House Defeats Unconstitutional Abortion Ban for District of Columbia

(PRESS RELEASE) The U.S. House of Representatives has defeated a measure that would have severely restricted access to safe, legal reproductive health services for women in the District of Columbia, after supporters of the extreme bill failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority in today’s vote.
 
The bill, HR 3803, would have criminalized all abortions performed after 20 weeks’ gestation in the District—prohibiting physicians from providing such procedures with absolutely no health exception for a woman in any circumstance other than an immediate threat to her life.
 
Even with a broad health exception the bill would have been blatantly unconstitutional, as it aimed to ban abortions before viability—an issue that has been long settled under U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Nevertheless, House Judiciary Committee members recently rejected even the narrowest of additional health exceptions when advancing the bill to a floor vote.
 
Said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights:
 
“For the moment, the women of the District of Columbia have been spared the indignities and grave risks to their health that this assault on their rights would have imposed.
 
“Every woman faces different circumstances in her pregnancy, and her fundamental rights to make whatever decision is best for her and her family is protected by the U.S Constitution against cruel measures intended to take that decision away.”