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After the Senate GOP tried and failed to move an unconstitutional abortion ban forward, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue issued the following statement in response:
“The fact that the anti-choice GOP would waste time and taxpayer money on an unconstitutional abortion ban shows that their obsession with controlling women’s bodies and lives knows no limits. With Congress unsure of a path forward to keep the government open beyond February 8, the Russia investigation, and so much more, their focus on this bill reveals their true priorities: to punish women, ban abortion, and try to score an ideological win to appeal to their fringe base.
“The majority of Americans believe that abortion should remain legal and accessible. When voters hear the real stories of women and families facing later abortion, they become convinced that this is the last place they want politicians meddling between a woman and her doctor. The fact that fewer Senators voted for this legislation than two years ago demonstrates that the country is catching up to the reality of these situations and demanding sanity in our legislation. If the anti-choice GOP continues to be out-of-step with the values of hard working women and families, we’ll make sure they pay the consequences at the ballot box in November.”
Donald Trump recently called upon Senate Republicans to send him this outright, nationwide ban on abortion care after 20 weeks, with no exception to protect a woman’s health, in order to fulfill a campaign promise he made to the anti-choice movement. Abortions performed later in a woman’s pregnancy are rare and represent only a tiny portion (1.5%) of the abortion procedures performed in this country. Women seek this care later in pregnancy for a variety of reasons, including highly complex medical problems, difficulty accessing care, and the fear that comes with rape, incest, and abuse.
This bill does not offer adequate protections for women such as Danielle Deaver from Nebraska, whose amniotic fluid ruptured at 22 weeks, leaving the pregnancy without adequate fluid to continue developing, or for Jennifer Peterson of New Hampshire, who was pregnant when she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and had to make the heart-wrenching decision between continuing her pregnancy and saving her own life.
This bill would also put doctors in jail. Among other penalties, this bill threatens to jail responsible doctors with five years of prison time for violating the ban and providing care to women.
NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all Americans. NARAL works to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”
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