Even a bipartisan bill to help victims of human trafficking has failed to escape Senate gridlock, amid Democratic opposition to an anti-abortion provision tucked into the legislation.

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act was expected to pass easily after clearing the Senate judiciary committee last month without problem. But controversy erupted last week when Democrats found out that Republicans had quietly slipped language into the bill barring the use of federal funds for abortion.

The abortion provision, referred to as the Hyde amendment, is typically included in annual appropriations measures. But the human trafficking bill, which creates a fund for victims through penalties on those convicted of human smuggling, slavery or sexual exploitation, expands restrictions on abortion and locks them in for the next five years. In addition to federal dollars, the language states that the use of revenue collected from the trafficker penalties on abortion services would also be prohibited.

The drama over the provision escalated on Tuesday, when Democrats filibustered the bill on the Senate floor. Republicans, who took control of the upper chamber in January, charged that Democrats have known about the inclusion of the abortion language the entire time.

“No excuse about not reading a bill – and no command from leftwing lobbyists – could justify filibustering the critical help this human rights bill would provide,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Wednesday.

McConnell said he will not proceed with the confirmation of Loretta Lynch, Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, until work on the human trafficking bill is complete. Lynch’s nomination has been pending for months amid several delays from the GOP, making her confirmation process the longest for an attorney general nominee since the 1980s.

Republicans argued that victims of human trafficking would still have access to abortions because they would be considered rape victims.

Texas senator John Cornyn, the bill’s lead sponsor, said Democrats had more than a month to review the bill. Democrats argued that Cornyn had led them to believe it was simply a reauthorization of previous iterations of the same bill, which did not include the abortion provision.

“Republicans have chosen to manufacture a political fight that has nothing to do with human trafficking,” the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, said on Tuesday.

The dust-up trickled into electoral politics, too. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group tasked with electing Republicans to the Senate, launched robocalls attacking Reid and Colorado senator Michael Bennet for voting against the bill. Both Democrats face re-election in 2016.