For immediate release
September 20, 2023, Raleigh: Once again, the State Budget highlights the skewed priorities of North Carolina General Assembly Republicans, disregarding the reproductive healthcare needs of our state’s residents, said Pro-Choice North Carolina in a statement.
“With a budget that is nearly three months late, right wing leadership in the General Assembly was more focused on fights over casinos and tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than addressing the unmet need for comprehensive, quality, and affordable healthcare, including reproductive healthcare, for so many state residents.
Rather than a timely budget to ensure much needed expansion of Medicaid - a benefit to over 600,000 North Carolinians - the budget designed by Republican leadership in the NC General Assembly includes steep tax cuts that will further shred our social safety net and underfund our public schools, and provisions to further politicize the state judicial system. Leadership also wants to give over $20 million in public taxpayer dollars to anti-abortion centers,” said Tara Romano, Executive Director of Pro-Choice North Carolina.
“Anti-abortion centers, also known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ exist solely to coerce and deceive people out of accessing abortion and contraception, both of which are essential and normal healthcare. No group should get public money to lie to people. Despite the recent attacks on abortion from NCGA leadership, the majority of people in North Carolina want to see expanded access to reproductive healthcare, free from government interference. The recent abortion restrictions in our state were based on anti-abortion disinformation and stigma, and anti-abortion centers exist to amplify those tactics. All people, no matter their income, age, insurance status, or where they live, deserve access to comprehensive, nonjudgmental, quality reproductive healthcare. This budget fails to provide that access."
For more information about anti-abortion fake clinics, see: https://prochoicenc.org/fake-womens-health-centers/