U.S. Senate again fails to federalize abortion

WASHINGTON (BP and local reports) – The controversial leaking of a U.S. Supreme Court justice’s draft opinion in a Mississippi case currently being debated among the justices did not deter the Democratic Party majority in the U.S. Senate from attempting to again institute an expansive right to abortion into federal law.

The May 11 vote by senators fell short 51-49 of invoking cloture (cutting off debate) for the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). A February vote to invoke cloture and move the act to a vote also failed.

All Republicans, including Mississippi Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, as well as Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, opposed the procedural move, which required a supermajority of 60 senators.

The U.S. House of Representatives had already approved the legislation on Feb. 28, and U.S. President Biden had endorsed it. Mississippi’s Republican delegation in the House – Trent Kelly (District 1), Michael Guest (District 3) and Steve Palazzo (District 4) – all voted against the act. Mississippi’s sole Democrat House member, Bennie Thompson (District 2) voted in favor of the act.

“What a lie to call the far-left Women’s Health Protection Act a ‘Heath’ Act,” said Kenny Digby, executive director of the Mississippi Baptist Convention’s Christian Action Commission. “The liberals need to replace the words, ‘Health Protection,’ with ‘Death Promotion’ — the ‘Women’s Death Promotion Act.’ Abortion is murder of an unborn child.”

Observers have said the Democrats’ rush to twice attempt to enshrine abortion into federal law was brought on by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi case before the Supreme Court that would make abortion illegal after 15 weeks gestation.

Thomas Dobbs is the State Health Officer at the Mississippi Department of Health. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the sole remaining abortion clinic in the state, located on North State Street in Jackson.

Court watchers have predicted the justices will overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide for all nine months of human gestation. The May 2 publication of a draft opinion by conservative Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a nominee of Republican U.S. President George W. Bush, regarding the Dobbs case appears to indicate the Court is inclined to overturn Roe.

“We are so proud of our state leadership who put forward and defended the 15 week law that has precipitated the reconsideration of Roe v. Wade. We are also proud that five out of six of our [House and Senate] state congressional delegation voted against the ‘Women’s Death Promotion Act,’” Digby said.

Chelsea Sobolik, director of public policy for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, said WHPA “should deeply grieve us.”

“The erroneously-named Women’s Health Protection Act does nothing to protect women or preborn children, but instead is the most pro-abortion bill to be brought to the Senate floor,” said Sobolik contended.

In written comments for Baptist Press, Sobolik expressed strong opposition to the measure “because it not only removes all restrictions and limits on abortion and allows for abortion up to the point of birth, [but] it also removes all pro-life protections at the federal and state levels and eliminates a state’s ability to legislate on abortion.”

In addition, the WHPA does not provide conscience protections for American taxpayers, eliminating such longstanding prohibitions on federal funding of abortion as the Hyde Amendment. It also would remove current federal safeguards for the consciences of health-care workers opposed to participating in abortions.

According to the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, D.C., WHPA would nullify pro-life regulations passed by various states such as:

— Waiting periods before an abortion.

— Information on the development of an unborn child.

— Information on alternatives to abortion.

— Bans on sex-selection abortions.

— Prohibitions on abortion after 20 weeks based on evidence the child feels pain by that point.

A 2021 study by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute in Washington, D.C., showed 47 of 50 European countries prohibit elective abortions or limit abortions to 15 weeks gestation or earlier. The United States reportedly is one of only six countries, including China and North Korea, that permit elective abortions after 20 weeks gestation.

To read the Dec. 1, 2021, oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, click here. To listen to the oral arguments, click here.