CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) – As the nation waits to see whether the United States Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade, FOX 46 takes a look at the state of abortion rights in the Carolinas.
North Carolina has far fewer restrictions than South Carolina overall. However, there is a heartbeat bill pending in Congress since February. According to NC Health News, the rate of abortion has decreased over the last 20 years; 16 percent of all pregnancies were terminated and 66 percent of abortions occurred before 9 weeks of pregnancy.
Surprisingly, 46 percent of women who had abortions were already parents with two or three children and the average age range was 20 to 34-years-old.
NC Health News also reported that there were only 15 clinics in North Carolina that offered abortion services.
In 2020, South Carolina saw the lowest number of abortions in the past four years, according to South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control. SCDHEC also found that more than half were at 6 weeks or less and 49.3 percent were between 7 and 13 weeks.
As for abortion access, the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank, reported that in 2017 there were only four abortion clinics in South Carolina and “93 percent of South Carolina counties had no clinics that provided abortions, and 71 percent of South Carolina women lived in those counties.”