Even though President Obama threatened to veto this bill hours before it passed the House of Representatives because he considers it to be “an assault on a woman’s right to choose” and “a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade,” this is nonetheless still very good news for the pro-life community. Politico reports:
The House Tuesday passed a bill that would ban most abortions nationwide after 20 weeks. The most far-reaching abortion legislation in the House in a decade, it was passed 228-196 mostly along party lines.
The vote is largely symbolic: The bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate. And the White House has already threatened to veto the“fetal pain” legislation, which is based on the controversial assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that stage of development.
But Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), the bill’s sponsor, didn’t find that discouraging. He pointed to the last time Congress passed a bill of this scope, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. That bill fell short and faced court battles before it finally became law.
“I think if you hearken back to partial-birth abortion … everybody said you know, it’s not constitutional, it can’t pass, it can’t go anywhere, and it took time to do that and it even had to succeed a presidential veto. But it eventually did,” Franks said.
Meanwhile, the Pro-Life Susan B. Anthony List released the following statement:
“Congress has taken an important first step toward making sure we stop abortionists like Kermit Gosnell and his horrific abortion clinic and procedures. The House listened to the overwhelming majority of Americans, men and women, who instinctively recoil at the dehumanizing and degrading practice of late-term abortion,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the SBA List. “This pro-woman, pro-science, Constitutional bill deserves an immediate vote in the U.S. Senate. It’s simple: children capable of experiencing unimaginable pain from abortion must be protected across the country.
“The big abortion industry cannot defend late-term abortions. Americans are disturbed by the callous nature of this practice, the disgusting clinic conditions in Pennsylvania, Delaware and other states, the 330,000 abortions Planned Parenthood of America performs every year as it receives half a billion in taxpayer dollars, and the repeated harm women experience as a result of their exploitation. Women and the unborn deserve better than abortion, and making late-term abortions illegal is a simple step in that direction. Votes have consequences. Congress should take note we're pulling together our 2014 target list tonight.”
For what it’s worth, according to a recent Gallup poll, 80 percent of Americans believe third trimester abortions should be illegal.