North Carolina Agency Suspends Abortion Clinic's License

North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services has suspended the license of an Asheville abortion clinic, citing 23 rule violations discovered in a recent inspection. It’s certainly suspicious that this happened just two days after Governor Pat McCrory broke his campaign promise by signing the “motorcycle safety abortion bill” into law.

Update: An earlier version of this story stated that the Asheville clinic was currently the only abortion center in the state. That is incorrect. The new law calls for North Carolina’s DHHS to draw new standards for abortion clinics. Under an earlier version of the bill, Femcare would have been the only clinic to meet the more stringent standards.

For further clarification:

In a July 3 article, Xpress investigations found that the only abortion clinic in the state that would meet those new requirements was Asheville’s FemCare, Inc. It also requires that a physician to be physically present in the room with a woman upon taking the first dose of an abortion-inducing drug. However, it does not require that a physician be present beyond the initial dose. Critics say the legislation, entitled “Health and Safety Law Changes,” will effectively shut down abortion clinics across the state.

However, McCrory says the intention of the law is safety not clinic closures.

“This law does not further limit access and those who contend it does are more interested in politics than the health and safety of our citizens,” McCrory said of the newly adopted law. “This new legislation is focused on the health and safety of women in North Carolina. These higher standards will result in safer conditions for North Carolina women.”