A near-total abortion ban proposed in North Carolina won't be taken up, House speaker says

Avi Bajpai, The Charlotte Observer on Apr 8, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A Republican bill filed this week that proposes making abortion illegal in North Carolina at any stage of pregnancy won’t move forward, House Speaker Destin Hall said Tuesday.

“I don’t think there’s any real desire in our caucus to hear that particular bill, and so, it’s not going to be heard in committee,” Hall told reporters after the House’s voting session Tuesday afternoon.

The bill, introduced on Monday by Rep. Keith Kidwell with the support of two other House Republicans, would ban abortion after conception and allow no exceptions other than to “preserve the life of the mother.” Violations of the ban would be punished as felonies, and by a civil penalty of $100,000.

Democrats were quick to raise concerns about the bill after it was filed, and vowed to fight it “as hard as we can.”

Named the “Human Life Protection Act of 2025,” the bill mirrors similar legislation Kidwell, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, filed two years ago during the 2023 legislative session that was never taken up.

At the time, Republicans in the House and Senate were working within their caucuses to come up with a consensus bill to further restrict abortion in the state that all GOP lawmakers could agree on and get behind.

When Kidwell filed the similar bill in March 2023, a spokeswoman for then-House Speaker Tim Moore clarified that it didn’t reflect “the work of the working group or the consensus product we expect to emerge from those discussions.”

House and Senate Republicans ultimately settled on a bill banning most abortions in the state after 12 weeks with exceptions up to 20 weeks for rape and incest, up to 24 weeks for a fetal anomaly, and at any point in pregnancy if “a qualified physician determines there exists a medical emergency.”

On Tuesday, Hall said he doesn’t expect Republicans to consider any “big changes” to that 12-week law that they enacted in 2023 over a veto by then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

“We just passed, less than two years ago, really landmark pro-life legislation, and that bill did a lot of things, and I think we need to give some more time to see how that bill is working, but I don’t anticipate doing much more on that issue this session,” Hall said.

Senate leader Phil Berger, meanwhile, told reporters on Tuesday that he wasn’t familiar with Kidwell’s bill, and said he doesn’t expect the 12-week law to be changed either.

Of any potential bills that would be more restrictive than what’s currently in effect, Berger said: “I don’t know that there’s support that we could get a bill passed and a veto overridden, so I don’t see us moving in that direction.”

Berger said last June that he didn’t want to see any new abortion restrictions this year, noting that he was only speaking for himself.

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