Lindsey Graham's Bill is a Good Start

Some in the pro-life community (and some of Lindsey Graham’s colleagues) are upset that the South Carolina Senator has come up with new legislation to stop abortions at 15 weeks nationwide.

I understand the argument of leaving this to the states, but Democrats have already said if they get back the Senate with a few more seats, they will scrap the filibuster to impose abortion on demand. The GOP needs a response.

Right now, in the states, the loudest voices on the right are the abolitionists who want to throw women in jail for abortions. The pro-life state-level candidates confronted by aggressive reporters on the rape and incest issue are floundering with Todd Akin's bad answers.

A fifteen-week ban is supported overwhelmingly by Americans. It takes care of the rape and incest issues and forces the Democrats to highlight their extremist position, which is abortion on demand. Graham’s legislation provides Republican candidates something they can message.

Democrats would love to pivot to a “viability” standard, which is ever shifting as medical technology improves. Graham has drawn a line at pain.

At fifteen weeks, a child in utero gets anesthesia because medical science shows the child’s nervous system is developed enough to feel pain. The child, in fact, in visual observation, does react to pain at fifteen weeks.

Graham’s position is moral, responsible, and reasonable. It gives Republican candidates a piece of legislation to point to that they support and shows how unreasonable Democrats actually are. It forces Americans to decide if they’re comfortable killing a child who can feel the pain of the procedure.

The media thinks this is an own goal from Graham. But the media is pro-abortion. On CNN of late, Dana Bash has been asking Democrats where their line is on abortion. Very few of them can give a compelling reasonable answer. Most want abortion until birth with taxpayer funding. That is out of step with mainstream opinion. Even the Democrats’ “viability” standard has a health exception designed to have abortion on demand for any reason until birth.

This legislation is not going to pass. But it gives the GOP a reasonable response to an issue that has clearly affected the national political conversation. It also sets the battle lines for the coming fight. You and I can say this should be a state issue. Democrats intend to pre-empt every state’s laws. They will make it a national issue. We might as well accept the reality of the situation instead of the wishful thinking of the world we want, which is not the world in which we live.

We, as conservatives who support federalism, want this to be a state-level issue. If frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their butts when they jumped. Abortion is not going away as a national issue, and if we dig our heels in with a states’ rights argument, we’re going to lose completely.

A ban on abortions at fifteen weeks is more liberal than pretty much anywhere in Europe. It bans abortion when a child can feel pain. It provides enough time for those who have been raped or victimized in incest to make decisions. It exposes how unreasonable Democrats are on the issue. It provides Republican candidates who can’t seem to figure out how to talk about the issue an easy way to talk about the issue.