As calendars marked exactly 50 years since the establishment of Roe v. Wade yesterday, a Charlotte Observer editorial highlighted how Republicans have worked since Roe’s inception to abolish reproductive rights and what’s at stake now that it’s overturned. 

In North Carolina, women’s freedoms are protected by Gov. Cooper’s veto, but Republicans leaders Berger and Moore are already “attempting to reach a consensus” in their caucus to change that. Decades later – women of North Carolina are still not entrusted with making their own health care decisions. 

But as the editorial noted – “elections really matter” – and North Carolina Democrats will always fight back against extreme politicians who want to tell women when they’ll be pregnant or how to determine their own future.

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Charlotte Observer: What’s changed in the 50 years since Roe v. Wade? Everything — and nothing

• Exactly 50 years ago, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court guaranteed the right to an abortion with its decision in Roe v. Wade. 

• Roe changed our society by giving people a choice. Armed with more control over their bodies — and by extension, their lives — women became more likely to attend college, have a career and earn higher wages. The ruling has also saved lives by providing greater access to a procedure that is often medically necessary. 

• Half a century later, that right is gone, and the privacy, dignity and opportunity made possible because of it could disappear, too.

• Currently, abortion is legal in North Carolina for any reason until 20 weeks — the result of a 1973 law that went into effect when Roe was overturned. Republican leaders in the state legislature have made it clear they think 20 weeks is too permissive, and they hope to pass a more restrictive law. House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters this month that they have assembled working groups in both chambers and are attempting to reach a consensus, which could be a ban on abortion after the first trimester. The governor’s veto remains intact — barely — for now, but that could all change after 2024. 

• “Will abortion laws change in our state? How will they change? I can’t say for sure,” Kreitzer said. “I don’t know, elections really matter.”

• We know being denied an abortion hurts low-income and marginalized people the most. That’s the kind of world we face if and when abortion access is taken away.

• Fifty years after it was decided that politicians have no business policing people’s bodies, we’re here again, being told that they do.