Democrats condemn Lindsey Graham’s nationwide abortion ban proposal – as it happened

Republican senator Lindsey Graham caused quite the stir by proposing a nationwide ban on abortions past the 15-week mark, which even many fellow GOP lawmakers don’t support, at least not right now. The legislation could mark the start of a campaign to seek federal restrictions on the procedure after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. Meanwhile, new inflation data showed prices continuing to rise – albeit at a slower rate – across the economy, dampening hopes that the wave of cost increases had faded for good.

Here’s what else happened today so far:

• Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was among those downplaying Graham’s proposal, but the Kentucky lawmakers has previously said the chamber could consider a federal ban on abortion if the GOP wins a majority.

• Criminal referrals from the January 6 committee to the justice department are “likely”, a lawmaker on the panel said. More public hearings by the committee are also expected to be announced soon.

• Democrat and Republican lawmakers love trading stocks, according to an analysis from The New York Times that will likely add pressure on party leaders to ban congress members from owning or trading securities.

• A jury in Connecticut is considering how much to order conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre for spreading lies that the killings were a hoax.

Lindsey Graham’s proposal to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks isn’t just unpopular with many of his fellow Senate Republicans – it would also appear to be unpopular with the Lindsey Graham of just a month ago, who said the question of abortion access should be left up to the states.

Here’s a reminder from The Recount of what Graham had to say about the issue just this past August:

The discomfort over the Republican abortion ban proposal extends beyond the Senate to the campaign trail, where several of the party’s nominees to the chamber are trying to distance themselves from it.

Tiffany Smiley, the GOP Senate nominee in Washington state, says she wouldn’t get behind such a bill, Politico reports:

Joe O’Dea, a Republican vying for Colorado’s Senate seat, also opposed it, according to Politico. However Herschel Walker, who’s in a tight race for the senate seat occupied by Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock, appeared to support it:

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell may have downplayed the idea of a national abortion ban today, but don’t be surprised if he one day changes his mind.

Consider his comments to USA Today in May, after a draft opinion leaked showing the supreme court was poised to overturn Roe v Wade, but before they officially did so later the following month.

“If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies – not only at the state level, but at the federal level – certainly could legislate in that area,” the Kentucky lawmaker said. “And if this were the final decision, that was the point that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So yeah, it’s possible. It would depend on where the votes were.”

That means Graham’s proposal, or one like it, could be put up for a vote if Republicans reclaim control of the Senate – which they’ll have a chance of doing in the November midterms.

However, Democrats could use the filibuster to block any such legislation, and even the GOP’s most optimistic forecasts don’t have the party winning the 60 seats needed to overcome that. In the USA Today interview, McConnell also made clear he was not in favor of changing the chamber’s rules to make legislation easier to pass. “No carve out of the filibuster – period. For any subject,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to make the most of Graham’s abortion ban proposal as they make their case to maintain control of Congress.

Here’s top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer at a press conference today:

So much for that. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has poured cold water on the party making any concerted effort to get a vote on Lindsey Graham’s proposed 15-week abortion ban.

Here’s what CNN reports that McConnell, who would become Senate majority leader if the GOP wins a majority in the upper chamber in the midterm elections, had to say about the idea:

A more immediate obstacle for Graham is the Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, which are sure to oppose his bill.

Politico has more on the cool reception Lindsey Graham’s abortion ban has received in the Senate, particularly among his fellow Republicans.

“That wasn’t a conference decision. It was an individual senator’s decision,” Texas’s Republican senator John Cornyn said in the piece, echoing the sentiment of several lawmakers from Republican-dominated states that are moving to restrict abortion, but wary of pursuing such bans nationwide.

“My state, today, is working on this. I’m not sure what he’s thinking here. But I don’t think there will be a rallying around that concept,” Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator from West Virginia, said.

Elsewhere, Democrats have seized on the proposal to attack Republicans. The Democratic Party of Virginia put out a statement accusing Jen Kiggans, a state senator vying for a US House seat against Democratic incumbent Elaine Luria, of changing her stance on abortion rights.

“The reason why Jen Kiggans is trying to walk back her stance on abortion is that she knows her extreme anti-abortion agenda is out of touch with Coastal Virginians and will cost her the election,” the Democrats wrote.

The full text of the 15-week abortion ban proposed by Republican senator Lindsey Graham can be read here, and contains an important detail about exactly what would be outlawed.

“The term ‘perform’, with respect to an abortion, includes inducing an abortion through a medical or chemical intervention, including writing a prescription for a drug or device intended to result in an abortion,” according to the text of the bill.

That likely means it would outlaw abortion pills that are seen as one of the best options for women to receive care in states where the procedure has been outlawed or restricted.

The Republican proposal to ban abortion after 15 weeks is only hours old, but it’s already become an issue on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania.

According to Insider, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee to represent the state in the Senate, has used the proposal to attack his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham has proposed legislation to ban abortions nationally after 15 weeks, in what is likely the start of a campaign to seek federal restrictions on the procedure after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. Meanwhile, new inflation data showed prices continuing to rise – albeit at a slower rate – across the economy, dampening hopes that the wave of cost increases had faded for good.

