The U.S. Senate voted to advance legislation to codify the right to abortion into federal law. The Republicans blocked the legislation, The Guardian reported.
The legislation hoped to make abortion rights guaranteed in American law, with enormous and mass fear of a likely supreme court decision to strike down the protections enshrined by Roe v. Wade.
The final tally was 40 to 51. All Republicans voted against the measure, as did one Democrat, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. Sixty votes were needed to overcome a filibuster.
It shows the stark partisan divide over abortion rights in politics in America. However, some polls show that more than 80 percent of the American people support abortion rights.
The leaked supreme court ruling to obliterate the right to abortion at a national level has caused extreme condemnation and mass protests across the U.S. Human rights experts and women’s rights experts have issued stark warnings about rights being ripped away from Americans.
The draft opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito in February and has been confirmed to be authentic. It shows that the conservative majority in the court privately voted to take away the precedent set by Roe and any subsequent ruling — making it the biggest U-turn in precedence ever.
Reproductive rights are now at the center of the political debate.
A final ruling is expected this summer.
Ahead of the vote in the Senate, a group of House Democratic women marched across the Capitol to protest against the end of Roe. They chanted “my body, my decision.”
Democrats tried to bring in a bill to protect abortion, marking it as urgent and pointing to the fact the majority of Americans want the healthcare procedure to remain legal in all or some cases.
Republicans blocking it was expected. But it shows ahead of this year’s midterm elections where candidates stand on women’s rights and reproductive rights.
Experts in women’s rights say it will drop America back into the dark ages of gender equality and women’s rights to their own bodies.
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