A new report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute revealed that the majority of European countries limit abortion to 15 weeks' gestation or earlier, a stark contrast to all of the states in America, where non enforce this limit. Only the U.S., China, and North Korea allow abortion at almost every stage of a woman's pregnancy.
According to the CLI report, 39 out of 42 European countries that allow elective abortion limit this to 15 weeks' gestation or earlier. Most of these 39 European countries also set gestational limits for elective abortion at or before 12 weeks of gestation, including Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, ireland, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and Ukraine, among others. Only five European countries limit abortion to 10 weeks of gestation: Croatia, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey.
"American elites often hold up Europe as an example," CLI President Charles A. Donovan said, as reported by Faithwire. He believes that leftists often look to Europe as a "beacon of progressive success" and that ironically, "almost every European nation goes further than America in protecting life."
The CLI report is timely because in Mississippi, pro-life advocates are fighting to uphold the state's pro-life bill. The Supreme Court is set to hear the Mississippi case "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" that may overturn Roe v. Wade, which granted abortion protections nationwide.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch argued in an opening brief that the state can "prohibit elective abortions before viability...because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion." Fitch, together with four attorneys, argued that the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade, as well as its ruling in the 1992 case "Casey v. Planned Parenthood" were both "egregiously wrong" and have "inflicted significant damage" to the "principles of democratic self-governance."
Donovan argued that current Mississippi "common sense limits" on late-term abortion are "well within the mainstream of American popular opinion and European political opinion." He said that the study proves how the U.S. abortion industry is "outdated and out of touch." Angelina B. Nguyen, who authored the study, said that implementing the Mississippi law will bring the U.S. "a small step closer both to European and global norms."
However, Center for Reproductive Rights president Nancy Northrup, who is backing the abortion clinic in the Supreme Court case, is decrying the state's legal filing, calling it "extreme" and regressive" because it wants to "take away our right to control our own bodies and our own futures-not just in Mississippi, but everywhere."
According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates in Mississippi spiked by 13% between 2014 and 2017, from 3.8 to 4.3 in 1,000 women of reproductive age. In the state, a patient is required to undergo an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion and the provider must offer the patient the choice to see the ultrasound image.
