Source: Politics<\/p>\n
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper slammed Republicans in the general assembly for overturning his veto of their newly restrictive 12-week abortion law last week \u2014 and suggested the GOP could end up paying for it at the ballot box in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how they\u2019ve ignored the will of the people here,\u201d the Democratic governor told Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC\u2019s \u201cThe Saturday Show.\u201d \u201cMost North Carolinians do not want right-wing politicians in the exam room with women and their doctors. But Republicans are controlled by their right wing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was last Saturday that Cooper announced his veto of SB20 at a rally in Raleigh, N.C. Standing behind a lectern emblazoned with the words \u201cSTOP THE BANS,\u201d he challenged Republicans, particularly those who\u2019d voiced tacit support for abortion rights while on the campaign trail, to defect from their party\u2019s stance and vote with Democrats. Yes, the GOP had supermajorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, but they were razor thin. A single flip in either chamber would have stopped the new abortion law from taking effect.<\/p>\n
Republicans held firm, overturning Cooper\u2019s veto days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a single Republican stepped up,\u201d Cooper told Capehart. \u201cNot a single Republican kept a campaign promise to protect women\u2019s reproductive freedom like they said they would. And therefore, you have unified Republicans who are altogether in an assault on women\u2019s reproductive freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new law, set to take effect on July 1<\/a>, bans most abortions in North Carolina at 12 weeks, a sharp decrease from the 20-week ban currently in place throughout the state. Republicans have sought to cast the measure as moderate, with extensions in place in cases of rape or incest at 20 weeks and 24 weeks in the event of a \u201clife-limiting fetal anomaly<\/a>.\u201d The new law isn\u2019t as restrictive as abortion measures recently passed in either Florida<\/a> or South Carolina.<\/p>\n But Cooper wasn\u2019t swayed, arguing that it took Republicans in his state just \u201c42 hours to turn back the clock 50 years.\u201d The issue, he said, would be \u201cfront and center\u201d in the 2024 elections.<\/p>\n \u201cIn North Carolina, I told the President, I believe that we can win North Carolina for him,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be electing a new Democratic governor to take office in January of 2025. And we\u2019re gonna work hard to break the supermajority in the North Carolina legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n