By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
May 17, 2024
North Carolina is becoming the abortion Mecca of the South. Already a destination for abortion seekers from nearby states such as Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky where the procedure is banned outright, the state’s 12-week restriction is also drawing those in South Carolina and Georgia, and now even Florida, which joined its northern neighbors in a six-week ban effective May 1.
“It is sad to think that some women are so set on ending the life of their child that they will drive hundreds of miles, passing dozens of pregnancy resource centers and adoption agencies to get to an abortion clinic.” said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. “North Carolina is known as a business-friendly state, but this growing commerce of death is the last thing we need. We should pray that North Carolina lawmakers dare to make further changes to abortion law in our state.”
Despite lawmakers’ successful efforts to narrow the timeframe during which babies can legally be killed in the womb from 20 weeks to 12, the Tar Heel State now offers the most access to abortion of any in the Southeast save Virginia. In Florida, which reduced its window from 15 weeks to six, women are being told to head north.
“Our clinics are going to be maxed to capacity,” Amber Gavin, vice president of advocacy and operations at A Woman’s Choice, told N.C. Health News. The company runs three abortion clinics in North Carolina and one in Florida.
“There’s nowhere that can absorb the amount of patients that we see in Florida,” she said. “It’s just not possible.”
Similarly, Planned Parenthood officials say they are working to expand capacity and increase appointments, which are often about two weeks out. Clinics across the state are expanding days of service and recruiting more providers.
The abortion numbers are astounding. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Florida’s roughly 50 clinics performed about 86,340 abortions up to 15 weeks gestation last year. During the same time frame, an estimated 44,820 took place in North Carolina, and that was a 41 percent increase over 2020. Guttmacher stats show that more than a third — nearly 16,000 — of the abortions performed in North Carolina were on women from outside of the state.
Meanwhile, some North Carolina women who miss the 12-week window or want to sidestep the state’s required 72-hour waiting period are crossing the border into Virginia, where abortion is legal past 26 weeks. To capture some of that business, A Woman’s Choice opened a clinic in Danville earlier this year.
Creech said the onslaught of Floridians and other out-of-state patients coming to North Carolina for the procedure will no doubt put pressure on lawmakers to weaken safeguards in an attempt to streamline appointments. But what he prays for is pressure in the other direction — for North Carolina to line up with its neighbors by enacting a six-week ban, which is what the Christian Action League for in the beginning.
This isn’t the first time the state has become an abortion magnet. In the months following the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, North Carolina still allowed abortions up to 20 weeks, while several states had trigger laws that offered immediate protection to life in the womb. Some 3,200 abortions were reported in April 2022, a number that jumped to 4,360 by that August. It was the biggest percentage increase in any state, reported the New York Times.
Numbers declined significantly in July 2023 when North Carolina enacted a ban on most abortions 12 weeks into pregnancy.
