[bright music] - [Narrator] A new federal lawsuit claims the upcoming 12 week abortion limit law infringes on Constitutional rights.

And the Parents' Bill of Rights resumes its move towards a final vote.

This is "State lines."

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[bright music] - Hello again.

Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today good friends of public media Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation.

Representative Sarah Crawford of Wake County, Iredell County Senator Vickie Sawyer and Lynn Bonner, who is with me on the old Legislative Week In Review show back here, reporter for NC News Live.

Welcome to this new show, as they call it.

I'm only six months old.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

- I have a lot to talk about.

Start with Planned Parenthood filing lawsuit this week.

They're targeting provisions of a new abortion law that could take effect July 1st.

The plaintiffs are arguing this law prevents doctors from providing quality healthcare and would violate doctors' First Amendment rights by limiting abortion related advice that they can give to patients.

The plaintiffs say the 12 week abortion limit would really be 10 weeks for medication abortions.

On Thursday Senate Republicans took steps to ensure those elective abortions were legal through 12 weeks as they intended and promised the public.

That corrective bill needs a final Senate vote next week.

Needs to go to the House, Senator Sawyer and then, and then we go to Governor Cooper again.

Tell us about this bill.

Obviously the plaintiffs in this case brought up a point someone hadn't thought of.

- Well, that's what plaintiffs do and that's the beauty of this court system.

And interesting enough, the FDA approves medical abortions up to 10 weeks.

Now the WHO has a different opinion and goes to 12, but you know, common practice here in America is 10 weeks for medical abortions.

And that's what the law has.

The issue is, is those 11 and 12 week abortions.

They're asking to make sure it's done in a surgical center.

And I understand that Planned Parenthood has to spend a little bit of money or a lot of money in order to get their facilities up to that standard of a surgical center.

Otherwise it could be done in a hospital.

And so that's, I think, is an issue with Planned Parenthood.

But like with anything involved in abortion, it's gonna be litigated.

And this, that's where we're at.

- There was another issue about the First Amendment and whether a provider could say, well, for someone who was pregnant for 12 weeks and four days, well you're still able to obtain an abortion legally in another state like Virginia.

And whether a person would be able to say that.

And I think that the changed bill would make it clear that a provider would be able to say that, would be able to advise, yeah.

But there's some other things as the Senator mentioned, that the issues the lawsuit raises that weren't addressed in that bill.

So, you know, there's a court hearing on Wednesday and we'll, we'll see what happens.

- We'll count on you being there, Lynn.

- [Lynn] Yeah.

- Now Representative Crawford, tell us about this bill.

I mean it's, it's everyone.

The retail version of the headline is 12 week abortion ban.

Vickie, sorry, doesn't like using the word ban.

But there's a lot underneath this that's targeted in this lawsuit.

Your position on this?

Well, not only the issue of abortion, but on the issue of all the nuance to get this bill supposedly legal or legalized.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I, you know I think Senate Bill 20, it's bad policy.

It's bad for women and families and it's bad for North Carolina.

And there is a lot of nuance in it.

It is an effective abortion ban.

And we can argue about that later maybe, or on the show.

But it's an effective abortion ban because what it does is it limits choices.

It puts in really unrealistic expectations for women who are trying to seek abortions with some 72 hour rules.

Some you have to go to the doctor once, you have to wait three days, go back to the doctor.

And it really puts limitations and barriers against women's healthcare.

And, you know, I think what we see in this lawsuit, if there wasn't concern that the lawsuit had legs, we wouldn't have seen that surprise amendment yesterday on the Senate floor come up and try to address these legal arguments that were made in the lawsuit.

But as Lynn pointed out, there are a number of other issues with the bill and I think that you're seeing in other states, of course it's been at the state court level, now at the federal court level as this, this challenge has been filed.

But you're seeing at the state court levels that some of these abortion provisions are being struck down especially around medical emergencies.

- Mitch, on a bill like this, when a Roe v Wade gave states power to regulate abortion, how can lawsuits still and this may be a a very simple question or a simpleton question, but how do lawsuits continue once the Supreme Court says states regulate and set laws related to abortion and abortion access?

- Well basically what this lawsuit is saying is that the route that the state is taking in its new abortion law is violating other portions of the constitution that weren't covered by the Roe v Wade provisions.

