Abortion

Democrats in the House and Senate are looking to stop what they say are deceptive advertising practices by anti-abortion health clinics that imply they offer abortion services, but instead encourage birth and promote adoption.

The legislation is aimed at crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which are clinics often set up by a church or other anti-abortion groups. Democrats in Congress and other pro-abortion groups say these clinics are known to indicate they can perform abortions in order to attract pregnant women patients, and then try to convince them to carry their babies to term.

House Republicans will take up the abortion issue this week as Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) expands his proposed ban on late-term procedures to apply nationwide.

Franks announced Friday that he would expand his current D.C.-only measure, which failed to pass under suspension of the rules last year, in light of Philadelphia abortion provider Kermit Gosnell's conviction on three counts of first-degree murder.

Gosnell was convicted last week of killing three viable infants after failed abortion procedures. His grisly trial has been a rallying cry for opponents of abortion rights seeking to raise objections to late-term abortion.

A federal judge on Friday temporary blocked the enactment of Arkansas's new abortion ban, which would prohibit the procedure in most cases after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted the preliminary injunction after a request from several abortion-rights groups who filed suit against the law.

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), one of those groups, praised the decision in a statement. 

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) lashed out at Democrats over the issue of abortion on Monday just minutes after a jury returned a guilty verdict in the high-profile case of an abortion doctor accused of multiple homicides.

A jury found him guilty of delivering live babies at his Philadelphia clinic and then killing them.

Ginsburg said she would have preferred a narrower ruling that didn't cut off the political process of defining abortion limits

Republicans have requested state health agencies provide records of regulators' dealings with abortion clinics since 2008. 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tried to pass a Senate resolution that would have condemned illegal abortion practices.

Lee asked unanimous consent to pass his resolution on Wednesday in reaction to the case of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor who is on trial for performing illegal and unsafe abortions.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) objected, saying he’d prefer to pass his own resolution that condemns all illegal and unsanitary medical acts, including abortions. But Lee objected saying he didn’t have time to read the resolution before it was offered.

A House GOP lawmaker called for an "honest" national conversation about abortion Wednesday in an op-ed piece that revealed his mother almost terminated her pregnancy.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), elected in 2010, wrote that his mother became pregnant at 17 and was planning to drive 40 miles one night to obtain an abortion.

"If she had gone to Kalamazoo that night, you wouldn't be reading this today," Stutzman wrote. "I would have been aborted." 

If you want to know how effective Cecile Richards is, just ask her opponents.