It depends who you ask. Regardless, prospective mothers have less time to decide.
16 years old, 5 weeks along and completely conflicted, when senior Leilani Provencio realized she was pregnant, she did not know what to do.
She told her partner and her dad as soon as she found out. Then, she scheduled a Planned Parenthood appointment and considered her choices.
“I was weighing my options and I had a lot of pressure on me,” she said.
A year ago, she would have had more options. North Carolina lawmakers passed a restrictive abortion law in June that left North Carolinians with many questions.
The new law bans most abortions past 12 weeks, with exceptions only for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities or instances in which the mother’s life is threatened.
In cases involving a life-limiting anomaly, the procedure may be performed up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
The ban also put restrictions on where abortions can be done. Clinics must be designated as “ambulatory surgical centers,” which very few are.
DANGEROUS HEALTHCARE RESTRICTIONS
Reproductive health workers struggled to navigate the legality of their work under the law.
A national right to abortion was established by Roe v Wade, a 1971 supreme court ruling. It was overturned in June 2022.
“We never ever, ever assumed that there would be a day where Roe would not be the law of the land,” nurse-midwife and Riverside parent Jill Sergison said. “So there really wasn’t that urgency around it that there is now.”
She was inspired to join Pro-Choice NC, a grassroots organization which she now chairs.
Lucy Schenkman is a generalist OBGYN in the Duke Health System. Although abortions are not her primary focus, they are still well within her work.
Since many clinics in the Duke system were not designated as ambulatory surgical centers, they had to move their abortion operations after the bill was passed.
Now spending more time administering professional advice, it can be harder for doctors to make decisions.
“What’s difficult is, what’s an emergency? When is she sick enough?” Schenkman said.
A Texas ruling sparked national debate over these very questions.
“There’s a woman right now in Texas [who aborted] her 20 week girl child,” said Laura Macklem, the press and political director of NC Values, a pro-life organization. “Well, I know someone who has a grandchild who was born at 20 weeks and is a thriving 12 year old.”
The woman she’s referring to is Kate Cox. She already had two children and planned to welcome her third into the world when the fetus was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a fatal genetic condition. Most children with this diagnosis do not live past the first two weeks of life. After being denied the procedure in Texas, she decided to travel out of state. Carrying the pregnancy to term could have jeopardized her future fertility, according to the Washington Post.
Although the law is not as strict as in other states, Pro-Choice NC is worried.
“Any ban is a bad ban,” Sergison said. “Anytime we inflict these bans, it basically creates a condition of forced birth, forced pregnancy. It’s really bad as it stands right now.”
The current legislation leaves a lot of room for medical interpretation. Doctors must decide if an abortion is necessary based on their judgment of the severity of the situation. If they interpret the situation incorrectly, they could face legal prosecution.
“How long do you wait? Do you wait till she has a seizure? Do you wait till she starts bleeding internally?” Schenkman said. “I think it’s very dangerous, and many more women will die in North Carolina.”
Although effective intensive care can be found in Durham through the Duke Health System, the same cannot be said everywhere. Many rural towns do not have the same care available and there is often increased stigma around abortions.
“I am grateful I am in Durham,” Schenkman said. “But in small town North Carolina where you have a district attorney whose goal is to get rid of abortion and somebody sick comes in, they could be scared.”
Under the bill, counseling now has to be done in person. Traveling twice to hospitals to complete counseling is a luxury many people do not have.
“That’s a huge huge burden on people who are having trouble getting there in the first place,” Sergison said.
Often, doctors have to send NC residents out of state where care is more accessible.
Sally Howland is a nurse coordinator at the Duke family planning clinic.
“I get phone calls frequently from women in-state,” she said. “I give them phone numbers of clinics who can see them in Virginia and also Washington DC.”
A DIFFICULT DECISION
When Mira Prater gave birth to her son three years ago, her maternity leave only lasted 30 days, and it was unpaid. She was then forced to use her sick days. This year, a provision in the bill gave her paid time off after she gave birth to her second child on October 7 2023.
