Republicans push 20-week abortion ban bill to get Democrats on record

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Anti-abortion activists and protesters carried posters and shouted slogans in support for the unborn on Friday, when they descended on the nation’s capital from various parts of the country for the annual March for Life rally. (Jan. 19)
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WASHINGTON — The Senate is slated to vote on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy Monday afternoon, even though the bill’s sponsors know it isn’t likely to pass.

So why is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., bringing a bill up that’s destined to fail? Republicans want to put Democratic lawmakers facing tough re-elections on record.

“This afternoon, every one of us will go on record on the issue,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday. “I hope that our Democratic colleagues will not obstruct the Senate from taking up this bill.” 

More than half of Democrats, and independents, are up for re-election this year; 10 of them are in states President Trump won and many of those have some version of the 20-week ban already passed at the state level.

“Vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year like Sens. Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, and Heidi Heitkamp, ought to vote in line with their constituents and support this compassionate bill,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, who is president of the anti-abortion advocacy organization Susan B. Anthony List said Monday. “Voting to keep the brutality of late-term abortion legal isn’t just morally abhorrent, it defies national consensus and is a major political liability.”

SBA List’s polling shows that a majority of voters in each of those states — Missouri, Ohio and North Dakota — would support a measure banning abortions after five months. 

The House — which can move legislation with Republican votes only — passed the measure last year largely along party lines,  237-189. The bill would allow for up to five years in prison for the person performing the abortion. The woman who received the abortion would not be prosecuted.

The abortion ban requires 60 votes to pass in the Senate and Republicans have a narrow 51-49 majority. Forty-six GOP senators are co-sponsors of the bill. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted against a similar bill when it came up previously but her office did not immediately respond to her plans for Monday’s vote.

In October, Brown’s spokeswoman said that the Ohio senator would vote against the bill because he “does not believe the government should make decisions that are between a woman and her doctor.”

Sarah Feldman, who is the spokeswoman for  McCaskill, said the Missouri Democrat will also vote against the legislation: “She believes we should focus on preventing abortion and not criminalizing women and their doctors.”

Heitkamp’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, all Democrats, voted for the legislation previously and their offices have said they plan to vote for it again.

“While the country is waiting for us to come together and solve problems, Republicans are wasting precious time with a politically-motivated, partisan bill engineered to drive us apart — and hurt women,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor. 

Ilyse Hogue who is President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a group that advocates for abortion rights told USA TODAY that the vote was not actually about getting Democrats on record, but rather, firing up the GOP base.

“I think that they actually know that it doesn’t put the squeeze on red state Democrats,” Hogue said. “I think that they are desperate to fire up their base to show that they tried to do something for the extreme anti-choice base going into the 2018 midterms.”

Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen, Maureen Groppe and Deborah Barfield Berry

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