Jessica Valenti
The Truth About ‘Late-Term Abortion’
The GOP’s goal has never been to stop late abortions, but to stop all abortions
In his State of the Union address, Donald Trump repeated a popular talking point among Republicans recently: that Democrats want to pass legislation that would “allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth.”
That’s a lie, but not one we can brush off as just another of the president’s many falsehoods because this particular lie serves a specific and dangerous purpose. The GOP wants to drum up outrage over so-called “late-term abortion” as a way to distract from their extreme—and deeply unpopular—move to ban early abortions and make it impossible for women to end their pregnancies at all. And it’s working.
Instead of talking about Republicans’ move to outlaw early abortion—which is when most terminations happen—the national discourse around reproductive rights is focused on rarely performed procedures that almost always happen because of fetal abnormalities or a risk to women’s health.
The vast majority of abortions in America—over 91 percent—are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy. Even after that, most abortions still happen before 20 weeks. In fact, it’s only a little over one percent of…
