The Atlantic

Democrats Overplay Their Hand on Abortion

In New York and Virginia, state governments are working to loosen restrictions on late-term abortion—and giving the anti-abortion movement an opportunity.
Source: Joshua Roberts / Reuters

In New York and Virginia, Democratic state governments are working to loosen restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy, far past the stages at which fetuses can survive after birth. The controversy over this expansion of abortion rights presents an opportunity for the anti-abortion movement to make the point that every abortion—no matter when it is performed—ends a human life.

Already, the Democratic Party states that it “will protect a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion” and enumerates no limits on that right. The party also favors removing federal limits on taxpayer funding for abortion procedures. The party’s standard-bearers are in lockstep on this point. During a in 2016, Hillary Clinton repeatedly defended her opposition to a late-term abortion ban, claiming that it had not taken into account “the life and the health of the mother.” Her primary challenger Bernie Sanders any abortion restrictions he would support. running for the 2020 presidential nomination

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Just One Problem With Gun Buybacks
One warm North Carolina fall morning, a platoon of Durham County Sheriff’s Office employees was enjoying an exhibit of historical firearms in a church parking lot. They were on duty, tasked with running a gun buyback, an event at which citizens can t
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Return of the John Birch Society
Michael Smart chuckled as he thought back to their banishment. Truthfully he couldn’t say for sure what the problem had been, why it was that in 2012, the John Birch Society—the far-right organization historically steeped in conspiracism and oppositi

Related Books & Audiobooks