During a heated July 12 exchange in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) explained his reasoning for changing his mind on abortion after once calling for Roe v. Wade to be overturned.
Tuesday’s hearing focused on the potential legal repercussions of the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which SCOTUS decided to overturn the abortion standard defined by Roe v. Wade.
Under that standard, states were prohibited from restricting abortion before the so-called “viability line”—a term that describes an infant’s ability to live outside of his or her mother’s womb. However, even top biologists in favor of abortion have long disagreed on how to define the “viability line.”…