BCDP Press Release: The Razzberry Report
ILER TO RESTRICT WOMEN’S RIGHTS IF RE-ELECTED, HE TELLS MEDIA
Note to Editors: This is another in a series of reports that spotlight why North Carolinians need to carefully consider their votes for those who will represent them in Congress and the State Legislature.
Women in North Carolina and across the nation have come out strongly in opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade and thus revoking their constitutional protections for abortion.
Yet, Frank Iler, who represents Brunswick County in the NC General Assembly, recently told Wilmington television station WECT that he “agrees with his fellow Republicans and hopes to introduce legislation to roll back abortion access at the start of next year.”
“That fits with his legislative history,” said retired Marine Corps Colonel Eric Terashima, the Democratic candidate seeking to defeat Iler in this November’s election. “In fact,” Terashima continued, “Iler sponsored House Bill 31 in the last session which prohibited abortion if a heartbeat was detected, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. The bill’s real purpose is to ban abortions after six weeks, relying on inflammatory and medically inaccurate descriptions of embryonic electrical activity as ‘heartbeats.’”
Terashima, a longtime supporter of women’s reproductive freedom, was recently endorsed by Planned Parenthood and noted that, if elected, he will work relentlessly to ensure that women in North Carolina will retain their reproductive freedoms.
But Frank Iler has a different perspective. “I’m all about freedom,” he told WECT. However, it wasn’t women’s freedom he was talking about. “But again, it’s not the baby’s fault. It’s freedom of children and even unborn babies,” he explained.
“The problem with his explanation that he champions children,” Terashima noted, “is that his support of them ends at birth. He consistently votes to block measures that would strengthen children’s health care and safety. He voted for the bill (SB 4) that blocked Medicaid expansion in our state. He voted “No” on SB 526, ‘Prevention of Bullying and Violence in Schools.’ He even co-sponsored HB 134 to ‘Authorize the Possession of Firearms on School Grounds,’ because he thinks more guns in schools is the answer to mass shootings of kids! You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Iler!”
In North Carolina,” Terashima noted, “women can still get reproductive health care, thanks in large part to the efforts of Governor Roy Cooper.”
In July, shortly after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Cooper signed an executive order, “Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services in North Carolina.”
The Governor noted that because of the Supreme Court decision, “For now, it’s up to the states to determine whether women get reproductive health care, and in North Carolina they still can, thanks to my veto and enough legislative votes to sustain it.”
At that signing ceremony, Jenny Black, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Votes! explained “For now, abortion is still legal in North Carolina, but our reproductive freedom is hanging by a thread…North Carolinians must elect candidates who will protect access to sexual and reproductive healthcare at the state level and ensure Governor Cooper has the necessary votes to sustain his veto…”
Terashima said if elected, he will support Cooper and women’s rights. “Elect me and you will get a tireless warrior working on behalf of reproductive freedoms--not against them like my opponent.”