On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade. Effective July 1, 2023, the NC General Assembly passed SB20 to protect women and some unborn children.
Immediately a legislative leader began raising money on the assertion that the U.S. Supreme Court took away a constitutional right after 49 ½ years and that North Carolina had enacted a “ban.” That is false propaganda.
Justice Alito went to great lengths to clearly demonstrate there never was a constitutional right to abortion. Ask a 5th grader to find the right to abortion in the Constitution. She will tell you it is not there. It never was, except in the fevered imaginations of seven old men with black robes in 1973. They are now dead.
In North Carolina, abortion has always been a crime, a misdemeanor from 1669-1881 and a felony from 1881-1973. It is still a felony to “help” a friend. Let’s review the history:
In 1859 the American Medical Association unanimously adopted a resolution “condemning abortion at every period of gestation, except as necessary to preserve the life of mother or child”. The stated reason was the increasing frequency “of such unwarrantable destruction of human life.”
The common law, as of 1776, made abortion a crime from conception. “The moment the womb is instinct with embryo life and gestation has begun . . .” the crime may be committed, State v. Slagle (1880) and N.C.G.S. 4-1.
These “facts of life” have been well known for two centuries. The very first two sentences of The Developing Human – Clinically Oriented Embryology (2nd ed 1977) by Keith Moore states:
“Development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) is fertilized by a spermatozoon and ends at death. It is a process of growth and differentiation which transforms the zygote, a single cell, into a multicellular adult human being.”
No new science has changed that in the last 48 years. Even after Roe v Wade (1973) most abortionists admit that after conception the embryo and fetus are living human beings. I have publicly debated two abortionists and deposed two others under oath. They each said they were terminating living human beings.
Only politicians and the press deny this obvious fact of life.
Law caught up with science in the 19th century. By 1868, the vast majority of states and territories criminalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health (2022) lists several dozen statutes from the mid-19th century. Many of the state court decisions made the point that these protective laws were motivated by the fact that abortion kills a human being. 13 of the Territories criminalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy between 1850
(Hawaii) and 1919 (New Mexico). By the end of the 1950s, all but four States and the District of Columbia prohibited abortion, unless performed to preserve the life of the mother.
How does NC law treat unborn children in civil cases?
Property of one dying without a will immediately vests in an unborn child. In 1823, a statute clarified: “[n]o inheritance shall descend to any person, unless such person shall be in life at the death of the person last seized, or shall be born within ten months after the death of the person last seized.” Ten lunar months are 280 days normal gestation. By 1839 a child, once conceived, could take property under a will to “children.” In 1854 statutes clarified that “[a]n infant unborn . . . shall be deemed a person capable of taking by deed as if he were born.”
Until Roe v Wade (1973), for all purposes beneficial to her, the preborn child was protected by the civil law and the criminal law of almost all of the nation. Law and biology were consistent and considered the child in the womb to be within the protection of law from conception. Since 1967, North Carolina law has allowed the abortion of these living human beings if performed by doctors –currently up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
No constitutional right, state or federal, stands in the way of laws protecting the unborn child.
The writer, Paul Stam, served 16 years in the House of Representatives, the last 10 as Republican Leader and Speaker Pro Tem. He can be reached at paulstam@stamlawfirm.com.
Documents: Recognizing Abortion Propaganda – 11.4.25
