WASHINGTON—North Carolina lawmakers this week overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a pro-life bill that prohibits most abortions of unborn children at 12 weeks of gestation or later.

Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Sarah Parshall Perry and Jay Richards, director of Heritage’s DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, released the following statement:

“The override of Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the North Carolina 12-week abortion ban is a picture of representative democracy at work. In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court made it clear that the issue of abortion was to be returned to the people and their elected representatives—where ordinary citizens could debate the issue and persuade one another to their cause in legislatures across the country.

“Cooper was unsuccessful in persuading any of the state’s GOP legislators to side with him, and the people’s will in protecting unborn life was ultimately accomplished.

“We commend the North Carolina legislators of both chambers for seeing the value in persons both born and unborn, and for holding fast to their convictions, and the convictions of their constituents.”