NC abortion bills aren’t about improving medical care; they’re about shaming people
Welcome to NC Voices, where leaders, readers and experts from across North Carolina can speak on issues affecting our communities. Send submissions of 300 words or fewer to opinion@charlotteobserver.com.
NC abortion bills are dangerous
As a North Carolina family physician providing comprehensive care across the lifespan, including prenatal, miscarriage and abortion care, I know that N.C. Senate Bill 405 and House Bill 453 are blatant attempts to insert politics into the patient-provider relationship.
These bills undermine my patients’ ability to determine what’s best for them and their families in complicated, urgent health situations. That’s why Physicians for Reproductive Health, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the NC OB/GYN Society oppose these bills.
Threatening physicians with various penalties for providing appropriate, necessary medical care is draconian. These bills have nothing to do with improving medical care and everything to do with shaming people who need abortion care.
The lawmakers behind these bills know they are solutions in search of fictional problems. So why propose them? To advance harmful efforts to push abortion out of reach.
I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous these bills are. Legislators are grossly distorting the care my colleagues and I provide. Their medically inaccurate, inflammatory language encourages harassment and stigma towards medical professionals and patients.
Our legislature only became a puppet of the national agenda to ban abortion in the last decade. Recent family medicine and OB/GYN graduates are choosing not to practice in our state because of it.
North Carolinians are already subject to bans on insurance coverage for abortion, mandatory 72-hour waiting periods, parental consent requirements for young people, and restrictions on medication abortion and abortion later in pregnancy. None of these make abortion safer; they just make it harder to get care.
I’m tired of begging politicians to listen to patients and providers. I urge the N.C. legislature to redirect its focus to passing fact-based laws actually advancing the health and well-being of North Carolinians, rather than anti-science laws harming us.
Dr. Erica Pettigrew
Hillsborough family physician, Physicians for Reproductive Health fellow
Invest in natural infrastructure too
With over 100 people a day moving to the Charlotte region, much of our traditional infrastructure is stressed. Clean, reliable water is essential now — and in the future.
Protecting the source of our water, the Catawba River, will take leveraging the natural infrastructure inherent in our lands.
In 2006, studies indicated insufficient water to meet growing demand by 2050. So 18 water utilities and Duke Energy formed the Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group, dedicated to enhancing our water supply while protecting its ecological integrity.
They produced a plan to extend supply, but traditional built infrastructure is not enough.
Rapid growth, development patterns, and changing weather affect the composition, flow and very resilience of our river. Resilience is one of nature’s superpowers. We can tap into that superpower by appreciating the connection between land and water and managing resources at the watershed scale rather than by political jurisdictions.
Thousands of miles of streams and tributaries flow over urban, industrial, agricultural or natural land in our watershed. The character of those lands greatly influences what’s in the water and how it behaves.
Natural lands filter pollutants, mitigate both flooding and drought, and reduce the erosion that muddies our lakes.
Now, with a tool to prioritize and quantify the benefits of conserving certain land areas, land trusts are working with the water management group and others to protect our source water.
This sustainable, resilient infrastructure reduces treatment costs, increases property and recreation values, and improves the quality and quantity of our water supply. We can continue to grow responsibly by strategically investing in a natural infrastructure that will last for generations.
Victoria Taylor
Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group advisory committee chair
