During an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) declared that “you can’t compromise on women’s right to choose. I don’t think that you can compromise on the fact that we’ve got women who are in danger of dying because doctors are afraid of the government coming in and getting between them and their patient.” And opposed a compromise on a ban on abortion after 15 or 16 weeks because “many of these cases are very complicated and often involve parents who really want to have children, but have extraordinary complications. This is an issue that should be left to women and their doctors.”
Bloomberg co-host Annmarie Hordern asked, “The other top issue in this race, especially in North Carolina, when you look at the polls, is abortion, this is something you’ve been focused on. One thing I have gathered from all the polling is that voters in North Carolina seem to want a middle ground. They seem to be coalescing around, say, 15 weeks as a cut-off for abortion. Do you think this is something Democrats and Republicans could compromise on?”
Cooper responded, “I think you can’t compromise on women’s right to choose. I don’t think that you can compromise on the fact that we’ve got women who are in danger of dying because doctors are afraid of the government coming in and getting between them and their patient. That’s exactly what’s happening across the country.”
Hordern then asked, “But do you think there could be a compromise for say, something like 15 or 16 weeks?”
Cooper answered, “You can’t talk about women’s health in that way, because many of these cases are very complicated and often involve parents who really want to have children, but have extraordinary complications. This is an issue that should be left to women and their doctors. And that’s why people like Donald Trump, people like Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) are dangerous, because they believe that politicians should be in that exam room with women and their doctors and that there should be hard and fast rules, and what happens is you endanger women’s lives, you take away what should be their constitutional rights.”
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