As we await the verdict in the trial of Kermit Gosnell, Rep. Trent Franks and his colleagues in the House are quietly pushing a bill that could ban abortion after 20 weeks for women in Washington, D.C. – even if the pregnancy puts a woman’s health or ability to have children in the future at risk.¹

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. A bill like this will block women in desperate circumstances from getting abortion care they need and could force women to seek help from dangerous, back-alley predators like Gosnell.

Rep. Franks pushed this bill before, and we managed to beat it. He already has the backing of scores of other anti-choice members of the House and the National Right to Life Committee.

 pro-choice people like you need to make your voices heard if we’re going to block it again. Even if your lawmaker is anti-choice, we need you to speak out against this bill now.

I’m really concerned about what Rep. Franks’ bill could mean for low-income women in our city.

Congress bars D.C. from paying for low-income women’s access to abortion care – even for women who rely on the city for their health care. This means that low-income women must find a way to come up with the resources on their own, which is extremely difficult and too often delays them from getting an abortion early in pregnancy.

These women don’t even have a lawmaker who can vote to protect their interests. So it’s up to us. Tell your member of Congress that banning abortion at 20 weeks in D.C. is dangerous for women’s health.

Rep. Franks may say he is concerned about the conditions that would lead a woman to seek help from someone like Gosnell in the first place.

But we know his true motives. Rep. Franks wants to ban abortion. Period.

Franks’ bill contains no exceptions for situations where continuing a pregnancy will place a woman’s health or ability to have children in the future at risk. A woman would have to be on death’s door before a doctor could provide the abortion care she needs.

Making abortion harder for a woman to get doesn’t actually change a woman’s mind. It only makes it more likely that she’ll consider taking desperate measures.

I believe that we can convince enough members of Congress that abortion bans will drive more women to underground, dangerous abortion providers if enough of us speak up. Tell your lawmakers that the Franks bill is bad for D.C. women.

Thank you for making choice real for all women,

Ilyse G. Hogue President, NARAL Pro-Choice America

1 – “D.C. Anti-Abortion Bill Introduced By GOP Congressman Trent Franks…Again,” Huffington Post, April 29, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/dc-anti-abortion-bill_n_3180578.html