Democratic North Carolina Governor Josh Stein Thursday's Executive Order He believes access to reproductive health care across the state will be further protected.
The order requires Cabinet agencies to protect women's medical privacy, protect doctors who perform abortions in the state, and not cooperate with efforts to impose penalties, investigations, and prosecutions on people seeking reproductive health care, including abortions. I am instructing you to do so.
“Our state has seen an alarming attack on women's reproductive rights in recent years, and I remain committed to doing everything I can to protect women's freedom and privacy,” Stein said. said in a statement.
The order also requires state agencies to review and, if necessary, revise their data privacy policies related to women's reproductive health care.
The executive order comes as state legislatures prepare for further restrictions on access to reproductive health care under President Trump's second term.
Last fall, Oregon's Democratic governor, Tina Kotek, announced that her state had stockpiled a three-year supply of the abortion drug mifepristone ahead of President-elect Trump's return to the White House.
Earlier this week, New Jersey's Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, pledged to also begin stockpiling mifepristone, citing concerns about the incoming presidential administration.
President Trump said on the campaign trail that he had no intention of banning abortion nationally and that the future of abortion access would be up to each state. He also promised to protect access to medical abortion in an interview with Time magazine, but gave himself leeway to break that promise, noting that “things change.”
Mr. Stein previously served as North Carolina's attorney general and was elected governor last year. He replaced former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. issued a presidential order On the heels of the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, which protects North Carolinians who had out-of-state abortions from extradition.
Cooper's executive order also prohibited state agencies from assisting other states in prosecuting North Carolinians who receive abortions outside the state.
In North Carolina, the law will change starting in 2022, with the state enacting a 12-week abortion ban in July 2023.
