There are 829 candidates for positions on the state and federal level in the Primary. It is estimated that 423 candidates will make it to the General Election Day. This year, North Carolinians will have to decide which candidates will address dismemberment abortions, Planned Parenthood funding, and Abortion Pill Reversal Notification.

Each position has a significant role in deciding if the government will uphold life. How do these candidates know where to stand on issues? How do people become informed on where these candidates stand on life?

North Carolina Right to Life has been informing people and candidates on issues like abortion, healthcare, and euthanasia since 1973. We have been a trusted source for churches, educators, and associations on issues facing our state and nation.

Each election cycle, we survey candidates through an attached detailed questionnaire. This questionnaire is updated to address the current state of issues that we address.

ABORTION

North Carolina Right to Life (NCRTL) believes that unborn children should be protected by law, and that abortion should be permitted only when necessary to prevent the death of the mother.

(1) Under what circumstances, if any, do you believe that abortion should be legal?

(a) ________ Only to prevent the death of the mother

(b) _______ To prevent the death of the mother, or in cases of rape reported to a law enforcement agency, or incest against a minor reported to a child abuse agency.

(c) Other: (please explain) ________________________________________________________________________

PLEASE NOTE: Each following "yes" response indicates agreement with the position of North Carolina Right to Life.

ROE V. WADE

(2) The U.S. Supreme Court made a "right to abortion" for any reason until the sixth month of “viability”, and for any “health” reasons – including “emotional health” – even during the final three months of pregnancy. This ruling invalidated the abortion laws in effect in all 50 states at that time in the 1973 rulings of Roe v. Wade & Doe v. Bolton. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the “core holdings” of Roe v. Wade, and said that any law placing an “undue burden” on access to abortion would be struck down in Casey v. Planned Parenthood 1992 ruling. Do you advocate changing these decisions so that state and national legislative bodies may once again protect unborn children from abortion?

EXISTING PRO-LIFE LAWS

(3) The following laws are in the NC General Statues regarding abortion:

-Our state has various laws to restrict state funding for abortion.

-Our State has the Unborn Victims of Violence law establishes that if an unborn child is injured or killed then the assailant may be charged with a second offense on behalf of the second victim.

-Our state has a law to prevent sex-selection abortions in North Carolina.

-Our State has a “Woman’s Right to Know” law that protects a woman’s right to know the medical risks associated with abortion, its alternatives and nonjudgmental, scientifically accurate medical facts about the development of her unborn child before making this permanent and life-affecting decision.

-Our State has a 72-hour waiting period, establishing 3 days for the mother to consider options.

-Our State has a law like the laws that are in effect in 31 states requiring consent of at least one parent (or authorization by a judge) before an abortion can be performed on a minor.

-North Carolina also has a law that protects unborn children from being killed from cities and counties healthcare coverages for their employees provided by the State Health Plan for Teachers and other State Employees.

Would you vote against any legislation that would weaken any of these existing pro-life laws?

HEARTBEAT PROTECTION ACT

(4) Our Heartbeat Protection bill would protect unborn children from abortion when an unborn child’s heartbeat is detected (with exceptions for the life of the mother). This Heartbeat Protection bill require doctors to check for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion. As with all of NRLC’s legislation, women who obtain an abortion that violates this law would not be subject to prosecution. A number of states have passed bills based on protecting a child once a heartbeat is detected. Would you vote for legislation to protect unborn babies from abortion from the point in development at which an unborn child has a detectable heartbeat?

DISMEMBERMENT ABORTION

(5) The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act is based on a model state bill proposed by National Right to Life, which was enacted in 13 states. The bill defines “dismemberment abortion” as “knowingly dismembering a living unborn child and extracting such unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body in order to cut or rip it off . . .” Would you vote for the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, to protect living unborn children from dismemberment abortions?

THE PAIN OF UNBORN BABIES

(6) There is now substantial medical and scientific evidence that unborn children can feel pain by 15 weeks after fertilization. Would you support legislation to protect pain-capable unborn children from death by abortion?

PROTECTION OF HUMAN EMBRYOS

(7) The right to life of human beings must be respected at every stage of their biological development. Human individuals at the embryonic stage of development should not be used for harmful or lethal medical experimentation. This applies equally to human beings whether their lives were begun by in vitro fertilization, by somatic cell nuclear transfer (human cloning), or by another laboratory technique. North Carolina Right to Life opposes harvesting “stem cells” from living human embryos since this kills the embryos. NCRTL is NOT opposed to other research on “stem cells” that are obtained without killing embryos – for example, stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood and from adult tissue. Will you vote for measures to protect living human embryos from being used for medical experiments that would harm or kill them, including so-called “embryonic stem cell research” that would require the killing of human embryos, regardless of the method used to create these human embryos?

INFORMED CONSENT

(8a) When a family is given the tragic news that their unborn child has been diagnosed with a fetal anomaly incompatible with life, they need to know about the resources available to them. Perinatal hospice is a positive offer of support to parents facing a lethal prenatal diagnosis for their child. From the time of diagnosis, it helps parents before and after birth through the short time they have their baby in a positive life-affirming manner. Would you support legislation providing a mother with information on perinatal hospice?

(8b) Many women who undergo abortions later regret that they were not given an opportunity to view the ultrasound of their unborn child prior to the abortion being performed. Our state’s law has been enjoined, but a similar law in Kentucky and Texas has been upheld as constitutional. Would you support continued efforts on ensuring women can view their ultrasounds?

