A controversial new abortion regulation went into effect in North Carolina on January 1. Doctors who want to perform an abortion after 16 weeks of gestation will now have to share their patients’ ultrasounds, and other information, with the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The law was introduced to prevent doctors from lying about their patients’ gestational age to circumvent the state’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks (unless the mother’s life is threatened). This was the rationale Tami L. Fitzgerald, executive director of the anti-choice North Carolina Values Coalition, gave the New York Times for the law. Fitzgerald did not, however, mention any actual cases where doctors illegally performed abortions after twenty weeks, calling into question her claims.
For abortion rights advocates, the law intrudes into the highly sensitive and confidential relation between a woman and her doctor. They also allege the new requirements are a tactic to intimidate doctors. Melissa Reed, of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, called the new rules “medically unnecessary and purely politically driven.” A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign called the new restrictions “outrageous”.
Critics of the law also fear that the data might not be secure at the hands of state officials. Last October, two Democrats, state Sen. Terry Van Duyn and Rep. Susan Fisher, detailed their concerns in a letter to North Carolina’s Republican governor Pat McCrory. They referenced a recent glitch in which a contractor of the state’s Department for Health and Human Services lost a flash drive containing personal information of 1,100 medical providers. In another case:
“49,000 children received the wrong Medicaid card, complete with someone else’s personal information.”
Such failures, Van Duyn and Fisher argued, prove that the state officials cannot be trusted to handle the sensitive data about women seeking abortions.
Pro-choice activists also criticized another part of the law, which extends the waiting period before a woman can obtain abortion from 24 to 72 hours, making it equal to that of four other states, which have the longest waiting periods in the country.
Governor McCrory is unlikely to change his mind about the new legislation, however. His reproductive rights record includes anti-choice measures such as stripping municipal, county and state employees of abortion and banning abortion coverage in plans sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
