Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. Parents, please note that this episode touches on some mature content, so please be cautious if you're listening with young children. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett-Griggs.
Welcome to Family Policy Matters. Today we're joined by former North Carolina Representative and longtime attorney Paul Stam. We mostly know him as Skip Stam, who served 16 years in the North Carolina House, including 10 years as Republican leader and Speaker Pro Tem. He has been an influential voice in legislative debates on life issues, constitutional interpretation, and legal history. In his recent article, Absurd Abortion Industry Propaganda on the Law, he challenges what he views as widespread misinformation surrounding North Carolina's post-Dobbs abortion laws and the historical treatment of unborn children in both criminal and civil statutes.
We'll explore the legal history he outlines, the claims he labels as propaganda, and what he believes the public needs to understand about the current law. Skip Stam, welcome back to Family Policy Matters. Thanks, Tracy. All right, so your article. opens by calling claims of an abortion ban in North Carolina false.
And we covered that quite extensively in our previous radio show. But what specifically prompted you to respond to this narrative right now? Right after the law passed in 2023, which provided protection for women and some unborn children after Roe v. Wade was overruled, I received an email from a legislative leader who was pro-abortion claiming that he needed money to stop this ban, which was the most restrictive abortion law that North Carolina had ever had. And he just hadn't been around long enough.
So I started researching that. We covered the issue a couple of weeks ago on whether it actually is a ban, but his claim that this was the most restricted abortion law in North Carolina history was so absurd that I had to respond.
Okay, so you argue that Roe v. Wade never created a true constitutional right to abortion. Roe v. Wade did not do a correct or thorough analysis of the constitutional issues. You can read the U.S.
Constitution from now till the end of time and never find a right to abortion in it. It's just not there. And Alito did a historical analysis of the times of the 1868 Constitution, which was the time that the amendment was ratified that the U.S. Supreme Court was relying on. This was right after the Civil War.
And he demonstrated that as of the mid-19th century, practically every state criminalized abortion. I think there were a couple of states that just didn't discuss it. And North Carolina, for example, he said had made abortion a felony from 1881.
Now, even Alito was a little wrong on that because that was not created in 1881. 1881. What happened was that one year earlier, the North Carolina Supreme Court said that abortion was a crime from the time of conception at common law, which means at least from 1776 and probably from 1669. And what happened in 1881 was that the General Assembly was so mad that it was only a misdemeanor that they made it a felony.
So it was the exact opposite of the argument that the pro-abortionists were making, like this legislative leader a couple years ago, who claimed that this 2023 law was the most strict in North Carolina history. Since 1669, abortion had been a crime in North Carolina, actually, from conception. It's always a good idea to read history. I mean, whether it's about abortion or our country or anything. But why do you think, especially in this context, is the history so important for today's debate?
A lot of us think that the pro-life movement started sometime after Roe v. Wade, 1973, because that was the first time we had marches and protests, and it was a big issue. But the pro-life movement nationwide did not start 50 years ago. It actually started in the mid to early 1800s when the medical profession realized and started to put in print that the unborn child, you know, started off, you know, with conception and was a member of the human species from conception. And do you know who led that movement?
It was the American Medical Association, which still exists today. And Tracy, the AMA is One of the main arguers for abortion rights and abortion as health care. But the actual medical pro-life movement began with the AMA in 1859, right before the Civil War. The American Medical Association formalized a resolution, and I'm just going to read this very short excerpt: quote, condemning abortion at every period of gestation, except as necessary to preserve the life of mother or child. The reason stated was, quote, the increasing frequency of such unwarrantable destruction of human life.
In other words, we've known for hundreds of years that an abortion takes the life of a living human being. We knew that from doctors.
So when we're talking about legal consensus in American history, it's much different than what we might often hear. Correct. The consensus was in the mid-19th century when practically every state and territory had laws stopping abortion. because, and they specifically stated this in their opinions, because it was the taking of an innocent human life. How did this change?
What happened that brought about this almost an about face on the thinking of Unaburchild? I was studying this in college right before abortion was legalized. I was simultaneously taking three courses that helped me: pre-law, embryology as part of biology, and formal logic. And I noted that in the pre-law class, the American Law Institute was suggesting a big reform that would have lots of exceptions.
Now, not the huge exception of, you know, basically 90% of the abortions being legal, but things like rape or incest. fetal deformities, things like that. And these exceptions, which did not amount to very many abortions at all, but did destroy the very foundation of why you prohibited abortions in the first place.
