Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to Outcome of Election in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
North Carolina — Today, NARAL-endorsed candidate and former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson lost her bid for election to the U.S. House of Representatives in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue released the following statement in response:
“Though we’re disappointed in today’s results, NARAL Pro-Choice America is proud to have backed Patricia Timmons-Goodson in her bid to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Richard Hudson. Over the course of this race, Timmons-Goodson recognized exactly what was at stake for women and families when it comes to reproductive freedom, and she vocally championed our fundamental rights. Make no mistake: Though this race may be over, NARAL will never stop fighting to defeat anti-choice, anti-freedom politicians like Richard Hudson. We will be watching Rep. Hudson, and will continue to hold him accountable for his out-of-touch agenda.”
In the 2020 election cycle, NARAL Pro-Choice America ran its largest-ever electoral program designed to reach, persuade, and mobilize key voters in target states across the country who are motivated by Trump and Republicans’ unyielding attacks on reproductive freedom.
Republican incumbent Rep. Richard Hudson has earned a 0% score from NARAL Pro-Choice America in the Congressional Record on Choice. Hudson has voted to ban and criminalize abortion, to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal the Affordable Care Act, and to rescind Title X protections, which help support family planning and reproductive health services for low-income North Carolinians.
Hudson’s extreme anti-choice, anti-freedom agenda is wildly out-of-touch with the strong majority (74%) of North Carolinians who believe abortion should be legal, and that the government should not prevent a woman from making that decision for herself.
North Carolina already has some of the most severe restrictions on reproductive freedom in the United States, which include forcing multi-day delays before a person can receive abortion care and subjecting patients to mandatory biased counseling. Over 90% of North Carolina counties have no clinics providing abortion care and more than half of North Carolina women live in a county without an abortion clinic. These types of barriers disproportionately harm BIPOC, low-income, and rural communities, and are part of a coordinated effort by the Radical Right to maintain white patriarchal control at all costs.
Read more about NARAL’s endorsed candidates here.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters have fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom—including access to abortion, contraception, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 7 in 10 Americans who believe every person should have the freedom to make the best decision for themselves about if, when, and how to raise a family.