Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic-majority US Senate, does not share Ortega y Gasset’s old idea that “every futile effort leads to melancholy.” He also doesn’t think it was in vain that he put to the vote in the House of Lords on Wednesday an initiative he knew was doomed to convert abortion rights into federal law. His party, which has 50 of the 100 seats, was a far cry from the 60 required by the tradition of filibustering, which requires qualified majorities for issues of this magnitude. Nevertheless, he allowed both parties to vote. And he didn’t even get everyone’s support: Joe Manchin spoke out against it.
More information
That, too, came as no surprise: They’re already used to the loose verses on Capitol Hill from Manchin, a West Virginia representative who torpedoed some of the star initiatives on President Joe Biden’s agenda in his first 15 months in the White House . It was important to Schumer (New York) that senators take stock before the impending overturn of Roe v. Wade through the Supreme Court, which enshrined this right in the constitution for women half a century ago. So he made it known at the beginning of the session, which was taking place in slow motion (and half-empty, with members walking and entering to vote): “It’s about time Republicans stopped hiding their views on this issue.” Mitch McConnell (Kentucky senator and Republican minority leader, with his characteristic blank expression, criticized a “radical” bill and that Democrats “have allowed fringe activism to take them away from American concerns”.
Schumer decided to act quickly when, on Monday, May 2, he learned, thanks to an unpublished leak on the Politico website, that five of the nine conservative justices were poised to vote to overturn a 1973 ruling that certainly did most famous in history is . of the Supreme Court. His response was to provoke a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, which was under consideration in the House back in February. Abortion is perhaps the issue that Americans are facing the most, and Democrats want voters (and women voters in particular) to know exactly how their politicians now think November’s general election will serve to change the whole House of Representatives and a new third of the Senate to be renewed. The democratic prospects for this election date are not good.
What was leaked to Politico is a Supreme Court draft drafted in February to reflect the majority opinion of judges. As published on Tuesday on the same website, the text known last week is the only text the Justice Department has produced on the case pitting the Dobbs Clinic in Jackson against the state of Mississippi, which enacted a law limiting the border lowers legal abortion from 23 weeks according to Roe v. Wade up to 15 weeks. The arguments and wording of the text could change by the time the Supreme Court makes a final decision in June or early July, but it seems very unlikely that the outcome will be any different than expected. The immediate effect of the ruling would be that the power to legislate on the matter would return to the states. When that happens, 26 of the country’s 50 are expected to take steps that severely restrict or ban abortion.
The initiative, voted on today in the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris and demonstrating the support of the White House, goes much further than the Roe precedent. The law would prohibit some of the conditions recently imposed by some states. In practice, they prevent American women from accessing their rights and include mandatory ultrasound scans, waiting times between the consultation and the surgical procedure, or strict requirements that abortion service providers must meet.
Joe Manchin, Democratic Senator from West Virginia, in the Capitol corridors this Wednesday MICHAEL REYNOLDS (EFE)
The Democrats have been adjusting the text since February. They have removed passages that refer to abortion restrictions as a “tool of gender oppression” or to “anyone who can get pregnant,” which includes transgender men and non-binary people. The intention was to woo some of the Republicans who were more inclined to his position. These are basically two: Senators Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. There are also Democrats who aren’t blindly supporting the law, like Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, who announced Tuesday he would (and did) vote for the law, and Manchin, who voted against.
Collins and Murkowski have introduced a bill of their own that aims to “Roe v. Wade” to codify. It’s a three-page text entitled “Law of Reproductive Choice,” which prevents states from imposing “unreasonable burdens” on the ability to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus is viable, a limit set at around 24 weeks is fixed. This provision was previously considered in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 High Court ruling that upheld Roe’s constitutional right to abortion and, like Roe, is about to take the Supreme Court’s most conservative gavel in eight to succumb to decades. .
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS America newsletter here and receive all the important information about current events in the region.