U.S. Senate Considers Abortion-On-Demand Bill

By | February 24, 2022

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

WASHINGTON DC, February 25 (C-Fam) The U.S. Senate will vote on a bill next week to enshrine abortion-on-demand in federal law for the first time. The bill would also declare abortion an international right. Though it is not likely to pass, it is being forced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as a sop to the abortion lobby.

“Across the country the assault on women’s health care has intensified to levels not seen in decades,” Schumer said late last week, as he announced the first procedural step for the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA).

The bill passed the House of Representatives in September by a vote of 218-211. The abortion lobby has pressed Senate Democrats to take up a bill in response to a Supreme Court decision that may restrict abortion rights.

The bill would roll-back nearly all state laws that restrict abortion enacted over the past 40 years, including laws on parental notification, informed consent, late term abortion, dismemberment abortion, telemedicine abortion and conscience protection.

The bill also declares that abortion is an international human right and is part of a new generation of abortion laws that recognizes abortion as a right for individuals who identify as “transgender.”

Schumer is unlikely to get the sixty votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. The bill currently has forty-seven Democrat sponsors. While Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), who both profess to be pro-life, have not sponsored the bill, Casey indicated he will support the cloture vote.

“The question before the U.S. Senate on this vote is whether the Senate will proceed to debate the Women’s Health Protection Act. Given the recent Supreme Court rulings, potential rulings this year, and the Republican Party’s clear and unrelenting use of this issue as a political weapon, I will vote ‘yes’ to allow debate on this bill,” reads Casey’s statement.

Republican Senators Susan Collins (R-NH) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who both support abortion have not indicated how they will vote on Monday. Collins made statements in September however that parts of the bill were “extreme” and expressed concern over the weakening of conscience exceptions.

Abortion rights groups stepped up lobbying for abortion bills due to the pending Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. Oral arguments heard in December on the legality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that bans abortions after 15 weeks seem to signal the Court may rule to uphold states’ rights to restrict abortion.

“People are counting on the Senate to do what the Supreme Court will not,” said Nancy Northup, President & CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights in a statement after Schumer’s announcement.

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) argued the Dobbs case in December. CRR is involved in multiple court cases around the world to strike down countries pro-life laws.

NARAL Pro-choice America also applauded Schumer’s decision saying it is needed to “safeguard the legal right to abortion throughout the United States should Roe v. Wade fall.”

The White House expressed support for the Women’s Healthcare Protection Act releasing a Statement of Administration Policy in September after passing the House and in response to the Texas bill that bans abortion when fetal heartbeat is detected.

“In the wake of Texas’ unprecedented attack, it has never been more important to codify this constitutional right…We will not allow this country to go backwards on women’s equality,” the statement says.

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