Marjorie Dannenfelser On the heels of an embarrassing Supreme Court defeat for the Biden administration in its litigation war against the Texas Heartbeat Act, President Biden issued a statement renewing the Democrats’ calls to pass the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act.”
If ever the concept of doublespeak applied to legislation, it applies here. This deceptively named bill has nothing to do with protecting women — instead, it would enshrine a “right” to unlimited abortion in our Constitution. Accurately dubbed the “Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act” by pro-life members of Congress, this extreme federal takeover would prevent enforcement of existing pro-life laws and block new pro-life policies, both at the federal level and in the states, where more than 100 pro-life laws were enacted in 2021.
According to an analysis by Charlotte Lozier Institute, “The operative language of the bill cuts at the heart of a state’s ability to enact any meaningful restriction on abortion… waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, informed consent, telemedicine bans, hospital transfer agreements, hospital admitting privileges, parental consent, and multiple other reasonable regulations on abortion would be struck down.” The Hyde Amendment, the traditionally bipartisan policy that has saved at least 2.5 million lives by preventing taxpayer funding of abortion on demand, would likely be struck down. Furthermore, the bill is expressly written to supersede longstanding conscience protection laws, raising the specter of forced complicity for pro-life health care workers and institutions without any recourse at the federal level.
This bill demeans women by falsely attributing our social and economic gains to abortion. It ignores women harmed by legal abortion — including by unsafe conditions, negligence and incompetence in abortion facilities that the profit-driven abortion industry is indisposed to regulate itself — and the fact that at least half the babies killed are girls. Melissa Ohden, founder of the Abortion Survivors Network who miraculously survived a saline abortion that nearly burned her alive, testified at a U.S. Senate hearing last June:
“How can access to abortion, the very act that should have ended my life, simultaneously be a fundamental right to exercise? Life is the foundation of all other rights… everyone in this room was granted the privilege to retain that right — a privilege I was denied. A privilege my unprotected population of abortion survivors were denied.”
Under the rubric of “reproductive justice,” the bill smears pro-life advocates’ legislative efforts as rooted in racism. Peer-reviewed research reveals the truth: the death toll of abortion is nearly four times higher within Black communities. Outside the pro-life movement this is rarely recognized as a public health crisis or a matter of “equity” and social justice.
Pro-abortion Democrats are deeply out of touch with the American people, who reject abortion extremism and overwhelmingly support substantial limits on abortion. In light of the Dobbs decision that has finally returned this issue to the people and their elected representatives, Americans should not and will not stand for this undemocratic assault on their right to protect vulnerable women and unborn children.
