Published May 10, 2022
Democrats are salivating over the chance to portray Republicans as antiabortion extremists in the wake of the anticipated overruling of Roe v. Wade. But their unwillingness to accept limits on late-term abortions shows they are the real extremists.
Third-trimester abortions are incredibly unpopular among most Americans. The most recent Economist-YouGov poll, for example, found that only 25 percent of all Americans, and 21 percent of independents, agree that abortion should “always be legal” with “no restrictions.” Yet Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is scheduling a vote this week on a bill that would effectively make abortion legal without restrictions for the duration of a woman’s pregnancy. Even though he knows the legislation is doomed to fail because of the Senate filibuster, Schumer is pushing his entire caucus to support the highly unpopular proposal, for which opponents will be able to tar them.
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Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.