House Republicans Pass Major Pro-Life Bill in Party-Line Vote - One GOP Holds Out
House Republicans are taking early action on abortion with their new majority, approving two measures Wednesday.
The new GOP-led House passed one resolution to condemn attacks on pro-life facilities and a separate bill that would impose new penalties if a doctor refused to care for an infant born alive after an abortion attempt.
Neither is expected to pass the Democratic-led Senate, but Republicans said they were making good on promises to address the issue along with other legislative priorities in the first days in power.
“You don’t have freedom, true liberty, unless government protects your most fundamental right, your right to live,” said new Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who led the debate on the measures.
A July AP-NORC poll showed Republicans are largely opposed to allowing abortion “for any reason” and after 15 weeks into a pregnancy. But only 16 percent of Republicans say abortion generally should be “illegal in all cases,” and a majority, 56 percent, say their state should generally allow abortion six weeks into a pregnancy.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who says she is opposed to abortion, said she believes the early push on the issue is misguided. She said she believes the majority of voters in her swing district opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.
“This is probably not the way to start off the week,” Mace told MSNBC.
Republicans supporting the two measures stated it is not connected with overturning Roe.
“I want to be absolutely clear that this bill has nothing to do with the Supreme Court decision,” said Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner, the Republican sponsor of the bill.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia said the measures passed Wednesday reflect what Republicans see as immediate abortion priorities. House Republicans still “need to have a discussion” about more wholesale changes, namely an abortion ban, he said.
Loudermilk said he thinks the issue should be left to the states for now, “otherwise we start muddying the waters again.”
Democrats opposed the measures, predicting that Republicans were only laying the groundwork for a national ban.
“The differences between our side of the aisle and their side of the aisle couldn’t be any clearer,” said Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Democrats criticized the resolution condemning attacks on pro-life facilities as one-sided because it did not condemn attacks against abortion clinics. The resolution is “woefully incomplete,” said New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
The Democrats argued that the legislation imposing new penalties on doctors is unnecessary because it is already illegal to kill an infant. It would create complicated new standards making it harder for health providers to do their jobs, they said.
“It is a mean-spirited solution in search of a problem,” Democratic Rep. Judy Chu of California said.
Last summer, the Democratic-led House voted to restore anti-life rights nationwide, but that legislation was blocked in the closely divided Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Americans elected Senate Democrats “to be a firewall” against what he said are Republicans’ extreme views.
“Republicans are proving how dangerously out of touch they are with mainstream America,” Schumer said.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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