Baldwin says 20-week abortion compromise with Republicans ‘worth looking at’
Ryan King
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Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) signaled an openness to making a 20-week abortion deal with Republicans in order to win concessions.
Baldwin promoted her support for the Women’s Health Protection Act to reestablish a national right to abortion nationwide, but reluctantly left the door open to pegging that legislation to 20 weeks rather than a more progressive viability metric.
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“I certainly would look at that. But here is what the bill does, the bill talks about pre-viability and viability and relies on medical expertise because that may change as medicine advances. So we recognize that from the get-go,” Baldwin said when asked by NBC’s Meet the Press.
“Certainly, it’s worth looking at,” she later added.
https://twitter.com/meetthepress/status/1647588047947538434?s=46&t=vgOs3L9Jdw1koLNS5Z1G3g
Viability is often defined as 24 to 28 weeks of gestation. Under Roe v. Wade, states were largely prohibited from banning abortion prior to viability. Notably, there have been fetuses that have survived before that time frame, including at 21 weeks.
Baldwin underscored that she did not want to negotiate on television. Host Chuck Todd noted that in order to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, Democrats would likely need to clear the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster. Many Republicans have sought to ban abortion nationally after 20 weeks of gestation.
The senator also took aim at the recent Texas ruling to freeze the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen to induce an abortion. That ruling was stayed by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Friday, setting the stage for a high court review this week.
“What we have in Texas [is] a judge who was not guided by science, but is part of [an] extreme Republican concerted effort to ban abortion nationwide,” Baldwin said of the ruling.
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Congress is set to reconvene this week following a two-week hiatus.
A chorus of Democrats has declared renewed interest in wading into abortion in the wake of the ruling out of Texas. Medical abortion comprises roughly half of the abortions nationally, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.