MAGA Big Liars’ Legislation: Gaslighting over Reproductive Rights

On January 9, 2023, as their first official act in the 118th Congress, Democrats attempted to bring the Women’s Health Protection Act, federal legislation that creates a new legal protection for the right to provide and access abortion care, up for a vote. Unfortunately, it didn’t receive enough votes to bring it to the floor.

We agree with Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, that the MAGA anti-abortion bills make it clear that “House Republicans are patently rejecting the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans who voted to support legal abortion in November. Meanwhile, our Democratic reproductive freedom champions in the House are ready and willing to fight to restore and expand access to abortion—and we thank them for that.”

It was inspiring to see Democratic unity through the fifteen rounds of House Speaker voting and disappointing to see it broken up by MAGA gaslighting bills on reproductive rights. The few House Democrats who voted for those bills recognized them as cynical TV ad fodder for the next round of campaigns in their Republican districts. Rep Henry Cuellar of Texas voted for the abortion ban, and three House Democrats supported the “protect pro-life groups” resolution: representatives Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA).

When Congressional campaigns are in full swing, Republican politicians fearmonger about “late term” and “partial birth” abortions—when in fact two-thirds of abortions occur in the first three months of pregnancy. Republicans know very well that by the time a late abortion is necessary, it is a tragic event that occurs only because of dire necessity, such as saving the life of the mother. But they won’t let the truth get in the way of a good scare campaign.

Republicans have been trying to pass federal bans on abortion since 1996. They finally succeeded in banning a specific abortion procedure when they passed a law in 2003 against “partial-birth abortion,” and SCOTUS upheld that law eleven years later. Now that our ultra-partisan Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has opened the door, Republicans are storming ahead once again to try to establish a federal ban on all abortion care.

But the history of abortion bans and restrictions in the US goes back much farther. Most of them have been state laws. Organizers of the Women’s March understand that the laboratories of autocracy are often state governments, where radical Republicans, with the support of wealthy hard-right groups like the Federalist Society, tee-up bills to be promoted to the Supreme Court to overturn our civil rights. Therefore, the Women’s March has announced a demonstration on January 23, 2023, to take our fight to every state house and every state legislator in this country. Sign up here.

In the meantime:

The Center for Reproductive Rights features up-to-the minute news on the fight to defend reproductive rights (including medication-abortion and contraception) on the state and federal level nationwide.
We at Indivisible SF prepared a list of ways that our members can directly support access to safe abortion through adopting a clinic or a county or contributing to funds that help people seeking abortion care.