Hours following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade with its Dobbs v. Jackson decision, President Joe Biden addressed the nation, with many of his remarks including fear-mongering lies, especially about the scope of Roe. He also promoted the dangerous chemical abortion procedure, as Madeline highlighted. Perhaps his most misleading claim came at the end of his remarks, though, as he claimed that the the decision made the United States an outlier on abortion.
"With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country," he had claimed, as if public opinion ought to have any effect on Supreme Court decisions. "They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world," Biden also said, as one of his last points.
Such a claim is factually incorrect, though. Before the Dobbs decision, the United States had some of the most relaxed abortion laws in the world. Thanks to Roe and its companion case of Doe v. Bolton, the United States was one of just seven nations in the world that allowed for elective abortions past 20-weeks. The others include Canada, the Netherlands, Singapore, Vietnam, and the human rights abusers of China and North Korea.
Last summer, in light of the Supreme Court announcing it would hear the Dobbs case, the Charlotte Lozier Institute released a study, as Madeline covered at the time, highlighting how the 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi before the Court, was more in-line with European nations.
The study actually found that "the norm" is for European nations to restrict abortion at 12-weeks, which is the end of the first trimester. "This comparison found 47 out of 50 European countries analyzed in this report either do not allow elective abortion (8) or limit elective abortion to 15 weeks or earlier (39)," the abstract noted.
The Dobbs decision now allows states to decide their own abortion laws. Those states who choose to promote legal abortion late into pregnancy, such as New York and California, will continue to remain "an outlier," though. Other states, though, are free to regulate and restrict abortion as they wish to, and many states have done so or are taking steps to do so.
Biden, who had called on Congress earlier in his speech to pass the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), which has already failed in the Senate multiple times, doubled down on such a call to conclude. "But Congress must act. And with your vote, you can act. You can have the final word. This is not over," the president said as one of his final points.
For Congress to indeed pass the WHPA would return the United States to once more having an outlier status, as it would not just codify Roe, as Biden and other Democrats claim, but would expand it. The legislation would repeal all state pro-life laws passed as well as the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from having to fund elective abortions. Though it passed the House last September, it failed in the Senate, twice, as even senators who support codifying Roe voted against it.
Time will tell if the Dobbs decision officially being handed down has an effect in turning out the pro-abortion Democratic base. Polls released before Friday though, indicated that the leak of the draft from earlier last month did not have much of an effect, as voters remain more concerned about the economy, which is not a winning issue for Democrats.
Fox News released a part of their series on Sunday morning asking strategists about political issues, with this edition being about abortion. The results appeared to be mixed as to whether abortion will matter, and how much, in the midterms.
Polling does consistently show that voters are against the Democratic Party's position on abortion throughout all nine months without legal limit.