Democrat lawmakers in the House and Senate reintroduced a bill titled the “Women’s Health Protection Act” (WHPA) which, if signed into law, would allow unlimited abortion in any state in the nation.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) in reintroducing the measure Tuesday.
Thus far, the WHPA has 48 Democrat co-sponsors in the Senate – all Senate Democrats except Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WVA) and Bob Casey (D-PA), and 176 Democrat co-sponsors in the House.
“The Women’s Health Protection Act protects abortion not women,” headlined National Right to Life (NRLC) News.
“The enthusiastic rush of Congressional Democrats to sponsor this bill shows once again that the top legislative priority for Democrats is more and more abortions paid for with tax dollars,” said Carol Tobias, NRLC president.
Tobias explained the impact of WHPA:
The so-called Women’s Health Protection Act would essentially remove all legal protections for unborn children on the federal and state level. The Women’s Health Protection Act is, in effect, a no-limits-on-abortion-until-birth bill. Pro-abortion Democrats have yet to hear of an abortion-expansion bill they didn’t like and they are more than willing to push it on to the American people.
Chu said in a press statement, the success of pro-life legislation in the states is “part of a deliberate strategy by anti-abortion extremists to use state laws and the courts to slowly chip away at abortion access, with nearly 500 restrictive laws introduced in states since just 2011.”
“That is why we need the Women’s Health Protection Act to ensure that no matter where you live, what your background is, or what your zip code, you have the same rights to make decisions about your own body as anyone else,” she added.
The bill is reintroduced just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s announcement it will hear a challenge to a Mississippi abortion law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In a case that represents the most significant challenge in decades to the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Court will decide if all state laws banning most abortions are unconstitutional.
If enacted, WHPA would eviscerate state bans on late-term abortions and those sought for sex selection or to eliminate a child with a prenatal diagnosis of a disability, such as Down syndrome. The bill would also outlaw federal conscience protections regarding abortion and restrictions on government funding of abortion on demand.
Blumenthal referred to such pro-life state laws as “demagogic and draconian,” which serve to “hurt women and families.”
The Connecticut senator said he plans to hold a hearing on the WHPA in the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee next week.
“Right now in states across this country, Roe v. Wade is under attack and millions of women are at risk of losing the freedom to make their own personal health decisions,” Baldwin said in a press statement. “It is past time to stand up to these extreme threats to women’s constitutionally protected reproductive rights.”
The bill states its aim is “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.”
“Tragically, the only ones to benefit from such a law would be abortionists and abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood,” Tobias said. “This legislation endangers women and their unborn children, would expand taxpayer funding of abortion, and would no longer require that a woman be given information about the development of her unborn child.”
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