North Carolina Lawmakers Pass ‘Motorycle Safety’ Abortion Bill

Women all over North Carolina slept soundly last night, knowing just how protected they are, after the state Senate gave final approval to a prohibitive anti-abortion bill that could close 15 of the state’s 16 abortion service providers because women need to be protected from their own…what? Manipulative vaginas?

Senate Bill 353, which was sneakily inserted into a measure on motorcycle safety earlier this month — women need protection, but they don’t need to know that they’re being protected — lets the state Department of Health and Human Services regulate abortion clinics using the same standards that apply to outpatient surgical centers. Conveniently, only one abortion provider in the state is a licensed ambulatory surgical center; the other 15 probably won’t be able to afford the expensive upgrades. That’s some A++ protection right there.

The legislation would also ban the mythical gender-selective abortion and allow health care providers to opt out of providing abortions — since, as we all know, feminists often drug doctors and nurses and force them to perform abortion after abortion, laughing maniacally all the while. The bill would also prohibit abortion coverage in a variety of insurance plans. Low-income women in particular are going to be sooo goddamn protected!

“The majority of folks in this country, and I dare say in this state, are pro-life anyway,” Sen. Buck Newton, a Republican with a tenuous grasp on reality, told WNCN. I like his use of “anyway.” Very “Let them eat cake.” Let those protected women figure out how to access safe and legal health care!

Around half the states in the country currently require abortion providers to meet standards for ambulatory surgical centers, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Remind me again: what are we protecting women from?

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory promised during his election campaign last fall that he wouldn’t sign any new abortion restrictions into law. We’ll see if he keeps his word.