Sen. Graham on Trump’s Dangerous Dance on Abortion: ‘We’re Playing with Real Bullets Here’
By: Suzanne Bowdey, originally published August 31, 2024, The Washington Stand
No one is happier to watch Donald Trump dig the hole deeper on the issue of abortion than the mainstream media. After his dismissive comments about federal protections for the unborn and his tone-deaf tweet on “reproductive rights,” the press has been all too content to widen the split between the former president and his pro-life base.
In a Thursday interview with NBC News, Trump, a Floridian, was asked how he would vote on his state’s radical Amendment 4, a ballot initiative that would overturn the popular heartbeat bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and expand abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. “The six week [law] is too short,” he replied. “It has to be more time. … I’ve told them that I want more weeks.” When pressed to answer the original question, Trump said simply, “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks” — a response that many took as an endorsement of the extreme proposal.
Sensing that the former president had stepped on another policy landmine, his campaign rushed out a statement clarifying that Trump “has not yet said how we will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.” “He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted. Later, Trump alleviated some fears, stating, “I will be voting no on Amendment 4.”
But the attempt at damage control didn’t seem to placate his already confused and reeling base. His longtime golf buddy and friend Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is just as perplexed as the rest of the conservative movement that the president whose administration achieved more for the unborn than anyone in history seems to be walking a tightrope with the voters who got him elected. “This is an important moment here — not only for him,” the South Carolina senator said, “but for the pro-life movement.” Look, he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill,” “Trump was a good pro-life president. He put three Supreme Court justices on the court who understood that Roe v. Wade was unconstitutional.” But let’s be clear about one thing, Graham went on, “The court did not say that only the states can protect the unborn. That’s not a good reading of the Dobbs decision.”
What he meant, of course, is that there’s a slew of federal legislation that impacts abortion — especially when it comes to taxpayer funding of the procedure here and abroad, our involvement with Planned Parenthood, military and veterans’ affairs policy, even the mailing of mifepristone to pro-life states. Not to mention that there are already plenty of critical laws on the books thanks to Congress, like the partial-birth abortion ban and unborn victims of violence legislation — both of which would be in jeopardy if Republicans decided the party no longer had a role in this debate.
Graham believes there has to be a point of consensus where Americans — who overwhelmingly oppose abortion after the first trimester — can come together and create a national threshold. “My bill, which you have supported and I appreciate very much, says there comes a point in the development of the unborn child that we should limit abortion-on-demand, [with] exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. What do we know about a child at 15 weeks of development? Their nerve endings are well intact. They feel pain.” And while the Left likes to paint Republicans as extreme for trying to establish any sort of threshold, the reality, Graham pointed out, is that “European nations limit abortion between 12 and 15 weeks. So what I’ve been trying to do with you and others is to wake America up to the idea that late-term abortions are barbaric, and we don’t want to be like China or North Korea. No matter where you’re conceived in our country, at 15 weeks, you still feel pain, whether it’s California or South Carolina, and we should have some national minimum standard.”
“It’s not like I’m taking some wild position here,” he continued. “Seventy percent of Americans believe we should begin to limit abortion-on-demand after 12 weeks.” And yet, the amendment in Florida and the position of the Democratic Party is to allow the taking of human life right up to delivery (and, based on two votes in the House, after the baby is born).
Under Florida’s current law, the limit on abortion is six weeks, which is when the baby’s heartbeat develops. “And they’re not alone,” Perkins pointed out. “There are several other states with the same threshold.” Under Amendment 4, which Graham called “a fraud,” the loopholes are big enough to “march the entire military through [them].” So there are no limits. “It is the Kamala Harris position,” Graham reiterated. “If you vote for Amendment 4, if you vote to overturn the six-week heartbeat bill and implement Amendment 4, you’re voting for the Kamala Harris position of abortion-on-demand without limits up to birth.”
Even President Trump “criticizes the Democrats — rightly so — that they would allow abortion without limit up to the moment of birth. And even after in the Virginia situation, that distinction is real.” The senator was referring to former Governor Ralph Northam, who openly condoned infanticide. “Less than 20% of Americans support abortion-on-demand late-term in the eighth and ninth month. So if you vote for that amendment, you’re losing that distinction,” Graham insisted.
Asked what he wishes President Trump would do on this issue, his friend replied, “Number one, keep the contrast. Kamala Harris has supported federal legislation that would override every state law on the books on parental consent, all limitations.” Under her administration, “It would be a federal law implementing abortion-on-demand up to the moment of birth, as the law of the land. We would be like China. President Trump says he wants the states to decide this issue. Well, to the pro-life world, Kamala Harris would impose from Washington an abortion-on-demand up to the moment of birth policy.”
Perkins interjected that none of this is hypothetical. “They’ve actually already introduced this bill, the Women’s Health Protection Act, which passed one chamber under [former Speaker] Nancy Pelosi in the House. So this is real.”
Absolutely, Graham agreed. “We’re playing with real bullets here, pal. … I, along with all of my Republican colleagues [with the exception of Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski] have fought the idea of turning America into China.” And if the GOP wants to win this election, he urged, “Will somebody please, in my lifetime, ask Kamala Harris, ‘At what week would you limit abortion?’ They just say, ‘At viability.’ They won’t give you what week that is, and the media gives them a pass. Here’s what I would like President Trump to say, ‘The Florida Amendment, Amendment 4, is Kamala Harris’s abortion position, [and] I reject that. I may not like six weeks, but I’m sure not going to bless in my home state of Florida a law that would be like Kamala Harris’s national law.’”
At the end of the day, Graham told voters, “Please, please understand this. Our friends in Florida, if you vote for this amendment, you will make Florida like China. There will be no protection for the unborn child. And that is unacceptable.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand