Republicans in the Senate did what they were expected to do, blocking bringing the Women’s Health Protection Act that would codify Roe v. Wade into law to debate on the floor, the New York Times reports.
Suddenly fearful of voter backlash for pushing through a revocation of Roe through years of exploiting of Senate procedures to allow them to manipulate who gets put on the Supreme Court, Republicans are doing everything in their power to prevent them from having to go on the record to support the language of the draft decision revoking Roe, written by Justice Samuel Alito. Republicans have even instructed their key TeeVee propagandist to lie repeatedly to make people think that there will be no less access to abortion if the decision is handed down as written, even though that is an obvious lie given more than 20 states have trigger laws that would make safe and legal abortion essential disappear in their borders.
The Republicans were joined by Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to make it a 51-49 vote on the floor, well short of the 60 needed to proceed. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted with Republicans even though they have stated they are in favor of keeping Roe in place.