Just when the Village idiots were getting comfortable disappearing Republican opposition to abortion down the memory hole while women are dying on the operating table because of lack of heathcare access, along comes SC GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham to remind everyone that the goal is to eliminate abortion access for all with a national 15-week abortion ban bill.
The South Carolina senator chose a uniquely tense moment to unveil his party’s first bill limiting abortion access since this summer’s watershed reversal of Roe v. Wade. It was designed as a nod to anti-abortion activists who have never felt more emboldened. Yet Graham’s bill also attempted to skate past a Republican Party that’s divided over whether Congress should even be legislating on abortion after the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies.
And some fellow Republicans said they were highly perplexed at Graham’s decision to introduce a new abortion ban — more conservative than his previous proposals — at a precarious moment for the party.
“I don’t think there’s an appetite for a national platform here. My state, today, is working on this. I’m not sure what he’s thinking here. But I don’t think there will be a rallying around that concept,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “I don’t think there’s much of an appetite to go that direction.”
Graham’s past pitches for a 20-week abortion ban attracted most Republicans’ support and even the votes of some Senate Democrats. His latest effort would leave in place state laws that are even more restrictive while also imposing new limits in blue states that currently have none. Coming less than 60 days before the midterms, it’s riled some Republicans, who are watching their once-dominant polling advantage shrink since the Roe reversal.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that questions about the bill should be directed to Graham and that most Republican senators “prefer this be handled at the state level.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested Graham had gone a bit rogue with his latest legislation: “That wasn’t a conference decision. It was an individual senator’s decision.”
“There’s obviously a split of opinion in terms of whether abortion law should be decided by the states … and those who want to set some sort of minimum standard,” Cornyn said of the 50-member Senate GOP conference. “I would keep an open mind on this but my preference would be for those decisions to be made on a state-by-state basis.”
Graham’s bill bans the procedure nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a priority of many prominent anti-abortion activists who have been demanding a far more aggressive response from the GOP. It includes exceptions for rape, incest and pregnancies that threaten maternal health.
While public polling shows majority opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in June, it also shows support for some limits on abortion. Republicans have often parried questions about their positions by turning the spotlight onto Democrats, who generally support no legislative limits on terminating pregnancy.
“There is a consensus view by the most prominent pro-life groups in America that this is where America should be at the federal level,” Graham said. “I don’t think this is going to hurt us. I think it will more likely hurt [Democrats] when they try to explain to some reasonable person why it’s OK to be more like Iran and less like France on abortion.”
Senate Republicans did not broach the subject at their Tuesday strategy lunch, according to attendees.
Nonetheless, the bill could cause especially acute problems for the party’s Senate hopefuls. McConnell said he trusted each individual candidate to calibrate their own positions.
Several Republican campaigns did not immediately respond to questions about Graham’s bill, but Herschel Walker, the GOP Senate nominee in Georgia, said he’d back the legislation.
“Raphael Warnock wants to protect the killing of babies right up to the moment of birth. We need to do better,” Walker said in a statement to POLITICO. “I am a proud pro-life Christian, and I will always stand up for our unborn children. I believe the issue should be decided at the state level, but I WOULD support this policy.”
Others, however, are steering clear. A spokesperson for Washington GOP Senate nominee Tiffany Smiley said that she opposes the Graham bill and believes that states should decide their abortion laws. And Colorado GOP Senate nominee Joe O’Dea made clear he too doesn’t support the bill as he faces Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in the Democratic-leaning state.
“A Republican ban is as reckless and tone deaf as is Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s hostility to” compromise, said O’Dea, who said he supports protecting abortion access early in pregnancies and applying “sensible limits” to late-term procedures.
A 15-week national ban on abortion is the GOP compromise position, after both Republicans and the Supreme Court basically destroyed a woman's right to her own body and the GOP called it a "states' rights issue".
They were going to get away with it too, except now Graham has made that impossible. Every single Democrat up for a House or Senate race needs to plaster Graham's mug all over the TV along with his decree that yes, Republicans want to eliminate safe abortion across the country.
Better see some ads about the Republican's national abortion ban and soon, folks.
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