CNN’s Chris Cuomo, brother of embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, suggested on his show Monday night that Republican governors are pressing forward with pro-life legislation because they are racist.
Cuomo was responding to the news that the Supreme Court plans to take up an appeal from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. As The Daily Wire reported Monday, the Supreme Court had the option of taking up several issues associated with the case but will only consider whether “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
The Fifth Circuit struck down the law “using Roe v. Wade as an excuse, claiming that the Supreme Court has ‘established (and affirmed and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability,’ and that states may only regulate and restrict abortion ‘prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right…[T]hey may not ban abortions,'” The Daily Wire noted.
Cuomo, clearly agitated by the Supreme Court’s decision to consider the Constitutionality of abortion-related legislation at all, claimed on his prime-time program that the law itself was motivated by a “far-right, white-fright vote.”
“It’s not about science or consensus,” Cuomo said. “It’s about dividing lines, legislating to the far-right white-fright vote, flooding the zone with 536 bills that abridge a woman’s right to control her own body, in 46 states. It’s just like voting rights in one way.”
He then accused pro-lifers of using “their religion or righteousness” to make law.
Cuomo regularly accuses Republicans of allowing racism to dictate their agenda. Back in February, he suggested that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was motivated by “white fright” when he decided not to vote to convict former President Donald Trump on the second set of articles of impeachment.
White fright. https://t.co/eevzotQRhM
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 10, 2021
Pro-lifers were quick to challenge Cuomo’s suggestion that opposing abortion is somehow “anti-science” on social media, daring Cuomo to speak to a panel of experts about 15-week-old fetuses or even 22-week-old fetuses, who are considered viable.
Leftists are agitated over Monday’s Supreme Court grant of appeal, suggesting that the case could mean the end of “Roe v. Wade,” even though the appeal does not cover any issue outside of whether a state can, in fact, even make a law abridging the right to privacy in obtaining an abortion before viability. Roe left that question unsettled, largely because the Supreme Court at the time recognized that “viability” was a standard that would change dramatically over time.
Mississippi’s Attorney General noted, in briefs, that the case presents the ideal landscape for a “clear and concise” ruling on the topic of what is considered “viability” for the purposes of restricting abortion.
“This case remains an ideal vehicle to promptly resolve both that question and the first question presented — the contradictions in this Court’s decisions overuse of ‘viability’ as a bright line for measuring pro-life legislation,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote.