Two North Carolina Democrats who could threaten abortion access | Opinion

Abortion advocates had a tough 2022. Roe v. Wade was overturned in the summer, and southern states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama banned abortion entirely. Georgia and South Carolina banned abortions after six weeks (although South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled against that law last week). For some people, North Carolina’s handful of abortion clinics are the only option.

2023 could be just as perilous. The North Carolina House of Representatives is one seat from a Republican supermajority, which means the GOP just needs to flip a single vote to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto power. Republicans have that supermajority in the N.C. Senate, as well as a majority on the NC Supreme Court and the NC Appellate Court after the 2022 midterms.

For Democrats, that means every vote matters — especially when it comes to abortion. But it’s wrong to assume that all Democrats are on board with abortion rights.

Since 2019 in North Carolina, there have been two abortion bills — 2019’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and 2021’s Human Life Nondiscrimination Act — that have made it all the way to the governor’s desk, where they were promptly vetoed. When the 2019 bill initally passed, two Democratic senators and four Democratic representatives sided with Republicans. In 2021, six Democratic state representatives voted for the Human Life Nondiscrimination Act.

Only three of those six Democrat won re-election in 2022 — Reps. Garland Pierce, Amos Quick, and Michael Wray. Of these three, multiple sources within the General Assembly told me that Pierce and Wray are two to keep an eye on with future abortion bills. (Quick’s name did not come up).

Pierce is a 10-term a state representative for Cumberland and Hoke Counties. He’s a Baptist minister and army veteran and sided with Republicans on the 2019 bill and 2021 bill. When commenting on the born-alive bill after Cooper vetoed it, Pierce said he “decided to side with the surviving baby.” He then voted to override Cooper’s veto, a move that ultimately failed.

Wray is another 10-term state representative who represents Halifax, Northampton and Warren Counties. He had an excused absence the day of the first vote on the 2019 bill, and he voted to uphold Cooper’s veto when it went to the House floor. On the other hand, he voted for the Human Life Nondiscrimination Act, which would have banned abortions based on gender, sex and disability. He has voted with the Democrats on other abortion bills aside from the 2021 legislation.

While a vote to overturn Cooper’s veto of the Human Life Nondiscrimination Act was scheduled more than once, the vote never happened. Neither Pierce nor Wray responded to requests for comment.

N.C. House Democratic Leader Robert Reives II, however, told me that since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, Pierce, Wray and any other anti-abortion Democrats may change their decision to vote against the caucus, since there are no longer federal protections.

“All legislation is different and all sessions are different, and I think people’s positions on different legislation does differ depending on what the session is,” Reives told me. Reives also says that time and closer reads of bills can change votes.

“I think that one of the difficult parts about being in the citizens legislature, with us not being full time and when people have other parts of their life going on, you don’t always get as much of a chance to really do deep dives in the bills as you’d like to,” he said.

Republicans in the General Assembly are going to try passing anti-abortion legislation this year. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, the state’s 20-week abortion ban was reinstated. While Wray and Pierce have voted with Republicans in the past, they hopefully understand that small, seemingly commonsense bills like the Born Alive Bill or the Human Life Nondiscrimination Bill affect all people who seek abortions in North Carolina. We already have restrictive abortion laws; we shouldn’t make a difficult experience even harder.