The Senate bill would also make permanent the ban on the District of Columbia using its own tax dollars to subsidize abortion. | AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Health Care Senate measure banning abortion funds defeated

Senate Republicans on Thursday failed to muster the 60 votes needed to approve a permanent ban on federal funding of abortion, a largely symbolic effort timed to coincide with the country’s largest annual anti-abortion demonstration in Washington this week.

The Senate vote was the first on an anti-abortion measure since Republicans narrowly expanded their majority in the chamber in the 2018 midterms, and it marked a sharp contrast with House Democrats' plans to loosen restrictions on taxpayer support for the procedure.


Nearly all Democrats and two Republicans voted late Thursday afternoon against the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would make permanent the long-standing prohibitions on federal dollars for most abortions and place new restrictions on the procedure. Democratic Sens. Bob Casey and Joe Manchin voted for the funding ban, while Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against the measure, which was defeated 48-47.

“As thousands gather in our nation’s capital this week to March for Life, it is well past time Congress passed a comprehensive solution to the patchwork of regulations prohibiting federal funding for abortion services,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the bill’s sponsor. “Our legislation would create a permanent, government-wide prohibition on abortion funding so that not one taxpayer dollar goes toward the destruction of innocent human life.”

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Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who led Democrats in opposing the measure on the floor, called it “an absolute disgrace” that Republicans brought up the bill instead of voting to end the prolonged government shutdown.

“Instead of voting to pay federal workers, they’re trying to tell women what kinds of health insurance they can and can’t have,” Murray said. “Instead of ending the chaos and dysfunction, and getting our country back on track they want to chip away — again — at every woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions.”

The vote comes one day before anti-abortion demonstrators gather on the National Mall for the March for Life. A handful of lawmakers, including a couple of anti-abortion Democrats, will address the march in Friday morning, and Vice President Mike Pence will speak at a dinner affiliated with the march that evening.

The Senate bill is similar to other failed legislative efforts in recent years that were timed to the march, which has been held every year for the past few decades around the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

For over four decades, Congress in annual appropriation bills has banned government health programs like Medicaid from using federal dollars for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or a risk to the mother’s life. The Senate bill would have made permanent the ban — known as the Hyde amendment — and add new provisions banning federal subsidies for any private health plans sold on Obamacare exchanges that include abortion coverage. The 2010 health care law already includes a firewall to prevent federal money from going to abortion care.

The Senate bill would also make permanent the ban on the District of Columbia using its own tax dollars to subsidize abortion, as well as prohibit the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs from providing abortions at their facilities.

Democrats now in control of the House have signaled they will look to expand access to contraception and abortion — including the permanent repeal of the Hyde amendment, which they say disproportionately limits abortion access for low-income women. On the first day of the new Congress, the House voted to repeal the so-called Mexico City policy, a ban on aid to foreign health organizations that provide or discuss abortion. The measures will face resistance in the Republican Senate.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the co-chair of the House’s Pro-Choice Caucus, told reporters this week she believes the debate over abortion funding will spill over in the House's efforts to advance universal health coverage.

"As we move more and more towards a public health care system in this country, whether Medicare or Medicaid for All, we're going to confront more and more this issue of who is paying for abortions and who is paying for reproductive health," she said.