GOP lawmaker: Abortion bill ‘going to come up’ in House

A leader of the House Pro-Life Caucus said Thursday that a new version of the GOP’s late-term abortion ban is not vastly different from the bill that leaders pulled from the floor earlier this year.

When asked if Republicans made any major changes to help revive the controversial bill, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said the changes were “not big.” He declined to comment further, deferring to the bill’s lead author, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).

“It’s going to come up,” Smith, the co-chairman of the Pro-Life Caucus, said in a brief interview.

{mosads}“We’re having very meaningful discussions and progress is being made,” he added, after addressing a crowd at the Susan B. Anthony’s annual Campaign for Life Summit.

House Republicans, including Smith, have been quietly trying to revive the late-term abortion ban, also known as the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

The bill, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, had been slated for a vote in January to coincide with the National March for Life and the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade. But GOP House leaders were under pressure to pull a bill banning late-term abortion because of concerns within their own party that the legislative language did not protect rape victims.

The legislation’s future came into question this week after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Monday that the bill is one of three previously pulled bills that he plans to prioritize in the remainder of the session. He did not provide a timeline.

GOP opposition to the bill may be softening. One of the Republicans who helped halt consideration of the bill — Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) — told reporters this week that she “can be in support” of the new language, which she said would no longer require rape victims to report the crime in order to receive an abortion.

“I’m much more comfortable with this new language,” she said, according to Bloomberg News.

Franks’s office has remained quiet on the bill’s prospects.

“We continue to search for language that will unify the pro-life base; however it is completely premature to say what that final language will be,” spokeswoman Destiny Decker said in an email.