Sen. Mike Rounds (RS.D.) said abortion policy should be left up to the states during an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “At this point, asking Congress to step back and tell all the states that we know better than they do how to handle this is probably not the right direction,” Rounds said, adding, “I think the states are in better shape to explore and find the right direction on a state-by-state basis.” The senator, who as governor of South Dakota signed a bill in 2006 that sought to ban most abortions there, is the latest in a growing list of Republicans who have expressed opposition to Graham’s bill. That bill, introduced Sept. 13, would allow some states’ stricter abortion laws to remain in place, but impose new restrictions on others. Although the GOP has traditionally supported limiting the procedure, the party is split on whether Congress should impose abortion rules on states. Previous efforts to do so have been unsuccessful, and Rounds said Graham’s latest bill is unlikely to pass the House and Senate. Neither senator responded to a request for comment from The Washington Post late Sunday. Republicans confused over abortion as Graham’s proposed ban reveals cracks His reversal Roe v. Wade earlier this year made it so that states could set their own abortion policies — and that should stay that way, Rounds said. Since the Supreme Court struck down the longstanding precedent, lawmakers in 22 states have moved to further restrict access to abortion. Now almost a third of women aged 15 to 44 live in places where the procedure is banned or mostly banned. But the cascade of legislation caused by Roe The reversal is in stark contrast to the views held by most Americans. Abortions are now banned in these states. See where the laws have changed. Several polls show that a majority of Americans favor abortion rights. A July poll by the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In a Washington Post-Schar School poll that same month, 65 percent of respondents said the end of Roe v. Wade represented a “major loss of rights” for women, and nearly a third said abortion would be one of the “single most important” issues when they vote in November. However, Graham said Sunday that she is “confident that the American people will accept a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks.” “And to those who suggest that being pro-life defeats politics, I reject that,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week distanced himself from Graham’s bill, saying “most of the members of my conference would prefer this to be dealt with at the state level.” Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also said states should set abortion policies. With a 15-week benchmark, Graham’s bill is less restrictive than some of the more hard-line abortion laws — like the near-total bans in Indiana and West Virginia or the heartbeat bills in Texas and Georgia. However, if passed, Graham’s bill would block access to some blue states that have laws protecting abortion rights — New York, California and Illinois, for example. As Republicans speak out against Graham’s bill, Democrats have seized on party divisions. “Republicans are twisting themselves into balls trying to explain why they want to ban abortion nationwide when they said they would leave it up to the states,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said last week. Two days after the Supreme Court strike below RoeGraham said that “there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the right to regulate abortion.” “Let each state do it the way they want,” he told Fox News’ Martha McCallum.
