My grandfather was the arch conservative U.S. Senator Jesse Helms from North Carolina, the state where I live. North Carolina – with its recent 12-week abortion ban known as SB20 – is the latest casualty in a national, conservative-led movement to deny women the right to bodily autonomy and essential health care. The endgame of the anti-abortion movement is to make abortion illegal in all 50 states.
North Carolina is the most recent Southern state to restrict access to abortion, in what amounts to an oppositional wave spanning from the South, to the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and beyond. My grandfather was one of the original galvanizers of the anti-abortion movement that is slashing access to safe abortion across the United States.
Jesse Helms began his U.S. Senate career in 1973, the year the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision allowed for the federal constitutional right to abortion. Known for his extremist and inflammatory political rhetoric, my grandfather opposed Roe with such a vengeance that he drew comparisons between legal abortion and the Holocaust.
He viewed abortion not as essential health care, but as the murder of children. Following the Roe decision in 1973, my grandfather pursued a constitutional amendment that would ban all abortions in the United States. He failed in his multi-year endeavor to ban abortions nationwide back then because, as is still true today, most Americans believed in preserving the right to safe abortion at some level of access.
North Carolinians – and Americans – don’t want abortion bans
The majority of North Carolinians don’t want extreme abortion bans in our state. Abortion bans harm those who already experience barriers to comprehensive health care: people with low incomes and financial strain, Black and brown women and people who live in rural communities far removed from access to comprehensive abortion services. Our country is currently facing a maternal mortality crisis. In states with extreme abortion bans, maternal mortality rates are higher than states with increased access.
North Carolina’s SB20 places undue restrictions on both medical and medicated abortions. Abortion pills can no longer be received in the mail and must be administered by a physician. A telehealth appointment is no longer allowed for the initial consultation and informed consent process.
Given North Carolina’s 72-hour waiting period, and without the option of an initial telehealth appointment, safe access to abortion is effectively denied to those already experiencing barriers to health care and those traveling from out of state to North Carolina for abortion care, what Republicans despicably refer to as “abortion tourism.”
Since the Dobbs decision and the fall of Roe, North Carolina has seen the highest increase in abortion services due to people traveling from surrounding states with total or more restrictive bans. SB20 is not a cut and dry 12-week abortion ban. The legislation contains 46 pages of oppressive restrictions and barriers that will hinder access both before and after 12 weeks of pregnancy. SB20 effectively denies women in North Carolina, and the South, access to the vital health care they need and deserve.
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A harmful legacy beyond North Carolina
Though my grandfather was unsuccessful in his fight to make abortion illegal nationwide, he was successful in his endeavor to undermine access to safe abortion on the international level via his Helms Amendment. The 50-year-old law restricts the use of U.S. foreign assistance funds for “abortion as a method of family planning,” thereby denying millions of people access to safe abortion – even in countries where abortion is legal, even in conflict zones where sexual violence is rampant, and even in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the girl, woman or pregnant person’s life.
Since 1973, my grandfather’s amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act has functioned as a blanket ban on abortion services and information in low- to middle-income countries that rely on federal aid for essential health care. Every year, 35 million women around the world resort to unsafe abortions, resulting in thousands of preventable maternal deaths and millions of injuries. There is nothing pro-life about the Helms Amendment. It should be reinterpreted and repealed.
With his Helms Amendment still at play, my grandfather would no doubt be elated by the 2022 Dobbs decision and the fall of Roe v. Wade. He would be delighted by the Republican supermajority in the N.C. House and Senate, which enabled the GOP to shamefully push through SB20 without any input from committees as is procedure, with no opportunity for public comment, and no opportunity for amendments from any dissenters at any point, in what amounts to a blatant disregard of democratic process.
He would have already sent North Carolina Representative Tricia Cotham a gift basket for switching parties, thereby handing the supermajority to North Carolina Republicans, and allowing SB20 to be pushed through in 48 hours.
And yet, even my grandfather understood that most Americans support access to safe abortion, and Republican lawmakers can push only so far without triggering a backlash of political repercussions from the electorate.
Forcing people to continue a pregnancy against their will and give birth when they do not wish to, and when doing so potentially puts their lives in jeopardy, is political extremism. This is a private health care decision between doctors and their patients. Politicians like my grandfather and Rep. Cotham should have no say in this decision.
We must all fight against this assault on personal freedom and liberty and work to re-enshrine and preserve the right of our daughters and granddaughters to bodily autonomy and self-determination in North Carolina, the United States, and abroad.
Ellen Gaddy has a Ph.D. in psychology, is a political activist for reproductive freedom and a justice-oriented philanthropist.
