On August 7, 2022, which was less than a month and a half ago, the following words came out of Lindsey Graham’s mouth: “I’ve been consistent. I think states should decide…the issue of abortion.” Given that unequivocal statement, you might have thought it was safe to assume the senator from South Carolina wouldn’t turn around and introduce a federal bill banning the procedure just 37 days later. First, because of the whole “I‘ve been consistent“ business, and second, because it would yet again set another historic record for Republican hypocrisy. But, surprise!
On Tuesday, Graham put forth the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, a legislative assault on reproductive rights that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Graham said he was inspired to introduce the bill after Democrats, who don’t think the government should be able to force pregnant people to give birth against their will, attempted to codify reproductive rights. “After [Democrats] introduced a bill to define who they are, I thought it’d be nice to introduce a bill to define who we are,” he said. While the legislation has no chance of being brought to a vote while Democrats control the Senate, Graham indicated during a press conference that, should the GOP prevail in the midterms, it’ll be a top priority. “If we take back the House and the Senate, I can assure you we’ll have a vote on our bill,” he told reporters. “If the Democrats are in charge, I don’t know if we’ll ever have a vote on our bill.” If signed into law, the even more extreme abortion bans passed by state legislatures throughout the country, including the ones already outlawing it entirely, would remain in place.
As The Washington Post notes, while most people have abortions earlier than 15 weeks, those undergoing the procedure at 15 weeks or later typically include “patients with fetal anomalies, which are often detected at a 20-week anatomy scan, along with those who take longer to realize they are pregnant.” A 15-week ban, the Post notes, would “also affect more people in a post-Roe America as abortion clinics struggle to accommodate a swell of patients from states where abortion is now banned.” Picking apart the verbiage of Graham’s bill, Christina Reynolds, vice president of communications at Emily’s List, tweeted: “15 weeks is not ‘late term,’ particularly given the significant challenges to access around the country.”
As you might recall, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, conservatives took great pleasure in insisting that anyone warning of a looming federal abortion ban was a hysterical simpleton who didn’t understand what the ruling actually meant. “They’re just returning the issue to the states where it belongs,” they’d pedantically explain. “Abortion isn’t going anywhere.” That, of course, was only half true at the time; abortion rights were indeed vanishing in the states that banned or heavily restricted the procedure. But it’s becoming less true as “states’ rights” Republicans like Graham reveal themselves to have no principles beyond making life shittier for millions of people.
On Tuesday, after Graham introduced the legislation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took the opportunity to note just how much of a shameless hack the guy is:
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