To me, the most interesting thing about how this suit is proceeding is Planned Parenthood and the Duke Health doctor who filed suit filed suit against Attorney General Josh Stein, Cody Kinsley of the Department of Health and Human Services, some local DAs, the medical board, the nursing board.

They didn't sue Phil Berger and Tim Moore who were the leaders of the chambers who passed the law.

- I asked about that because there was another suit that I was questioning, well, why are you suing these Stein?

And, and, and the explanation was that the suit names the entities that are responsible for enforcing.

I'm three years short of my law degree.

So I have to take the, the, you know, listen to other lawyers.

But that's the way I understand it works because I also have the question when the doctor filed against the restrictions on using abortion pills, because it's the same, it's the same situation.

- But as in that case, now what has happened is Phil Berger and Tim Moore have put in the legal paperwork to intervene in the case.

They're hoping to actually defend the law once they learned that Attorney General Josh Stein said he wasn't going to defend.

- I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like the two gentlemen who would fight the law most vigorously have been left out of the lawsuit, therefore they're not a party.

- Right.

And I think what Lynn was saying is that the reason given for the way that that suit was put forward is because Stein or the DAs or others would be the enforcers rather than Tim, Phil Berger and Tim Moore, who would not have any enforcement mechanism.

But they are the ones who want to defend the law.

And the US Supreme Court last year in an eight one ruling, so it wasn't partisan, said that, yes your general assembly can come in and defend its laws.

They did that in that federal voter ID case, which has cropped back up again now that the State Supreme Court has said voter ID was fine.

- Senator Sawyer, I remember, you haven't been on since this bill went through.

I heard from people in the Senate that you were calling points of order because people were using the word ban as part of the debate, and you said, no, this is not a ban, it's a point of order 'cause of misinformation or something.

Why is this not a ban of at least some degree?

- Well, it's not Texas, right?

It's not Florida.

You still have up to 12 weeks.

Medical abortions are available.

There are steps put in place to make sure that a woman understands her rights if she should choose to keep her child or not.

And that's simply what it is.

Saying that it's a little bit more informed consent than saying you can't do it, that's two totally different things.

- Yeah, all right.

Next topic.

Parents Bill of Rights appears to be moving towards a final floor vote quite soon.

The proposal in part restricts sexual identity or bans discussion of sex ed curricular for kindergartners through fourth graders.

Parents and guardians would be told when a student requests a gender change or that they be addressed with new pronouns.

Some other provisions that don't make headlines would give parents and guardians a right to see their kids' report card, could learn about vaccines and exemptions from vaccines, and parents could request academic screenings to assess learning challenges or disabilities.

Or, Lynn Bonner, the child could be academically gifted and parents wanna know that as well.

Tell me about this bill, there a lot in that's controversial and some of it does sound like common sense.

- Yeah, some of it is, I think, kind of routine.

I don't know that parents are prohibited from seeing their children report cards.

I thought that just automatically happened.

- Oh, no.

- No?

- Oh, no.

- Okay.

[group laughing] - They'll hide it from ya.

- Yeah.

- Oh, really?

- At least the children will.

- The children will, not the school.

[group laughing] - But there are, this is one that really divided the legislature along party lines because of the reporting of pronouns and possible name change.

And it, you know, some people say parents have the right to know these things, but their other side says that kids might be put in danger in their homes if parents who are not receptive are told that they wanna go by a different name or a different pronoun.

There's a really tough argument when you talk about the safety of kids and what might happen if a parent says, oh, Jane wants to go by Joe, and parents are not receptive.

I mean, there's, I know of gay kids who have been kicked outta their homes, and the largest percentage of, or there's a huge percentage of kids who are homeless who are LGBTQ.

So I think there is a, I think there's a definable worry that there might be adverse effects if parents are told.

- Senator, can't we legislate compassion?

'Cause, you know, someone may have a different outlook on life than someone else, and that doesn't necessarily mean they need to be kicked out of their home or shunned by their families.

I don't think anybody wants to be hated.

But, once again, this bill's back.

It stalled out for a few months.

What about this timing?

- Well, it's a little bit about horse trading.

