Barney Frank died this week. His final New York Times interview warned Democrats against “drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable.” The party’s abortion position is exactly that — and ACOG has walked straight into the same trap. The CDC data and the polling both say the same thing: reasonable laws have a constituency.
Barney Frank died Tuesday at 86. From hospice care in Maine, with congestive heart failure, he spent his last weeks giving interviews — to the New York Times, to CNN, to the Boston Globe — with a single closing message for his party.
“The key to liberal democracy being able to come back,” he told the Times, “is to get rid of the perception, that we have allowed to grow, that the entire Democratic Party is committed to a series of very drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable.”
Frank named Medicare for All and trans women in sports as the positions he had in mind. He did not name abortion. But the framework fits the US abortion debate better than almost any issue he could have chosen.
And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the professional society that should set the medical center of this debate, has spent the past several years walking straight into the trap Frank described.
Start with what most patients may not know.
Most European countries allow elective abortion through 12 weeks of pregnancy. France raised its limit to 14 in 2022 and enshrined the right in its constitution in 2024.
Spain is at 14.
Sweden at 18.
Germany at 12, with mandatory counseling and the procedure still nominally in the criminal code.
The United Kingdom and the Netherlands are the outliers at 24 weeks.
The anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute and the access-supporting Center for Reproductive Rights disagree about almost everything except the count: 47 of 50 European nations limit elective abortion before 15 weeks.
The Women’s Health Protection Act, the federal bill US abortion-rights advocates have pushed since 2021, does not codify European norms. It forbids any state restriction before viability — roughly 22 to 24 weeks. After viability, it forbids restrictions when the treating clinician determines that continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the patient’s life or health, with “health” defined broadly enough under Doe v. Bolton to include emotional, familial, and age-related factors. A willing clinician can document the indication. This is not a 12-week law with exceptions. It is closer to the Dutch model written without the upper limit.
Calling that “Europe” is rhetorically convenient and factually wrong.
ACOG has formally endorsed the WHPA. Its 2023 policy statement declares that “abortion bans must be repealed” — full stop, no gestational limit named, no European-style framework offered. ACOG’s standing position is that any gestational limit constitutes “political interference in the practice of medicine.” A 12-week elective limit is the law in most of Europe. ACOG calls it interference.
The CDC data show why this matters less clinically than politically. In 2022, 78.6 percent of US abortions were performed at or before 9 weeks of gestation and 92.8 percent at or before 13 weeks. Across the past decade, the share performed after 13 weeks has stayed below 9 percent. The overwhelming majority of women seeking abortion would be served by a 12- or 14-week elective limit with the usual exceptions for fetal anomaly, maternal life, and serious maternal health indications. That is the European model. The political position adopted by national Democrats and by ACOG is not the median patient’s position. Polling has been clear for two decades: Americans support legal abortion in early pregnancy, oppose most second-trimester abortion, and oppose nearly all third-trimester abortion except for serious medical indications.
This is Frank’s “drastic social reconstruction that goes beyond what’s acceptable to most people,” applied to obstetric policy.
When advocates invoke “Europe” as their model while supporting legislation that forbids the laws Europe actually has, two things happen. First, the argument fails any voter who looks up the comparison. Second, voters who would support a European-style framework — and they are the majority — are told there is no available compromise. The choice is presented as: no abortion, or no limits. That is not the choice most patients are asking for. It is also not a choice that wins elections.
My Take. I have written about the real harm done by US state abortion bans — the obstetric emergencies they cause, the women bleeding while waiting for legal cover, the doctors forced to override clinical judgment for a statute. I have not softened those harms and I will not. But the answer to bad law is honest law, not rhetorical inflation. ACOG, as the medical authority, should be leading the conversation toward an evidence-based framework: broad access in early pregnancy, narrow medical exceptions later, anchored in the CDC data on what is actually happening in US obstetric practice. Instead, ACOG endorses the maximalist political position and labels every limit “interference.” That is not leadership. That is alignment with an advocacy coalition that, as Frank said in his last days, has gone beyond what most Americans will accept. Democrats would get more votes if they sounded like the median patient. ACOG would have more credibility with its own members if it sounded like the median obstetrician.
Bottom line. Reasonable laws have a constituency.
Democrats lose voters by pretending they do not.
ACOG loses physicians by pretending the median patient agrees with the maximalist position. Barney Frank’s final warning was a gift to his party. The professional societies should read it too.
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References
1. Frank B [interview]. Quoted in: Barney Frank, Massachusetts congressman for 32 years, dies at 86. Boston: CBS News Boston; May 20, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/barney-frank-dies-obituary-massachusetts-congressman/ ⚠️ UNVERIFIED: original New York Times interview not retrieved directly; quote verified through multiple secondary sources including CBS Boston, JTA, and The Forward.
2. Frank B. The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press; forthcoming September 15, 2026.
3. Reilly A. Now in hospice care, Barney Frank warns Democrats against ‘litmus tests’ in new interview [radio segment]. Boston: GBH News; May 6, 2026. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2026-05-06/now-in-hospice-care-barney-frank-urges-political-left-to-avoid-litmus-tests-in-new-interview
4. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Statement for the Record — The Women’s Health Protection Act. Washington, DC: ACOG; June 16, 2021. https://actforwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/6.16.21-SJC-WHPA-Hearing-Testimony-ACOG.pdf
5. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Understanding ACOG’s Policy on Abortion. Washington, DC: ACOG; September 22, 2023. https://www.acog.org/news/news-releases/2023/09/understanding-acog-policy-on-abortion
6. Kortsmit K, Nguyen AT, Mandel MG, Hollier LM, Ramer S, Goodman D, et al. Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2022. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2024;73(SS-7):1-28. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/ss7307a1.htm ⚠️ UNVERIFIED page range; figures verified at source URL.
7. Kortsmit K, Nguyen AT, Mandel MG, Clark E, Hollier LM, Rodenhizer J, et al. Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2020. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2022;71(SS-10):1-27. PMID: 36417304.
8. Center for Reproductive Rights. European Abortion Law: A Comparative Overview [report]. New York: Center for Reproductive Rights; 2023. https://reproductiverights.org/resources/european-abortion-law-comparative-overview-0/
9. Charlotte Lozier Institute. Gestational Limits on Abortion in the United States Compared to International Norms [report]. Washington, DC: Charlotte Lozier Institute; April 2024. https://lozierinstitute.org/new-study-mississippis-15-week-limit-on-abortion-in-the-mainstream-of-european-law/
10. Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023, S. 701, 118th Cong. (2023). Washington, DC: US Congress; 2023. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/701
11. Doe v. Bolton, 410 US 179 (1973).