Brendan Hoffman/Getty ImagesTrent Franks in September, 2011. On the list of treasured Republican pastimes, trying to outlaw abortion and imposing a right-wing agenda on the District of Columbia (which is heavily Democratic and lacks any representation in Congress) both rank rather high.
So it must have given Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona special pleasure to combine those hobbies by introducing a bill to ban abortion in D.C. after 20 weeks. But why stop there? Late last week, according to Think Progress, Mr. Franks said that the Kermit Gosnell trial “compelled him to amend his bill so it applies to women across the country.” On Wednesday he held a press conference, dominated by men, naturally, to promote his bold proposal.
Mr. Franks’ bill ignores the central principle of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which is that women have a constitutional right to decide to terminate a pregnancy before “viability.” For 40 years, that date has been set roughly at 24 weeks — not because that number sounded good to a random lawmaker, but because that’s when scientists say a fetus has a good chance of survival outside of the womb.
The 24-week rule, however, has been under heavy assault recently by anti-abortion forces, who have managed to get several states to pass laws moving the line to 20 weeks or earlier. That’s just one step in the direction of their not-so-secret ultimate aim: to ban abortions entirely.
Anti-abortion groups have been disturbingly successful in restricting reproductive rights — convincing legislatures to impose a mandatory waiting period after a woman first seeks an abortion; require physically violating and medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasounds; and enact onerous hospital-affiliation requirements. They also have systematically attacked subsidies for cancer screening and family planning programs for poor women that have nothing to do with abortion.
The 20-week campaign has not been as successful lately, thanks to federal courts that still respect Supreme Court decisions. Just one day before Mr. Franks announced the nationalization of his proposed D.C., ban, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 20-week law in Arizona.
The court rejected Arizona’s argument that the law was not a ban on abortion, but rather a medical regulation because it allowed for medical emergencies. That, the court said “does not transform the law from a prohibition on abortion into a regulation of abortion procedure. Allowing a physician to decide if abortion is medically necessary is not the same as allowing a woman to decide whether to carry her own pregnancy to term.”
Anti-abortion advocates in Arizona immediately derided the decision as coming from a “liberal” court (the Ninth Circuit is based in San Francisco). But judges in Idaho and Georgia, far more conservative areas, have likewise blocked similar bans.
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