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Best known among the bill's provisions is a requirement that the Department of Health and Human Services develop regulations for abortion clinics similar to ambulatory surgical centers. Similar language in other states have required abortion clinics to pay for hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars worth of upgrades. Only one abortion clinic in the state meets those guidelines. Although the House added language that those rules should be written without "unduly restricting access," opponents of the bill said that line was merely a legislative fig leaf.

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Other provisions in the bill include:
•Requires physicians to be "present" for the entire surgical abortion procedure.
•Allows any health care provider, not just doctors and nurses, to opt out of participating in abortion procedures.
•Prohibits health plans offered on the exchange established under the federal Affordable Care Act from offering coverage for abortion.
•Prohibits cities and counties from offering coverage for abortions in health plans they offer their employees.
•Prohibits abortions for the purpose of selecting the sex of a child.

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Controversy about the bill is unlikely to end this week. During the 2012 campaign, McCrory pledged not to sign any bills further restricting abortions. Most impartial observers believe signing this bill would violate that pledge. It will also be an agency overseen by McCrory and his political appointees that will be responsible for writing abortion clinic rules.

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"There's no clinic that's going to be closed down over this," Sen. Buck Newton, R-Nash, said. He said the bulk of the bill concerned safety and making sure that health care workers who didn't want to participate in abortions didn't have to do so. "This is common sense...If we're going to have abortion, we want it to be under the right circumstances."

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http://www.wral.com/senate-approves-abortion-law/12704699/