By Dave Andrusko
One of the primary tasks of NRL News Today is to clear away the ceaseless flow of misinformation about abortion, which, as you might imagine, is a full-time job in itself. Today we are posting “Abortion Myths That Need Dismantling: Six Week Bans Take Effect Before Many Women Know They’re Pregnant,” written by Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, NRL Director of Education & Research.
For our purposes here, I’m highlighting two key paragraphs. Dr. O’Bannon wrote
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the federal agency responsible for collecting and publishing national abortion data, regularly reports on the number of abortions by gestational age. In its most recent report for abortions performed in 2020 45.3% of abortions in the country were performed at six weeks gestation or less. …
Over 45% of women not only knew they were pregnant but got abortions at six weeks or less. Many of the additional 35.6.% who the CDC says got abortions between seven and nine weeks of gestation surely knew they were pregnant by six weeks and simply took the time to collect funds or schedule the abortion at a time convenient to them.
Dr. O’Bannon goes through why this is so and includes confirmation from Planned Parenthood. While there are still the occasional stories of women who go through an entire pregnancy and never realize they are pregnant until giving birth, there is really little reason in this modern age for any woman not to be able to determine whether or not she is pregnant.
Planned Parenthood points out on its website, “The pregnancy tests you get at the drugstore work 99 out of 100 times” and are “just as accurate as a urine test that you’d get at a doctor’s office.”
One other very important consideration. What do Republicans, the party of Life, think about protecting unborn babies after 6 weeks, when the baby’s heartbeat can be detected? Do they support or oppose?
John McCormack, who spoke at NRLC’s annual convention, tells us
Moreover, a super-majority of GOP primary voters backs a six-week limit on abortion. A national poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal in April by the polling firm run by Tony Fabrizio—the pollster for Donald Trump—asked GOP primary voters: “Do you favor or oppose banning all abortions after 6 weeks except in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother?”
Republican voters overwhelmingly supported such an abortion ban—68 percent to 27 percent.
[The poll can seen here.]
Many, many babies would be saved if this were the law of the land.