CBS News attempted to compare potential state abortion laws to third world countries, claiming abortion is widely available in Europe in a Monday segment.
The CBS Morning segment covered Ireland repealing the Eighth Amendment in 2018, which criminalized nearly all abortions except in cases of the mother’s health. The segment claimed abortion “is widely available in nearly all of Europe” as it compared a potential overturn of Roe v. Wade to third world countries.
“If Roe v. Wade is overturned and some U.S. states ban abortion even in cases of rape, they’ll be joining a club that includes Iraq, Egypt and Nicaragua,” the narrator said.
While abortion is legalized in most European countries, there are an increased number of restrictions placed on what point in the pregnancy a woman can undergo the procedure. Ireland currently has a gestational limit of 12 weeks — the end of the first trimester — for when a woman can legally obtain an abortion. (RELATED: Pelosi Gives Bizarre, Borderline Incoherent Response To Roe V. Wade Question, Calls SCOTUS Leak ‘Fake’ Opinion)
France limits abortion after 16 weeks gestation, Portugal at 10 weeks, Spain and Germany at 14, and Italy after the first 90 days. Poland currently imposes a ban on almost all abortion except in the case of preserving the mother’s life.
The 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade ruled that no state can ban abortion before the point of fetal viability — 22-24 weeks gestation — which several Republican states have challenged by restricting abortion in the first and second trimesters. The case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a direct challenge to Roe, involves the Mississippi law banning abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The Supreme Court upheld the Texas law banning abortion at six weeks gestation, the point where a fetus’ heartbeat begins to be detected, in September in a 5-4 ruling. Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law to ban nearly all abortions in their states except in cases of preserving the mother’s life.
Egypt, Iraq and Nicaragua prohibit abortions altogether without any exceptions, which have not appeared in recent restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. Egypt only allows abortion in the case of protecting the mother’s life under physicians’ Code of Ethics, but does not require a doctor to perform the procedure in those cases.