Legislators in North Carolina have voted to defund the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, overturning a veto handed down from the state’s governor.

The mainly Republican-run legislature, headed by majority leader Paul Stam, sent over $343,000 back to individual county health departments instead of using it to fund those that provide abortions.

Last year, Democratic governor Beverly Perdue vetoed the original bill that that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Her veto was also overturned by lawmakers then, but U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty blocked the move, stating that the abortion provider could not be singled out.

“I will not put my name on a plan that so blatantly ignores the values of North Carolina’s people,” Perdue stated about the measure, which also pertained to other general state funding provisions. “I cannot support a budget that sends the message that North Carolina is moving backwards, when we have always been a state that led the nation.”

This year, legislators decided to reintroduce and re-word the bill so that it mentioned nothing of Planned Parenthood, only “private providers” of family planning services, which would still include pulling funding  from the abortion giant.

“[In 1859], North Carolina did not have an abortion statute at the time because the common law (imported from England as of 1776, G.S. §4-1) made abortion a crime,” states Representative Paul Stam on a page on his website outlining his views on abortion. “While the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the unborn child has no right to live, … the unborn child in North Carolina retains extensive property rights. I elaborate on this to demonstrate that treating the unborn child as a juridical being is not a recent, nor a difficult, concept to understand and apply.”

A growing number of lawmakers are introducing similar proposals in state legislature. States such as Arizona, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Indiana, Oklahoma and others have all voted to discontinue funding Planned Parenthood. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whose Supreme Court became the first in early American history to declare that abortion must be prohibited at any stage of gestation for any reason, is currently fighting to also end funding to the abortion provider.

In some cases where bills have passed, however, judges have blocked the law from being enacted, and for others, the federal government has stepped in to replace the funds.

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