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Democrats dig in on abortion rights as Trump pushes for 20-week ban
 [Washington Examiner] House Democrats are backing legislation that would gut abortion restrictions just over one week after President Trump called on Congress to pass a 20-week abortion ban.If the bill Democrats will review in a hearing Wednesday, the Women's Health Protection Act, were to become law, then no states would be able to pass bans based on gestational stage such as the one Trump is calling for. The bill isn't likely to get traction in the Republican-controlled Senate but is meant to draw attention to red-state laws regulating abortion. "States and local governments have passed hundreds of bans and restrictions that make access to reproductive healthcare services, including abortion, increasingly difficult and, in some cases, impossible to obtain," Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone and Anna Eshoo said when they announced the hearings. This March, the Supreme Court is set to review the constitutionality of one such restriction in Louisiana, which requires doctors to be able to check patients into hospitals should something go wrong during an abortion procedure ‐ even though reported instances of complications are rare. Other restrictions require women to wait between a first appointment and an abortion, mandate ultrasounds, or require doctors to read a script to patients about abortion risks even if they think the information they're providing is incorrect. Democrats want to do away with all restrictions and to enshrine into federal law the Supreme Court decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which widely legalized abortion nationwide. Wednesday's hearing is just the latest offshoot of the abortion debate in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail: Democrats have aligned with the abortion rights movement, which has pushed for abortion to be allowed at any time during a pregnancy without restrictions. Republicans and anti-abortion advocates who wish to see abortion become illegal in most or all cases have focused their legislative efforts on banning abortions late in pregnancy. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing about a bill that would penalize doctors who do not transfer a baby to a hospital if the baby is born alive after an abortion is attempted late in pregnancy. Posted by: Besoeker 2020-02-12 |
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