In the United States, Republican efforts to restrict access to abortion continue. This week, Nebraska and North Carolina passed laws prohibiting any termination of pregnancy beyond 12 weeks. This is a clear shift from their strategy of total prohibition, a policy that cost them dearly in the last election.
With our correspondent in New York, Loubna Anaki
In passing laws limiting abortion to 12 weeks, Republicans in Nebraska and North Carolina insisted on one principle: common sense. Forgotten, the strict positions ofprohibit abortion short. In these two states, the elected conservatives present their text as a compromise, while their previous attempts to pass stricter laws had so far failed.
Twelve weeks could well become the new threshold defended by the Republicans, who are still trying to define a new strategy on the very sensitive issue of abortion. Their openly anti-abortion rhetoric and policies cost them dearly in the midterm elections. And polls show that a large majority of Americans oppose a total ban on abortion.
But don’t be mistaken either; if the Republican discourse changes a little, and if the new texts seem more moderate, in appearance, the restrictions are there. In Nebraska as in North Carolina, even if abortion is authorized up to 12 weeks, the process is made very very difficult, even impossible according to certain opponents. And the new rules are likely to challenge the few clinics that still exist in those states.
►Also listen: Abortion in the United States: The Regression