Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he does not support Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposal for a 15-week federal abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Anchor Jake Tapper asked, “Your Republican colleague Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill that would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks. Do you support the bill?”
Rounds said, “No, I think right now, we should allow the states to explore the different possibilities about the appropriate way. Here in South Dakota, we have one, which I actually signed into law when I was governor back in 2005, 2006. I think the individual states will come up with a multiple, a whole lot of different ideas about how to appropriately discuss abortion in general. Then I think there will be a consensus over a period of years. At this point, to have Congress step back in and tell all the states, we know better than them how to handle this is probably not the right direction to go.”
“We actually looked before the last decision. We looked as a group of us trying to ban abortion past 20 weeks,” he continued. “We weren’t successful at that time. I don’t think any proposal today would be successful in the House and the Senate. I think a better approach probably will be to allow the states to work through this and to, find the appropriate language on a state-by-state basis and to find that common ground. After that, maybe Congress steps in again. At this point, I think the states are in better shape to explore and to find the right direction on a state-by-state basis.”
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