North Carolina’s General Assembly convened last Wednesday, beginning a new session with new dynamics that will come into play as members seek to resolve a host of long-lingering issues.

The debate over abortion rights now moves to the General Assembly — and therefore, the ballot box — but both sides have stepped up the name-calling and dehumanization, foreshadowing a bitter fight that’s becoming less about the actual issue and more about political demagoguery.

After nearly 50 years of contention and debate over what was once considered “settled law,” abortion has now become a huge issue for voters in both major political parties in the upcoming midterm elections.

To the Editor: Thank you, Jane Harrison, for setting me straight about my being in the minority of Americans because I think the unborn have rights. It feels good to be a minority for a change.

As a pediatrician, I spent many years on hospital call in Haywood County and many long hours in the middle of the night trying to keep a newborn alive. So, I do understand and share the passion and concern expressed in the recently published response to my July 6 column in The Mountaineer about political violence and the reproductive rights of American women.  

The United States Supreme Court shocked the world during its last term, issuing several rulings that had most conservatives cheering and liberals mournful over what they claim is a politicized judiciary.

I have a modest proposal to solve the abortion dilemma, but first we need to understand the background. 

Almost 50 years after the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling was handed down by the United States Supreme Court, justices last week overturned it — throwing the issue back to the states to decide for themselves, just as they had for the previous 185 years before Roe.

As it often does, the Historic Haywood Courthouse played host to a rally on May 14 that drew about 50 people, an equal number of signs and a small contingent of counterdemonstrators. Unlike in recent years, it wasn’t a rally supporting Black Lives Matter, or law enforcement officers, or local issues like the proposed jail expansion.

When President Donald Trump appointed conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court, there was an outcry among pro-choice activists afraid Roe v. Wade — the 1973 case that protects a woman’s right to an abortion — would be overturned.