GOP blocks efforts to keep abortion access
Democrats fail in bid to codify Roe v Wade
WASHINGTON: Democrats tried and failed on Wednesday to push forward legislation to safeguard abortion rights nationwide, as Republicans and one Democrat in the Senate blocked an effort to enshrine the landmark Roe v Wade precedent in federal law after a leaked Supreme Court opinion suggested it was about to be overturned.
With 51 senators opposed and 49 senators in support, Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they would have needed to take up sweeping legislation to guarantee abortion access and explicitly bar a wide array of restrictions.
The outcome was never in doubt, given the 50-50 split in the Senate and the deep partisan differences over abortion rights. But Democrats pressed ahead anyway, hoping that the vote would help them portray Republicans as extremists and persuade voters that they needed to elect more Democrats in November if they hoped to preserve abortion and other rights.
Republicans, who unanimously opposed the measure, were joined by one Democrat, Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who broke with his party to vote against taking up the bill. Sen Manchin, who opposes abortion rights, said the legislation was overly broad, noting that it would go substantially further than simply codifying Roe and warning that it would “expand abortion”.
The resulting vote showed that a majority does not now exist in the Senate to support legalising abortion nationwide. Democrats who supported the bill framed it as a call to action, before midterm elections, for voters who support abortion rights to elect like-minded candidates who will preserve them.
“This vote clearly suggests that the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, who called the vote in a symbolic show of support by the White House. “A priority for all that care about this issue — the priority — should be to elect prochoice leaders.”
The Women’s Health Protection Act would protect abortion access nationwide, going far beyond simply codifying Roe, the Supreme Court decision that in 1973 legalised abortion. It would explicitly prohibit a long list of abortion restrictions, including some that have been enacted by states since Roe was decided and that have severely limited access to the procedure.
Even as they work to avoid a backlash against their party before the midterms, Republicans did not shy away from the abortion debate Wednesday, seeking to cast the bill as radical and describing Democrats’ goal as legalising abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy with no limits.
“Today, Democrats have decided to line up behind an extreme and radical abortion policy,” Sen Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, the minority leader, said Wednesday.
The legislation, he said, “goes way, way beyond codifying the status quo; it would roll back many existing laws”.
Sen Susan Collins, R-Maine, who proposed a narrower bill to codify Roe, said the Democratic bill was championed by “far-left activists”.
Still, Democrats were on track to end the day with the headline they wanted voters to read: that Republicans had blocked their effort to safeguard abortion access. Polls show a solid majority of voters support abortion rights, although they also reflect substantial backing for at least some limits on the procedure.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was clear that short of passing legislation, he wanted to show Americans “where every single US senator stands” on the issue. He warned Wednesday that if Republicans won control of the Senate in November, they would outlaw abortion nationwide.
“A national ban on abortion is the extreme of the extremes, and it is now possible in a Republican Senate,” he said, noting that Sen McConnell had said as much last week.