James B. Hunt, Jr. died December 18, 2025. He served four terms as North Carolina’s governor from 1977 to the end of 1984 and then from 1993 to the end of 2000. He was the most consequential governor in North Carolina history and had many merits that I appreciate. He was diligent, productive, pragmatic and persuasive.
For all his merits and plaudits, he was extremely liberal on two important issues on which he would be considered an extremist today. The first is school choice. The second is abortion.
Governor Hunt And School Choice
In 1977 Jim Hunt implemented policies requiring state teacher certification for nonpublic schools and regulations regarding textbooks and curricula. In its 1977 session the General Assembly, at Governor Hunt’s behest, instituted a system of required competency tests which non-public high school students would have to pass in order to graduate. This led to a revolt, primarily from the religious non-public schools, a march in the capital and a court case. The revolt won in 1979.
The private schools’ most impressive show of strength took place April 26, 1978. About 5,000 Christian school supporters converged on the Wake County Courthouse during preliminary hearings in the case brought by the Hunt administration against schools that had refused to file new reports. The crowd, which had gathered to lend moral support to the cause, was dispersed by police. The Christian schools had to spend about $250,000 on legal expenses – a huge sum in those days.
In early 1979 the Christian schools shifted their attention to the legislative arena. Their efforts were successful. Bills were introduced to replace the existing regulatory laws and policies with two separate laws – one for religious schools and another for all other private schools –these would abolish all standards except a set of requirements regarding health, sanitation, attendance, and testing. After 88 days of personal lobbying by Christian school leaders and record volumes of real mail, both Houses passed the bills easily – by near-unanimous votes in the Senate and comfortable majorities in the House. This was long before email was used for grass roots lobbying.
When Governor Hunt first took office, North Carolina had one of the most restrictive regulatory environments for private and home schools in the nation. Today even liberals have given up on what Gov. Hunt advocated in 1977-78.The regulatory climate for school choice is now the most free in the nation. The battleground is no longer whether private/home schools should be free of government control but how much the state should pay for Opportunity Scholarships for all and how much would go to Education Savings Accounts for Children with Special Needs. The private schools have not resisted testing (Daniel 1: 8-20). The only question is which tests are sufficient. #Note: For this section I used: David Morgan’s August 8, 1980 “The History of Private School Regulation in North Carolina.”
Governor Hunt and Abortion
A Brief History of Carolina’s Abortion Funding
This section is mostly taken from Part VI of “The End of the North Carolina Abortion Fund” by Paul Stam. 22 Campbell Law Review 199 (Fall 1999) pages 137-139. Voluminous footnotes are available in the Law Review. The numbering of the footnotes is retained here.
In 1977, James B. Hunt took office as Governor of North Carolina for the first of four terms. 132 Later in 1977, Congress virtually ended the practice of using federal taxes to pay for medically unnecessary abortions through the Hyde Amendment. 133
Governor Hunt created a State Abortion Fund 134 , effective February 1, 1978, to pay for “medically unnecessary” abortions for the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. The term “medically unnecessary” was the term Governor Hunt used in his regulations. The Governor took $250,000 appropriated by the legislature for mental health and used these funds to pay for abortions. 135 Later, Hunt budgets requested the General Assembly to appropriate $1 million per year for taxpayer financed abortions.
In 1978 the author sued Governor Hunt in Stam v. State 302 NC 357 (1981) over the creation of the fund. Through counsel Governor Hunt admitted in court that:
“8. The genetic constitution of the preborn human organism is established when the mother’s ovum is fertilized by the father’s sperm.
9. The genetic constitution of the preborn human organism is distinct from that of each of its parents.
10. The genetic constitution of each preborn human organism is unique, except in the case of monozygotic twinning.
11. Normally the maternal and paternal contributions to the genetic constitution of the human organism are equal in quantity but vastly different with respect to the attributes conferred.
12. Normally the genetic constitution of the human organisms is not greatly changed from the time of fertilization to the time of death. The few genetic changes which may occur after fertilization are negligible in comparison to the genetic union which occurs at fertilization.
13. The preborn human organism is characterized by structural complexity sufficient to distinguish it from a tumor of maternal, embryonic, fetal, placental, or other origin.
