Republicans in the House of Representatives on Tuesday make their most concerted effort of the year to change U.S. abortion law with legislation that would ban almost all abortions after a fetus reaches the age of 20 weeks.
The “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,†expected to pass by a comfortable margin late Tuesday, would be a direct challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions up to the time a fetus becomes viable. Fetal viability is generally considered to be at least 24 weeks into the pregnancy.
The measure will be ignored by the Democratic-led Senate and the White House, saying the bill is “an assault on a woman’s right to choose,†has issued a veto threat.
Even if the policy were to become law, it would almost certainly face a legal challenge. That is a prospect supporters hope for as part of the ultimate goal of overturning Roe v. Wade.
The two sides in the abortion debate agreed at least on the importance of the measure.
National Right to Life Committee legislative director Douglas Johnson said it was the “most significant piece of pro-life legislation to come before the House since the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act†that was enacted in 2003. Rep. John Conyers, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the bill “clearly is an attack on women’s constitutional right to choose and is one of the most far-reaching bans on abortion this committee has ever considered.â€
Some 11 state legislatures have passed similar measures. Several have been challenged in court and a federal court last month struck down a slightly different Arizona law that banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Anti-abortion groups said the time frame in the House bill and other state laws, which ban abortion 20 weeks after conception, is equal to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
The sponsors of the bill also cited evidence—which opponents say is disputed—that fetuses can feel pain after five months.
House Republican leaders, stymied by a Democratic Senate and a Democrat in the White House, have chosen to focus on economic issues rather than contentious social topics such as abortion. “Jobs continue to be our number one concern,†the leader of the House, House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, said last week when asked about the abortion bill. But he said that “after the Kermit Gosnell case and the publicity that it received, I think the legislation is appropriate.â€
Gosnell was a Philadelphia abortion provider who last month received a life sentence for what prosecutors said was the murder of three babies delivered alive. The case energized anti-abortion groups, who said it exemplified the inhumanity of late-term abortions.
The original House bill, sponsored by anti-abortion leader Rep. Trent Franks, R-Arizona, was aimed only at the Washington district, but was expanded to cover the entire nation after the Gosnell case received national attention.
Pro-choice groups argued that the 20-week ban, in addition to being unconstitutional, would affect women just at the point of learning of a fetal anomaly or determining that the pregnancy could put the mother’s life in danger.
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