Federal Abortion Ban Proposed in Senate

09.14.2022 – (PRESS STATEMENT) Yesterday, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Senator Graham has falsely claimed that the ban would put the U.S. in line with European countries.

Statement from Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights in response to the bill:
“The nationwide abortion ban introduced in the Senate yesterday exposes the pretext that reversing Roe v. Wade was about letting each state decide its own laws. A national ban is completely out of step with what Americans want and need. The loss of Roe has thrown the country into a public health crisis. Pregnant people in life threatening situations are being turned away from hospitals. Doctors are being forced to choose between doing what’s best for their patients or risking arrest. Senators should be fixing the crisis the Supreme Court created, not make it worse. The Women’s Health Protection Act is the bill we need. It would restore legal abortion access in every state and allow people to control their own bodies and futures.”

Background Information on Abortion Access in Other Countries:

Categorizing countries by their nominal gestational limits is not an accurate way of reflecting the status of legal abortion access in those countries. In fact, across Europe and in most other developed countries, abortion is allowed on broad grounds around or until viability.

Where countries impose earlier gestational limits for abortion on request, there are often very broad exceptions to these limits–such as socioeconomic concerns, or to preserve the person’s mental health–that extend at the least through viability and often longer.  

For example:

• In Great Britain, pregnant people can access abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy if continuation of the pregnancy involves risk “of injury to physical or mental health” of the patient or any of her existing children, and after 24 weeks in certain circumstances; abortion care in Great Britain is offered as part of the National Health Service’s broader reproductive healthcare coverage (along with contraceptive access). 
• Canada does not have a gestational limit in place for abortion.
• In New Zealand, abortion is broadly legal without restriction until 20 weeks of pregnancy and afterwards if a health practitioner “reasonably believes” that abortion is “clinically appropriate,” considering the pregnant person’s “physical . . . and mental health” and “overall well-being.”

Moreover, unlike in the U.S., women in many developed countries have access to subsidized or fully funded abortion services and face fewer legal hurdles like mandatory waiting periods, meaning it is easier to access abortion earlier in pregnancy. It is more difficult for women in the U.S. to obtain an abortion earlier in their pregnancies. 

The U.S. is regressing on abortion while the rest of the world liberalizes  

In the past 25 years, nearly 60 countries have liberalized their laws to expand the grounds under which abortion is legal. This includes 25 countries that have reformed their laws to permit abortion on request. By contrast, the U.S. is one of only four countries that have removed legal grounds for abortion during the same timeframe. The other three countries are El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland.   

Abortion bans in the U.S. are like those in most restrictive countries

 Although a 15-week ban was at issue in Dobbs, now that Roe has been overturned, the laws being passed or put into effect in states throughout the U.S. are far more restrictive, including total abortion bans.

The bans that are being considered and enacted in the U.S. look like those that are in place in some of the most restrictive regimes in the world. In these countries, restrictive abortion laws have not reduced abortion rates, but instead have led to the harassment, arrest, and imprisonment of women and health care providers who are accused of violating the restrictive abortion laws and required people seeking care to resort to unsafe abortions.

A map of abortion laws by country is available here: reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/ 
 

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