Rep. Trent Franks’s (R-Ariz.) bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide now includes an exception for rape and incest after his remarks about rape and pregnancy created an uproar.
And it’s not Franks’s bill anymore — or more precisely, he won’t be managing his own bill when it goes to the House floor Tuesday. He’s being replaced with a high-profile House GOP woman.
A spokesman for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) confirmed Friday to POLITICO that she’ll be managing the debate, and that the bill is being changed to include the new exception.
Franks caused a stir Wednesday when during a House Judiciary markup of the bill, he said that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low” when stating his opposition to a Democratic amendment that would have allowed abortions in the case of rape and incest.
The GOP change to the bill on rape includes a requirement that the rape or the incest had been reported to the appropriate legal authorities. The Democrats’ amendment had not included such language.
Planned Parenthood objected. Eric Ferrero, vice president for communication for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said, “The provision House leadership snuck into the bill tonight is designed to shame and judge victims of violent crimes, requiring a woman to prove that she has reported her rape to police before she can access an abortion.” He added that it was a “cynical political attempt by House leadership to cover up the deeply ignorant and offensive views on women’s health expressed by the bill’s sponsor.”
Blackburn, a co-sponsor of the bill, told the Weekly Standard Friday afternoon, “I think the reason that leadership asked me to handle the bill is the amount of pro-life work that I’ve done throughout my years in Congress.”
Democrats said Franks’s rape comment was reminiscent of Republican Todd Akin’s quote regarding “legitimate rape” during his failed Senate campaign last year.
Franks later said he had been referring to pregnancies from rape that result in abortion after the sixth month of pregnancy.
And he told social conservatives at the Faith and Freedom conference Thursday night that he’d been through a “spin dryer” after the comment.
“Believe me, I’ll tell you what, I’ve been through a spin dryer here in the last 48 hours, and I wish I hadn’t assisted them so much to that end,” Franks said. “But somehow in the long run, truth and time travel the same road. And we are very blessed that the Lord that we serve will prevail in the final analysis no matter what.”
The Franks bill would ban abortions nationwide 20 weeks after conception based on the controversial argument that a fetus can feel pain at that point.
Last year a similar bill, which would have applied only to Washington, D.C, failed in the House but that vote was held under a procedure that needed a two-thirds vote for passage.
Franks broadened the bill to apply nationwide after the Kermit Gosnell murder trial.
Eleven states have passed similar fetal pain laws, though some, like Arizona’s, have since been blocked in court. Arkansas and North Dakota have gone further, banning abortion after 12 and six weeks, respectively.
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