Legislation banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will become law in North Carolina after the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly successfully overrode the Democratic governor’s veto late Tuesday. Photo: Internet Source

The House completed the second and final part of the override vote after a similar three-fifths majority — the fraction necessary — voted for the override earlier Tuesday in the Senate. The party-line outcomes represent a major victory for Republican legislative leaders who needed every GOP member on board to enact the law over Gov. Roy Cooper’s opposition.

Cooper vetoed the measure over the weekend after spending last week traveling around the state to persuade at least one Republican to side with him on the override, which would be enough to uphold his veto. But in the end, the four Republicans targeted by Cooper — including one who recently switched from the Democratic Party — voted to override.

Republicans pitched the measure as a middle-ground change to state law, which currently bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape or incest.

The votes came as abortion rights in the U.S. faced another tectonic shift with lawmakers in South Carolina and Nebraska also considering new abortion limits. North Carolina and South Carolina have been two of the few remaining Southern states with relatively easy access.

Such restrictions are possible because the U.S. Supreme Court last year struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which established a nationwide right to abortion.

Under the bill that had been up for a vote Tuesday in the South Carolina House, abortion access would be almost entirely banned after about six weeks of pregnancy — before women often know they’re pregnant. The South Carolina state Senate previously rejected a proposal to nearly outlaw abortions.

However, a final vote would have to wait until later Wednesday after the South Carolina House moved to reconvene at 10 a.m. while the computer system rebooted.

Nationally, bans on abortion throughout pregnancy are in effect in 14 states.