(DCWatchdog.com) – A year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, House Republicans are embarking on a new push to limit abortion access, according to a report.
“Our work is far from done,” declared the House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, today the House speaker, after the June 24, 2022, ruling of the US Supreme Court.
The “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization” ruling allowed state-level abortion bans, rejecting abortion’s claimed status as a “constitutional right.”
“A year later, McCarthy is the speaker, Republicans are in the majority and the blanks are beginning to be filled in,” The Associated Press writes in a report.
“In a flurry of little-noticed legislative action, GOP lawmakers are pushing abortion policy changes, trying to build on the work of activists whose strategy successfully elevated their fight to the nation’s highest court,” AP elaborates, as cited by Newsmax.
It notes the GOP majority in the House is adding anti-abortion “riders,” i.e., unrelated policy provisions, to different government funding bills.
US Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said the riders were meant to defend “long-standing pro-life protections that are important to our side of the aisle.”
According to Democrats, those proposals will never be approved while they control the Senate.
“This is not just about an attack on women’s health. I view it as an attempt to derail the entire process of funding the federal government by injecting these riders into the appropriations process,” commented US Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the top Democrat on the committee.
Budget bills passed by the House already feature almost a dozen anti-abortion measures. The agricultural bill stipulates reversing a recent FDA decision to allow the chemical abortion pill mifepristone in pharmacies.
In the defense bill, the Republicans seek to prohibit paid leave and travel for abortion for military personnel and family members.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) said he had warned Defense Secretary Llyod Austin over the measure.
“I told them that that was going to be a poison pill when it came to getting their legislation done over here. I told him, you know, ‘You’re asking for trouble.’ And now they got trouble,” Rogers said.
When the Supreme Court issued its abortion ruling last June overturning Roe v. Wade, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said "our work is far from done.” He didn't say what might come next. https://t.co/H3UOPoel70
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) June 25, 2023
