Senate vows a vote on abortion
WASHINGTON >> Furious Senate Democrats vowed Tuesday to vote on legislation to protect abortion access for millions of Americans, but without broader support from Republicans, Congress is essentially powerless to prevent the unraveling of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
Amid fallout from a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the conservative justices “lied” to the Senate during confirmation hearings when they assured senators the case that since 1973 has allowed abortion access was settled law.
And two Republican senators who publicly support abortion access, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, but have voted to confirm conservative justices vented their frustrations at the court's draft document and pushed their own bill to turn the Roe v. Wade ruling into law.
“The Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years — not just on women, but on all Americans,” Schumer said.
Murkowski told reporters on Capitol Hill that if the direction of the draft becomes the final opinion, “I will just tell you that it rocks my confidence in the court right now.”
The Congress, however, can do little to stop the court from undoing Roe v. Wade unless more Republicans join Democrats in voting to protect abortion access, which is almost certainly unlikely. Schumer said the Senate would vote next week on emerging legislation, but facing a certain filibuster by Republicans, the Democrats signaled they prefer to fight over the issue on the campaign trail this fall, rather than in Congress. The House is away this week.
Republicans have spent decades laser-focused on the high court, installing conservative justices intent on revisiting abortion and other social issues, including three ushered to confirmation by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell during Donald Trump's presidency to build the court's solid 6-3 majority.