Rolling Stone
House Republicans Endorse National Abortion Ban
Andrew Perez – March 21, 2024
A caucus representing most House Republican lawmakers endorsed a 15-week national abortion ban on Wednesday. The announcement came one day after former President Donald Trump indicated that he could support a 15-week abortion ban.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes nearly 80 percent of all House Republicans, released its 2025 budget proposal on Wednesday, titled “Fiscal Sanity to Save America.” Despite being billed as a budget plan, it is a highly ideological document.
“The gift of life is precious and should be protected,” the document states, adding that the “RSC celebrates the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.” In that case, the Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion rights, using the 6-3 conservative supermajority that Trump helped create.
The RSC document goes further: It endorses a 15-week national abortion ban, as well as legislation that could eliminate access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF. In an email to reporters Wednesday night, the Biden White House tied the document to Trump, saying that the “Trump Republican budget would ban abortion nationwide [and] rip away IVF access.”
The RSC budget “applauds” a series of “measures designed to advance the cause of life,” including the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, which would prohibit abortions after 15 weeks.”
The proposal meshes with comments Trump made Tuesday suggesting he could back a 15-week national abortion ban. “The number of weeks, now, people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that, and it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable,” he said. “But people are really — even hard-liners are agreeing, seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. But I’ll make that announcement at the appropriate time.”
The budget plan from the RSC also applauds the “Life at Conception Act, which would provide 14th amendment protections at all stages of life.” As CNN reported last month, the bill “does not include a carveout for IVF,” and “reproductive rights activists worry the legislation — if ever passed — would have a chilling effect on IVF clinics.”
The RSC’s support for the Life at Conception Act comes in the wake of a controversial Alabama Supreme Court decision finding that embryos created using IVF are people in the eyes of the law and covered under the state’s wrongful death statute.