14. The developing human organism is alive.
17. The normal fate of the fertilized ovum is development (embryonic, fetal, and postnatal) into a mature adult organism unless disease or extrinsic interference precludes this natural process.
22. Fetal viability has been made possible at increasingly early gestational ages as medical technology has advanced.
23. The circulatory systems of the preborn human organism and its mother are anatomically separate.
24. The heart of the preborn human organism normally starts to beat before the thirtieth day after fertilization.” Record on Appeal pp 18-22.”
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court did not stop state funding of medically unnecessary abortions. It did stop such abortion funding by local government.
In 1979, Governor Hunt transferred $303,000 that had been appropriated for rest homes and used that money to pay for medical unnecessary abortions beyond the $1 million the General Assembly had appropriated at his request. 136 In 1980, Governor Hunt again needed more than the $1,000,000 the General Assembly had provided. He transferred $367,000 from Aid to Families with Dependent Children for medical unnecessary abortions. 137 In 1981, he again needed to find more money for abortion and again transferred $235,000 from Aid to Families with Dependent Children. 138
In 1982 the author and his wife sued Governor Hunt in Stam v. Hunt 66 NC APP 116 (1984) for the non-appropriation of $324.500 FY 1982-83. The Court of Appeals ignored the precedents cited and allowed Governor Hunt to spend the extra $324,500 for medically unnecessary abortions.
James Martin served two terms as governor from 1985 to the end of 1992. During these years, abortion funding fluctuated. Abortion funding was reduced to $924,000 from 1985 until the end of 1988 and then to $424,000 per year from 1989 to 1992. Democrats held majorities in the General Assembly while he was Governor.
When Jim Hunt took office again as Governor in 1993, abortion spending tripled at his request with yearly totals of $1,212,000.00 until the end of 1994. 139 In 1995, the General Assembly, for all practical purposes, ended state abortion funding and ended North Carolina’s seventeen-year history as the only southern state to pay for elective abortions. 140 In 1995 the senate had a 26-24 Democrat majority and the House had a 66 – 54 Republican majority. The Governor had not yet acquired the power to veto. ELECTIONS MATTER.
Prior to 1985, medically necessary abortions were explicitly not funded by the state. 141 Beginning in 1985 and continuing thereafter until July 1, 1995, a “health impairment exception” was included in the annual appropriations. 142 This exception was so broad as to effectively allow abortion on demand since the sole determinant was the description written by the doctor performing the abortion. The diagnoses that were listed under the exception included a vast majority of indications that are euphemisms for “elective” or non-therapeutic abortion. For example, of the 3233 “health impairment” abortions in the fiscal year of 1987-1988, 1,931 were “nonspecific”; 208 were for “adjustment reaction”; 156 for “emotional problems”; 239 for “stress reactions”. 143 As a consequence of varying criteria and funding levels the number of abortions funded by the NC State Abortion Fund since its inception were:
1977-1978 – 1123 Abortions
1978-1979 – 6125 Abortions
1979-1980 – 6343 Abortions
1980-1981 – 5730 Abortions
1981-1982 – 4295 Abortions
1982-1983 – 6149 Abortions
1983-1984 – 6645 Abortions
1984-1985 – 6564 Abortions
1985-1986 – 2662 Abortions
1986-1987 – 4181 Abortions
1987-1988 – 3600 Abortions
1988-1989 – 4137 Abortions
1989-1990 – 1921 Abortions
1990-1991 – 2330 Abortions
1991-1992 – 2156 Abortions
1992-1993 – 2132 Abortions
1993-1994 – 4448 Abortions
1994-1995 – 4587 Abortions
1995-1996 – 0 Abortions
1996-1997 – 1 Abortions
1997-1998 – 0 Abortions
1998-1999 – 0 Abortions
These numbers do not include abortions paid for under the federal Medicaid program. In 1997, Medicaid paid for 59 abortions involving claims of rape, 2 cases involving incest, and 5 cases involving danger to the life of the mother consistent with the Hyde Amendment. 145
There are dozens of policies related to abortion. Those arguing for tax paid medically unnecessary abortions for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy have the least support from the public – about 15%. Yet that was the position of Governor Hunt. He was an extremist on this issue.
The author served 16 years in the NC. House of Representatives – The last ten as the Minority leader, Majority leader and then Speaker Pro Tempore.
