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March 30 (UPI) — House Democrats have formally re-introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act to establish a statutory nationwide right to abortion as their Republican counterparts push bans on the medical practice across the country.
The Democrats have now introduced the bill seven times, with it most recently passing the then-Democrat-controlled House in July of last year, before dying in the Republican-controlled Senate with a filibuster.
House Bill 12 — which has a Senate companion that was introduced earlier this month — protects access to abortion by creating a federal statutory right for healthcare providers to provide the medical practice and a corresponding right for patients to receive it.
It also protects the ability to travel out of state for the medical care.
“House Democrats believe in a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions. Period. Full stop,” House minority speaker Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a press conference Thursday announcing the bill. “And we will not rest until the Women’s Health Protection Act is the law of the land.”
The Democratic Party has made regaining the federal right to abortion a policy priority following the conservative-leaning Supreme Court last summer repealing some 50 years of federal protections for the medical procedure by overturning the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling.
Since then, full or nearly full bans have been enacted in 12 states, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, as Republicans at the state level have sought to implement such restrictions, with Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina having introduced legislation to ban abortion after 15 weeks into a pregnancy nationwide.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., described the anti-abortion effort of her Republican colleagues as an attempt to make the United States “forever a nation of forced birth.”
“They’ve already proposed a national abortion ban, so no matter where you live politicians would have more say about what happens to your body than you do,” she said during the press conference. “That’s why we’re here today to fight back and introduction the Women’s Health Protection Act.”
She added that passing this legislation, which is backed by 208 Democratic members as full sponsors, is among her party’s top 10 priorities this Congress.
“We are all standing here today because every person, no matter their circumstances, no matter how they became pregnant deserves dignity, safety and care in seeking an abortion,” she said. “Because you should not have more rights if you are pregnant in California than if you get pregnant in Texas.
“And most of all because no one — not the president, not a Supreme Court justice, not your partner — should be able to force you to remain pregnant if you do not wish to.”
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