NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina and our members believe every woman should have the option to choose abortion. Though abortion is legal according to the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, in reality the right to choose is far from safe. 

NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina works to protect the right of all women in Virginia to access the highest standards of care for safe, legal abortion care if they choose. We also believe in reducing the need for abortion and supporting the full range of reproductive choices. This means we support improving access to birth control, teaching young people comprehensive sex education, helping enable women to continue their pregnancies, and working to reduce disparities in reproductive health care.

Deciding whether and when to become a parent or have another child is a personal, private decision. A woman considering abortion must be able to make that choice in conversation with her doctor, considering what is best for herself and her family. It is neither the government nor a politician's place to tell a woman when she should carry a pregnancy to term.

There are anti-choice politicians and groups, however, that want to outlaw abortion and take away a woman's right to choose, regardless of her situation. When they can't outlaw abortion outright, they stop at nothing to make it as difficult, complicated and expensive as possible for women to access abortion care legally and safely. They pursue policies that target women's access as well as the ability of physicians to provide care. These anti-choice attacks come at both the federal and state levels.  

Please use the resources on this page to learn more about the status of abortion rights in North Carolina and in the United States, as well as information about accessing abortion services in the our state.

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The Numbers: Abortion performed legally by a health-care professional is one of the most common and safest surgical procedures in America. Statistics show that approximately one in three American women will have had an abortion by the time she reaches age 45.

Most abortions (63%) are obtained within the first eight weeks of pregnancy and the vast majority (89%) of abortions are performed in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy (what is known as the first trimester). Only 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later (known as late-term abortions). [1]

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Access to Abortion: Making abortion care more difficult, costly and dangerous for women to obtain is a key tactic in the anti-choice movement's strategy to chip away at a woman's right to choose. Laws at the federal, state, and local levels have a large impact on a woman's ability to access abortion. Today, 87 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider, yet anti-choice lawmakers in North Carolina and across the country continue to impose a broad range of restrictions on women's access to abortion. Read more about restrictions on abortion access on the NARAL Pro-Choice America website.