NC Heartbeat Bill: Republican NC House Member Files Legislation Prohibiting Abortion After 13 Weeks

RALEIGH – As states like New York are legalizing extreme late-term abortion laws, and Democrats in Virginia push policies bordering on infanticide, conservative Republican members of the North Carolina House have filed pro-life legislation to prohibit abortions after 13 weeks of gestation.

Freshman Rep. Keith Kidwell, a no nonsense conservative from Beaufort County, filed House Bill 28 with conservative colleagues Reps. Michael Speciale (R-Craven), Michelle Presnell (R-Haywood), Jerry Carter (R-Rockingham), George Cleveland (R-Onslow), Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus), and Larry Potts (R-Davidson).

Kidwell and his wife Viki have been actively involved with pregnancy centers for over twenty years in both Washington and Greenville, North Carolina. They have dedicated much of their time to saving babies. Keith and his wife believe that the good people of North Carolina are not prepared to have what is happening in New York to happen here at home.

In addition to H.B. 28, Kidwell has also filed House Bill 22, which requires doctors to advise women of oral medication that reverses RU486, the ‘morning after’ drug.

H.B. 28 is pretty straight forward: it aims to prevent the wanton elimination of an unborn child’s beating heart. Except in cases of a medical emergency, abortions after the 13th week of pregnancy would be against the law in North Carolina. The 13th week is the latest demonstrable point at which heartbeats can first be detected in unborn children.

Kidwell is not shy about his mission to protect unborn life.

“Since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, more than fifty-six million unborn children have died by abortion. Sadly, the Supreme Court declared it could not resolve ‘the difficult question of when life begins.’

Our neighbor to the north, Virginia, is entertaining the idea of legalizing actual infanticide — YES, you hear that right — murdering a baby POST BIRTH, and New York recently opened up the most liberal late-term abortion access this nation has ever seen.

The result of these lax laws have resulted in nothing short of genocide, so today we’re here to send a message. This genocide stops in North Carolina.

This Heartbeat Bill declares an unborn child with a heartbeat at the age of 13 weeks of gestation is legally a human being, entitled to constitutional protection. It will rescue thousands of unborn children in North Carolina from being killed before they have the chance to take their first breath.”

To stop a child’s beating heart requires a cold desensitization to the sanctity of life. While progressives around the country, and even some in our own state, seek to legalize abortions later and later in pregnancy, pro-life conservatives like Kidwell and his co-sponsors are leading the charge to let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that those are not the values of North Carolinians.

Republicans still have majorities in the N.C. House and Senate, but, after the 2018 elections, they are no longer veto-proof. That means that, if Gov. Roy Cooper chooses to veto H.B. 28, Republicans will need some Democrats to step up to protect life and override.

While urban-based Democrats in the General Assembly, and the N.C. Democratic Party itself, has sprinted further to the Left, there are many Democrats in the House and Senate that still subscribe to pro-life values. The onus will be on them to help the N.C. Heartbeat Bill pass the finish line. Lives depend on it.