The bill’s failure to advance must underscore how Democrats are severely constrained in what they can achieve with their narrow Senate majority, even when the party faces huge pressure to take action on abortion rights amid fears that Rowe Wade will be removed soon. But holding the vote will give Democrats a chance to address the issue and criticize Republican resistance to the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the vote, which one of the “most important” senators will take, “not only this session, but this century as well.”
“This is not an abstract exercise, it is as real and urgent as it is,” Schumer told a news conference on Friday.
The Senate will vote to present a version of the Women’s Health Protection Act sponsored by Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. The bill will codify the right of access to abortion in federal law and guarantee the right of health care providers to perform abortion services. The version of the bill adopted by the House of Representatives failed to be presented in the Senate earlier this year amid opposition from the Republican Party.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has criticized Democrats for forcing a vote this week to codify Rowe’s decision against Wade, arguing that “it will attack Americans’ rights of conscience and religious freedom.”
“This would overturn modest and extremely popular safeguards such as waiting periods, informed consent laws and possibly even parental notice,” McConnell said of the Democrats bill in a Senate speech Monday.
Legislation also threatens to shed light on the division among Democrats. The main moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who represents the red state of West Virginia and previously described himself as “for life and proud of it,” voted with Republicans in opposition to the bill when it came to the Senate in February.
So far, Manchin has not said how he plans to vote on the Democratic bill when it comes to vote this week. On Tuesday, he said he was still considering how to vote. “We have information. We will make the lawyer sit down,” Manchin told reporters at the Capitol.
Sensors Susan Collins and Lisa Markowski, a rare Republican supporter of abortion rights, have introduced their own legislation to codify Rowe’s rights into federal law. But both voted against the Women’s Health Act in February. Last week, Collins said the measure proposed by Democrats was too broad and expressed concern that it did not include a so-called conscientious objection clause, which would allow providers to refuse to perform abortions for religious or moral reasons.
Asked at a news conference on Friday why he would not instead present the Collins and Markowski bill, which could receive support from both parties, Schumer said: “We are not looking to compromise something as vital as this.”
Earlier this week, more than a dozen abortion rights organizations wrote a letter strongly opposing the Mrkowski and Collins bill, saying it “will not protect the right to abortion if Rowe v. Wade is repealed.”
Democrats have sounded the alarm and reacted with outrage in response to a recent Supreme Court draft that revealed plans to destroy Rowe v. Wade in about five decades.
Republicans, despite much opposition to abortion rights, instead focused their response on the bombing of the Supreme Court’s leak, arguing that the leak itself posed a significant threat to the independence of the judiciary and freedom from outside interference.
CNN’s Ted Barrett and Manu Raju contributed.
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