And everybody wants credit in the general assembly, so you have to figure out which one's gonna get credit for which bill.

But this one to me, is if you have a kid who goes to public school and they need an aspirin, you have to go through about three or four pieces of paperwork, you have to be notified, they tell you what's going on.

And that's an aspirin.

Now if my child is gonna choose to identify by a different pro name or different name, I would ask for the same respect.

In fact, I take a little offense to think that just because my child should choose to have a different name or pronoun, that I'm gonna kick my child out.

That is the last thing that would happen in my home and many of my friends' homes.

I can't say that would happen in every home, but give me the choice.

Right?

Give me the right.

If my child came to me, if my school told me that, I would love on her, we would talk about things, and we would work together as a family.

And denying that for me as a parent as a right, is absolutely a tragedy.

- Representative Crawford.

- So this is another bill that I am happy to say this is bad policy for North Carolina.

First of all, some of the small things that you mentioned that maybe aren't the headlines, all of those things are already happening.

Parents already have a right to see the report card.

Children may be hiding it.

Teachers certainly aren't.

Parents already have a right to see the curriculum, be involved.

They have the right to ask for their child to be tested for developmental delays, or to be tested for being in the AIG program, academically and intellectually gifted.

And so all of that's already happening.

We don't need to codify that in law.

On this issue of children who may identify as a different gender or than they were assigned at birth, that really is a mental health protection, and that is something that should be protected between the mental health provider and the child.

We don't have enough mental health providers in our schools.

And in Senator Sawyer's case, and certainly in my case, if that were happening and the the parents were told, we would love on our children.

But that is not the case in every single home for every single child.

And we need to be doing everything we can to support the mental health of these children, especially when we're in crisis.

One in five high school students thought about suicide in the last year.

We are in a mental health crisis among our youth, and we need to be doing everything we can to support their mental health.

- Well, I mean, to that point I would say, not every child comes home to a hot cooked meal.

And yet are you saying now that schools have to give them a hot cooked meal?

I mean, that's a kind of a false fallacy there.

And I think it absolutely just throws in the face of the parents to say that, first of all, it's assuming because I'm a Republican that I obviously am a bigot or something and that I don't appreciate my children.

If something is going on with my child, I wanna know.

That's it.

That's plain and simple.

And I think Covid showed, and has shown and continues to prove, that that is not the case in our public education system.

And we need to codify laws so that we can make sure that people are all being treated fair and parents are at the table.

- Mitch, to the point Senator Sawyer just said, the culture war legislation.

It does, it's hot out there.

How do we get beyond the feelings of this to break down a piece of legislation like this to determine even for our own families, what's common sense?

What's not?

What's Twitter and Facebook inflaming us and is my thinking wrong with modern society or is it spot on and with the folks?

- Well, those are easy questions.

- All right, go for it.

[group laughing] - First of all, I think one thing, and this is not going to happen, but should happen, is that people should actually read legislation and not just reports about it and see what legislation says.

And then I think you would get a different handle on what this bill says.

The John Locke Foundation proposed a parents bill of rights that didn't have anything to do with the pronouns or the teaching of sex ed or any of that.

Ours was about parents having access to the materials that are taught in schools which is the type of thing that should be happening in most school systems.

Maybe it doesn't, and in the systems where it doesn't this law might push people toward it.

But on the other issue, the issue of the families that might not treat a child well if he or she decides that they want to use different pronouns or a different name, I haven't seen the latest version of this bill, but I know one version of it said, "If you think that there is a danger to this child, you don't have to tell the parents."

So I think that's an out for those in the school who think that, oh, this is a situation where the kid's gonna be in danger.

- Lynn, yeah, go ahead.

- But the school might not know.

I mean, who could predict what could happen?

- Well, Lynn predict this bill left committee this week.

Does the house pass this bill?

- No, I don't think they have.

I think it's- - No, no, no.

Will they?

But you think they'll pass this bill?

- Absolutely.

- You think we're going for another veto override?

- Oh, oh, yes.

Yeah, I think we're headed for another passage, another veto, and another veto override.

- Well, that's our show pivots towards veto overrides.

- Roy Cooper's putting more ink on his stamp pad for the vetoes.

- Yeah.

- Well, Democrats would say that's what he's paid to do.

