator Krawiec said, but then he she said people had to realize if we can make progress, we need to be part of helping to make that progress happen. But everybody worked together, realizing, “Let’s be thankful that we can make progress,” and the idea that this legislation can, and hopefully will, protect 4000, 5000 or more unborn children, this is a step in the right direction.
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC: Traci, another really exciting thing for me, ever since I’ve been in the Senate, three different times I have filed and we run the babies born after an abortion attempt bill and it’s been vetoed every time and we were not able to override the veto. So that also was placed in this bill, several bills that we had passed independently before that didn’t make it through the override were in here. We also had the Safe Surrender Infants Act, extending to 30 days where you can surrender your infant, giving women more time to think about that. So I was really glad we were able to get that in there as well.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Senator Joyce Krawiec and Representative Kristin Baker, thank you so much for being such strong pro life voices in the North Carolina General Assembly. And of course the same to you, Jere Royall with the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Thank you all for being with us on Family Policy Matters.
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