When the Supreme Court overturned the long-standing Roe v. Wade settled law, it caused a very visible backlash and infuriated a good portion of this country. People marched in the streets and protested outside of the Supreme Court. As state trigger laws went into effect, it made a post-Roe v. Wade America start to look like the prequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Now some Republicans have seen that their voting has real-life consequences for some people—and that the unpopular decision could also impact their time in office—but most of the GOP remain willfully and cruelly clueless. It isn’t surprising, as conservatives have a way of missing the entire point and also telling on themselves in the process, as they did with Biden’s recent anti-fascism speech.
On Tuesday, Scooby-Doo villain Senator Lindsey Graham made another confounding move. The politician from South Carolina introduced a bill, that the New York Times calls “unbelievably cruel,” that would enact a federal 15-week abortion ban—meaning abortions after 15 weeks would be illegal across the United States. This would be a national ban, not up to the states. This move makes no sense for several reasons.
Let me count the ways…
Right now the GOP consensus on abortions is that it should remain a state law issue. That was also part of the supposed justification for overturning Roe v. Wade. Since June 2022, many states have enacted laws banning abortion completely or so early in the pregnancy that most people wouldn’t realize they were pregnant before they had the option of abortion taken from them. With this in mind, voters have been going to the polls in droves. Notably, voters in conservative Kansas voted to reject an amendment to the state constitution banning abortion.
This change of events has some Republicans trying to distance themselves from their own abortion bans. Even Graham himself has gone on record several times, saying they have no agenda to create a federal abortion ban. Now that he has proposed this 15-week ban, it feels a little counter-intuitive to the GOP’s message and what voters have been showing they want. However, it shouldn’t be that surprising that conservatives have a long-term plan to make some kind of federal abortion ban. The problem is they do not have a true majority in the law-making branches of the government to pass such a law right now.
But why introduce a ban now?
Prior to Roe v. Wade‘s undoing, the GOP and mainstream news pundits saw the Republicans had a good chance of taking back either the Senate or the House this fall. Yet a majority of Americans feel abortion rights should be protected and have been showing that in the primaries. Democrats down the ballot have done well due in large part because they are pro-abortion rights.
With Graham’s logic, he wanted to unify the Republican voters behind one anti-bodily autonomy, I mean, anti-abortion stance. Counter to what we have seen in voting since June, Graham may think an abortion ban would rally the base and get more Republicans into office so they could pass this ban into law. Looking at the facts, it seems like a looming abortion ban would drive people to vote, just not in the way Graham wants. Liberals have shown to be very motivated to keep abortion rights protected, so maybe I should thank Graham for getting more people angry enough to vote.
(image: Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)
