Senator Lindsey Graham’s 15-Week Abortion Ban: What You Need to Know

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham proposed a federal ban on all abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant on Tuesday. The transfer comes simply weeks after Senator Mitch McConnell stated Republicans had been unlikely to suggest a nationwide ban just like the one Senator Graham simply launched, The New York Times stories, and months after the Supreme Court voted 6-to-3 to remove the constitutional proper to abortion.

Senator Graham’s proposed bill, the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act” (a reputation that’s each gross and deceptive) would intention to cease so-called late-term abortion—which isn’t a factor. The time period “has no medical or clinical significance,” per the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG); as an alternative, it’s a phrase bandied about by politicians and different unhealthy actors trying to restrict entry to important well being care and bodily autonomy.

In January 2021, Senator Graham tried to go an abortion ban after 20 weeks—although about six in 10 Americans imagine abortion needs to be authorized in most or all circumstances—however 15 weeks is much more excessive. 

The overwhelming majority of abortions, together with these carried out after the 15-week mark, are secure, the ACOG notes. In truth, individuals who get an abortion process 15 to 23 weeks into their pregnancies normally don’t even have to stay in the hospital overnight. When an individual is 15 weeks pregnant, the fetus isn’t absolutely developed. Ultimately, the well being of the pregnant individual issues, and they need to have a say over what occurs to their very own physique. As the ACOG notes, banning abortion can pressure some individuals to hold a being pregnant to time period even when it poses a big threat to their well-being. In addition to placing pregnant individuals’s well being in danger, abortion bans might also criminalize doctors and different well being care staff who present important, doubtlessly life-saving companies.

Senator Graham’s invoice is partly meant to rally his social gathering across the subject forward of midterm elections in November—regardless that anti-abortion laws is wildly unpopular and led to file voter registration and turnout in Kansas in August, where people made it clear they wanted to keep abortion legal and accessible.