“I am on my maternity leave right now. The eight weeks is paid leave and I am very grateful for that,” Prater said. “It was a peace offering. It was a way to make amends for a really horrific thing they are passing. It’s not enough.”
A married mother of two, Prater fits the profile that conservatives claim they are trying to protect. But she doesn’t see it that way.
“I think it is disgusting that any lawmaker believes that they can make decisions about a woman’s body,” she said. “It is appalling that anybody believes they can make decisions about anybody else’s body.”
Her experience with an unviable pregnancy showed her just how important abortion access is.
“I had a miscarriage last October,” Prater said. “And I was able to receive the health care that I needed.”
But many women do not have the same access.
Prater was able to get an ultrasound after nine weeks due to a pre-existing condition, but most women don’t get an appointment until they are 11-12 weeks into the pregnancy.
“And then at 11 weeks is when I had to have a DNC, which is the procedure that everyone calls an abortion,” Prater said. “That was three weeks of me knowing that my pregnancy wasn’t going to come to fruition, and then having the procedure done.”
Her procedure would not have qualified as a ‘life threatening’ exception to the 12-week ban.
This means that if a woman has her initial appointment at 11 weeks, she would not be scheduled for a DNC until about 15 weeks. Under the 12-week ban, she would be unable to go through with the procedure.
Prater urges lawmakers to understand the magnitude of the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
“It was the worst thing I have ever experienced in my entire life, the absolute worst thing,” Prater said. ”There are so many feelings and it’s so horrific. Nobody ever makes that decision lightly. Nobody uses that as a means of birth control. And that’s what lawmakers are refusing to understand.”
Riverside social worker Kisha Bardonille fears that women could be gradually losing rights. She often provides counsel to pregnant Riverside students.
“I think we’re moving towards some Handmaid’s Tale stuff where you keep stripping rights from women and you have men making decisions about our bodies and our reproductive health,” she said.
Fenale Brandon taught Parenting and Child Development, a class that is not currently offered at Riverside but available at other schools in the district.
“I had students that were pregnant at the time,” she said. “Some of them look to me for advice on how to handle that or how to talk to the parents if they got in a bind,” Brandon said.
Faculty understand how individual each situation is.
“I remember how precious life is and it takes me to the time of holding my baby,” Bardonille said. “But as a social worker and someone who is working in a field where so many things are impacted by your socioeconomic, your access to resources, your education and your healthcare eligibility, you just cannot omit all those things.”
She’s worried about the impact this bill could have on women’s rights.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said. “I feel like we’re going to feel that in some way as women’s rights continue to be knocked down.”
Brandon’s experience at Riverside taught her that every situation is different.
“It’s not my place to tell them go get an abortion,” Brandon said. “I just tell them where I stand with it and that’s something between them and their parents.”
Her religion is against abortion, but an incident ten years ago caused her to change her mind.
“We had a student that went into one of our bathrooms down the hallway and tried to do their own abortion,” she said.
AN ISSUE OF FAITH
The bill also permits healthcare providers to opt out of abortion procedures based on personal ethical grounds, without fear of disciplinary action.
Conservative Christians claim that fetuses are living beings with the same inalienable rights as other living people.
Macklem’s personal religious beliefs influence her view on abortion.
“All life is important, and you don’t rip an unborn child, limb from limb in the womb for convenience, you don’t do it at all,” said Macklem. “All life is precious.”
“I am a Bible-believing Christian,” she said. “Our organization is a Christian organization.”
She cited Psalm 139:13-16.
“We believe life begins at conception,” she said.
Macklem also listed unique fingerprints, DNA and the presence of a heartbeat at six weeks to support her beliefs.
Pepper Elliott is the youth pastor at Cross Assembly, a nondenominational church affiliated with the Assemblies of God. It is his responsibility to help youth manage difficult situations, including pregnancy.
He claims it’s not just religion; it’s science.
“When a baby is conceived, at that moment, two cells come together, a unique DNA strand is formed between the sperm and the egg, and that actually is what crafts a new person,” he said. “And in that regard, this is no longer the woman’s body.”
