Congressman Steven LaTourette, a retiring moderate Republican from Ohio, voted “present” last night on the D.C. late-term aboriton ban. “LaTourette says the most significant piece of legislation to hit the House floor on Tuesday is emblematic of why he’s decided to step aside,” reports Chad Pergram of Fox News. “Mr. LaTourette says polarization is paralyzing Congress. And the measure to ban late-term abortions in the District of Columbia exempflies that.”
But is the D.C. late-term abortion ban really that polarizing? Voters support such bans by a 3-to-1 margin, according to one poll. The bill received support of 17 Democratic members of Congress. And President Obama has even claimed in the past to support late-term abortion bans (though he has been silent on this particular piece of legislation). So it’s hard to see why the D.C. late-term ban–which simply sought to curb D.C.’s extreme abortion-until-birth policy–is “polarizing.”
