It’s time for a fact check of North Carolina politics. A recent viral social media video makes this claim about a bill in the North Carolina House: “You can murder women for using birth control. This bill says that you can kill me.” For more, I’m joined now by Paul Specht of WRAL.
Marshall Terry: The person who posted this is Jen Hamilton, who has almost 2 million followers on Instagram. What can you tell us about her, and what exactly did she say?
Paul Specht: She's a labor and delivery nurse with millions of followers, and she recently put out a book that's on the New York Times bestseller list called “Birth Vibes.” Her Instagram video starts off with her saying this is really happening and then she reads different parts of the bill and says this would allow you to murder women for using birth control. That's the line that we wanted to look into.
Terry: Well, what does the bill say?
Specht: It proposes a constitutional amendment. First off, any constitutional amendment has to be approved by a supermajority of legislators and then it has to be approved by voters in a statewide referendum. It says that personhood starts at fertilization. It goes on to say that any person has the right to defend themselves or any other person, even using deadly force. Because of those lines, it appears as though she jumped to a conclusion here that said if we're going to define life at fertilization and this bill authorizes people to use deadly force to protect human life, which this bill would define at fertilization, then therefore you could murder someone for taking birth control.
Terry: So is Hamilton right when she said that?
Specht: I'm going to be completely honest with you. When I first started looking into this, I wasn't sure. In speaking to experts around the country, most forms of birth control are designed to prevent fertilization altogether. Now, what's fertilization? That's when sperm meets an egg. Under the scientific definition of the word fertilization, if it were to be applied here, then you would still be allowed to use most forms of birth control.
Terry: It appears, though, that there's a loophole in this bill. Am I right in thinking that?
Specht: That's right. That's one thing that the legal analysts pointed out is that this bill does not define the word fertilization. What analysts told us is that because the bill does not have a definition at all, if this bill were to pass and the public signed off on it, then lawmakers could come back, in theory, and write their own definition of the word fertilization that does not align with the scientific definition. We asked experts: What do you think of this Instagram video? And they said it's far-fetched to think that you could murder someone for using birth control. However, there is this loophole that would allow lawmakers to potentially define it in their own way that would potentially outlaw birth control. Now, a number of things have to happen, and the lawmakers would have to stray from a scientific definition. But it is plausible.
Terry: How likely is this bill to advance anyway?
Specht: Well, that's the thing. There's only one sponsor on this bill. His name is Keith Kidwell. He's a Republican. He just lost his primary, so he's leaving office. It has not gotten any committee meetings. We asked House Speaker Destin Hall about this bill's likelihood of even coming on the floor, and he said it won't. In his words, it is “not a serious bill.”
Terry: Normally, at this time, I ask you how you rated this claim, but you didn't rate this one.
Specht: In this case we decided not to rate the statement because there's so much uncertainty in this bill. Experts told us it was written in such vague language that it's so hard to predict what would happen. There's so many hurdles for this bill to clear that we really can't say with certainty what would happen. That's why we decided to leave it unrated.
These fact checks are a collaboration between PolitiFact and WRAL.
