Against the backdrop of abortion rights becoming one of the top issues in the upcoming midterm elections, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unveiled a proposed nationwide ban on abortion on Tuesday that would outlaw the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
It was just weeks ago, however, when Graham justified the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade by claiming he’d been “consistent” in believing that abortion should be left to individual states.
Since the high court overturned the federal right to abortion in late June, Republicans have grown defensive as reproductive rights have quickly become a galvanizing issue among voters. Democrats have suddenly over-performed in special elections despite promises of a “red wave.” And the so-called “generic congressional ballot” now shows Republicans trailing. Just last month, voters in conservative Kansas firmly rejected a ballot measure to allow state lawmakers to regulate abortion.
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Graham’s proposed bill, titled the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, is curiously timed due to the headwinds Republicans face from anger over Roe’s dismantling. The legislation not only uses the non-medical term “late-term abortions,” but even anti-abortion activists generally only use that phrase for abortions between 21 and 24 weeks.
“I think we should have a law at the federal level that would say after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand,” Graham stated during a press conference introducing the bill on Tuesday.
It isn’t just the baffling political strategy that has left many scratching their heads as Democrats pounce—though Axios did suggest this could be an attempt by Graham “to present Republicans as being more mainstream on abortion by pushing a partial ban.”
The South Carolina senator also has to answer for suddenly flip-flopping on the issue of states’ rights on abortion.
Shortly after the majority draft opinion was leaked from the Supreme Court in May, the Republican lawmaker expressed his support for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, declaring that “it means that every state will decide if abortion is legal and on what terms.”
He added at the time: “That, in my view, is the most constitutionally sound way of dealing with this issue and the way the United States handled the issue until 1973.”
During a CNN interview on August 7, Graham doubled down on that position, insisting that issues like same-sex marriage and abortion should not be decided at the federal level.
“I’ve been consistent—I think states should decide the issue of marriage and states should decide the issue of abortion,” he flatly said.
Graham, of course, wasn’t the only conservative who initially downplayed the court overturning Roe by merely claiming that abortion would now be decided by the states. Besides becoming a talking point among GOP lawmakers, Fox News hosts assured viewers that abortion would remain available in blue states and they could just “go live somewhere else” for an abortion.
When confronted over his blatant hypocrisy during his Tuesday press conference, meanwhile, Graham was unapologetic and blamed his actions on Democrats.
“After [Democrats] introduced the bill to define who they are, I thought it’d be nice to introduce a bill to define who we are,” Graham boasted.
For what it’s worth, going back on his word and contradicting himself is something of a Graham tradition. Before he was one of former President Donald Trump’s most faithful lackeys, Graham was an outspoken critic of the ex-Apprentice star, going so far as to warn that the GOP “will be destroyed” if it nominated Trump for president.
Furthermore, after participating in the blockade of Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination in 2016, Graham repeatedly insisted that he would hold true to his word and not support a GOP president’s nomination in the final year of their term. He even asked his political opponents to use his words against him.
“I will tell you this: If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump's term, and the primary process has started, we'll wait to the next election,” he exclaimed in 2018, adding: “Hold the tape.”
Needless to say, when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Graham was all in on pushing her onto the Supreme Court.