The Senate overrode Governor Roy Cooper's veto of legislation to prevent state agencies and community colleges from demanding diversity, equity, and inclusion pledges be required of job applicants.

Senate Bill 364 would forbid that hiring managers demand applicants take a pledge or explain their position on issues under political debate or at least contemporary political debate.

Applicants would not be required to make any promises to engage in actions that reflect, support, or opposition to a matter.

Then when it comes to employee training, it could not involve information suggesting that some races are superior or inferior and no one should feel guilty for being born the way they are.

The UNC system ha activated policies to limit what is being called compelled speech in this debate.

And as a matter of transparency, "PBS North Carolina" is a part of the UNC system.

The State House must still consider the veto override.

Mitch, there's my disclaimer.

Compelled speech is an interesting term.

You have to look that up to see what it means.

Is this really aimed right at those DEI program that have launched in the universities, colleges, and state agencies?

Even in the private sector, but it doesn't touch that?

- Yeah, it could be DEI or it could be anything else.

I mean, this is another case where reading the bill gives you a much better perspective than the very short, limited way that it could be reported on, is reported.

There are two sections to the bill.

One is basically saying if someone is trying to get a job with state government or a community college, you can't ask them about what they think about some current political controversy or social action.

That's not appropriate for asking a person who's trying to apply for a job.

Once the person is employed, the second part is in discussions or trainings you can't compel, and by compel they mean you can't force someone else to say they believe these certain 13 prescribed items, one of which is people are inherently racist or sexist, or one is the old communist thing that the United States government should be violently overthrown.

That's one thing.

- But is that happening in North Carolina?

- I hope not.

But the thing is that if you look at that list of 13 things, I think almost everyone would say, "No one should think this."

Or certainly, even if you do think it, you shouldn't tell someone else that they have to affirm it and believe it as well.

- Okay, is that happening in state government or hiring agents or at least organizations asking that job applicants at least agree to create a certain kind of environment in the workplace, whether it's inclusive or you do hear of that.

I don't hear about violent overthrow of the US government, but I do hear things about how will you foster an environment and is that a fair question to ask of an applicant?

- I think it's a fair question to ask to make sure that there's a good fit culturally, it has nothing to do with political affiliation or political beliefs or any of that, but I think that you should be asking questions that make sure that a candidate is a good fit for the organization.

What this bill really is about though, is about curbing that DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion training.

We can talk about, and I've heard Republican colleagues say that this bill is about making sure that Republicans can get jobs where they were being denied.

Well, discrimination based on political affiliation or political beliefs is already illegal in state government.

So if that is happening, there's an EEOC process that an individual can go through if that does happen to make a claim and have that adjudicated.

What this bill really is about, the under underpinnings of this bill, is about preventing us from teaching history and cultural diversity, which make our workplaces better.

It's not about asking somebody to affirm a certain belief.

It's about making sure that we understand each other better so that we can have a better, more inclusive work environment.

- No.

[group laughing] - Your turn.

Sorry.

- No, that's okay.

Next, next.

No, okay, You know, when I was thinking about this I think everything that is old is new again.

So I have a lot of friends who are my age, I'm 47 years old and who work in state government and when they first got hired they said they had to change their party affiliation to Democrat because if they were an independent or Republican at the time, they could not get hired.

And this was mostly law enforcement and things like that.

So when I was thinking about this was like, oh, it's just like 40 years ago, it's just now today is a little bit different thing.

And no, it has nothing to do with that.

It is just basically, like Mitch had said, there's 13 guidelines that almost all of us would agree with.

Wanna make sure that those are not taken out of, well, taken too far when we're doing an employment, and again, these are people who are working for state government.

Shouldn't we have guidelines about compelled speech with state government employees?

Lynn Bonner, your take.

- Yeah, when I was thinking about this I was thinking about, well, how do workplaces go about preventing hostile work environments and under what parameters can you sort of actively work to do that?

There's a section in there about not prohibiting the free speech of an employee.

Do you remember this part?

Yeah, I'm wondering if you know, there's a workplace where there is somebody who says women and minorities aren't as smart as men, so only men can be managers.

Does that, is a person allowed, freely allowed, to say that in a government workplace and would that be okay under this law?

