Abortion-Rights Bill Backed by Democrats Fails in Senate
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • 2 years ago • 23 commentsBy: Siobhan Hughes and Eliza Collins (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—Senate Democrats failed to advance a bill seeking to ensure women's access to abortion, in a vote designed to draw a clear contrast with Republicans ahead of a potential Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade looming just months before the midterm elections.
The vote was 49 in favor to 51 against, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance the Women's Health Protection Act.
Democrats held the vote despite knowing it was certain to fail in the 50-50 Senate, where abortion stances split almost entirely along party lines. No Republicans supported the measure, and centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) had broken with his party and opposed the bill. But Democratic Party leaders saw the vote as a crucial political step with the prospect of the end of federal abortion protections now looming and the matter being turned over to states.
“I’m scared and I’m frightened for women in this country more than I ever have been before,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) shortly before the vote. If some states ban abortions, voters “live with the painful consequences of that decision and they will not forget Republicans are the ones responsible.”
Republicans said that if Roe falls, states should be in charge of making decisions that affect their own residents.
“I hope what the Supreme Court does is sends this issue back to the people to debate it and weigh in and to make their decisions through their multiple elected representatives,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.).
Dozens of House Democrats marched to the Senate chamber chanting “my body, my decision.” The Capitol complex was surrounded with makeshift fencing composed of bike racks, and the chants of protesters at the nearby Supreme Court could be heard on the grounds.
Vice President Kamala Harris , who presided over the vote, said the result “clearly suggests the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue.” She said it makes clear that a priority for the party should be to elect pro-abortion-rights candidates at the local, state and federal levels.
A day earlier, Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), a self-described pro-life Democrat, said he would back his party’s measure to affirm the right to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability. That marked a shift in his position and left Mr. Manchin as the only Democrat to oppose the bill. Mr. Manchin said Wednesday that he would support codifying Roe in law but the party’s proposal goes too far.
The bill “is not Roe v. Wade codification, it’s an expansion,” he said.
Abortion access moved to the center of the capital’s political debate last week after Politico published a leaked draft opinion that suggested the Supreme Court was prepared to throw out precedent establishing a constitutional right to abortion. The court is considering a Mississippi law that banned abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The court confirmed the draft’s authenticity but cautioned it wasn’t final. The court is expected to issue its opinion in late June or early July.
Each party has painted the other as holding extreme views that are out of step with the public’s. Democrats say Republicans are seeking to ban all abortions, even early in a pregnancy or in cases of rape or incest. GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, say Democrats would favor rules allowing abortions to be performed any time before birth, and many argue the matter should be left to the states.
“The Democrats are going to push for allowing to take the power away from the states and drawing a line here in Washington where late-term abortions will be the law of the land, and that to me is very concerning,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus.
If Roe were to be overturned, many states have laws that could ban all or nearly all abortions, including some so-called trigger laws that would go into effect either automatically or with quick state action. Other states have passed laws protecting abortion access.
The Democrats’ bill ensures access to an abortion until a fetus is viable, usually around 23 to 24 weeks, and would override state laws currently in place that impose restrictions at earlier dates. The bill would allow abortions after viability when a healthcare provider determines the pregnancy would pose a risk to the patient’s life or health.
Republicans say that language gives such wide latitude that a provider could offer a late-term abortion to protect a woman’s mental health. Among their other concerns is that viability could be determined by the doctor or other provider, and the bill specifically overrides any conflicting state laws that impose restrictions.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky) said Tuesday that the bill was “particularly radical,” while adding that he believed most GOP senators would prefer that abortion policy be decided at the state level. He didn’t directly respond to reporters’ questions asking if he would put a federal ban on the floor if Republicans won control of the Senate and the White House.
Many Republicans have been vague about those prospects, dismissing questions by saying that any potential bans wouldn’t come up in Congress until far into the future.
Polls show complicated views on abortion. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March found that 44% of the public thought abortion should be legal in the first six weeks of a pregnancy, versus 21% who said it should be illegal and 19% who said it depends. Support falls off later in the pregnancy: At 14 weeks, 34% say abortion should be legal, and at 24 weeks, just 22%.
“It’s important that we come up with a reasonable bill,” said centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), who said she has been discussing a compromise approach with Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.).
Ms. Collins, who backs Roe, has proposed banning states from imposing an “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability, and allowing states to impose restrictions after the fetus is viable unless ending the pregnancy is necessary to protect a woman’s life. That approach is designed to lock in the status quo because the “undue burden” standard is part of current Supreme Court precedent that arose from a 1992 opinion.
