Republicans in the U.S. Senate, joined by Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, defeated a motion to proceed to a vote on H.R. 3755, the Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act, the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act. The bill had passed the House of Representatives and needed 60 votes in order to proceed to a vote in the Senate but only received 46 votes in favor with 48 opposed and six senators not voting—3 Republicans and 3 Democrats—resulting in the bill’s defeat. 

Speaking for President Joe Biden, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that “it is extremely disappointing that Senate Republicans blocked passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would strengthen health care access and codify constitutional rights affirmed half a century ago by Roe v. Wade and in subsequent Supreme Court precedent.”

Referencing the numerous state pro-life laws, she continued speaking for the Biden administration in strident pro-abortion language: “As dangerous new laws proliferate in states across the country, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to explore the measures and tools at our disposal to stand up for women’s equality. This is a moment for us to recommit to strengthening access to women’s health care, defend the constitutional right affirmed by Roe, and protect the freedom of all people to build their own future.” 

Senator Steve Daines, founder and chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, spoke on the Senate floor against the legislation. His remarks included the following, 

The “Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act” would impose a horrifying abortion regime across the land that violates the right to life and is completely contrary to the kind of nation America is and aspires to be.

In this bill’s America, late-term abortions could be committed on demand through brutal dismemberment procedures, in which the unborn child bleeds and feels excruciating pain as she dies from being pulled apart limb from limb. 

In this bill’s America, parents would not know, or have any say over, whether their young daughter has a life-altering abortion. 

In this bill’s America, vulnerable women and girls could receive dangerous do-it-yourself chemical abortion drugs by mail without ever seeing a doctor in-person. 

In this bill’s America, a doctor or nurse who doesn’t want to perform an abortion could be forced to do so in violation of his or her deeply-held moral and religious beliefs.

In his remarks, Senator James Lankford called out the Democrats for focusing on a bill to massively advance abortion while the world is concerned with the people of Ukraine.  He stated:

The whole world is talking about Ukraine and the oppression they're experiencing, and the United States Senate is talking about how do we get more abortions in America. That's what we're going to vote on? That's what we're going to debate, is how do we get and increase abortions in America when the world sees what's happening in Ukraine. What in the world? How tone-deaf can we be?

This body should be the place where we're actually debating the biggest issues of the day, and apparently to my Democratic colleagues the biggest issue of the day is how many more abortions can we get in America,…What has this body become, when there's an obsession with abortion?

This is the most pro-abortion president this country has ever had and the most pro-abortion Democratic Party our country has ever seen.

I remember a time when Democrats used to talk about ‘safe, legal and rare.’ Now they just want ‘safe, legal and common.’

What have we become?

This bill is the one-minute-from-infanticide bill. It mandates abortion in every state up to the moment of birth. That’s North Korea, that’s China, not the United States of America, except for this Senate. They want to be more like North Korea and China, apparently, to be able to follow their great humanitarian example and to be a nation that takes the life of children rather than protects each child as precious.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also questioned the Senate Democrats stating:

With a cascade of major crises testing our country, Senate Democrats are prioritizing a show vote on mandating nine months of abortion on demand across America.

Senate Democrats want to go on the record supporting the radical and massively unpopular proposition that we should have functionally no restrictions on abortion whatsoever.

91% of Americans support some restrictions on abortion during the third trimester.

The public overwhelmingly disagrees with Democrats’ extreme obsession on this issue.

But yet again, our colleagues wish to demonstrate that the radical left fringe runs today’s Democratic Party.

Senator Roger Marshall, an OBGYN who has delivered more than 5,000 babies, also spoke on the Senate floor against the bill saying, 

At a time when Vladimir Putin is killing Ukrainians, my Democrat colleagues want to kill more unborn American children for any reason up until the moment the baby takes its first breath. Indeed, this bill should be called the Abortion on Demand until Birth Act. This is the most egregious, horrific attack on the lives of unborn children and the health of moms in American history… I never ever imagined when I came to the Senate that I would be fighting harder on the Senate floor to save the lives of moms and babies than I did in the emergency room and the delivery room.