Sen. Lindsey Graham’s national abortion ban bill has picked up its first two cosponsors, and one of them is in a competitive reelection campaign.
Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Steve Daines did not hesitate in hopping on board with Graham’s bill. But Rubio is the one who’s up for reelection and holding a narrow lead in polls. His Democratic opponent, Rep. Val Demings, responded quickly, tweeting, “Marco Rubio just cosponsored the bill to ban abortions and criminalize doctors. He’ll stop at nothing to strip women of our constitutional rights. We have to hold him accountable in November.”
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Demings had previously responded to the news of Graham’s bill by tweeting, “This is just the next step in Marco Rubio’s fight to ban abortions with no exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and sexual abuse. In the U.S. Senate, I will never stop fighting to codify Roe v. Wade and protect women’s freedoms.”
Late last month, Rubio told an interviewer that—as Demings noted—he wants a ban with no rape or incest exceptions, though he said he was willing to vote for those exceptions. Rubio also said he thought the issue should be decided by the states, not the federal government, yet here he is having quickly signed on to support a federal abortion ban.
Rubio also recently dismissed the idea of a vote to codify marriage equality as “a stupid waste of time.” But he has the time for this.
Florida recently banned abortion after 15 weeks, in line with Graham’s bill. The Florida law does not include rape or incest exceptions, though it does include exceptions to save the life or health of the pregnant person, and for cases where fetal abnormalities not compatible with life are discovered after 15 weeks.
According to a July poll, 57% of Floridians disapproved of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, though respondents were divided on what they wanted to see in their state’s laws. One in three wanted a state law protecting abortion access, 15% supported a 15-week ban, and 30% supported harsher bans. Another poll found 56% support for abortion being legal in most or all cases.
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