- Well, maybe in the General Assembly.

I kid.

[laughs] - Well, oof.

- Sarah and I are treated different.

- Yeah, okay.

- Sorry, I interrupted your response.

- Well, in his veto message, I mean, the governor did reference the McNealy issue and, you know, a hostile workplace and, you know, a 70 year old man having to defend his getting into Harvard, you know?

But yeah, even though he could, you know, even though he was an athlete, you know?

It's, yeah.

So we could, I mean, we've seen racism in a government workplace.

I mean, but how do we, can the government prevent that?

- I think.

- I think.

Go ahead, Mitch.

- I was gonna say I think the first amendment part was a caveat on what they said that you couldn't do.

And basically it said, you know, you can't tell someone else they have to affirm one of these 13 things.

But then it said nothing about the previous part of this says that we're going to ban speech that's covered by the First Amendment.

My guess is what you're talking about would get knocked down by some other parts of EEOC requirements.

But they're basically saying, when we tell you you can't make someone else believe that one race is inherently superior or inferior that's not saying that we're gonna ban something that's a First Amendment right for someone to say.

You just can't compel someone else to affirm that they believe the crazy thing that you have said.

- It's not what you say, it's the state telling an employee you have to agree with us or, 'cause it implied... You had a comment that, did you wanna fill in on this or?

- No, I just, I enjoy humor, so, and this is a great place to enjoy it and that's part of my conversation with that.

But really, truly, it's just, just say is like Mitch said, your condition of your employment is not ascribing to one belief or another.

It has nothing to do with undermining or saying that you are inherently racist by disallowing these 13 things.

- Alright, well, let's move on to our next.

This has been a culture warriors dream show, but this- - [Vickie] I know.

- I just, you know, I just follow the legislation, I don't define it.

And I get critiqued by the choices, because they'll say, you know, where are these other bills?

Well, sometimes this is what dominates the week, even though it's a heavy conversation.

There's a legislation still moving now allows only biologically born females to participate in women's school sports that has now passed the House and Senate.

The Senate's veto proof majority is locked, but the House Republicans, Sarah, you lost one Democrat, joined the Republicans to approve the measure.

Transgender girls could not participate in women's sports through middle school all the way up through college.

But transgender boys, Sarah, could play on the boys teams.

This is what it is.

This is heading right straight to Governor Cooper.

I probably, more ink on that.

- [Mitch] He's got his veto I'm sure, ready to go.

- I tell you, I'm weary.

It's a lot going on here.

A lot of we can and we can'ts out there.

In terms of legislation and trying to define things in the social environment.

- Absolutely, and there are so many issues that we should be taking up related to public education.

I mentioned mental health earlier that's a big topic with this legislation as well.

But instead, we're taking up these culture wars and this bill is one of several that really all it's trying to do, in my opinion and the opinion of lot of other folks, is to erase trans people from North Carolina.

And do you wanna comment now?

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

- [Mitch] It's on it's way.

- It's still my turn.

It's still my turn.

You know, but this is another solution that I think is really looking for a problem.

There are 180,000 students across North Carolina that participated in student athletics this year.

Only 15 of those are transgender.

That's less than a fraction of a percent that we're trying to make legislation around.

And the School Athletics Association has said this has not been a problem.

And so, you know, I do think that once the governor vetoes it, it's gonna come back for the override.

We can predict what's gonna happen.

But I think you're gonna see this in courts.

I mean this really, we've already seen it in courts across the country at the state and the federal, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

But this really violates the constitutional rights of individuals to have the same opportunities.

- Last 45 seconds of this show, the last word.

- Not to look at me now, but I used to be a good athlete and I also was a coach and love female sports.

This is not against or erasing anybody.

This is protecting young women who get up and work hard every day for college sports, for college athletics to win that state championship and put their all out there.

And you know, even Serena and Venus Williams, who got beat by the 203rd ranked male, there are examples and 23 examples across international and national titles where transgender girls or women have taken away the titles from biological women.

- There you go.

Last word to you, Senator Sawyer.

Thank you, all of you for being on this show.

Heavy topics, but we're moving towards a conclusion hopefully a budget here soon.

Email your thoughts, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll read 'em all.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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