Republicans’ efforts to pass a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks will likely fail Monday evening, when the bill comes up for a vote in the Senate. But for opponents of abortion, that’s not the point anyway.Instead, anti-abortion advocacy groups hope to use the vote to get Democrats on the record as being in favor of abortion rights.“People deserve to know who they’re electing,” said Deanna Wallace, staff counsel for the anti-abortion advocacy group Americans United for Life. “I think it’s not just a good political idea to force them to vote on the record, but it’s good for our democracy.”The bill already passed the House of Representatives in October, and now needs to garner 60 votes in the Senate in order to pass. A handful of Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Jon Donnelly of Indiana — all voted for the 20-week abortion ban in 2015 and are expected to do so again.Abortion foes, however, are more focused on the many Democratic senators who’ve long supported abortion rights but represent states President Donald Trump won, including Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri (Trump won 56-38), Jon Tester of Montana (55-35), Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota (63-27), and Sherrod Brown of Ohio (51-43).“Vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year like Sens. Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, and Heidi Heitkamp ought to vote in line with their constituents and support this compassionate bill,” Susan B. Anthony’s List, another anti-abortion group, said in a statement, adding that it’s “already on the ground” in four states. “Voting to keep the brutality of late-term abortion legal isn’t just morally abhorrent; it defies national consensus and is a major political liability.” Twenty weeks would not be considered late term.In a 2014 poll, 60 percent of Americans said they supported a 2013 effort in the House of Representatives to pass a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.The Monday vote may also endanger Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, who ran in the November special election on a pro-abortion-rights platform in a state where 58 percent of people think abortion should be “illegal in all or most cases.” Jones, however, won’t need to run for re-election in 2018.
The ban, which is dubbed “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” is predicated on the idea that fetuses older than 20 weeks, or 22 weeks of gestation, can feel pain. But the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that’s untrue: According to the group's document entitled “Facts Are Important,” fetuses don’t have the capacity to experience pain until they reach viability, which generally occurs at about 24 weeks of gestation. The ban would not apply to pregnancies arising from rape or incest, or if the mother's life would be endangered is she didn't abort.Still, the Trump administration endorsed the 20-week ban back when it was in the House, and has generally done everything it can to energize anti-abortion groups. In addition to creating a division of the Health and Human Services Department’s civil rights office that’s exclusively devoted to protecting healthcare workers’ religious and moral rights — including their opposition to abortion care procedures — Trump became the first president to speak to the March for Life via satellite earlier this month.Related links: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wjpa99/this-is-the-legal-arm-of-the-pro-life-movementhttps://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw5j9x/where-have-all-the-pro-life-democrats-goneAlex Thompson contributed reporting.Cover: Anti-abortion activists rally on the National Mall in Washington, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, during the annual March for Life. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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