House Democrats Pass Sweeping Abortion Bill
The House of Representatives on Friday voted to pass a sweeping abortion package that would ensure access to the procedure in all 50 states, invalidating state-based restrictions and conscience protections intended to protect medical personnel from being coerced into performing or abetting the killing of unborn children.
One of the bills in the package, the Women’s Health Protection Act, passed the House 219-to-210, with all Republicans and one Democratic member, Representative Henry Cuellar (R., Texas), opposing it. Another bill, the Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act, which would secure the right of women to cross state lines to obtain an abortion, passed the House 223-to-205. Three Republican congressmen, Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Adam Kinzinger, and Fred Upton, crossed party lines to vote for it.
The legislation is unlikely to survive in the evenly-divided Senate, where it would require 60 votes or the elimination of the filibuster hurdle, an option which key centrist Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have repeatedly rejected.
Republicans loudly resisted the package, dubbing it the “Abortions on Demand until Birth Act” in their whip notice.
A Harvard/Harris poll released last week shows that 49 percent of voters want abortion banned after six weeks with exceptions for rape and incest. Seventy-two percent of respondents approve of the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban, which triggered the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that precipitated Roe’s reversal. Only 25 percent of voters want the Supreme Court to have the final say on abortion access, as opposed to 44 percent who say state legislatures and 31 percent who say Congress should legislate on the issue.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats have been scrambling to undercut the decision, expediting the WHPA to the floor and fear-mongering on the issue in an attempt to erode the GOP’s projected midterm gains.
A week before the ruling, President Biden announced he was exploring more dramatic avenues such as declaring a public-health emergency to protect abortion access and preparing the Department of Justice to litigate against states that curtail abortion tourism. Months ago, some progressive-dominated states started taking preemptive measures in anticipation of Dobbs, with Governor Gavin Newsom promising to make California an “abortion sanctuary” which would subsidize travel and lodging for out-of-state women looking to obtain an abortion.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced the creation of the Reproductive Rights Task Force to monitor state and local legislation and enforcement actions that would inhibit abortion tourism, stifle the circulation of information about abortion access, ban the early-pregnancy abortion pill chemical Mifepristone, and penalize federal employees who provide abortions if authorized by federal law.
