The Senate is scheduled to hold a vote this Wednesday to codify the right to abortion in federal legislation in anticipation that the Supreme Court may eliminate in an upcoming ruling the constitutional protection it has enjoyed since 1973 thanks to the landmark Roe ruling. v.
Wade.
The vote is destined to fail because the Democrats lack a sufficient majority and there are internal divisions, but it points the way to how this issue can be the political axis of the November midterm elections.
This vote constitutes the first of the Democratic efforts to shield the court ruling from half a century ago that may now be in danger.
The president, Joe Biden, asked the Congress, controlled by his party, to pass a law to protect this right, but the scarce majority of his party faces the closed opposition of the Republicans, who have been working for years to install conservative judges in the Supreme Court.
Abortion rights activists protest outside the United States Supreme Court, Wednesday, May 11, 2022, in Washington.AP
"The American people are watching," Senate Majority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer said before the vote, "the public will not forget which side Senators are on today."
Congress has battled for years over the legalization of abortion, but Wednesday's vote to retake a bill already approved by the House of Representatives (where the Democratic majority is more solid) received a new impetus after knowing a draft ruling of the Supreme Court by the conservative majority to overturn the 1973 decision, which many had believed to be established law.
[Banning Abortion Doesn't Stop It: Why You're Worried the Supreme Court Will Overturn Roe v. wade]
The final decision of the Supreme Court, expected this summer, is sure to have repercussions throughout the country and in the electoral campaign before the fall midterm elections, which will determine which party controls Congress.
Security was tightened at the Capitol, where Vice President Kamala Harris was expected to preside over the session, and the Supreme Court was also sealed, after protesters flocked last week following the draft's leak.
Protests for the right to abortion reach the homes of two Supreme Court magistrates
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Several House Democrats protested on their way to the Senate and attended the Senate session as visitors.
One by one, Democratic senators stood on the Senate floor to deliver speeches saying that undoing abortion access would do great harm, not just to women, but to all Americans.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, said most American women have only known a world in which access to abortion was guaranteed, but they could face a future with fewer rights than their mothers or grandmothers.
"That means women won't have the same control over their lives and bodies as men, and that's wrong," she said on the eve of Wednesday's vote.
[These are the states that would ban (or protect) abortion if the Court ends Roe v. wade]
Few Republican senators have come out in favor of ending abortion access, though all were almost certain to join a strategy to block the bill's progress.
Sixty votes would be needed to advance a 50/50 House.
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Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the architect of the effort to install conservative justices on the Supreme Court - including three during the Trump era - has tried to downplay the outcome of any potential change in federal abortion policy.
"This matter will be dealt with at the state level," McConnell said.
Some other Republicans, such as Senator John Thune of South Dakota, argue that the bill approved by the House is more extreme than Roe, and would expand access to abortion beyond what is already the law in the United States and other leading countries in the world.
About half of the states have already passed laws that would further restrict or ban abortions
, including some laws that would take effect once the Court rules.
[What will happen if the Supreme Court strikes down the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade?]
Polls show that most Americans want to preserve access to abortion early in pregnancy, but opinions are more nuanced and mixed when it comes to later abortions.
The draft ruling on a Mississippi case suggests that most conservative justices are willing to end the federal right to abortion, leaving it up to the states to decide.
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What the Supreme Court says this summer will almost guarantee a new phase of political struggle in Congress over abortion policy, filibustering rules and the most basic rights to health care, privacy and protection of the unborn.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration's position has been clear: “We will defend the constitutional rights of women recognized in Roe v.
wade”.
In recent years, abortion debates have reached a political deadlock in Congress.
Bills are put to the vote - to expand or limit services - only to fail along party lines or be removed from broader legislative packages.
In the House of Representatives, where Democrats hold the majority, lawmakers last year passed the Women's Health Protection Act, which defends abortion rights, in a largely partisan vote, after the Supreme Court indicated for the first time that he was studying the issue by allowing a ban in a Texas law to go into effect.
But the bill has languished in the evenly split Senate with little Democratic control due to Harris's ability to cast a tie-breaking vote.
60 votes are needed to beat Republican intentions and Wednesday's result was expected to fall short, renewing calls to change Senate rules to remove the threshold, at least in this case.
["It's a setback." Experts react to leaked draft that would nullify the right to abortion]
One conservative Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, told reporters that he supports keeping Roe v.
Wade, but that he would vote against this bill as too broad, joining Republicans in blocking its consideration.
The two Republican senators who support abortion access - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who faces her own re-election in November, and Susan Collins of Maine - will also not vote, as they have proposed their own more tailored approach to counter possible Supreme Court action.
They fortify the Supreme Court with security measures that were not seen since the assault on the Capitol
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Republican senators, who voted to confirm a majority of former President Donald Trump's justices, are in talks about alternatives.
But Democrats have largely dismissed the effort by Collins and Murkowski as insufficient.
"I plan to continue working with my colleagues on legislation to maintain - not expand or restrict - the current legal framework for abortion rights in this country," Collins said in a statement.
Those two Republican senators are being pressured to join the majority of Democrats in changing the rules of the game, but that seems unlikely.
Five years ago, it was McConnell who changed Senate rules to eliminate the strategy to delay or prevent debate, to confirm Trump's justices after he blocked Barack Obama's choice of Merrick Garland to fill a vacancy in the Senate. Supreme Court at the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, leaving the seat open for Trump to fill after winning the White House.
Both parties face enormous pressure to convince voters they are doing everything they can -- Democrats working to preserve abortion access, Republicans to limit or end it -- with the fall election just around the corner. .
Congressional campaign committees are raising funds on the abortion issue, and working furiously to energize voters who are already prepared to participate.
