A test vote in the Senate on a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and nullify state pro-life protections was blocked by Republicans on Wednesday. GOP lawmakers say the effort is largely meant to distract from the Democrats’ own extreme positions on abortion and to divert attention away from the flurry of news surrounding concerns over President Joe Biden’s mental fitness and calls for him to exit the presidential race.
Senate Democrats characterized the effort as a nonbinding measure meant to express the “sense of Congress” that Roe “should be restored and built upon, moving towards a future where there is reproductive freedom for all.” The bill failed to achieve the 60-vote threshold required for advancement, with 49 Republicans voting against the measure and 42 Democrats and two Republicans (Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski) voting for it.
GOP lawmakers dismissed the measure as a meaningless messaging bill aimed at drawing attention away for the president’s ongoing woes. “These are simply opportunities for the Democrats to provide some political cover for some of their incumbents who are in political trouble this year,” remarked Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).
“Make no mistake — today was nothing more than yet another self-serving show vote by Senator Schumer,” added Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.). “Democrats’ continued far-left push to get rid of the longstanding, bipartisan Hyde Amendment and force American taxpayers to fund abortions at any time, for any reason, up until the moment of birth is radical and wildly out of touch.”
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The bill marks the latest attempt by congressional Democrats to draw attention to abortion, which strategists on the Left see as a weakness for Republicans heading into the November elections due to intraparty mixed messaging on the issue. In recent months, Democrats have attempted to paint Republicans as abortion “extremists” for passing various state pro-life protections in the wake of the overturning of Roe, with many prominent Democrats like Vice President Kamala Harris claiming without evidence that Republicans and presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump seek to create a “national abortion ban.”
But a growing number of Republicans say it is the Democrats who are the extremists on abortion, noting that their proposed bills such as the Women’s Health Protection Act would force taxpayers to pay for abortions up until the moment of birth and would strike down over 1,300 state pro-life protections.
“The extreme position on abortion is held by Democrats who will allow or want to allow abortion up to the moment of birth,” Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pointed out during Wednesday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “And the fact of the matter is, you have some people, like [former] Governor Northam from Virginia, who was actually willing to allow a child born alive to just perish without any care. So that is the extreme position on abortion.”
Johnson went on to observe that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision at long last allowed the nation to start seriously considering how unborn babies should be protected in law.
“[Abortion] is a profound moral issue. … But because it is so profound, because it is so difficult, [Dobbs] turn[ed] that decision back to we the people in each state. … It doesn’t ban abortion, doesn’t outlaw it. It just says, ‘Take this profound moral issue, start discussing it genuinely, start talking about what little babies in the womb … experience at eight weeks and 12 weeks and 16 weeks and 20 weeks.’ Talk about, as abhorrent as it would be, what does an abortion look like at eight weeks and 12 weeks and 16 weeks? [That] discussion was literally delayed for 50 years.”
Johnson concluded by urging a continued national conversation on coming to consensus on pro-life protections.
“To make progress, to protect life in the current environment, Republicans have voted for protecting life up to 20 weeks,” the senator noted. “The Dobbs decision was about a bill in Mississippi that would have protected life after 15 weeks. So you can say that we’re ‘banning abortion’ — yeah, after 20 weeks. Consider what a little baby in the womb looks like at 20 weeks. Which is why those of us in the pro-life movement have tried to educate the public and try and protect life as early as we can, as early as the public will accept. But that’s not an abortion ban. It’s protecting life right after a certain point. And again, that’s why I proposed a referendum in Wisconsin to decide the question, and here’s the question: At what point does society have the responsibility to protect life in the womb?”
LifeNews Note: Dan Hart writes for the Family Research Council. He is the senior editor of The Washington Stand.
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