House bill targets abortion limits
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, denounces it
Amid an intense new focus on abortion rights, the U.S. House on Tuesday paved the way for debate on legislation that would override state laws restricting access to abortion.
Democrats said the situation in Texas, where most abortions became illegal this month under a state law enforced by citizen lawsuits, required Congress to act quickly to protect abortion rights granted nearly 50 years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The radical and extreme Texas bill bans abortion before most women realize they are even pregnant,’’ Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., said Monday. “It makes no exceptions for rape or incest and enables vigilante justice.”
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, argued on
“... every single state would be required to allow abortion on demand ...” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, who argued against the bill
the House floor on Tuesday that the Democratic legislation aimed at countering the Texas law represented “the greatest threat to the protection of innocent unborn life” since the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.
“The bill before us preempts any state law that seeks to protect life, including policies that those who identify as pro-choice support,” Cole said. “Instead, every single state would be required to allow abortion on demand at any time up to the point of birth.”
The House on Tuesday cleared a resolution setting the parameters of debate on the abortion bill, the annual defense bill and a stop-gap funding bill that also raises the debt ceiling. All three measures could be voted on by the end of the week.
Text of the abortion legislation says it would “permit health care providers to provide abortion services without limitations or requirements that single out the provision of abortion services for restrictions that are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures, do not significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of abortion services, and make abortion services more difficult to access.”
The White House on Monday announced its support for the House bill, saying the Texas law “blatantly violates” Supreme Court precedents.
“In the wake of Texas’ unprecedented attack, it has never been more important to codify this constitutional right and to strengthen health care access for all women, regardless of where they live,” the White House said.
The Texas law has forced women to travel to other states. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the law to stay in effect, despite the court’s precedents.
Cole said the legislation now before the House goes beyond codifying the Roe v. Wade decision in federal law.
“No more would states be able to protect conscience rights,” he said. “No more would they be able to ban barbaric procedures like dismemberment abortions. And no more would they be able to prevent abortions targeting fetuses with Down Syndrome, which 70 percent of Americans oppose.”
Separately, the Supreme Court announced Monday that justices would hear oral arguments on Dec. 1 in a case involving Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. That case could determine whether any state laws restricting abortion before fetus viability are constitutional.