House Fails to Pass Measure Attacking D.C. Women :: NARAL Pro-Choice America

House Fails to Pass Measure Attacking D.C. Women :: NARAL Pro-Choice America:

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WOMEN

NARAL Pro-Choice America channeled 40,978 messages in opposition to the bill

Washington, D.C. – Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, sharply criticized anti-choice leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives for trying to enact a bill that would undermine the reproductive rights of women in Washington, D.C. The bill failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

“Once again, anti-choice leaders in the House continue their obsession with attacking a woman’s right to choose,” Keenan said. “This extreme legislation would have imposed cruel restrictions on women facing unimaginable circumstances. Their callous attack on women’s reproductive rights is just another reminder of why elections matter. We must elect pro-choice candidates and thus change who controls the House. That’s the best way to stop an agenda that is so out of touch with our nation’s values and priorities.”

The legislation, H.R.3803, is the third stand-alone anti-choice measure that the House has advanced in the last four months. NARAL Pro-Choice America joined Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, and other civil- and reproductive-rights leaders in opposition to this legislation. The bill would ban abortion at 20 weeks in the District of Columbia, with no consideration for a woman’s health or her situation, including cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly. District of Columbia resident Christy Zink, who terminated a pregnancy at 21 weeks after doctors found a cyst on the brain of the fetus and a follow-up MRI revealed severe anomalies of the brain, would have been unable to get the care she needed had this ban been in effect. 

The organization launched a nationwide effort to counter this legislation, channeling 40,978 messages calling on the House to reject this divisive and far-reaching bill.

H.R.3803 was modeled after an abortion ban first enacted in Nebraska in 2010. So far, eight more states have followed Nebraska’s lead, and anti-choice organizations pressured Congress to override local elected leaders and impose this ban on the women of Washington, D.C.

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032