U.S. House making 1st attempt to protect abortion in post-Roe V. Wade era

The Democrats' abortion-access legislation stands almost no chance of becoming law, with the necessary support lacking in the 50-50 U.S. Senate.

The House on Friday is expected to vote on two bills that would restore and guarantee abortion access nationwide as Democrats make their first attempt at responding legislatively to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

The legislation stands almost no chance of becoming law, with the necessary support lacking in the 50-50 Senate. Yet voting marks the beginning of a new era in the abortion debate as lawmakers, governors and legislatures grapple with the impact of the court’s decision. By overturning Roe, the court has allowed states to enact strict abortion limits, including many that had previously been deemed unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

Already, a number of GOP-controlled states have moved quickly to curtail or outlaw abortion, while states controlled by Democrats have sought to champion access. Voters now rank abortion as among the most pressing issues facing the country, a shift in priorities that Democrats hope will reshape the political landscape in their favor for the midterm elections.

Ahead of House voting, Democrats highlighted the case of a 10-year-old girl who had to cross state lines into Indiana to get an abortion after being raped, calling it an example of how the court’s decision is already having severe consequences.

“We don’t have to imagine why this might matter. We don’t need to conjure up hypotheticals. We already know what’s happened,” Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday on the Senate floor.

“Should the next little 10-year-old’s right or 12-year-old’s right or 14-year-old’s right to get the care that she desperately needs be put in jeopardy?”

In the House, Democrats are bringing two abortion bills to the floor on Friday, one of which would prohibit punishment for a woman or child who decides to travel to another state to get an abortion. It specifies that doctors can’t be punished for providing reproductive care outside their home state.

The Constitution doesn’t explicitly say travel between states is a right, though the Supreme Court has said it is a right that “has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.” Yet the court has never said exactly where the right to travel comes from and that could leave it open to challenge or elimination, as the right to an abortion was.