it a compromise. I really don't know too much about abortion policy in Europe, but I'm willing to bet that there is more nuance than just a 15-week cutoff. But they also have universal healthcare, so whatever restrictions they have I would guess are most likely insurance related. I also think that their guarantees of birth control access are focused at preventing unwanted pregnancies and their attitudes towards sex are more open than in the traditionally Puritanical United States. Anyway, I'm just not sure that Europe is a good comparison in this case. It might be but I think you have to look at it systemically.

The efforts to characterize 15 weeks as a compromise are disingenuous because a compromise involves give and take. People who want to ban abortion mostly want to ban it based on the moral certitude that life begins at conception. This is the official stance of the GOP. They worked for years to overturn Roe and they finally did it! Now they're saying in essence, if you don't want us to ban it entirely, or almost like a 6-week ban, we'll be magnanimous and say 15 weeks. To which voters in every state that abortion has been on the ballot have said, no dice.

Clearly, voters in Virginia, for example, are comfortable with the fetal viability standard. People who support legalized abortion weren't asked if they wanted 15 weeks; they were told, this is the "compromise" we are offering. It was an effort by Youngkin and others to thread the needle to get GOPers elected where, as Santorum implied, they can be in the majority and impose more stringent restrictions if they want to.

Let's face it. After years of trying the GOP dogs caught the bus and now that same bus is running them over.