Later this year, the nation's high court will be issuing its decisions on the abortion viability rule and whether to return abortion decisions to the states. But the U.S. Senate is expected to vote Monday on "The Women's Health Protection Act"– legislation that Mallory Carroll of the Susan B. Anthony List explains is very extreme and would undo every federal or state law restricting abortion.
"If your state has a ban on abortion after 20 weeks or a ban on discrimination abortion, this bill would supersede that and say there has to be a right to abortion on demand without limit in every state across the country," she tells AFN.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a fact sheet on the bill, listing a "host" of laws regulating abortion that would be invalidated – and stating it "would likely trump [state and federal] conscience laws."
The Senate vote is Monday (Feb. 28,) although the Supreme court decision won't be released until June.
"And while we wait for the Supreme Court to take the handcuffs off the states and allow them to pass more laws that reflect the values of the people who live there, this is just one way that the pro-abortion lobby is calling on their pro-abortion political allies to try and codify Roe in the law," says Carroll.
The House passed the legislation (H.R. 3755) in late September by a near-party-line vote of 218-211 (one Democrat voted against it). However, passage isn't certain in the Senate where 60 votes will be needed for the bill to be debated – unless, of course, Democrats get rid of the filibuster provision, in which case only a majority vote could pass it.
Editor's note: In the Senate, The Women's Health Protection Act carries the designation S. 1975.
