Anti-abortion advocates declare victory

Anti-abortion advocates declared victory after a key House vote on Thursday even as they continue to lick their wounds from a blow dealt by GOP leadership just hours before.

“This is another victory for taxpayers, women, and their unborn children,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote in a statement.

“To the credit of House leaders, all but one Republican — even the wobbly ones — voted yes on the bill, which would create a blanket ban on taxpayer-funded abortion across the entire government, permanently.”

The country’s largest anti-abortion groups, which flocked to Washington in droves this week on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, have mostly held their fire despite the GOP’s decision to table their signature bill to ban late-term abortions Wednesday. 

Despite the embarrassing and high-profile defeat, anti-abortion advocates have been careful to voice disappointment while continuing to support House leaders. They have only directed blame at the handful of House Republican women who led the revolt.

“While we are disappointed that the House will not be voting on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act today, we are pleased that the House is moving forward to stop taxpayer funding of abortion,” leaders of Susan B. Anthony List, the March for Life Education and Defense Fund and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee wrote in a joint statement.

The surprising delay on the late-term abortion bill comes after a 2014 election that gave wide victories to anti-abortion-rights candidates. Susan B. Anthony List declared as recent as last week that its movement is poised to make major gains under the GOP-controlled Congress.

“This is a historic moment. We’re finally coming to common ground and moving toward a vote,” the organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, told reporters last week.

Some groups on the right lashed out at Republicans’ failure to deliver on their signature bill.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, described the Wednesday night scramble as “ineptness at its highest level.”

“It was just an embarrassment to the Republican leadership,” said Mahoney, who helped plan a protest outside the office of one dissenter, Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C).

The Christian Defense Coalition was visiting D.C. on Thursday for the March for Life, joined by thousands of anti-abortion advocates.

Dissent also came from the Students for Life of America, a group that represents the same demographic that some Republicans believed would have opposed their first abortion bill.

“As a woman and Millennial, again I am disappointed by the GOP leadership. Because of a few naysayers, they stopped a vote today on an issue — banning abortion after 20 weeks — that has significant support among all Americans,” the group’s president, Kristan Hawkins, wrote in a statement.