Here’s what else happened today so far:

• Criminal referrals from the January 6 committee to the justice department are “likely”, a lawmaker on the panel said. More public hearings by the committee are also expected to be announced soon.

• Democrat and Republican lawmakers love trading stocks, according to an analysis from The New York Times that will likely add pressure on party leaders to ban congress members from owning or trading securities.

• A jury in Connecticut is considering how much to order conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre for spreading lies that the killings were a hoax.

Further cracks have appeared in Graham’s insistence that his proposed 15-week abortion ban has wide political support.

CNN reports that not all Senate Republicans are onboard with the measure:

“I think there will be a couple of Democrats who will be with us, maybe, hope, pray,” Republican senator Lindsey Graham replied when asked about whether his proposed nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks will win enough votes to pass the closely divided Congress.

“I think the public’s with us,” he added.

It’s unclear whether any Democratic votes would materialize for the proposal, but that party controls the House and Senate, and it’s unlikely they’ll even let the measure come up for a vote as long as that’s the case.

As for public support for Graham’s proposal, a recent poll doesn’t bear that out. Earlier this month, a poll by The Wall Street Journal found 57% of respondents opposed an abortion ban at 15 weeks with exceptions for the health of a mother – exactly the kind of measure Graham proposed.

In fact, the survey found voter support for abortion increasing overall since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. While in March, 55% of voters said the procedure should be legal in all or most cases, that had risen to 60% in the phone survey conducted in mid-August.

Top Democrats have decried a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks proposed today by Republican senator Lindsey Graham.

“Today, Senator Graham introduced a national ban on abortion which would strip away women’s rights in all 50 states. This bill is wildly out of step with what Americans believe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

“While President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, health care, and energy – and to take unprecedented action to address climate change – Republicans in Congress are focused on taking rights away from millions of women,” Jean-Pierre continued, adding that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress “are committed to restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.”

Democratic house speaker Nancy Pelosi joined in, saying, “The nationwide abortion ban proposal put forth today is the latest, clearest signal of extreme MAGA Republicans’ intent to criminalize women’s health freedom in all 50 states and arrest doctors for providing basic care. Make no mistake: if Republicans get the chance, they will work to pass laws even more draconian than this bill – just like the bans they have enacted in states like Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.”

Senator Lindsey Graham has unveiled his proposed nationwide abortion ban, which would outlaw the procedure after 15 weeks, with certain exceptions.

“I think we should have a law on the books that says after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand except in cases of rape, incest, to save the life of the mother, and that should be where America’s at,” Graham said as he unveiled the legislation in the Capitol.

Graham said the proposal, dubbed the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act”, would match similar laws in European countries. He said the 15-week threshold is when fetuses will feel pain, however that doesn’t quite match the science. Many scientists say fetuses can’t feel pain before 24 weeks, although the subject is complicated and continuing to be researched.

Graham acknowledged the political realities of his proposal. “If the Democrats are in charge, I don’t know if we’ll ever have a vote on our bill.”

As The Guardian has reported previously, late-term abortions are very rare in the United States.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham will soon introduce his legislation to ban abortions nationally. While it has no chance in the Senate as long as Democrats are in control, it will likely attract considerable support from Republican lawmakers, and could mark the start of the party’s effort to restrict the procedure nationwide thanks to the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade.

The Washington Post reports that Graham has said the ban will apply after 15 weeks of pregnancy – five weeks less than in previous versions of the legislation the South Carolina lawmaker has introduced:

You can watch the senator’s press conference here.

A Connecticut jury began hearing arguments Tuesday in a trial to decide how much money conspiracy theorist and right-winger Alex Jones should pay relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy, for spreading a lie that the massacre was a hoax, The Associated Press reports.

A settlement was ordered at trial against Jones last month in a civil case in Texas brought by parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting with the current case in Connecticut pending.

Critics have said many things of Jones and his platform Infowars, among them the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate and extremist groups in the US, whose spokesman said in August: “He has probably done more to further the cause of hate in this country than almost anyone outside of Donald Trump himself.”

The AP writes today of this trial in Waterbury, Connecticut, not far from Sandy Hook:

More than a dozen family members, including parents of some victims, filed into the courtroom to listen to the opening statements and first day of evidence.

A jury of three men and three women along with several alternates will decide how much the conspiracy theorist should pay relatives of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school.

Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable without a trial last year after he failed to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.

On Tuesday, she sanctioned Jones for failing to turn over analytic data related to his website and the popularity of his show.

She told his lawyers that because of that failure, they will not be allowed to argue he didn’t profit from his Sandy Hook remarks.Jones did not attend the opening of the trial Tuesday.

He said on his show Monday that he would be traveling to Connecticut next week.

The trial is expected to last about a month and feature testimony from both Jones and the families.

More of the Guardian piece that contains that SPLC quote, above, here.