North Carolina
The Real Reason North Carolina’s GOP Is Proposing the Most Radical Anti-Abortion Bill Yet
Another anti-abortion abolitionist proposal has been in the news. This time, conservative lawmakers in North Carolina have asked voters to approve a state constitutional amendment recognizing the personhood of embryos and establishing that anyone who ends an embryonic life is guilty of first-degree murder. Those penalties might also apply to people pursuing in vitro fertilization or using some contraceptives, given that abortion foes sometimes view either as requiring the taking of unborn life. And that’s the most ordinary part of the proposal: The bill also provides that private individuals have a right to use deadly force to prevent “the willful destruction of life.” House Bill 1232 isn’t clear about exactly who could exercise this constitutional right to vigilante violence. Would it just be available to those seeking to kill abortion providers and patients? Or might it apply even more broadly to those seen to aid them?
The bill has been greeted with bafflement and disbelief. One of its co-sponsors was embarrassed enough to remove his name from the proposal. But the idea of licensing private violence did not come out of thin air. There have been decades of debate about the use of force within the anti-abortion movement. And as conservatives embrace an increasingly punitive agenda, old justifications for violence have reemerged.
Since the 1960s, abortion foes have rallied around the idea that constitutional rights begin the moment an egg is fertilized. That meant that liberal abortion laws would violate the federal Constitution. Because that claim didn’t gain traction in the federal courts, abortion opponents didn’t have to settle what it would mean in practice to enforce this idea of personhood. Did it require that abortion be punished as murder, or that women be punished? Might it instead require more support for women during pregnancy?
By the 1980s, as the anti-abortion movement aligned with the Republican Party, the movement’s leaders increasingly retooled their ideas of justice for the unborn to fit the GOP’s tough-on-crime agenda. They endorsed fetal homicide laws and backed prosecutions based on conduct during pregnancy. But these moves didn’t lead to the reversal of Roe, much less a decline in the abortion rate.
Frustration led to a wave of lawbreaking. Operation Rescue, a clinic blockade group, invited supporters to use civil disobedience and break the law if necessary to stop people from entering abortion clinics. Operation Rescue disrupted the Democratic National Convention in 1992 and recorded thousands of arrests. Blockaders even developed a legal argument to justify their actions, drawing on the common law defense of necessity, which allows someone to break a law to achieve a greater moral good.
Some advocates went further. If abortion really were the murder of an equal person, they asked, why wasn’t it justified to use deadly force to protect that equal person?
Prominent figures in the late 1980s and early 1990s elaborated on that argument in books and talk-show appearances. The claim justified kidnappings, firebombings, and a series of murders of doctors, clinic staff, and security. Powerful anti-abortion groups denounced the violence, but the question of deadly force struck others as surprisingly complex. If a fertilized egg was an equal person, and if the way to protect that person involved violence, why was deadly force off limits?
While violence against abortion clinics and providers never went away, it receded from the peak of the 1980s and early 1990s. The federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which heightened penalties for threats, violence, and obstruction of people entering facilities, radically undercut the clinic blockade movement when Congress passed it in 1994. So did the conviction of high-profile murder defendants like Michael Griffin and Paul Hill. The clinic blockade movement was consumed by internal divides, with multiple organizations even claiming the name Operation Rescue. Anti-abortion leaders mostly focused on change through the courts and politics.
Now that Roe is gone, the movement is at an inflection point. Personhood has become the movement’s new North Star. And while success in the federal courts isn’t imminent, there is now no reason a state couldn’t enforce any vision of personhood. That means that conservatives have to decide what they mean by enforcing the rights of the unborn. This bill is a sign that even punishing women doesn’t strike some as harsh enough.
This bill won’t pass. For starters, North Carolina is not the most likely state to pass any abortion abolitionist bill; at the moment, it doesn’t even ban abortion from the moment of fertilization. And no state has yet passed any kind of abolitionist proposal, much less one allowing people to gun one another down in the name of protecting life.
But this bill has a different resonance now that Donald Trump has pledged not to enforce the FACE Act in the abortion context except in the most extreme circumstances. It is also a reminder of how the Overton window on personhood is shifting. Abolitionists who call for the punishment of women are gaining influence in state legislatures and movement debates. They have developed their own incremental approach: In South Carolina, for example, Richard Cash, a powerful lawmaker, tried this session to advance a bill punishing women for abortion, but only for a misdemeanor, rather than a felony. The bill became the second abolitionist proposal to pass through a committee this spring before time ran out to pass it this session.
Leading anti-abortion groups still speak out against abolitionists, but their strategy is clear: normalizing the idea of punishing women. The more extreme proposals conservatives advance, the more previously unthinkable ideas become politically realistic.
This spring, more than 62,000 people from North Carolina and
around the world watched as six barn owl eggs hatched live on the North Carolina Wild Life Resource Commission’s “Owl Cam.”
“We have folks who have watched from almost every
state, as well as Canada, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, France, the
Netherlands, Portugal, New Zealand, Italy, Estonia, Ireland, Argentina, Sweden,
Spain and more,” said Wildlife Conservation Engagement Coordinator Austin
Hill.
When asked what he thinks people connect with most while
watching the owls, Hill said the camera offers a rare look into the lives of
barn owls.
“We don’t see them too often at all, and it’s giving
people a glimpse into the life of a barn owl,” Hill said. “It’s very
rare that we’re able to see inside the nest of any creature that’s hidden in a
cavity.”
Hill said viewers enjoyed watching the owlets hatch, grow,
learn to fly and experience all the clumsy moments in between.
At this time all the owls have fledged, meaning they have all learned how to
fly.
“The oldest three owls fledged on the (June)
15th, they’re all females and then the male, the youngest, fledged on
the (June) 20th and you’ll start to see them popping around the
barn,” Hill said.
