The Supreme Court decided each state
should decide their own policies
on if a woman can get an abortion.
But now North Carolina's laws on
how long a woman can get an abortion
might be headed back to the courtroom.
We've got one of the key players
in the case here live to take your
questions and monkeypox is in the triad.
It's very rarely a deadly disease,
but the parks are gross and there's two
other big side effects you'll want to avoid.
So we asked the experts.
How you can stay safe so we
be worried about like shaking a
stranger's hand when you meet them for
the first time. Let's dig into it.
The abortion debate is now in the
hands of state lawmakers after the
Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade,
the federal protection for abortion
rights ended with that decision,
meaning each state can decide
its own abortion rules.
That's right, and right now abortion is
legal in the state of North Carolina.
It can be performed up to
a viability of the fetus,
and normally that's around 23 weeks.
But Republican leaders want
to shorten that time frame.
The leaders at the General
Assembly sent a letter to Attorney
General Josh Stein asking him to.
Bush in court for reinstating
an old North Carolina law.
It banned abortions after 20 weeks,
but a federal judge had struck down that law,
citing Roe V Wade.
Now that Roe V Wade is no more,
it would take a federal judge to
reinstate our twenty week ban.
So today we've got the attorney general
here answering your questions about abortion,
and really, all kinds of things so AG.
Stein.
Let's first and foremost talk about that.
Let's talk about that 20 week limit.
And where do you stand with that?
And do you expect Republicans
to take another?
Action.
But Tanya, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Uh, the Supreme Court obviously upended
the entire settled expectations of women
across this country when they overturn Roe
V Wade in this most recent jobs decision.
And essentially they took away from millions
10s of millions of women in this country,
the right to make their own reproductive
decisions and instead handed it off
to politicians which have banned
it in a number of states.
Now, North Carolina does not
have a ban on abortions.
Our state law permits abortions up
to 20 weeks and beyond that if the
woman's life or health is in jeopardy.
So the one thing that women in North
Carolina need to know is even after Dobbs,
you clearly have the statutory right.
Now there is a federally a federal
court injunction against the 20 week
ban because under the old precedent
it was through 23 or 24 weeks and.
That issue,
my lawyers are looking at to the judge
has asked for comments by the state
by the parties about whether that
injunction remains viable or in effect,
and they're looking at that as we speak.
All right. So a lot of people want to know.
Kind of a timetable,
if anything like how long do you
think it could be before we saw any
potential change in abortion laws?
If there's going to be any?
Sure, in terms of the court revisiting
the injunction that it issued
against the North Carolina law.
Before that, I think is going to
happen within the next month.
The judge asked last week for
parties to comment within 30 days
so that injunction will be resolved
relatively quickly if the court gets
rid of the injunction state law,
as I said, is very,
very clear that women have a legal right
to make that decision for themselves
in consultation with the doctor.
They do not need to have a politician.
Make the decision for them.
Now here's The thing is there are
a lot of politicians out there
who want to take that right away
from women here in North Carolina.
And So what?
I urge everybody out there if this
is an issue that matters to you,
ask your candidate who's running for
State House or State Senate what they
believe should happen because the
next legislature can pass a new law.
They can ban abortions and even
in the case of rape and incest,
and we are seeing that happening
across this country.
So who you elect to the General
Assembly and the State House
or state Senate will determine
this question going forward.
OK, all right? This is one of the
many things that the AG's office
you know has the umbrella over.
You know the AG tackles things
like loan forgiveness and the DNA
collection law and E cigarettes
and opioids and many other things.
So we're going to dig into these.
In the meantime,
we want you to be able to text in your
question because he's here until 5:45,
so text us your question
336-379-5775. Remember that your question.
Is anonymous hey something that
I saw your office talk about this
week is a door to door scams.
Let's talk about that.
Well, it happens a lot in summertime
and what these door to door
scammers will do is they'll come
knock on your door and say hey,
we just happen to be in the
neighborhood working on one of your
neighbors paved driveways or or
working on your neighbor's roof.
Do you want us to repave your driveway?
Do you want us to take a look at your
roof to see if there's a problem?
I mean, we actually have stories
instances where people went on the
roof to inspect the roof and used
an axe to create a hole in the roof
in order to tell the homeowner
they needed it to be repaired.
So oftentimes these door to
door salespeople are scammers.
They either don't do the work,
or they do a shoddy job.
So we have a basic advice for homeowners.
If you want work done,
identify what you want to get done.
Do you want your pay?
Your driveway repaved?
Do you need a new roof?
Do you need your house painted?
And if the answer to those questions are yes,
then go out and find companies.
Local companies that have a good
reputation get two or three quotes about
what it would cost to do the work.
Choose the one that works best.
Make sure that that contract is
reduced to writing so you know
exactly what the terms are and
what your payment obligations are,
and I suggest that you make sure that
you do not have to make full payment
until the work is done to your satisfaction.
A lot of times we will get complaints
from people who have spent the money
because the contractor demanded it,
and then the contractor either goes away,
fails to complete the job,
or does a poor job and they
can't get them to fix it.
That's right, and especially when they
laid out. All the cash it's really
hard to get cash back from somebody,
so you want to do another form of
payment and never pay in full upfront.
OK, good words of wisdom there. Alright?
Let's talk about the sexual assault kits.
We've had a backlog for a really long time.
You've been working on that today.
There's been kind of a confirmation that more
than 1100 of those kits have been tested.
Yeah, we we are making diligent
progress on this basically.
Suffering a sexual assault is
about the worst thing that ever
happens to a human being and then
to willingly deliver that evidence.
Go through an invasive examination,
deliver the evidence to law enforcement
to so that they can do the DNA,
and hopefully find the perpetrator we
owe it to those people to do everything
in our power to test the evidence,
upload it to the national database.
See if there's a hit against
another perpetrator,
and then make an arrest and
prosecute that person.
And we are making more progress
and more progress every day.
The the state of North Carolina
is much further along and in a
much better position today than
we were 2-3 or four years ago.
Today we announced that last
year we had a record number of
hits to this database and 2nd we
announced a new a new dashboard,
a website that people can go to to see
exactly how many kits occur in a district.
How many have been sent off for testing?
How many hits were there against the
database and how many arrests have been
made and all of this information is
really important so that the public,
particularly victims,
can have confidence that we're
doing everything in our power
to deliver justice for them.
And it gives it just a bit more
transparency for everyone to kind
of know really what is going on,
because usually it's just sent away and
then you don't hear anything about it.
So this is a big milestone.
What do you think this means for the sexual
assault victims and for law enforcement?
Well, we actually have two databases,
one that's been in operation for a
little while is a tracking system so
that if a person experiences a sexual
assault and produces evidence in a kit,
they get a tracking number so they can
follow that kit along the course of
the the process so they know exactly
where it is and what the status is.
What we're announcing today is instead
of an individual, it's in aggregate.
How many kits are there in Guilford County?
How many are in Greensboro?
How many hits have there been?
Statewide? You can break it down.
Any which way to learn exactly what
progress we're making and the really
great thing is Tanya is we are making
progress and in the process we are
making arrests and they're solving
cases and and dangerous people.
Rapists are being put behind bars,
victims are getting justice and
the public is safer as a result.
OK, all right, we're going to
take a quick break on that.
We're going to talk about a few
other topics when we come back.
We're talking about someone
asking about tree trimming,
someone's talking about loan forgiveness.
We're going to talk about.
For those when we come back
right after this break.