Biden called out for claiming Roe decision makes America ‘outlier among developed nations’

President Joe Biden appears to be telling tall tales again, this time about abortion.

In a speech delivered after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday morning, he claimed that abortion being relegated back to the states makes the United States an “extreme” “outlier” among Western nations.

“With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country. They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world,” he said.

But his claim was bullschiff, critics say, though to hear PolitiFact tell it, it was accurate:

However, PolitiFact has a history of publishing misleading, fraudulent “fact-checks” that are in fact nothing more than partisan spin.

The truth, critics argue, is that with Roe v. Wade intact, the United States was far to the left of most European countries. And now with it gone, the U.S. is now finally mostly in line with other nations.

“[A]bortion is only permitted in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger in Poland. In Ireland and Germany, abortion procedures are banned in the majority of cases after 12 weeks,” according to Fox News.

“Italy doesn’t allow abortions after 90 days, or just under 13 weeks. France, Austria and Spain have banned the procedure after 14 weeks.”

Meanwhile, in the United States, liberal Democrats have balked at the idea of abortions being limited to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In fact, their complaints about a Missouri ban on abortions past 15 weeks was exactly what led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.

“In 2018, Mississippi enacted HB 1510, the Gestational Age Act, which bans all abortions after 15 weeks since the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP) except in medical emergencies and in cases of severe fetal abnormality, and without an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest,” the Kaiser Family Foundation notes.

“On March 19, 2018, the same day the Governor signed the bill, and when it was set to take effect, Jackson Women’s Health, the only abortion provider in Mississippi, challenged the law in federal court. The US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi and then the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals both struck the law down as unconstitutional. The State then appealed to the Supreme Court, which accepted the case for review this term.”

Except that instead of just ruling in Mississippi’s favor, the high court chose to nix Roe v. Wade altogether — something that wouldn’t have happened had Jackson Women’s Health not sought to challenge the state’s 15-week rule.

A 15-week rule that, as noted by Fox News, is significantly more lenient than some of the time windows available in other Western nations.

With Roe v. Wade now gone, Democrat states plan to make abortion legal until pretty much birth, while Republican states plan to either ban it outright or institute restrictions no different than those seen in Europe.

There is, however, admittedly one big difference between the United States and other Western nations. America is one of a handful of nations that has relied on the courts, instead of the legislature, to codify the right to abortion into law.

Most other nations have relied on legislation to protect the right to abortion. Liberal Democrats in the U.S. have always had the opportunity to pursue the same here, but their belief that Roe v. Wade was irreversible apparently kept them from acting.

Indeed, critics say former President Barack Hussein Obama could have easily codified abortion into law but chose not to so that he could continue to use abortion as an electoral wedge issue.

And well, now many years later, all liberal Democrats are paying the price for his inaction. Though conversely, all conservative Republicans are celebrating.

Vivek Saxena

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