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The first days of a new Congress are typically when the party in charge lays out its priority, and today, it’s the turn of abortion foes.
The two measures the Republican-led House will consider don’t amount to the sort of draconian laws some abortion foes would like to see passed, and supporters of the procedure fear. They are not, for instance, the nationwide abortion ban Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed last year.
Rather, they target more niche aspects and consequences of the procedure. One is a resolution condemning attacks on churches, groups and facilities that work against abortion. The other is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is intended to protect the rights of babies born after surviving an attempted abortion. Abortion rights advocate argue their rights are already secured by a 2002 law, and just last November, voters in Montana rejected a similar measure that was on their ballots.
Democrats are telling their members to vote against both measures.
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In Texas, some cities are moving to become havens for abortion access in a state where the procedure is otherwise banned, the Guardian’s Poppy Noor reports:
Campaigners in San Antonio, Texas, on Tuesday delivered more than 38,000 signatures to the city clerk’s office, petitioning for a May vote that would decriminalize abortion in the city.
Abortion in Texas has been banned since August 2022, following the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade last summer.
The campaigners hope to pass what they are calling the San Antonio Justice Charter, which would also end criminalization for low-level marijuana possession, and put limits on police use of no-knock warrants and chokeholds.
San Antonio, Austin and Waco – all in Texas – already passed resolutions to de-prioritize the investigation of abortion crimes through their city councils in 2022, at the same time as a string of progressive district attorneys across the country vowed to resist state abortion bans that came into effect when the federal right to abortion ended in June.
In Alabama, the state’s top prosecutor has reacted to the Biden administration’s expansion of access to abortion pills by warning that women who take the medication could be prosecuted under a law meant to protect children from methamphetamine fumes.
“Promoting the remote prescription and administration of abortion pills endangers both women and unborn children,” Republican attorney general Steve Marshall said in a statement to Al.com. “Elective abortion – including abortion pills – is illegal in Alabama. Nothing about the Justice Department’s guidance changes that. Anyone who remotely prescribes abortion pills in Alabama does so at their own peril: I will vigorously enforce Alabama law to protect unborn life.”
Alabama’s governor in 2019 signed the Human Life Protection Act, which bans abortion except to protect the life of the mother. It only went into effect last year, when the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. But the law allows for abortion providers to be punished, not recipients, which is why Marshall is threatening to use the state’s chemical endangerment law against women who end their pregnancies medically.
“The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers, exempting women ‘upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed’ from liability under the law,” said Marshall, who has also threatened to prosecute veterans affair doctors who perform abortions in cases of incest or rape. “It does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law – which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children.”
The first days of a new Congress are typically when the party in charge lays out its priority, and today, it’s the turn of abortion foes.
The two measures the Republican-led House will consider don’t amount to the sort of draconian laws some abortion foes would like to see passed, and supporters of the procedure fear. They are not, for instance, the nationwide abortion ban Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed last year.
Rather, they target more niche aspects and consequences of the procedure. One is a resolution condemning attacks on churches, groups and facilities that work against abortion. The other is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is intended to protect the rights of babies born after surviving an attempted abortion. Abortion rights advocate argue their rights are already secured by a 2002 law, and just last November, voters in Montana rejected a similar measure that was on their ballots.
Democrats are telling their members to vote against both measures.
Abortion foes have their moment as House GOP gets to work
Good morning, US politics blog readers. House Republicans will today introduce two measures concerning abortion, one being a bill that “secures medical protections for babies that survive an attempted abortion”, and the other a resolution condemning “attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches”. That the party opposes the procedure is no surprise, but they still have to tread carefully. After all, it was outrage to the supreme court’s decision last year allowing states to ban abortion entirely that led to the GOP’s underperformance in the midterms. The House will convene at 12pm eastern time, with votes on these two bills expected at 4pm.
Here’s what else is happening today:
All domestic flight departures are paused until 9am eastern time due to a system failure, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2pm eastern time.
The House panel charged with determining which lawmakers sit on committees will meet at 10am today to continue filling out the ranks of key bodies, such as financial services, energy and commerce, ways and means and appropriations.
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