One of the reasons that I track abortion polling with some regularity is that whenever a political debate about limiting the practice unfolds, the abortion lobby and its mouthpieces recite predictable talking points: (1) Proponents of the restriction are "extreme," and (2) any such action would be an affront to "women's rights." Neither argument is accurate. We'll dismantle their points below, but here is the type of rhetoric we're seeing from Democratic Senators -- particularly ones who have an eye on the party's 2020 presidential nomination -- ahead of an upper chamber debate on the House-passed 20 week abortion ban:
If women made up 51% of Congress, do you think we would still be fighting to protect a woman’s right to choose? Do you think that the Senate would be voting on a dangerous 20-week abortion ban?
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) January 27, 2018
Absolutely not.
The GOP has scheduled a vote on a 20-week abortion ban on Monday. Add your name to demand Congress votes down this immoral bill. https://t.co/WltjbnffmG
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 26, 2018
"Dangerous" and "immoral." On the latter term, it's the radical view that supports the "right" to kill a fetus in its sixth month of development that is profoundly immoral and unethical. Science teaches us that starting shortly after the 20 week mark (the exact time frame is under dispute), unborn babies can feel pain. Premature infants born as early as 21 weeks-old have survived outside of the womb. Favoring elective abortion-on-demand in the late stages of pregnancy is a radical position; Senator Harris' definition of 'immorality' is creepy and warped. And "dangerous"? Hardly. Virtually every nation in the world is already ahead of us on this moderate, common-sense reform. This statement by Mitch McConnell is accurate -- much to the surprise of some fact-checkers who determined that this point does, indeed, check out:
There are only 7 countries left that still permit elective abortion after 20 weeks—including the US, China, and North Korea. That’s why the #Senate will soon vote to take up commonsense legislation to protect unborn children who can feel pain.
— Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) January 25, 2018
Polling has consistently demonstrated that a large majority of American voters favor new anti-abortion protections, including widely popular bars on elective late-term abortions. Pro-lifers didn't hesitate to point out how extreme Gillibrand and Harris' position is -- including, or even especially, among women:
The vast majority of Americans, which includes most women, believe abortion should be illegal after three months of pregnancy according to Gallup. You are an extremist and don’t represent women on the issue. https://t.co/NZ6uQpK3np https://t.co/0nF4EngmeK
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) January 28, 2018
80% of the country opposes abortion in the final months of a pregnancy, but by all means keep pretending it's only men that don't want to see abortions in the final weeks of a pregnancy. pic.twitter.com/gBqgEGByt2
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) January 28, 2018
I also noted that a recent Marist poll found a lopsided female majority (62 percent) in favor of the legislation under discussion. Gillibrand's reflexive "war on women" framing is totally bunk. In fact, a sixth-month abortion ban is such a consensus issue that roughly half of Democrats -- the explicitly pro-choice party -- are in favor of it:
Marist poll in January 2017 had 49% Democratic support for the pain capable abortion ban https://t.co/e7wD1aZiMW pic.twitter.com/9PfYUh8PwH
— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) January 27, 2018
Are the interests of those 49 percent of Democrats even remotely represented by their party in Congress? Out of 193 House Democrats, only three voted for a bill favored by approximately half of their own voters. In the Senate, three Democrats say they'll vote with Republicans on the bill, as they did in 2015. Other "moderates" (including Heidi Heitkamp, Jon Tester and Claire McCaskill) have voted in favor of the inhumane status quo in the past, and are likely to do so again. Newly-installed Alabama Senator Doug Jones claims to be undecided, but told reporters that he's inclined to vote against the bill. He is, after all, an abortion zealot -- which aligns him with the truly radical special interests that control his party on this issue. As of early this week, a majority of both houses of the United States Congress will have voted to enact a mainstream late-term abortion restriction, and the White House has signaled that the president would sign it. Senate Democrats will block its passage with a filibuster, condemning the US to remain a shameful global outlier against human rights on this front.
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