He claims that some pro-life advocates lean more towards total abortion abolition than others.
“I lean toward abolitionist from the perspective of care,” he said. ”I can’t necessarily say that every church does care for those in their community and their situation the same.”
He thinks abortion should be criminalized.
“If we give consequences, it will change how people go about doing it,” he said.
Even among Christians, many disagree.
45% of Christians think abortion should be legal under all or most circumstances, according to a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center. 51% think it should be illegal under all or most cases, with the remaining 4% being undecided.
NC Values lobbied for many of the policies passed in the bill. They initially advocated for a six week ban.
“It’s a great first step,” Macklem said. “And we’d like to see further protections for the unborn.”
They also lobbied for increased funding to crisis pregnancy centers.
“They are generally for women in crisis, people with unplanned pregnancies, often impoverished women,” Macklem said. “They can get free counseling, diapers, clothing and some places also give money to help with housing.”
Sergison disagreed.
“They get many millions of dollars from the state because they say they help people with their pregnancies but they don’t,” she said. “They’re just these really fraudulent organizations that prey on pregnant people.”
LESS TIME TO DECIDE
Out of 139 responders on a November 2023 Pirates’ Hook Instagram survey, 60% reported they had not heard of the 12-week ban. Out of 131 people, 79% were opposed to the ban. 7% voted in support of the ban while the remaining 15% replied they do not care about the ban.
While high schoolers are not the largest demographic getting abortions, they are some of the most vulnerable.
There has been a large increase of women coming into Schenkman’s clinic for sterilization at young ages, for fear of getting pregnant and not being able to get the care they need.
“Teenagers, young people, they’re definitely at risk. A lot of them don’t know their bodies as well so maybe they don’t know they are pregnant early enough,” Schenkman said.
Parental consent is necessary for minors to get an abortion, unless they have a judicial override which allows for teenagers to have an abortion without parental consent. But it takes time to get a court appointment.
“With only 12 weeks, you’re not dealing with a lot of time,” Sergison said.
Financial burdens also make it difficult for teenagers to get the care they need.
“I’m always worried that our most vulnerable ladies are not getting [financial assistance] despite people’s best efforts,” Sergison said.
Macklem disagrees. She cited the bill, noting that funds are available for teens who choose to go through with the pregnancy.
“We were really excited about all the things in it for women because this is pro-women legislation,” she said.
While teens under 18 still need consent from their parents for care such as abortions, they often visit clinics for contraceptives. Since teens can not undergo sterilization and the bill had no effect on the availability of or restrictions on contraception, it is still a very valuable tool.
“We see teens can come in for contraception and do not require parental consent,” Howland said.
Back at Riverside, Provencio reflected on her pregnancy. Her healthy baby boy, Zaire, was born on January 3 and she hopes to return to school in February.
Her personal experiences strengthened her belief that women should be allowed to make their own decisions.
“It was very hard because not a lot of people know what you’re going through,” she said. “I felt alone most of the time.”
Her family encouraged her to get an abortion but after some consideration, she ultimately decided against it.
“I’m pro-abortion. Like, I’m all for it,” Provencio said. “But I didn’t think it was the option that I wanted to do.”
Without her father’s support, she might have made a different choice. Although he originally advised her to get an abortion, he told her he would support her through any decision.
”I definitely think women should be given more time, more than 12 weeks,” Provencio said.
She supports abortion access and believes it should be more accessible.
“All the women out there that do get abortions, they’re very strong,” she said. “And that’s a hard decision to make and I commend them for making a decision that is best for themselves.”
Despite everyone else’s opinions, Provencio decided to do what she felt was best for her.
“I’m very grateful that I have an amazing family that I don’t have to worry about anything except for giving birth and taking care of my baby,” she said. “A lot of people don’t have that option, especially at such a young age.”
She feels fortunate she had the opportunity to choose how to proceed with her pregnancy.
“It is my choice because I’m going to have to live with this decision for the rest of my life,” Provencio said. “They aren’t.”
