Washington D.C., May 15, 2023 / 13:17 pm
North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed legislation passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature that would ban abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The veto puts the ball back in the lawmakers’ court, where Republicans enjoy a narrow supermajority — an override of the governor’s veto would require the vote of every Republican in the Legislature. The current law bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Exceptions listed in the bill would establish a 20-week cutoff in cases of rape and incest and a 24-week cutoff for life-threatening fetal anomalies. The law would keep in place an exception for when the life of the mother is at risk.
Cooper signed the veto during a Saturday rally in which he criticized the abortion ban and urged at least one Republican to vote against the override effort. He traveled the state over the past week and held events in the districts of four potentially vulnerable Republicans in the hope of swaying one of them.