During a recent Senate hearing, a witness snapped at Sen. John Kennedy over late-term abortion in a moment abortion advocates are applauding. Yet the statement relied on pro-abortion lies used to promote legalized abortion.
The hearing was focused on interstate travel for abortion following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court ruling in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade. Jocelyn Frye, president of the pro-abortion National Partnership for Women & Families, was a witness during the hearing and was questioned by Kennedy. While discussing a woman who allegedly asked for an abortion at 34 weeks, Kennedy asked, “Should the mother at that juncture have the right — clearly a viable child — to abort the child?”
Witness Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a researcher for the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, replied he didn’t want to engage in hypotheticals. “That’s what your side always says,” Kennedy continued. “My example’s not unrealistic. I wanna save my time. If your answer’s gonna be, ‘That never happens,’ let me go to Ms. Frye. What do you think?”
Frye responded, “Well, Senator, first of all, don’t ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.” She then related oft-repeated pro-abortion talking points on late-term abortion.
“But I’m saying to you, Senator, 1%, 1% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later. So I think the premise of your question sets up a conversation about abortion that is unfair. It is — rarely is that ever the instance. The vast majority of pregnancies and abortions that are considered late in a pregnancy have to do with severe, devastating medical circumstances,” she said. “And I understand your point, Senator. I understand your point. But with all due respect, I also think the chances of people sort of getting all the way through a pregnancy and just sort of saying, ‘I don’t want it,’ is disrespectful to women.”
At my hearing on the freedom to travel for abortion care, Senator Kennedy asked our witnesses to respond to a sensationalized, highly unrealistic hypothetical aimed at stoking fear.
Ms. Frye’s response says it all. pic.twitter.com/UOXlyN1ly4
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 13, 2024
Lie #1: Abortions late in pregnancy ‘rarely’ happen
A small minority of abortions are indeed considered “late” abortions, but this statistic is misleading, and likely intentionally so. By repeating that just one percent (1%) of abortions are late-term abortions, it leads society to believe that such abortions rarely happen. In reality, there are upwards of 10,000 late abortions committed each year in the U.S. according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
READ: FACT CHECK: ‘Late abortions are sought mostly for dire medical reasons’
The CDC’s most recent Abortion Surveillance Report states that one percent (1.0%) of all abortions committed in 2021 were carried out after 21 weeks gestation — when preborn children are increasingly able to survive premature birth. With 378,395 total abortions committed, that equals roughly 3,790 late-term abortions. However, not every state reports its abortion data to the CDC, so the true number is almost certainly higher, as the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute shows. Its data shows a much higher number of abortions; in 2017, it reported 862,320 abortions, while the CDC data for the same year was significantly lower, at 368,044. The number of late abortions being committed remains the same for both reports, at around one percent (1%). Guttmacher’s report noted that it was, specifically, 1.3%. Using its numbers, this equates to approximately 11,210 abortions late in pregnancy that year alone.
This is hardly an insignificant number of preborn children being killed late in pregnancy. Those are over 11,000 dead children who very well could have survived outside of the womb. Children born as early as 21 weeks are capable of surviving when given medical assistance.
Lie #2: ‘Majority’ of late abortions happen for ‘severe, devastating medical circumstances’
Frye called it “disrespectful” to say that women have abortions late in pregnancy simply because they don’t want to be pregnant. But the claim that the “majority” of late abortions are carried out on children facing “severe, devastating medical circumstances” is false. Abortion activists use this lie as a way of making late-term abortion — which most Americans do not support — more palatable to the public. But the truth is, late-term abortions are rarely committed due to medical issues, with either the mother or the baby.
A 1988 Guttmacher study found that just two percent (2%) of women who had abortions late in pregnancy did so because of a health problem with the baby. More than 20 years later, a 2013 study also published by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute said, “[D]ata suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”
Another study from the pro-abortion ANSIRH stated, “The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester… [T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
That research also revealed, “There are thus many reasons—financial, logistical, and social—why third-trimester abortion care is exceptional compared to first-trimester abortion care. However, there is reason to believe that the circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion are not exceptional. Several studies have highlighted the importance of the timing of pregnancy discovery, with later discovery associated with later presentation to abortion care. Other research has identified how laws that complicate people’s ability to access abortion, including parental involvement laws and laws that contribute to the reduction of abortion clinics, are associated with later presentation to abortion care for patients.” Some women in the study reported that they didn’t know they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and therefore, their abortions took place late in pregnancy.
Pro-abortion researcher Diana Greene Foster stated, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service, that abortions for fetal abnormalities “make up a small minority of later abortion.” In addition, a 2010 paper from Julia Steinberg of the pro-abortion Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health said, “Research suggests that the overwhelming majority of women having later abortions do so for reasons other than fetal anomaly (Drey et al., 2006; Finer et al., 2005, 2006; Foster et al., 2008).”
Frye repeated pro-abortion talking points as a means of shutting down the conversation and avoiding the question at hand: whether it is morally acceptable to kill a viable preborn child late in pregnancy.
