Facing a rebellion led by women in the party, House Republican leaders abruptly pulled legislation on Wednesday night to ban late-term abortion, unable to reconcile differences over language involving rape.
Instead the GOP decided to hold a vote on a measure seeking to outlaw taxpayer funding for abortion on Thursday, the day of the annual March For Life, a massive anti-abortion rally in Washington.
The original legislation would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a move polls say Americans support. The language that caused the chaos required women to report a sexual assault to the authorities in order to seek medical treatment to terminate a pregnancy.
Anti-abortion bills have typically been routine messaging vehicles for the GOP to lay down a marker. House Republicans different versions in 2011 and 2013, enjoying strong praise from the pro-life community each time. The bills never became law, facing veto threats from President Barack Obama.
The most vocal objector to the 20-week abortion bill was Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), who raised concerns to last week and asked leaders not to bring the bill up this week. By Tuesday this week, she and Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) publicly rescinded their co-sponsorship of the bill on the House floor.they are acting like the 3rd graders that got to play on the playground all by themselves 22 days in and they as promised have sought to dismantle everything gained in last 6 years and before that they don't want we the people in this case women to have. i for years have expressed my astonishment at how republican women can stand there beside those knuckle draggin' SOB's and defend the war against themselves, never thought it would come to this but i guess i feel a little proud that they have shaken off the effects of drinking the republican juice and stopped betraying their own gender.
after all these years of appeasing the men of the party they and still not getting any further then they were before, guess it'll take more time for the newbie's like Ernst to get a clue lying her way through the SOTU response will beating her own drum they did her no favor. those women were being raped by the party of any sense of self respect and they hopefully realized like i've been saying the party supports rape and all those chauvinistic cracks could very well happen and apply to them, self preservation has returned now they need to continue to fight back for all women's rights and stop standing beside those who would take them.
