Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.)

Late this afternoon, a House subcommittee will gather to hear testimony on a bill that would prohibit abortions in D.C.—and only D.C.—after 20 weeks. Both the bill and hearing are the work of Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who has said that he is constitutionally charged with imposing laws on D.C.

As we reported earlier this week, though, one person won’t be speaking at the hearing—D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who requested the opportunity to speak on behalf of D.C. constituents but was denied.

On yesterday’s Rachel Maddow Show, Norton called Franks’ bill a “straight-out cowardly case of bullying” and said that “abundant precedent” existed for allowing members of Congress to speak during committee hearings—even if they’re not a member of that committee. She continued:

Here you have a bill that affects only my district, no other districts in the United States, which signals out to the residents of the District of Columbia and says, ‘You women will not be subject to the constitutional mandate of Roe versus Wade. You alone can have an abortion only until 20 weeks. By the way, don’t talk to us about how this violates the 14th Amendment as well, which treats you differently from women in other states. Not only are we going to try to impose that on you, but we don’t want to hear from the only voice you have in the house, you have no voice in the senate; we shut her up, so we don’t hear from D.C. residents at all.’

According to the hearing schedule, four witnesses are scheduled to testify: Anthony Levatino, a gynecologist; Colleen Malloy, an assistant professor of neonatology at Northwestern University; Byron Calhoun, vice-chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at West Virginia University-Charleston; and Christy Zink, a professor at George Washington University who in 2009 had an abortion at 21 weeks after she found out that her baby was “missing the central connecting structure of the two parts of his brain,” according to a statement she gave in February.

Norton and Mayor Vince Gray have planned a press conference at 2:30 p.m. to argue against Franks’ bill; D.C. voting rights advocacy organization DC Vote is asking residents to bring their constituent concerns to Franks’ D.C. Constituent Services Day on May 23.

As she often does, Norton struck a defiant tone, telling Maddow: “[L]et me tell you something about us, we know how to fight back.”

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