GOP Pol Slams Own Leader for 'Taking Us Off a Cliff' on Abortion

Abortion bans in red states of South Carolina, Nebraska fall short in votes
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 29, 2023 8:30 AM CDT
GOP Pol Slams Own Leader for 'Taking Us Off a Cliff' on Abortion
Demonstrators celebrate Thursday in the Nebraska Capitol rotunda in Lincoln after the failure of a bill that would have banned abortion around the sixth week of pregnancy.   (AP Photo/Margery Beck)

Abortion bans in Nebraska and South Carolina fell short of advancing in close votes amid heated debates among Republicans, confounding conservatives who've dominated both legislatures and further exposing the chasm on the issue of abortion within the GOP. In Nebraska, where abortion is banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy, an effort to ban abortion at about the sixth week of pregnancy fell one vote short of breaking a filibuster, per the AP. Cheers erupted outside the legislative chamber as the last vote was cast, with opponents of the bill waving signs and chanting, "Whose house? Our house!" In South Carolina, lawmakers voted 22-21 to shelve a near-total abortion ban for the rest of the year. Republican Sen. Sandy Senn criticized Majority Leader Shane Massey for repeatedly "taking us off a cliff on abortion."

"The only thing that we can do when you all, you men in the chamber, metaphorically keep slapping women by raising abortion again and again and again, is for us to slap you back with our words," she said. The Nebraska proposal, backed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, is unlikely to move forward this year. And in South Carolina, where abortion remains legal through 22 weeks of pregnancy, the vote marked the third time a near-total abortion ban has failed in the Republican-led Senate chamber since the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last summer. Katie Glenn, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, characterized the failure of both proposed abortion bans as disappointing. "It's a sign that legislating is hard, and there's a lot of pieces and parts that all have to come together," Glenn said.

Most aggravating to some Republicans is that the pushback is coming from inside the house. The Nebraska bill on Thursday failed when Republican Sen. Merv Riepe, an 80-year-old former hospital administrator, refused to give it the crucial 33rd vote needed to advance. Riepe was an original co-signer of the bill but later expressed concern that a six-week ban might not give women enough time to know they were pregnant. Riepe and some Republicans across the country have noted evidence pointing to abortion bans as unpopular with a majority of Americans. An AP VoteCast nationwide survey of the 2022 electorate showed only about 1 in 10 midterm voters—including Republicans—believe abortion should be "illegal in all cases." Overall, a majority of voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That includes nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and about 4 in 10 Republicans.

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Fourteen states have bans in place on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Four other states have bans throughout pregnancy where enforcement is blocked by courts. The majority of those bans were adopted in anticipation of Roe being overturned, and most don't have exceptions for rape or incest. The bans' staunchest supporters in Nebraska and South Carolina, meanwhile, have promised political retribution. Anti-abortion groups demanded Riepe's immediate resignation, and the Nebraska Republican Party issued a statement warning he'd be censured. In South Carolina, Massey issued a warning for the ban's fiercest Republican opponent. "The response to Sen. Senn will be in 2024," Massey told reporters after the vote, referring to elections next year.

(More abortion stories.)

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