Democrats schedule votes on abortion access but lack a legislative path

Democrats in Congress, under pressure to take quick action in response to the Supreme Court’s decision striking down abortion rights, are planning to hold votes this week on legislation that seeks to preserve access to abortions in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

The bills are all but certain to fail in the evenly divided Senate, where broad Republican opposition means they cannot muster the 60 votes to move forward. But Democrats are pushing forward amid a groundswell of pressure from progressives in their ranks who were outraged by the Supreme Court ruling and irate that their leaders appeared to have no plan to respond.

In the immediate aftermath of last month’s decision that overturned the nearly 50-year-old precedent that established abortion rights, as protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court demanding action, House Democrats convened on the steps of the Capitol across the street, singing “God Bless America” to celebrate passage of a gun safety bill.

The gesture was widely derided by activists on the left, who denounced the lack of a cogent response from President Joe Biden or from Congress to a ruling that had been anticipated for weeks.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are now moving forward with a plan that is aimed at framing the issue for the midterm elections. Lacking the votes to force action, Democrats are using the debate to show voters where they stand and portray Republicans as out of step with a majority of Americans, who polls consistently show support abortion access.

The first measure, which Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., plans to bring to a vote this week, would protect the right to travel for abortion services. A second measure, a version of which passed the House last year, would explicitly give health care providers the right to provide abortion services and their patients the right to obtain them, invalidating a variety of restrictions that were enacted in the aftermath of Roe.

Senate Democrats tried and failed in May to take up that legislation, the Women’s Health Protection Act. But Republicans and one Democrat – Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia – opposed it, blocking a debate and leaving the measure short of even the simple majority that it would need to clear Congress.

House Democrats also plan to bring up more legislation in the coming weeks that would protect the privacy of patients’ health records, amid concern that law enforcement officials could try to use the data to track pregnancies and enforce abortion restrictions or bans.