To mark last year’s March for Life, House Republicans voted on two anti-abortion bills. But those bills didn’t restrict abortion on a federal level, and Speaker Mike Johnson avoided saying the word “abortion” altogether at the 2024 march — to avoid political backlash ahead of a tight election.
But Democrats’ hoped-for backlash to anti-abortion legislation never came. And as the first March for Life under President Donald Trump’s second term gets underway, Republicans are ready to talk about their anti-abortion beliefs and legislation as loudly and as often as they want to.
“The gloves are off,” Rep. Tim Burchett told NOTUS. “I think we know what the truth is.”
Rep. Mike Kelly, who has introduced a bill multiple times that would federally ban abortion at six weeks, said that abortion is no longer a winning issue for Democrats.
“They’re still trying to hang on that. They think that’s an issue and it’s like, you guys don’t get it, you know, people don’t listen to you anymore,” he said.
This week, House Republicans — along with one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar — passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that would require health care providers to provide care to infants born after an attempted abortion. The House previously passed the bill in 2023, making it the first anti-abortion bill to pass the chamber after Roe v. Wade was overturned the year before.
The practice is already required under federal law, but the new bill would create penalties, with up to five years in prison for a doctor who violates the bill, and allows abortion patients to sue. The legislation also penalizes the “intentional killing of a child born alive,” which is already illegal and considered a homicide.
Senate Republicans also held a vote on the bill this week, the first piece of anti-abortion legislation in their new majority. While nearly all GOP senators — Sen. Bill Hagerty was absent — voted in favor of it, the bill did not pass the chamber after failing to meet the 60-vote threshold.
Thursday’s legislation represents a departure from anti-abortion bills Republicans have passed in recent years. House Republicans passed a 20-week federal abortion ban dubbed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act three times in 2013, 2015 and 2017 — a restriction that Trump used to openly support before saying he would prefer to leave abortion “to the states.”
But after November’s results, some Republicans, privately, see Thursday’s legislation as a starting point to begin reintroducing bans.
One House Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity told NOTUS that this bill is “the baseline step in any of this, and I think the conversation is going to continue.” The member added that the vote represented “a good chance to see where we are” before pursuing federal restrictions.
“The lower we can get on weeks, the better, because I think as I just want to protect life, and I think that’s where most people are in the conference,” the House Republican said. “It can’t just be about telling people that they can’t have abortions. It’s supporting people who have chosen not to. It’s not about just making abortion illegal. It’s about making it unthinkable.”
As to why this is the first anti-abortion bill Republicans are bringing to the floor, House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain told NOTUS that “this might be the easiest one.”
Democratic Rep. Kelly Morrison, the only OB-GYN in Congress, warned that the bill does not mention a fetus’s gestational age, which she said is important to determine whether a fetus would even survive outside the womb.
“There’s no reference to gestational age, there’s no reference to viability. So if, let’s say, it’s 18 to 19 weeks, born with a heartbeat, and to attack that newborn with all these medical procedures, there’s not a chance that that baby would survive,” Morrison said.
In a letter sent to members of Congress on Wednesday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and 17 other major medical organizations urged lawmakers to oppose the bill, calling it “a dangerous government intrusion into medical care.”
House Democrats did not seem surprised that Republicans saw this week’s bill as part of a larger strategy.
Rep. Susie Lee, a member of House Democratic leadership, said the bill is “a guise to start their march to nationwide abortion ban and, you know, good luck with that.”
Republicans spent last year’s election cycle following Trump’s lead on abortion: telling voters that abortion should be up to individual states and changing the party’s decades-old goal to federally restrict abortion. The back-and-forth created a rift between the party and anti-abortion advocates on the campaign trail.
However, following the election, the distance has vanished.
Trump, who became the first president to speak at the March for Life in 2020, is reportedly expected to address the marchgoers again via a prerecorded video. And on Thursday, the president pardoned nearly two dozen anti-abortion advocates who were convicted for blocking access to abortion clinics — an action that anti-abortion groups had been urging him for.
Vice President JD Vance is also scheduled to speak at today’s March for Life, his first public appearance since getting into office, along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Johnson.
Earlier this week, over 100 Republican members of Congress — led by Sens. James Lankford, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Rep. Chris Smith — sent a letter to Trump urging him to revoke every policy the Biden administration adopted to expand and protect abortion access.
“We are grateful that the Trump Administration can bring an end to the weaponization of
the United States government against pro-life Americans and unborn children,” the letter says.
The signees include Reps. Don Bacon, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Derrick Van Orden, representatives in battleground districts that were heavily targeted in 2024 by Democrats over their anti-abortion stances — and still won their races.
Van Orden told NOTUS he did not fear any attacks from Democrats resulting from his vote on Thursday’s anti-abortion bill — or his opposition to abortion overall.
“I welcome that, 100%,” Van Orden said. “I think that’s a fantastic attack because it’s true and that ain’t changing. These are children of God and they deserve respect.”
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.