Former Rep. Sarah Stevens, who is running for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, recently answered a candidate questionnaire for the right-wing group North Carolina Values Action. In it, Stevens agreed with the statement “human life deserves legal protection from conception until natural death” and added, “There is nothing to require that contraception be allowed.”
Stevens has long-fashioned herself a “referee” of the law – a claim that she would rule based on “what’s there” rather than creating policy herself.
And yet, Stevens has made it clear that’s exactly what she would do if issues of reproductive rights came before the Court.
After all, if Stevens considers “what’s there” – it’s more than six decades of legal precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court first established a constitutional right to birth control in 1965, ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that various guarantees in the Bill of Rights establish a right to privacy. The Supreme Court expanded that right from married couples to single adults in its 1972 ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird, and further expanded that right to minors in 1977 via Carey v. Population Services International, where it made clear that blanket prohibitions on the right to access contraception are unconstitutional.
Stevens’ declaration against birth control is just the latest in her long record of extremist stances on healthcare. After all, as a legislator, Stevens was one of the architects of North Carolina’s post-Roe abortion ban. She also took away health insurance from retirees, tried to block Medicaid Expansion, voted to allow insurance companies to deny people for pre-existing conditions, and even said that Medicaid should be eliminated.
If you care about North Carolinians’ right to healthcare, and especially reproductive healthcare, the choice in this fall’s Supreme Court race is clear.
Justice Anita Earls is a former civil rights attorney who has spent her career upholding the rights enshrined in our Constitution, including ruling against efforts to strip healthcare benefits and raise rates on workers. Earls has received endorsements from a wide gamut of healthcare advocacy groups including Reproductive Freedom for All, Emily’s List, Planned Parenthood Votes South Atlantic, Pro-Choice North Carolina, Lillian’s List and the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists Political Action Committee.
In-person early voting runs through Oct. 31, and Election Day is Nov. 3. For information on where and how to vote, visit ncsbe.gov/voting/upcoming-election.