So that was going on right in the late 60s, early 70s, right before Roe v. Wade. That's what happened. That's when the pro-life consensus of law and medicine broke down. I would venture a guess that the fact that you were studying law, embryos, and logic all at the same time was not an accident, a divine appointment.
Yes, and this was before I actually knew what the biblical argument for protecting unborn children was. I really hadn't thought about it that much, but I could recognize that the proposal from the American Law Institute violated basic principles of logic.
Well, we still have those things, right, in our laws that defy logic when it comes to the unborn child.
So can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. Actually, in North Carolina, since 1967, abortion has been allowed. Actually, we were the second state to liberalize it before Roe v. Wade.
and in the criminal law. But a lot of people think the only law in the world is criminal law. But no, most of the law is civil. And for every purpose under civil law, from the common law for hundreds of years, the unborn child has been considered a living human being as soon as conceived.
Now, this applies, for example, in tested succession where there's no will. An unborn child, if they were conceived before the parent died, they took the state by will. You can believe it or not, you can will property to an unborn child. There was one hitch in the 1850s where a court said, hmm, you can't deed property to an unborn child. because a deed requires delivery of a deed.
And how can you deliver a deed to an unborn child?
Well, the very next year, the General Assembly changed it and said you can deliver a property to an unborn child as soon as that child is conceived. An unborn child can have a guardian ad litem, can be the beneficiary of a trust, and essentially completely for every civil purpose for hundreds of years, the unborn child is considered just as much as if born, except if the mother can get a doctor to agree to kill it.
Sort of a contradiction there.
So how do we do this? I mean, this is not the only topic that we do this kind of almost a disconnect of logic. Do you ever speculate on how we can make this jump? Was it Alice in Wonderland where someone said, well, I can believe six impossible things before breakfast. The human mind can rationalize and believe completely contradictory things if it fits that person's own desires.
It's completely true, factual, scientific, that an unborn child is a living human being from conception and that development is a continuous process. In other words, it's not a clump of cells, as the abortionist says. It's a new human being. Let me read you one sentence from a medical textbook that was used at Duke University right after the years after Roe v. Wade, when abortion was legal.
This is what they taught doctors: Development is a continuous process that begins when an Oocyte is fertilized by a spertomozoan. And it ends at death. It is a process of growth and differentiation which transforms the zygote, a single cell. Into a multicellular adult human being. And that's from about 60 years ago.
And nothing in science has changed since that day.
So let's talk a little bit about public policy, especially here in North Carolina. You have stated in the article that there is no state law or constitutional bar that prevents North Carolina from protecting unborn children.
So what do you think the General Assembly needs to be doing on this front? Protect unborn children from people who want to kill it. That simple. That's simple.
Now, the task of a legislator is to do it in such a way that the public will accept it and that a majority of the House and Senate will vote for it and that a governor will sign it.
So there has to be some considerations that they have to consider. But in general, that's what needs to be done. For example, an ectoptic pregnancy is a pregnancy where the embryo is in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. The child cannot survive because the fallopian tube will burst no later than 12 weeks and the child would die and seriously endanger the mother.
So it's a question whether removal of an ectoptic pregnancy is even an abortion or not. But the law has to recognize that when the mother's life is in danger or the child can't survive, that should be allowed because it just makes common sense. On the other hand, there are other exceptions, which are very, very few in number as far as the number of unborn children are concerned, that are just necessary as a pragmatic matter for people in public policy to vote for it. And then they can deal with those issues by civil means.
So, for example, for rape victims, provide them with support they need. To encourage them to not kill a child just because of the circumstances of the conception. Gotcha.
Okay, well, we're about out of time. Where can our listeners go if they want to read this series of articles that you've written and so many other things? And I think you mentioned that you even have transcripts of legislative debates on your website.
So tell us where to find those.
Well, the website is PaulStam, one word with one M, dot info instead of dot com, PaulStam dot info. And there are articles over the last 20, 25 years, hundreds of articles. The best ones are for 2025 that address all of these issues. And there are plenty of others. For example, I have 500 pages of transcripts of debates.
including on the pro-life issues, but others as well. All stamp.info and then also make sure to read every publication from NC Family Policy Council. Thank you very much, and thanks for your good work. Paul, Skip, Stan, thanks for joining us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
