Republicans are trying to sell 12-week abortion ban as a 'mainstream' compromise: report

A year after the fall of Roe v. Wade, many Republican legislatures have retreated from planned abortion bans and are reportedly pushing 12-week bans as a "mainstream" compromise.

Two states have already passed these bans. North Carolina and Nebraska limit abortions after just 12 weeks, and the architects of those plans have chosen that route in part because of "political backlash" against more complete abortion bans, according to the Washington Post.

"Nebraska antiabortion groups and GOP lawmakers were stunned. In late April,their effort to ban most abortions was tanked by an unlikely person: 80-year-old Sen. Merv Riepe, a longtime Republican," the outlet reported. "Instead, on Friday, Nebraska’s conservative legislature voted to ban abortions at 12 weeks of pregnancy — a threshold that significantly narrows the window for legal abortions but still allows the vast majority to occur."

The same thing was reported in North Carolina.

"A few days earlier, North Carolina Republicans used their legislative supermajority to enact a similar 12-week ban, calling it a 'mainstream' approach that would be more broadly accepted than the stricter bans many conservatives had sought to pass," according to the Washington Post. "And in neighboring South Carolina, state Sen. Katrina Shealy (R) told The Washington Post that she and the other female GOP senators who blocked a near-total ban are planning to push for a 12-week ban on most abortions when the state Senate takes up a bill next week restricting abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy."

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There is also an indication that these partial bans will become a template for anti-abortion groups throughout the United States.

"While the 12-week bans have so far only passed in two states — North Carolina and Nebraska — the proposal has also gained traction with some national antiabortion groups who say they’re supportive of restricting abortions as far as a state can, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has also been pushing for, at minimum, national limits on abortion at 15 weeks," according to the Washington Post's report. "With little polling on the 12 week proposals, it’s unclear whether voters will buy Republican arguments that these kinds of bans are a 'mainstream' compromise."