A 2017 version of the Women’s Health Protection Act reads: “to protect a woman’s right and ability to determine whether and when to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting restrictions on the provision of abortion services.” Yet, the version that was brought to the Senate floor Monday says: “to protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services.”
"Woman" still remained in the bill's title.
The legislation would legalize abortion up until the moment of birth and remove exemptions for consciousness. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, likely aware of the measure’s fate, brought the bill before the Senate in an apparent attempt to get legislators on record with regard to their stance on abortion.
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In a Monday night procedural vote to begin debate, the controversial bill did not receive the 60 votes required to move forward, failing 46-48.
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West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin was the sole Democrat to vote against advancing the bill.
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“It is a dark, dark time for women’s reproductive rights,” Schumer told reporters ahead of the vote. “We cannot simply stand by and let this happen. There is too much at stake.”
Yet Schumer and other leading Democrats did not have a clear answer Monday on what they plan to do to shore up abortion rights ahead of the Supreme Court’s expected decision to limit or eliminate Roe v. Wade and largely cast the vote as a referendum on the issue ahead of the midterm elections.
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“We, and the American people, will find out whose side our colleagues are on,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told reporters.
The bill, which Progressive lawmakers have pushed since 2013, would have gone further than codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law by blocking states from passing restrictions on abortion both later and earlier in pregnancy. The House barely passed the legislation last fall. Still, unanimous opposition from Republicans and opposition from Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in the Senate led to it coming up short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the few Republicans who has expressed support for abortion rights, also voted to stop the measure from moving forward, telling reporters the bill would have “very troubling” implications for religious freedom.
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Both abortion-rights and anti-abortion-rights groups mobilized ahead of the Senate vote, increasing pressure on the more conservative Democrats and more moderate Republicans whose votes were seen as getable.
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Powerful Conservative groups like Susan B. Anthony List and Students for Life of America led demonstrations outside the Capitol on Monday. They said they were “scoring” the vote and using it to determine which lawmakers to support in future races.
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