New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg blasted Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposed abortion legislation after 15 weeks as “unbelievably cruel” in her latest column.
Published on Wednesday, Goldberg’s piece tore into Graham’s “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act,” which he announced on Tuesday.
The Senator’s bill, which he claimed would be voted on if Republicans “take back the House and the Senate,” would be a federal limit on abortion after 15 weeks though it would include exceptions for rape, incest, and risks to the life of the mother.
Titled, “Lindsey Graham’s Unbelievably Cruel Abortion Ban,” Goldberg’s column accused the lawmaker being apathetic for women facing “nonviable” pregnancies that are further than 15 weeks along. She began with the example of Ashley Beasley, who asked Graham during his announcement, “What would you say to somebody like me who found out that their son had an anomaly that was incompatible with life at 16 weeks?”
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As Goldberg noted, Beasley recounted how she gave birth to her child at “28 weeks” and he lived for only eight days. Beasley then asked Graham: “What would you say to someone like me?”
“Graham had no real answer. His bill contains narrow exceptions for rape, incest and life-threatening pregnancies, but not for severe fetal anomalies or pregnancies that are otherwise nonviable,” the columnist stated, adding that his only answer for the woman consisted of “duplicitous anti-abortion talking point about global abortion laws.”
The author criticized one of Senator Graham’s main talking points for the bill, that “The developed world has said at this stage into the pregnancy the child feels pain, and we’re saying we’re going to join the rest of the world and not be like Iran.”
Goldberg explained, “Graham was making an argument, common in anti-abortion circles, that American abortion laws are unusually permissive, and that banning abortion at 12 or 15 weeks would bring us in line with Europe.”
Though she dismissed that argument, stating, “This is, at best, a highly selective reading of European abortion laws. It ignores the fact that, on most of the continent, abortion is state-subsidized and easily accessible early in pregnancy, so women aren’t pushed into later terminations as they struggle to raise money.”
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She also asserted that “restrictions on later abortions have broad exceptions.”
Goldberg expressed bewilderment at the fact that Graham’s bill did not leave the exception for women to petition for an abortion “in cases of severe fetal disability” past the 15-week mark. “Why did Graham leave such an exception, which the vast majority of Americans would almost certainly support, out of his proposed abortion ban?”
“There are two possibilities,” she answered, claiming, “Either he was pandering to the anti-abortion activists who, on Monday, sent a letter to Congress demanding federal action against states with liberal abortion laws, or he simply hasn’t thought very much about what pregnancy entails.”
Goldberg cited a New Jersey abortion provider who told her, “Most of the time we make diagnoses around things like fetal abnormalities, genetic abnormalities, at around 15 to 20 weeks, when we can do an amniocentesis.” She also claimed, “Then, at 20 weeks, pregnant patients are typically offered an anatomy scan, which checks, among other things, for problems like anencephaly, in which a fetus’s brain and skull fail to develop.”
According to these figures, the columnist argued, “Graham would condemn every single woman who gets disastrous news from her amnio or her anatomy scan to carry a doomed pregnancy to term, unless she could prove that it was going to kill her.”
“Whether thoughtless or deliberate, the cruelty of this is almost unfathomable,” Goldberg declared.
The column then delved into the political implications of Graham’s bill: “Politically, Graham’s bill is a boon to Democrats,” it stated, adding, “he has underlined Republican callousness toward the abortion patients likely to elicit the most public sympathy.”
Though Goldberg noted that “Democrats shouldn’t be gleeful. Republicans have shown themselves willing to impose such draconian prohibitions in places where they have complete power.” And though Republicans “don’t have the ability to impose such a regime on the entire country” now, she warned they will push for it when they get the chance.
“When Graham tells us what they intend to do to us, we should listen,” she warned, concluding her column.
