Women Prove the Strongest Supporters of HR36 Act Banning 20 Week Abortions

I will proudly be casting a vote in favor today. #HR36 pic.twitter.com/VtS2Vtjoev

— Rep. Robert Aderholt (@Robert_Aderholt) May 13, 2015

According to the Washington Post:

In fact, of four major polls conducted in recent weeks on the 20-week abortion ban, each one shows women are actually more supportive of the law than men.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows 60 percent of women prefer allowing unrestricted abortions for only the first 20 weeks of pregnancy rather than the Supreme Court-prescribed 24 weeks. Among men, 50 percent support the 20-week law — a 10-point gap.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed the gap at seven points, while two other polls (from NBC/Wall Street Journal and National Journal) showed it at six and four, respectively.

And those numbers may actually understate support among women for the new restrictions.

In the Post-ABC poll, rather than choosing between a 20-week ban and the current 24 weeks, 8 percent of women volunteered that abortion should never be legal, and 3 percent volunteered that the window should be smaller than 20 weeks. If you add them to the 60 percent of women who support the 20-week abortion ban, then 71 percent of women would seem to support the effort to increase abortion restrictions.

Perhaps the overwhelming female support of the ban is a result of the physical reality of the mother-child bond at 20 weeks of fetal development, the official halfway point of gestation. By that time, most moms have felt their babies move in the womb. They’ve seen the baby a minimum of twice, once for a diagnostic confirmation of pregnancy at roughly 8 weeks and once more for fetal screening at 12 weeks. If they are under the age of 35, they’re just about to learn the sex of their baby at their 20 week ultrasound. (Bonus for feminist supporters of the bill: If the baby is a girl, she’s developed roughly 7 million primitive eggs in her ovaries by this point.) If mom has been keeping regular appointments, mothers have heard their child’s heartbeat a minimum of 3 times.