Planned Parenthood: GOP Congress going full bore on abortion

The head of Planned Parenthood warned Wednesday that the new GOP-led Congress already poses a larger threat to abortion rights than the country has seen in years.

“At this rate, the new Congress is introducing an anti-women’s health bill every single day that they’re in session,” Cecile Richards said in a briefing.

{mosads}Richards urged Congress to halt the barrage of “politically motivated attacks” on abortion, pointing to the GOP’s latest bill, which would ban the procedure after 20 weeks.

Richards said she “fully expects” the 20-week bill to be blocked in the Senate, and it would, regardless, face a veto from President Obama.

“We definitely expect the president to stand with us and the women’s health community on these kind of attacks on women,” Richards said.

The GOP-sponsored legislation will be introduced next week on the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court abortion case, Roe v. Wade, and the anti-abortion rights March for Life.

The bill is opposed by most Democrats as well as some doctors groups, such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Richards called members of Congress “out of touch” for their repeated assault on abortion rights at the expense of other issues.

“People don’t get up every day and think about abortion,” she said. “They certainly don’t get up every day and think about a 20-week ban.”

The reproductive rights battle also continues full-force in the states this year, Richards said.

She warned that state legislatures — many of which increased their total number of Republicans in the last election — are pushing more and more bills to limit access to abortion.

Still, she said there are also “a record number” of state bills being introduced to expand reproductive rights in states like California.

Richards said she sees those examples, as well as the high profile that reproductive rights played in last fall’s campaign, as signs of progress.

“When I started, no one was talking about these issues, including Democrats in many cases,” Richards said.