Republican Attacks on D.C. Women Prove Contagious as New Bill is Threatened

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On the same day that House Republicans introduced an appropriations bill that would prohibit the District of Columbia from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women, the Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) learned that freshman Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) intends to introduce a bill, the District of Columbia Respect for Life and Conscience Act of 2012, that would interfere with the reproductive rights of women in the District of Columbia. Earlier this year, Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the House that would ban abortions in D.C. after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Although this new anti-choice bill has not yet been introduced, Amash says that the bill would require parental consent for minors to have an abortion, would prohibit non-medical doctors from performing abortions, and would allow doctors and health care institutions to refuse to provide abortions. "Like freshman Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who introduced a post-20-week, D.C. abortion ban bill earlier this year as one of his first bills," Norton said, "Representative Amash's D.C. abortion bill would be only his fifth. Unlike Senator Lee, who did not issue a press release on his bill until I issued one, however, Representative Amash seems to be embracing the spotlight on his anti-democratic bill, by announcing it on his Facebook page. Rep. Amash is spending time in the House meddling in my district, instead of attending to the needs of his own constituents. His bill would overturn our local laws with no accountability to our residents. Republicans seem to be in copycat mode, trying to outdo one another in attacking women in this city and the city's democratic right to govern itself. They are undeterred by their professed small-government, federalist principles. Instead, they are wholly unprincipled in their mockery both of democracy and of their principles by confining their bills to D.C., the one jurisdiction that they continue to disempower without a vote, even on bills affecting only this district. Above all, the anti-choice, D.C.-only bills reveal a lack of courage to put forward the same abortion bills for the entire country. Neither Representative Amash or any other autocratic member of Congress will get a free pass when trying to bully the District with bills they dare not introduce for the nation."

Representatives from a coalition of more than 100 groups committed to protecting D.C.'s home rule, regardless of the underlying issue, joined Norton for a press conference last week. The groups in the coalition have millions of members across the country and in every congressional district.

Since assuming the majority in the 112th Congress, House Republicans have relentlessly attacked the reproductive health of women in D.C. Last month, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on the House companion to Lee's post-20-week D.C. abortion ban bill (H.R. 3803), where Norton was denied the traditional courtesy afforded to Members of Congress of testifying on a bill affecting only her jurisdiction. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012, Republicans re-imposed a rider that prohibited D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion for low-income women, which was also included in the House's fiscal year 2013 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, which was introduced today. The House also passed a bill (H.R. 3) that would make that rider permanent, but it has not passed the Senate.

Published: June 5, 2012