TEXAS ABORTION LAW: After SCOTUS Decision, Pelosi Says House Will Take Up Bill Protecting Repro Rights
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that when congress returns to session this month, she plans to bring up a bill that codifies the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.
Pelosi announced her decision on Twitter, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would allow SB8, the extreme anti-abortion law in Texas, to go into effect.
"The Court's cowardly decision to uphold a flagrantly unconstitutional assault on women's rights and health is staggering," Pelosi wrote. "The House will bring up Congresswoman Judy Chu's Women's Health Protection Act to enshrine into law reproductive health care for all women across America."
The house is scheduled to return to session on Sept. 20. Chu's "Women's Health Protection Act," which has 48 sponsors in the Senate, has been sitting in committee since it was introduced back in June. The bill, a form of which was first submitted back in 2013, is the first attempt by congress to codify the Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion as a constitutional right.
In the court's 5-4 decision not to strike down the law, it stated that it's allowing the law to go into effect because its citizens -- not the government -- are enforcing the law.
While the Women's Health Protection Act is expected to pass the House, it could be held up in the Senate, where the Democrats barely have a majority and two Dem senators -- Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania -- are strongly opposed to abortion. Senate Democrats would also need 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. There's also no promise that SCOTUS will let the bill stand.
