Fact-checking ad about Republican Laurie Buckhout’s abortion stance

Democrats are accusing the Republican candidate in a competitive North Carolina congressional district of supporting strict abortion bans.

Republican Laurie Buckhout is challenging incumbent Democrat Don Davis in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which stretches from the state’s Triangle region through most of northeastern North Carolina. Political analysts expect it to be the closest of North Carolina's 14 congressional races and could play a major role in determining which party controls the House of Representatives.

House Majority PAC, a political action group that helps elect Democrats to Congress, launched a television ad the week of Sept. 10 to attack Buckhout and boost Davis’s chances.

A woman in the ad says: "We don’t need an outsider like Laurie Buckhout trying to get to Congress to pass a national abortion ban, allowing politicians to ban abortions with no exceptions and prosecute women if they get an abortion, treating women right here like criminals."

The ad gives a misleading impression of Buckhout’s abortion stance. 

To support the claim that Buckhout would pass a national abortion ban, the ad cites a Feb. 21 Hertford-based Perquimans Weekly newspaper article. Perquimans Weekly is a product of the Daily Advance newspaper in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

The newspaper asked Buckhout if she would support a national ban on abortion. Buckhout’s response was broad. 

"As the only candidate to be endorsed by the pro-life SBA (Susan B. Anthony) List, I believe every life is precious and would vote to preserve life, including the mother’s," she said.

House Majority PAC spokesperson CJ Warnke said Buckhout signaled her intentions for a national abortion ban by citing her endorsement from the Susan B. Anthony advocacy group. Susan B. Anthony says its mission is to "end abortion."

Buckhout previously told Spectrum News 1 that she thinks a national ban should be discussed, the network reported. PolitiFact NC found no statement in which Buckhout cited a national abortion ban as one of her goals. 

But the ad did not mention this: In the same article in which Buckhout was asked about a national abortion ban, she specifically said she supports exceptions for abortion.

"I support consensus limits on late-term abortions, with reasonable exceptions, when scientific evidence proves the baby can feel pain," Buckhout said in the article.

The ad not only fails to make that clear, its visuals give the opposite impression.
When the ad’s narrator talks about abortion exceptions, the Perquimans Weekly citation appears on screen and text shows Buckhout’s name above the words: "No exceptions for rape or incest."

Warnke argued the ad’s claim about "no exceptions" wasn’t about Buckhout’s statement in the newspaper — but what she would allow other politicians to do. 

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"Debate moderators made the false claim to Donald Trump that there is nowhere in the United States where abortion is legal up until birth."

"Buckhout is ‘trying to get to Congress to pass a national abortion ban’ and is ‘allowing politicians to ban abortions with no exceptions and prosecute women if they get an abortion,’" Warnke said.

Because Buckhout agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that allowed states to restrict abortion as much as they want, Warnke said that means she’s OK with states banning the abortion in all circumstances.

Ten states ban abortion without exceptions for cases of rape or incest, according to the health policy research group KFF. Every state that bans abortion includes an exception for the life of the pregnant woman, the group found.

In a Nov.13 podcast interview, Buckhout said the Supreme Court "did the right thing" when it overturned Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that held abortion access was constitutionally protected.

When the ad mentions criminal repercussions for women who get abortions, text on the screen points to an April 30 Time magazine article. PolitiFact NC found no references to Buckhout in Time.

Asked about this, Warnke told PolitiFact NC that the ad referred to former President Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine in which Trump was asked if states should monitor women's pregnancies to track whether they’ve broken abortion laws. Trump declined to give his opinion, citing states’ rights. 

"It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It's totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions," Trump told Time.

House Majority PAC argued that, because Trump endorsed Buckhout, she will follow his lead on the issue of allowing states to monitor women’s pregnancies.

The ad’s narrator, though, doesn’t make clear that she’s talking about laws in other states. The narrator says Buckhout would allow politicians to prosecute women if they get an abortion, treating women "right here" like criminals.

The ad misrepresents Buckhout’s position, campaign spokesperson Jonathan Felts said.

"Buckhout is pro-life, but has never said she is opposed to exceptions. And the pro-Don Davis group knows this. But they lie about it anyway," Felts said. 

The ad accuses Buckhout of "trying to get to Congress to pass a national abortion ban, allowing politicians to ban abortions with no exceptions and prosecute women if they get an abortion, treating women right here like criminals."

This is misleading.

Buckhout has said a national abortion ban should be discussed and that she would "vote to preserve life." But her comments on this topic have been vague and lacking in detail. We found no evidence she’s actively campaigning in favor of a federal law restricting abortion, as the ad suggests.

The PAC argued that Buckhout’s support of the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade and returned to the states the responsibility for creating their own abortion laws shows she would enable state lawmakers to pass abortion restrictions that don’t include exceptions or that criminalize women. 

But Buckhout has explicitly stated that she supports exceptions for abortion. House Majority PAC produced no credible evidence that she has said she wants to prosecute women who break abortion laws.

We rate this claim Mostly False.