Good Monday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

Apparently unsatisfied with alienating a key part of the electorate on Election Day last month, a Pennsylvania House panel is moving to help Republicans keep their streak alive in 2018.

With only a handful of voting days left on lawmakers' 2017 calendar, the House Health Committee is set to vote sometime today on one legislation that would ban abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, down from the current 24 weeks, and prohibit a common, second-trimester procedure known as dilation and evacuation.

Critics have questioned the timing of the vote, which comes as notable legislative Republicans, including state House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, and Sen. Scott Wagner (both abortion foes) fire up their gubernatorial campaigns for 2018.

The Senate voted along party lines in February to approve the legislation sponsored by Sen Michele Brooks, R-Crawford. The bill does not provide exceptions in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities.

If approved, it would be one of the most restrictive such bans in the country. Gov. Tom Wolf has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

And GOP House leaders are leaving nothing to chance when it comes to Monday's anticipated vote.

In April, Republicans who control the committee reassigned one, guaranteed "no" vote, Rep. Frank Farry, R-Bucks, and replaced him with the more senior, and more conservative, Rep. Jim Cox, R-Berks.

The move was unusual because Farry, a long-serving committee member whose district includes a major hospital, had just been reappointed to the committee in January for the 2017 legislative session.

Republican leaders also approached another lawmaker, Rep. Alex Charlton, R-Delaware, who was on the bubble on Brooks' bill, about stepping down from the panel. He declined.

In an interview last week, Charlton said he'd been approached by Turzai, R-Allegheny, and committee Chairman Matthew Baker, R-Tioga, who asked if "the committee was the right fit" for him.

"They never tried to remove me, but they did say that if I wanted off, they could help me," Charlton said.

Baker, one of the House's most high-profile abortion opponents, did not respond to an email seeking comment for this piece.

The panel is set to vote on Brooks' bill, and other pieces of legislation, at "the call of the chair," meaning action could come with only moments' notice. The session is set to be held in Room G50 of the Irvis Office Building.

The House has only eight session days remaining before it packs it in for the year on Dec. 20. We learned last week that Baker did not want to leave the bill hanging out there through the Christmas holidays.

The Health Committee's scheduled vote also comes weeks after a watershed Election Day in which Democrats in such key states as Virginia took control of Governor's Mansions, made in-roads in state Legislatures, and captured other statewide offices.

Women, enraged by President Donald Trump's hostility toward women, and long history of "p***y-grabbing" came out in force to vote for those candidates.

As our colleague, Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Daily News. observed last month, more affluent and college-educated women have been "seething since November 8, 2016 that a self-described p-word grabber and serial liar is in the Oval Office after an often misogynistic and racist campaign stymied a highly qualified woman and also put the lie to everything that many had taught their children about honesty, decency, and the American way."

Now throw in the revelations about the ugly Bro culture on Capitol Hill and Washington, and women voters (particularly those in the 'burbs) may well have even more reason to send a message at the polls in 2018.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are seizing on the opportunity to slam the GOP. Late last week, the state Democratic Party sent an email blast to reporters highlighting Turzai's, Wagner's and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Paul Mango's support for the bill.

Wolf has said Brooks' bill "does not deserve" to reach his desk.

"Scott Wagner, Paul Mango, and Mike Turzai support and have openly advocated for the most restrictive abortion bill in the country which would force women and girls who have been the victims of rape or incest to carry a pregnancy to term," the email reads. "They want to defund Planned Parenthood which provides important health care services to women such as mammograms and cancer screenings. The republican gubernatorial candidates would be absolutely disastrous for the women of Pennsylvania and they should be ashamed of their positions."

SB3, a dangerous 20 week abortion ban w/no exceptions for rape, incest, or fetal anomalies, will be heard on Monday 12/4 in the PA House Health Cmte (https://t.co/69KhrCxpxW). Call cmte members now & ask them to vote NO on this intrusive bill. #StopPABans pic.twitter.com/xQAJVcrkxK — PlannedParenthood PA (@PPAdvocatesPA) December 2, 2017

Last week, Charlton voiced concerns about Brooks' legislation, which was approved by the Senate after hours of emotional debate, but without backers producing one physician to testify in favor of it.

During floor debate in February, Brooks repeatedly referred to the D&E procedure, which accounts for little more than 1 percent of all abortions performed each year, as "dismemberment abortions," a term not recognized by the medical community.

It would also punish physicians who perform the procedure with a third-degree felony.

The Pennsylvania Medical Society, along with other professional organizations, opposes the bill.

Charlton said last week he'd spoken to physicians about moving the abortion limit from 24 weeks to the 20th week of pregnancy and physicians had raised concerns about it.

Ultrasound examinations, sometimes performed just days after the 20th week, sometimes reveal severe abnormalities that could doom a fetus to a short and panful life if it were brought to term. Brooks' bill would take abortion off the table as an option for women in that instance.

"I don't like abortion and I don't think anybody does," he said. "But I don't think this is a smart approach."