The webcam will continue to show the adult owls delivering
food to the nest as the owls prepare to leave the barn and learn to hunt.
The
young owls will learn by watching the behaviors of their parents. Depending on their development, the owls could
leave as early as July or as late as September or October.
NCWRC installed the owl nest box in 2011.
It was installed in an undisclosed remote location in Western North Carolina
and used for agency monitoring.
The idea of having a live webcam was a recent idea
created during and Educational Division
meeting.
“It allows us to see what happens in the nest of an
elusive raptor and behaviors we wouldn’t be able to observe from outside the
box,” Hill said. “We’re building out some K-12 curriculum to go along
with the camera so it can extend into the classroom.”
Once the young owls leave, the camera will go offline sometime this fall.
Hill
said staff will perform maintenance on the barn, relocate one of the cameras
and then put the system back in place in hopes that the same owl pair returns
this winter to begin its courtship and mating season. If that happens, the
process can start all over again.
North Carolina
Eastern North Carolina law enforcement agencies warn residents about growing scam threats
EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA — Law enforcement agencies across eastern North Carolina are warning residents to stay alert as several scams continue targeting seniors, bank customers, and other vulnerable individuals.
The Halifax County Sheriff’s Office recently issued a warning after a suspicious check was mailed to a person living with dementia. Deputies say scammers often target older adults by sending fraudulent checks in hopes the recipient will deposit the money and become entangled in a financial scam.
Officials are urging families to regularly check on elderly relatives and remind them never to cash or deposit unexpected checks. Residents are encouraged to contact their bank or law enforcement before taking any action if they receive suspicious financial documents.
Meanwhile, the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office says a jury duty scam is resurfacing throughout the county. In these cases, scammers pose as law enforcement officers or court officials and claim a person missed jury duty or failed to appear in court. Victims are told a warrant has been issued for their arrest and are pressured to send money to avoid being taken into custody.
Deputies warn that scammers often use official-looking documents, government seals, and even the names of real law enforcement officers to make the scheme appear legitimate. The sheriff’s office stresses that deputies will never call, email, or text someone demanding payment.
The Pitt County Sheriff’s Office is also warning residents about a call forwarding scam designed to steal banking verification calls and security codes. Investigators say scammers contact victims claiming there is suspicious activity on their bank account and instruct them to dial special star codes followed by a phone number.
By doing so, victims unknowingly activate call forwarding, allowing bank security calls and verification codes to be redirected to the scammer’s phone.
Authorities recommend never dialing star codes at the request of a stranger, never sharing passwords or security codes, and always contacting banks directly using trusted phone numbers.
Law enforcement agencies say a common theme in many scams is creating a sense of urgency and fear. Officials encourage residents to slow down, verify information independently, and report suspicious activity before sending money or sharing personal information.
North Carolina
Audit finds more than $47M in fraudulent unemployment payments in NC over 5-year period
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — More than $47 million in fraudulent unemployment payments went out the door in North Carolina over a five-year period, according to a new state audit that also flagged delays in getting benefits to claimants.
The State Auditor’s Office found the North Carolina Division of Employment Security distributed $47.2 million in fraudulent unemployment payments between 2021 and 2025.
“North Carolina had an abysmal rate of recovery and issuing payments that were not appropriate,” State Auditor Dave Boliek said. “Many of them were outright fraudulent.”
According to Boliek, NCDES has recovered about $12.2 million of those funds, but the rest is likely gone forever.
“Once you have a fraudulent transaction and [those funds] are out the door, timing is important to recovering those funds,” he said. “You need to get on it quick in order to get that money back. Otherwise, tracking those dollars down is virtually impossible at this point.”
NCDES Assistant Secretary Marc-Antoine Keith pushed back, saying they are working to recover the money, no matter how long it takes.
“We’re going to be recovering it this year, next year, five years from now,” he said. “We don’t have a timeline. This is not something that we just write off and say, ‘You’re good.’ We’re in the heart of it right now.”
NCDES officials also noted the fraud identified in the audit amounts to less than 1% of the more than $5 billion in unemployment benefits paid during the same period.
According to NCDES, roughly $40 million of the fraudulent payments happened during the COVID-19 pandemic when unemployment claims surged and the state was tasked with administering enhanced federal benefits of $600 per week.
Keith said the department received 1 million claims in just 10 weeks. By comparison, NCDES typically handles about 3,000 to 3,500 claims a week.
“The $600 put North Carolina at a higher profile for bad actors coming into the system,” he said. “We also were under tremendous pressure to get money out the door. Pay, pay, pay, pay, pay. That was the message from the federal government.”
Boliek questioned why it took the agency years to fully implement a federally funded fraud detection system. He said NCDES received a federal grant to strengthen fraud prevention efforts but did not fully deploy the system for three years.
“The pandemic is not an excuse for government’s failure to monitor the expenditure of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Keith disputed that characterization, pointing to staffing shortages, competing priorities, and Hurricane Helene as reasons for the delay.
“The reality is that we only have so many hands,” he said. “As we got going with this process, then the hurricane came in.”
According to Keith, the fraud detection system was rolled out in phases between April and December 2024 rather than all at once.
The audit also identified problems with delayed payments. According to the report, 28% of initial unemployment payments went out after the federal 14-day benchmark.
“That’s just not acceptable,” Boliek said. “We’ve got to do better than that.
According to Boliek, delays can have serious consequences for families relying on unemployment benefits after losing a job.
“When you’re unemployed or you get laid off, that’s when your family is in a traumatic situation,” he said. “You need to be able to rely on the state to answer the call there and get your benefits to you.”
Keith acknowledged there is still room for improvement but said DES has made progress since the period covered by the audit.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we’re a heck of a lot closer than where we were,” Keith said.
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