District of Columbia

Stop the restrictions!

Tell your Representative to oppose the effort to limit access to abortion for women who live in Washington, D.C.

With only a few days left until August recess, this is what they are prioritizing — an anti-abortion bill that the Senate will never consider? Well, the House of Representatives is at it again and this time, just to add insult to injury, they are going after women who have no voting representation in the House.

Tell your Member of Congress to oppose the D.C. Abortion Ban and stop your Representative from making decisions for women about their reproductive health.

H.R. 3803, also known as the "D.C. Abortion Ban," would ban almost all abortions in Washington, D.C. for women starting at twenty weeks post-fertilization. The legislation seeks to ban abortion after twenty weeks regardless of a woman's situation and without exceptions for rape, incest or to protect a woman's health.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee marked up H.R. 3803, a bill that would ban most abortions at twenty weeks post-fertilization in the District of Columbia. This bill targets women in D.C., women who have no voting representation in Congress. The bill is blatantly unconstitutional as it bans abortions pre-viability and fails to provide any health exception pre- or post- viability. And it has no exception for rape or incest survivors. It’s a bill that basically says: no, we really don’t care about the women who would be affected by this bill.

As with the mark-up of CIANA, the mark-up of H.R. 3803 was incredibly frustrating to watch as the Judiciary Committee rejected common-sense amendments, including an exception to protect the woman’s health and an exception for women who have cancer and “need life-saving treatment incompatible with continuing the pregnancy.” Read more »

“It is unconscionable that someone would come into my city from the outside and try to impose a law that doesn’t represent the best interests of anyone, especially families like mine. This proposed law is downright cruel, as it would inflict pain on the families, the women, and the babies it purports to protect.” –Christy Zink

It’s round three in the Judiciary Committee. Last Thursday, Trent Franks (R-AZ) held yet another hearing on yet another bill that is aimed at denying women access to a constitutional right. This time the bill in discussion, the D.C. Abortion Ban (H.R. 3803), seeks to impose a ban on almost all abortions 20 weeks post-fertilization. The only exception to the ban is to save the life of the mother, and even that exception is restricted to when the mother faces physical life-threatening problems (being suicidal is apparently not life-threatening…). It is unconstitutional because it bans abortions pre-viability and fails to include any exception for health.

Oh, and did I mention that the bill only affects D.C. (a population who has no voting representative in Congress)?

The hearing began with a brief tangling over whether the only popularly-elected official for DC would get to testify on a bill that only affects DC. After the kerfuffle ended (with Rep. Franks again refusing to allow Rep. Norton Holmes to testify), the four witnesses gave their testimony. Read more »