NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina believes that we should promote a culture of freedom and personal responsibility by focusing on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services, access to affordable birth control and by providing comprehensive age appropriate sex education.

NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina has a rich history in North Carolina, dating back to the mid-1980’s when NARAL-NC worked through the North Carolina’s political and legislative systems to advocate for comprehensive reproductive health policies and to secure reproductive choice for all North Carolinians.

While many Americans felt safeguarded by the election of a pro-choice president in 1992, several NARAL Pro-Choice America affiliates, NARAL-NC included, began to experience a lack of support and were forced to close. In 1997, after years of victories and accomplishments in securing and safeguarding reproductive choice throughout North Carolina, NARAL-NC dissolved.

In December of 2001, recognizing North Carolina’s importance in the battle for reproductive freedom and based on contact with local North Carolinians about their desire to have a local presence, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Inc. and NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation began investing significant resources and support to re-establish a NARAL Pro-Choice America presence in North Carolina.

In August, 2004, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina was granted full affiliate status.  During 2004, North Carolina’s NARAL sent over 5,000 marchers to the March for Women’s Lives in Washington DC on April 25, 2004.  During the 2004 elections, NARAL NC endorsed 44 candidates for statewide office. 88 % of those candidates were elected.

Today, far right conservatives, including religious fundamentalists, drive our nation’s social policy agenda.   In a stunning retreat from more than three decades of precedent, in April, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first-ever federal ban on abortion, which outlaws certain second-trimester abortions and has no exception in cases when a woman’s health is in danger. 

This decision represents a monumental departure from prior cases, and with it the Court effectively eliminated one of Roe v. Wade’s core protections:  that a woman’s health must always be paramount.  Perhaps most ominously, President Bush’s appointees to the Court provided the critical votes needed to erase this core protection of Roe, likely signaling a seismic shift in the Court’s future rulings on choice.  The Roberts Court has given the green light to anti-choice politicians to enact new restrictions to further test and erode the shrinking contours of the right to privacy. 

If Roe were overturned, each state would have the ability to decide whether or not to outlaw abortion.   Unlike most Southeastern states, North Carolina has a Pre-Roe statute legalizing abortion.  This means that if Roe were overturned, abortion would still be legal here.   However, we cannot be complacent.  Anti-choice leaders have promised to introduce a ban here once they gain a majority in the legislature.  As a first step anti-choice leaders in North Carolina are pushing an aggressive legislative strategy now; one that aims to outlaw birth control and medically accurate sex education. 

Consider this:

• At least ten percent of all hospital emergency departments in North Carolina refuse to provide Emergency Contraception to victims of rape and incest;
• A shocking 40%  of NC pharmacies do not stock the “Morning After” pill and of those, 30% will not order it, if requested;
• Only 10% of North Carolina schools offer medically and factually accurate sex education despite having the 9th highest teen pregnancy rate in the United States. 

Plus, during 2007 legislative session, 11 anti-choice bills were introduced including a measure to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions based on their personal or religious beliefs.  

Our Strategy

Most North Carolinians believe all women deserve access to a full range of reproductive health care.  Yet, every year, anti choice leaders in our state work aggressively to restrict abortion and reproductive freedom while NARAL works tirelessly to stop them.  Meanwhile, this divisive debate over abortion rights has stood in the way of real progress toward ending unintended pregnancies.  Evidence reveals that when individuals have access to medically and factually accurate information and reliable contraceptive services and supplies, there is a considerable decline in the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).[1] 

Therefore,  NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina has launched Prevention First, a legislative package and grassroots organizing initiative that offers common ground for North Carolinians to work together to reduce unintended pregnancies and, as a result, reduce the number of abortions in our state.   In 2007, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina will strategically focus its grassroots, legislative and electoral resources to promote its Prevention First campaign.  

A Solid Track Record

NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina’s mission is to recruit, develop, and sustain a constituency that uses the political process to promote public health policies that guarantee every woman access to the full range of reproductive healthcare.  

We are proud that our recent accomplishments include:

• A cover story in Time Magazine (2/26/2007) featuring our investigation of how “so-called” crisis pregnancy centers in NC.  These centers use lies and scare tactics to prevent women from making informed choices about abortion and health care plus they promote misleading information about birth control

• Passing legislation to correct medical inaccuracies in North Carolina’s sexuality  education statute (2006).  This was the first pro-active piece of reproductive health legislation to pass through our legislature in over a decade.

• Adding $200,000 to the Women’s Health Services Fund (2006) covering family planning services for low-income women, the first increase in public funds for family planning in 13 years; 

• Released our report on Pharmacy Access to the “Morning After” pill and received widespread media attention both nationally and statewide.

Protecting Choice in North Carolina Today

By addressing the core problem of unintended pregnancies, choice leaders are reframing  the debate over abortion rights.

The Prevention First initiative will do more than promote pregnancy prevention and expand reproductive health services, it will reveal the extremism of the anti-choice position.  Doing so will build greater public support in North Carolina for accessible family planning, emergency contraception and medically accurate sex education: a crucial step to ensuring political will for keeping abortion legal in North Carolina.