Photo by qbubbles

A Virginia Senate committee voted down a provision yesterday that would have forbidden any abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which pro-life organization say that fetuses can feel pain.

According to the Washington Times, the committee deadlocked on the proposal after a woman testified that she decided have an abortion after the 20-week cutoff point when she learned that her child would be born with mental disabilities. Tara Schleifer said that the government should play no role in dictating whether a woman can bring a mentally disabled child into the world.

Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska have such restrictions. Under Virginia current law, abortions are permitted up until 24th or 25th week of the pregnancy.

Pro-choice Virginians celebrated the victory (despite a host of other anti-abortion measures making their way through the commonwealth’s legislature), but their D.C. counterparts may be dealt a significant loss on the same measure if one member of Congress has his way.

It was just a few weeks ago that Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation that would impose the same 20-week rule on the District, without — of course — the consent of any of the city’s actual residents or representatives. The bill currently has 87 sponsors in the House, and was referred to Franks’ own Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution for a markup. Why would an abortion-related measure go to a subcommittee that deals with the Constitution? Because, as Franks told the Huffington Post, Congress has the constitutional ability to impose laws on the District:

“Those, like Representative Holmes Norton, who oppose the D.C. Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act on the basis that its primary sponsor is from a different state simply fail to understand a Constitutional principle that couldn’t be more plain,” he said. “Congress has the seminal and incontrovertible responsibility for making legislative policy in the District of Columbia. Those who pretend to question that are in fact trying to direct attention away from the true purpose of this bill, which is to help prevent unborn children beginning at the sixth month of pregnancy and beyond from being subject to the agonizing process of being aborted.”

If only we could be like Virginia and have the capacity to vote this type of thing up or down, huh?