for the most extreme abortion legislation since Roe v. Wade
When I started working on Capitol Hill about 15 years ago, pro-life Democrat was not an oxymoron and the Pro-Life Caucuses in the House and Senate boasted a decent number of Democrat members. In 2007, 14 House Democrats voted to protect human beings at the earliest stages of development by voting against a bill to expand human embryonic stem cell research. In 2005, 54 House Democrats voted in favor of a bill that would have criminalized taking a minor across state lines to get an abortion.
While the 2004 Democratic Party Platform asserted that “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare,” in 2020, the Platform claimed abortion is “vital to the empowerment of women and girls.”
So empowerment is based on a woman’s right to kill the human being that is developing inside of her? According to this perverse logic, women are not empowered unless we have the power to destroy people who are less powerful and more dependent than we are.
That is not just wrong. It is a lie from the pit of hell.
In order to further that lie, House Democrats voted last week to pass the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA).” Some people describe the WHPA as codifying Roe v. Wade, but it goes FAR beyond that. If enacted, it will be the most radical expansion of baby-killing since the legalization of abortion.
Ultrasound requirements, informed consent provisions, parental notification statutes, and laws that prohibit abortion after a certain age – all of these could be eradicated by the WHPA. Abortionists would be able to circumvent EVERY SINGLE duly-enacted state regulation on abortion – even those upheld by courts.
The WHPA passed by a rather slim margin of 218 to 211, with 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat abstaining. Only a single Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, voted against the bill. No Republicans voted against it. Only a handful of the pro-life Democrats who were ousted by their own party would have been needed to ensure the bill’s defeat – and this is exactly why the Party will not permit pro-lifers within its ranks.
The somewhat good news is that the bill appears unlikely to pass the Senate under current cloture rules that require debate on a bill to be kept open until the Senate votes to end the debate and move for a vote, which requires 60 votes. Pro-life members could thereby filibuster the WHPA and stop its passage. Democrats, on the other hand, could “nuke the filibuster” through a parliamentary procedure that would only require a simple majority to pass the bill.
We will keep you posted as to developments with the Women’s Health Protection Act and other legislation that implicates the most vulnerable among us, especially preborn children. We are prepared to challenge laws that further baby-killing. More about this in future emails…