Planned Parenthood attacks West Virginia’s 20 week abortion ban, calling it “cruel” and “bullying”
Legislation to enact 20 week abortion bans are spreading across the country, in addition to the possibility of a federal ban — and the abortion lobby is furious. NARAL has already been lobbying against the idea, and now, Planned Parenthood is getting into the action.
West Virginia legislators sought to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and Planned Parenthood was furious. This week, they tweeted out this laughable call to action in an ultimately futile attempt to stop the ban, calling legislators “bullies” pushing a “cruel” ban.
Well, Planned Parenthood’s idiotic lobbying ended up being for nothing anyway, because last night, legislators voted to override the governor’s veto, and the bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks was passed. But how much of Planned Parenthood’s claims are accurate?
The fact that eight women in West Virginia get late-term abortions each year show how small of an issue this is. The population of West Virginia is just under two million, so of roughly one million women, only eight each year will seek a late-term abortion. And while abortion advocates love to pretend that most of them are doing so for medical reasons, that simply isn’t true. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization which used to be an arm of Planned Parenthood, has done two studies on why women get late-term abortions — one in 1987, and one in 2013. Both times, the percentage of women getting late-term abortions for medical reasons, either affecting the mother or the preborn baby, were minute, around 2%. This is simply a convenient lie made up by the abortion lobby to garner sympathy.
And while Planned Parenthood uses 111 legislators as an example of “bullying” against these poor eight women who get late-term abortions, the reality is that there are millions upon millions who support these 20 week abortion bans. The overwhelming majority of Americans, including 7 out of 10 Americans who call themselves “pro-choice”, would ban abortion after the first trimester, over a month before a woman reaches 20 weeks of pregnancy. Americans also support banning abortion after 20 weeks by a 2-to-1 margin. Women support these bans in higher numbers than men did.
So who is being cruel here? The legislators following the overwhelming will of the people, or the pro-abortion lobbyists looking to ignore the will of the people in favor of a grisly, painful, and inhumane abortion procedure? The answer is obvious.
Politics