Mr. Kaine said that he approached Ms. Collins over the weekend about a possible compromise, and that while he supported the Women’s Health Protection Act, its failure to advance on Wednesday couldn’t be the last word. “This cannot be one and done,” he said.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) said that a discussion with Ms. Collins is worthwhile but that Democrats still wouldn’t be able to come up with 60 votes to defeat a Republican filibuster. “People are very upset,” she said.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.) said the states, not Congress, should regulate abortion if Roe were overturned.
“I think the states need to do it,” Mr. Rounds said. “Eventually we’ll end up with something that is like a consensus at the national level. But it will be done state by state.”
Wednesday vote’s is shaping up as an opening act, with candidates in the midterm elections staking out abortion positions in the absence of Roe and outside groups raising money to litigate the issue at the ballot box. Democrats are facing a battle in keeping control of the 50-50 Senate and their slim majority in the House, due to weak poll numbers for President Biden and the party.
Mehmet Oz, running to be the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, said on Twitter that he looked “forward to supporting pro-life legislation that saves innocent lives in the U.S. Senate.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who is up for re-election, said he expected abortion would be a nonissue in his campaign. He said he isn’t sure that a 19th century law in his state that bans abortions except to save the life of the mother will actually go into effect if Roe falls, and that in any event people will still have options.
“It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away,” he said, saying that driving across state lines to Illinois would likely be an option. “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change.”
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A reasonable bill might have passed. For now the people have spoken.
Dumbasses in DC haven't learned shit from the BLM/Antifa riots; nor Jan 6. I am sure that makeshift fencing made of bike racks will stop no one if they decide to storm Congress. Same people in charge; Pelosi and the Mayor of DC. Hopefully the protestors stay peaceful for a change. Not that we all wouldn't love to hear from Democrats how far left morons storming the capitol isn't an insurrection; as compared to Jan 6th.
Everyone understood this was just political posturing. A bill to expand roe was never going to get moderate support, which is why a bipartisan majority defeated it.
The funniest part of this was the incoherent senator warren not understanding the difference between a majority and minority.
I didn't vote for Joe, the oldest and whitest of them all.
So they are still operating on "what ifs".
How can the hyena know what the "majority of Americans" want when this hasn't been put to the citizens? Hell, the majority of Americans want secure borders. Nothings been done about that.
Johnson is right. The only difference is that it's going to be more than "a little messy". There is the medical aspect, the legal aspect, a welfare aspect, etc. Good luck getting all that worked out into something that makes sense.
That's exactly right.
Instead of working with Republicans to get a compromised bill that might actually codify abortion the Democrat's chose to put forward a bill they knew would fail in order to try and avoid the oncoming disaster heading their way in Nov. Tell us again how you care chuck or how upset you are warren.
Ahh...there it is!
You get the A+ today.
You are taking your P.P. tag far too seriously.
With republicans, it's their way or no way.
Just like the Democrats just did with the vote in the Senate and the Women's Health Protection Act. This was a one-sided bill and to push a second vote in the Senate on a bill that had already failed just shows that it's the same with the Democrats, it's their way or no way. Hell, they couldn't even get all of their party to vote for this.
Deflection attempt from the actual post noted.
How did the dems attempt to come to a consensus instead of just putting the same failed bill up for a vote? Other than demonize Republicans as ULTRA mega and try to heap some of his inadequacies on them how has Joe united the country, one of his main promises?
And no deflecting or denying allowed. Try something new
If politics is the art of compromise, why do we continue to have so many one-sided bills that are written by one political party being submitted so frequently and doomed to failure? I guess a better question might be when are the citizens of this country going to realize that these politicians are not there to represent anybody except for their political party and start to vote these people out of office? When are the sheep going to wake up?
I asked the other day when Schumer first came out and said he was going to hold a vote on abortion on Wednesday if they were going to re-vote on the already failed Women's Health Protection Act or if they had something new. Time provided the answer that they were going to revote. This was a bill that was written by one political party with no input from the other side and no compromise with Republicans. It's no surprise that the vote failed, but then again it was clear before the vote that this was just an election year ploy to get names tagged to votes for November.
In this age of perpetual outrage it raises campaign cash.
The citizens of the this country are the ones demanding these actions. Of course we can make good arguments that politicians are partly to blame for this - as is the media and social media as well. How many "party purity" op-eds have we seen along with the current rise of populism?
Yup. It was all about getting the full Senate on record for the mid-term elections. The left can stand up and say they support restricted abortion access and the right can stand up and say they don't. Again they will both raise cash and campaign off this issue. How that turns out for the parties in the end remains to be seen.
It's not like Biden would have supported it.
And again, they have an aversion calling women, women!
Amazing. The only place woman, or women appears in a bill about abortion is in the title.
No one can argue that women are being discriminated against, that's for sure.
Are you posting this on every article?
It's called spam.