As Texas G.O.P. Revives Abortion Ban, a Look at Public Opinion
By MICAH COHEN, NYT
The Texas Legislature began a second special session on Monday to again take up a bill that would, among other provisions, ban abortions in Texas after 20 weeks of gestation. The bill failed in a previous special session after State Senator Wendy Davis stood for roughly 11 hours in a filibuster that brought national attention to the fight.
The Texas bill is still expected to become law, however. And Ms. Davis’s filibuster came several days after Republicans in the United States House of Representatives succeeded in passing a similar ban (though that bill has virtually no chance of being taken up in the Senate). And since 2010, 12 other states with Republican-led Legislatures have passed bills that ban abortions after 20 weeks (many of those laws are being challenged in court as unconstitutional).
Discussions of women’s reproductive health have proved politically problematic for Republicans in recent years, but public opinion shows that Republican legislators pushing 20-week bans may be on safer political footing.
While polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans support a right to an abortion in all or most circumstances, surveys also show that support for abortion narrows further into a pregnancy.
(More here.)
The Texas Legislature began a second special session on Monday to again take up a bill that would, among other provisions, ban abortions in Texas after 20 weeks of gestation. The bill failed in a previous special session after State Senator Wendy Davis stood for roughly 11 hours in a filibuster that brought national attention to the fight.
The Texas bill is still expected to become law, however. And Ms. Davis’s filibuster came several days after Republicans in the United States House of Representatives succeeded in passing a similar ban (though that bill has virtually no chance of being taken up in the Senate). And since 2010, 12 other states with Republican-led Legislatures have passed bills that ban abortions after 20 weeks (many of those laws are being challenged in court as unconstitutional).
Discussions of women’s reproductive health have proved politically problematic for Republicans in recent years, but public opinion shows that Republican legislators pushing 20-week bans may be on safer political footing.
While polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans support a right to an abortion in all or most circumstances, surveys also show that support for abortion narrows further into a pregnancy.
(More here.)
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