WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – After a day of tense debate, two abortion bills failed to garner enough votes on the Senate floor.
“Really these two pieces are about us as a nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Tuesday.
Since 2013, Graham has made this speech to urge Congress to pass his legislation that would make elective abortions illegal after 20 weeks.
“At 20 weeks, we know the child can feel pain, the medical science tells us that,” he said.
Graham talked about his bill during a visit to the Piedmont Women’s Center in South Carolina on Monday.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) is a supporter of Graham’s bill and said the U.S. is one of seven countries that don’t have a 20-week abortion ban.
“While it’s disheartening that this type of horrific practice needs congressional action, I am glad there are common-sense pieces of legislation that can address the atrocities of late-term abortion,” Loeffler said.
Graham’s bill made it through the House in previous years when Republicans were in control. But it has never passed the Senate.
The second failed bill would require doctors to provide lifesaving care to infants that survive an abortion.
“Two divisive, anti-choice, anti-women, anti-family bills,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said.
Schumer said there are already laws in place to protect children who are born alive.
“This is what the Senate Republicans have proposed – fake, dishonest, extreme legislation that has nothing to do with improving the lives of ordinary Americans,” he added.
Graham promises to keep bringing the bills to the floor until they pass.
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