(8c) Medical Directors of Abortion Pill Reversal Dr. George Delgado and Dr. Matt Harrison have established a method that has the possibility to save the unborn baby when only if mifepristone has been ingested. Their technique follows a protocol of first performing an ultrasound to determine that the unborn child is alive. Once confirmed, progesterone is prescribed for the duration of the first trimester. According to Heartbeat International’s annual report, at least 3,000 babies have been saved due to the reversal process. 14 states have laws giving women information of this process prior to the abortion. Would you support a bill that provides information on the possibility of reversing the effects of a mifepristone-related abortions?

NON-DISCRIMINATION

(9a) Would you support legislation that protects unborn children from the discriminatory practice of eugenic abortions if there is a prognosis of Down syndrome or any other disability?

(9b) Would you support legislation that protects unborn children from the discriminatory practice of aborting unborn children because of the child’s race?

ABORTION FUNDING

(10a). Title X allocates federal funds to be distributed to the states for the purpose of supplementing family planning programs. Legislators in some states have worked to reduce the ability of abortion providers to distribute Title X family planning services. Would you support legislation to exclude abortion providers from the Title X program or prioritize funding to non-abortion entities?

(10b) Would you support a law to prevent state institutions from using their facilities for doing abortions?

(10c) Would you support legislation that maintains or increases funding for programs promoting positive alternatives to abortion?

ABORTION IN HEALTH INSURANCE

(11) Many “health care reform” bills have included provisions that require state governments cover abortion in certain health insurance plans. Often, these bills contain mandates that will be construed by courts, and/or by administrative agencies, to include abortion without explicitly mentioning abortion. For example, any legal mandate for coverage of “medically necessary services” or “reproductive health services” will be construed to include elective abortion, unless explicit language is added to prevent this interpretation. Would you vote to add strong abortion-exclusion language to any legislation that would define a specific package of health care benefits?

EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

(12) In 1972, Congress submitted to the states a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution, known as the “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA), that would nullify any law or government policy that is deemed to discriminate “on account of sex.” NRLC has long opposed the 1972 ERA because of its predictable use as a legal weapon against any limitations on abortion --an intended effect that is now openly proclaimed by pro-abortion members of Congress and by activist groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, NOW, and the ACLU. Although the 1972 ERA contained a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979, pro-ERA activists and lawmakers now insist that it can be made part of the U.S. Constitution by ratifications approved long after the deadline. They are currently pushing this theory in Congress, the federal courts, and in the legislatures of states that never ratified the ERA, such as North Carolina. Will you oppose any measure that purports to ratify the 1972 federal ERA, or that urges Congress to adopt any measure that seeks to advance ratification of the 1972 federal ERA?

POLITICAL SPEECH

(13a) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right of corporations (which includes nonprofit corporations, such as NCRTL) to spend money to express viewpoints regarding those who hold or seek political office. Would you oppose any legislation that would penalize corporations, like NCRTL, for engaging in the types of free speech that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled are protected by the First Amendment?

(13b) Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold), the Federal Election Commission promulgated new rules on defining what constitutes illegal “coordination” between candidates (including incumbent members of Congress and incumbent presidents) and citizen groups. Under the loose new definition of “coordination,” citizen groups and PACs that communicate with Congress on legislative matters and also conduct independent expenditures are at risk of being unintentionally “coordinated,” thereby making their independent expenditures illegal campaign “contributions.” Would you support regulatory reforms and/or new legislation to reestablish that “coordination” means only a formal agreement or collaboration on a specific project between a candidate and a citizen group or PAC?

EUTHANASIA ISSUES

From its inception, the pro-life movement has been as dedicated to protecting people with disabilities and older people from euthanasia as it has been to protecting unborn children from abortion.

INVOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA

(14a) 11 states have adopted laws affirmatively legalizing prescription of lethal drugs to assist suicide in certain cases. Would you oppose the legalization of assisting suicide through lethal prescriptions?

(14b) A significant number of hospitals have implemented formal policies authorizing denial of lifesaving medical treatment against the will of a patient or the patient’s family if an ethics committee thinks the patient’s quality of life is unacceptable, even though the patient and family disagree. Would you vote for a law preventing denial of treatment medically necessary to prevent the death of a patient against the will of the patient or the patient’s representative?

(14c) Would you vote for a law requiring that a health care provider not willing to respect the choice of the patient (or the patient’s representative) for lifesaving treatment must allow the patient to be transferred to a willing provider and must provide treatment necessary to prevent the patient’s death pending transfer?

(14d) In an effort to lower their healthcare costs, public and private health insurance providers have utilized the Quality Adjusted Life Year and similar measures to determine whether they will cover medications and treatment. These measures place a lower value on treatments which extend the lives of people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. This is a form of involuntary euthanasia. Would you vote to oppose any efforts to intentionally deny treatment on the basis of disability or "quality of life"?

(14e) Would you support a law to prevent "assisting suicide" by allowing relatives or others affected by an attempted or completed suicide, as well as public officials, to sue the person who "assists" for money damages and to obtain an injunction against future attempts by that person to assist suicides?

HEALTH CARE RATIONING

(15) When the government rations health care in a way that makes it illegal or impossible for citizens to choose lifesaving medical treatment, food, and fluids, it imposes a type of involuntary euthanasia. Would you vote against any bill that would limit the right to spend one’s own money for health care or health insurance?

PRICE CONTROLS

(16) Government price controls in fact prevent access to lifesaving medical treatment that costs more to supply than the price set by the government. The same is true when price controls are imposed on what people are permitted to pay for health insurance. Would you vote against any bill that would impose price controls on health insurance premiums or health care?