On Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed the new Texas abortion law to stand for now. The law, SB8, bans abortions upon detecting a fetal heartbeat, which is typically around 6 weeks.
Naturally, the radical left was outraged, predicting catastrophe, if not the full-on apocalypse.
“This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century,” Biden claimed in a statement. “The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes.”
Kamala Harris also chimed in, calling the law an “all-out assault on reproductive health effectively bans abortion for the nearly 7 million Texans of reproductive age.”
Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers, and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!
You know how it goes.
It’s true that, in a general sense, Americans support abortion rights. But Democrats think that abortion is a simple black-and-white issue and attempt to use that to their advantage. As a result, any reasonable proposal to limit or restrict abortions is met with loud opposition, claiming an end to women’s rights, healthcare, you name it.
To that end, Democrats in Congress have repeatedly pushed for taxpayer-funded abortions, partial-birth abortions, you name it. Even the most reasonable, commonsense restrictions, like parental consent laws for minors, are also not supported by Democrats. They even oppose the requirement that babies born in failed abortions receive medical care or that abortion providers be located within reasonable distances to hospitals. But, perhaps the most radical position elected Democrats in the pockets of the abortion lobby hold is support for abortions up to the moment of birth.
According to Gallup, while Americans generally support the right to abortion, when asked to evaluate the issue by trimester, we find that support for abortion is far more nuanced… and the Texas abortion law better reflects mainstream views on abortion than what Democrats support for abortion rights.
“Six in 10 U.S. adults think abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. However, support drops by about half, to 28%, for abortions conducted in the second three months, and by half again, to 13%, in the final three months,” explains Gallup. These numbers have remained fairly consistent since Gallup first started polling this question back in 1996. But the issue is still more complicated than that. “Support for elective abortion depends on the specific reason a woman seeks the procedure. And that, in turn, varies by whether it occurs early or late in the pregnancy.”
Most Americans generally see some reason for abortion to be legal, but far more think it should be legal in the first trimester than in the second or third. This conforms with the actual rate of abortions in the U.S. by trimester. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion statistics, late-trimester abortions are rare — only 1.3% are conducted later than 20 weeks, whereas 89% are performed within the first 12 weeks.
While the Texas law makes abortions illegal after approximately six weeks, it is still far more representative of mainstream views of abortion legality than the recently reintroduced “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which pro-life groups say would allow for unrestricted abortions up until the moment of birth. Introduced by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), it has 47 co-sponsors—45 Democrats, and two independents.
“The so-called Women’s Health Protection Act would essentially remove all legal protections for unborn children on the federal and state level. The Women’s Health Protection Act is, in effect, a no-limits-on-abortion-until-birth bill,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, back in June when the legislation was reintroduced. “Pro-abortion Democrats have yet to hear of an abortion-expansion bill they didn’t like and they are more than willing to push it on to the American people.”
