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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are taking aboriginal action connected abortion with their caller majority, approving 2 measures Wednesday that marque wide they privation further restraints aft the Supreme Court overruled the national close to termination past year.
The caller GOP-led House passed 1 solution to condemn attacks connected anti-abortion facilities, including situation gestation centers, and a abstracted measure that would enforce caller penalties if a doc refused to attraction for an babe calved live aft an termination attempt.
Neither is expected to walk the Democratic-led Senate, but Republicans said they were making bully connected promises to code the contented on with different legislative priorities successful the archetypal days successful power.
“You don’t person freedom, existent liberty, unless authorities protects your astir cardinal right, your close to live,” said caller House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who led statement connected the measures.
Even so, the 2 measures are acold from a bold connection connected abortion, which has proved politically tricky for Republicans since the June Supreme Court determination that overturned Roe v. Wade aft astir 50 years and allowed states to enact adjacent oregon full bans connected abortion. While immoderate Republicans person pushed to grow connected the ruling with a nationalist prohibition — oregon a compromise prohibition that would bounds abortions aft a definite constituent — galore person rejected that option. And it has go wide that astir Americans would reason it.
A July AP-NORC canvass showed Republicans are mostly opposed to allowing termination “for immoderate reason” and aft 15 weeks into a pregnancy. But lone 16% of Republicans accidental termination mostly should beryllium “illegal successful each cases,” and a majority, 56%, accidental their authorities should mostly let termination six weeks into a pregnancy. According to AP VoteCast, a nationalist survey of the midterm electorate, 61% of each voters said they were successful favour of a instrumentality guaranteeing entree to ineligible termination nationwide.
The nationalist sentiment has made immoderate Republicans wary of the party’s accepted full-throated absorption to termination rights.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who says she is opposed to abortion, said she believes the aboriginal propulsion connected the contented is misguided. She said she believes the bulk of voters successful her plaything territory opposed the Supreme Court’s determination to overrule Roe.
“This is astir apt not the mode to commencement disconnected the week,” Mace told MSNBC.
Republicans supporting the 2 measures took pains not to link them with overturning Roe, emphasizing that they were narrowly focused.
“I privation to beryllium perfectly wide that this measure has thing to bash with the Supreme Court decision,” said Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner, the Republican sponsor of the bill.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia said the measures passed Wednesday bespeak what Republicans spot arsenic contiguous termination priorities. House Republicans inactive “need to person a discussion” astir much wholesale changes, namely an termination ban, helium said.
Loudermilk said helium thinks the contented should beryllium near to the states for now, “otherwise we commencement muddying the waters again.”
Emboldened by nationalist absorption to the Supreme Court decision, Democrats enthusiastically opposed the measures, predicting that Republicans were lone laying the groundwork for a nationalist ban.
“The differences betwixt our broadside of the aisle and their broadside of the aisle couldn’t beryllium immoderate clearer,” said Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Democrats criticized the solution condemning attacks connected pro-life facilities arsenic one-sided due to the fact that it did not condemn akin — and long-standing — unit against termination clinics. The solution is “woefully incomplete,” said New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the apical Democrat connected the House Judiciary Committee.
The Democrats argued that the authorities imposing caller penalties connected doctors is unnecessary due to the fact that it is already amerciable to termination an infant. It would make analyzable caller standards making it harder for wellness providers to bash their jobs, they said.
“It is simply a mean-spirited solution successful hunt of a problem,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif.
Last summer, the Democratic-led House voted to reconstruct termination rights nationwide, but that authorities was blocked successful the intimately divided Senate. That measure would person expanded connected the protections Roe had antecedently provided by banning what supporters accidental are medically unnecessary restrictions that artifact entree to harmless and accessible abortions.
The GOP bills are destined to endure a akin destiny successful the Senate this session. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Americans elected Senate Democrats “to beryllium a firewall” against what helium said are Republicans’ utmost views.
“Republicans are proving however dangerously retired of interaction they are with mainstream America,” Schumer said.
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Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut, Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
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