GOP launches new anti-choice crusade

Republicans say they dislike interference with private insurance markets and tax hikes. But the anti-abortion bill passed by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives Thursday – the misleadingly-named “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” – would do both.

The Hyde Amendment has banned almost all public funding of abortion for almost 40 years, much to the consternation of abortion rights advocates. Thursday’s bill would codify that and go even further, preventing any private insurance plan that covers abortion from receiving a federal subsidy under the Affordable Care Act. That, according to the National Women’s Law Center, “could result in the entire private insurance market dropping abortion coverage, thereby making such coverage unavailable to anyone.”

The bill, though long a conservative priority, wasn’t supposed to be the showpiece on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But House Republicans needed to shift gears hastily after some Republican moderates balked over a ban on abortions after the 20-week mark. After all, GOPers needed something to pass in time for the cheers of anti-abortion protesters at the annual March for Life on the National Mall.

But that didn’t happen. The problem wasn’t the substance of the bill, but rather a provision requiring rape victims to report to the police to qualify for an exception, which almost all Republicans had voted for in 2013.

The 20-week ban has for quite a while been a priority of national anti-abortion groups, despite the fact that it only affects approximately 1% of all abortions. Anti-abortion strategists have long hoped their imagery of “fetal pain” – however contravened by the medical evidence – would sway Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, or any other swing voter out there.

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