Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) claimed during a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday that public sentiment is on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate.
“As Abe Lincoln said, public sentiment is everything. And public sentiment is completely on our side, we will win this fight. We will never stop fighting until we do,” Schumer said during a media availability with other Senate Democrats to discuss the Trump-backed budget bill.
The proposed budget, called the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” by Republicans and the “Big Ugly Betrayal” by Schumer, includes provisions to defund Planned Parenthood. A target of pro-life legislators for decades, Planned Parenthood has come under increasing fire as the pro-life movement makes political gains.
Schumer claims “under the Republican bill, 200 planned parenthood centers will close, 90% of these closures will be in states where abortion is legal.”
“This is a backdoor abortion ban, snuck into the bill by the Republicans,” Schumer said.
This is a claim supported by both pro-life and pro-choice voices, with the former supporting the bill’s defunding of the nation’s largest abortion provider.
More than 180 state legislators from 49 states signed a letter asking Congress to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood in May. However, polling shows the public is broadly unsupportive of these efforts.
According to a survey conducted by Pew Research in 2025, 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, as opposed to 36% who say it should not.
This holds true for most demographic groups, with most racial, religious, and gender groups holding a relatively similar breakdown. The demographics largely opposed to abortion are ideological conservatives and white Protestants.
Additionally, most Americans have a positive opinion of Planned Parenthood. Data from research firm PerryUndem suggests 64% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, and more than 70% of Americans oppose taking away its federal funds.
However, abortion is not the highest priority for American voters, according to polling. A Gallup poll conducted before the 2024 election found that abortion ranked as the 9th most important issue for Americans, below the economy, state of democracy, and immigration, but just above taxes and crime.
Schumer suggested the bill could be subjected to a “Byrd Bath,” referring to a process in the Senate used to determine which parts of a budget are extraneous. According to the rule, if an item in the budget meets one of six criteria, it can be removed from the bill.
These six criteria defining “extraneous” include having no budgetary effect, raising the deficit, and changing social security, among others.
If part of a budget bill meets one of these criteria, it cannot be subject to reconciliation, the process the Senate uses to pass legislation without a 60 vote majority. This means passing the bill would require more votes than Republicans have in the Senate.
“One of these provisions might well be susceptible to the Byrd Bath,” Schumer said. ”We don’t know, but we’re certainly going to make the argument against both provisions.”
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Author: JBaron
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