Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.)Congratulations to the rest of America. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) has decided that he’s going to widen the scope of his draconian beliefs about women’s health to the entire country, instead of just the District of Columbia.
Franks said last Friday that he is taking his signature legislation, the “District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” national. The sixth-term representative has attempted before to pass the bill, which would prohibit pregnant women from seeking abortions after 20 weeks. Franks’ bill cites widely disputed claims that fetuses can feel pain after four months of gestation.
In previous Congresses, Franks introduced the bill only applying to D.C., earning him the ire of the city’s voting rights advocates and especially that of Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who was not permitted to testify against the version Franks brought last year.
But in a news release Friday, Franks said he was motivated to take the issue national following the trial of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia doctor who was convicted last week of cutting the spines of babies born after abortion procedures that resulted in live births.
“Indeed, let us not forget that, had Kermit Gosnell dismembered these babies before they had traveled down the birth canal only moments earlier, he would have, in many places nationwide, been performing an entirely legal procedure,” Franks said in a statement published by his office. “If America truly understands that horrifying reality, hearts and laws will change.”
Norton, who was expecting to mount another wave of opposition to Franks’ bill pertaining solely to D.C., now says he should expect to draw the ire of women’s health advocates across the country. “Now that the Franks bill will expressly target all U.S. women, we can expect an even stronger national response to this attack on women’s health,” she said Friday.
Franks bill will be read Thursday at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice which is chaired by none other than Trent Franks.
