Rubio co-sponsors Graham’s federal abortion ban at 15 weeks

Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has signed on as a co-sponsor to a bill that would ban abortions at 15 weeks in any state that doesn’t have tighter restrictions.

The bill, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has been criticized by some Republican senators and candidates as politically damaging. Democrats, including Rubio’s opponent in the Nov. 8 election, U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, have seized on the abortion issue in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June.

“I’ve always been pro-life,” Rubio told reporters at the U.S. Capitol, according to a tweet by his Senate spokesman Dan Holler. “Democrats won’t vote for any restriction of any kind on abortion.”

Rubio told a Christian group in Florida earlier this month, “It’s so fundamental, life,” according to Local News 10 Miami. “I would rather be right and lose an election than wrong.”

The bill is more restrictive than Graham’s previous proposals, which had a cutoff of 20 weeks. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, was the only other listed co-sponsor of the bill as of Wednesday.

The measure has exemptions for rape and incest and when “necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman,” but not for “psychological or emotional conditions.”

The rape exemption would require medical treatment or counseling at least 48 hours before any abortion, and rape or incest of a child would need to be reported to a government or law enforcement agency.

The bill would also allow states to enact stricter abortion bans, meaning it would largely affect Democratic-led states and Kansas where abortion bans were rejected by voters.

Rubio’s co-sponsorship is an apparent change from earlier this month, when he told reporters abortion was up to the states to decide, according to the Miami Herald.

Demings, who launched an ad last week specifically aimed at Rubio’s position on abortion, was quick to criticize Rubio.

She said the bill was the just the “next step” to a total ban on all abortions with no exceptions.

“As a 27-year law enforcement officer who investigated cases of rape and incest, I’m appalled and disgusted,” Demings said in a statement. “Rape is a crime, incest is a crime, abortion is not. In the U.S. Senate, I will never stop fighting to codify Roe v. Wade and protect the fundamental freedom of women and girls to choose our own destiny.”

Some Republicans have been cool to Graham’s bill, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said most Senate Republicans want the issue to be determined by the states. Earlier this year, however, McConnell told USA Today that legislation on abortion at the federal level was possible.

Other Republicans have openly opposed the bill.

“I don’t think there’s an appetite for a national platform here,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, told Politico. “... I’m not sure what he’s thinking here. But I don’t think there will be a rallying around that concept. I don’t think there’s much of an appetite to go that direction.”

Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said Rubio’s move was “a risky strategy.”

“The safe strategy would be to downplay it, and talk about other issues like [President] Biden’s popularity and inflation,” Jewett said, adding that abortion “is one of the main issues that Democrats want this election to be about because Democrats believe that public opinion is on their side.”

Florida already has a 15-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, but it does not have rape or incest exemptions. DeSantis hasn’t explicitly said whether he wants the state to impose further restrictions, but he told reporters in August he would welcome “future endeavors” on abortion.

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