Last updated on November 25th, 2022 at 09:00 am
After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the United States Supreme Court back in June, pro-life conservatives were jubilant as each state could now decide what restrictions could be put on abortions within their boundaries. Thus, conservatives focused their attention on abortion battles in the states, where there were both victories and losses. Some states like Louisiana and Texas banned most abortions (generally with exceptions for the life of the mother, incest, and/or rape), some like Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Arizona banned abortions after a heartbeat is detected or at 15 weeks of gestation, and others like Michigan, California, and Vermont passed state constitutional amendments enshrining the ability to kill your child literally up to the moment of birth.
Despite all this action on the state level, one key question looms: Can conservatives do anything on the national level to protect life?
Back in September Republican Senator Lindsey Graham answered this question by introducing a federal bill that would ban abortion across the country after 15 weeks of gestation. Even though such a bill stands virtually no chance of passing now with the Senate and Presidency controlled by pro-abortion radicals, conservatives nonetheless should still wholeheartedly support it. Why?
First of all, because it is the right thing to do.
Second, because it is important to stay in the fight for life no matter the odds. No one thought Roe could be overturned, but fifty years of unwavering grassroots support for life produced the result we all wanted this year.
Third, because it presents the Republican Party as the party of moderation. While over half the country supports a ban on abortion after fifteen weeks, almost every Democratic politician is adamantly opposed to it. Indeed, forcing a vote on the bill in Congress would show America that the Democratic Party has gone from arguing that abortion should be “legal, safe and rare” to abortion should be “legal up to one second before birth.” In a most public way voters would clearly see how extreme the Democratic Party really is on the issue of abortion. As Alexandra DeSantis writes in National Review:
“[T]he Republican position on abortion — for the most part, a willingness to embrace the most pro-life policy that lines up with public opinion — is far more popular than that of Democrats. Democratic politicians wholeheartedly reject incrementalism and continue to embrace abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy, a policy that only 10 percent of Americans and 20 percent of their own voters support. If the GOP isn’t appealing enough on the issue, it is because of the disconnect between the parties’ positions on abortion and what voters believe those positions to be….
“Imagine an entire campaign in which Republican candidates continue to proclaim that all unborn human lives have dignity while hammering home their support for abortion restrictions consistent with what public opinion generally favors — against Democratic candidates who refuse to accept a single limitation on abortion. What a different debate that would be.”
Forcing a vote on Graham’s 15-week abortion ban bill would be a good start to changing the optics on the abortion debate at the national level for the Republican Party. Let’s hope that after the string of abortion defeats this past election season conservatives will rally around the Graham bill in the next front in the fight for life.
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