In the coming weeks, members of the U.S. House of Representatives will be debating a bill that would put limits on late-term abortions.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act was introduced earlier this year and will soon be debated on the House floor, U.S. Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) said.
The Act would ban abortions past 20 weeks of gestation, except in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening complications for the mother, Roe said. The bill also provides that in order for an abortion to be excluded from the 20 weeks time limit due to rape or incest, the rape or incest must be reported to an appropriate law enforcement or government agency prior to the abortion taking place.
A condition of the bill, being called the “Born Alive Provision,” would require those babies born alive during an abortion procedure to be transported to a hospital and receive the same treatment as any prematurely born baby, Roe said.
If passed, the bill will require physicians to determine the probable post-fertilization age of the unborn child before performing any abortions.
Roe, a retired obstetrics doctor, is a co-sponsor for the bill.
“I am strongly supportive of this bill and it is going to pass,” he said.”I don’t think we’ll get a lot of Democratic support but I think we have overwhelming support from our side.”
There are 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 187 of them have signed on as co-sponsors of this bill. Of the co-sponsors, 184 are Republicans and three are Democrats.
In addition to the debate on the abortion bill, Roe said there are also other hot topics that will hit the House floor in the coming weeks.
“Next week we’ve got another vote we are going to make that I’m going to really scrutinize, and that is the FISA Court Act,” Roe said.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) cases currently go before a one judge court, which Roe said he took issue with because there was no one to argue the opposing side of an issue.
“I’ve got a real problem with the FISA Court,” he said. “It is basically a secret court.”
Members of the House will also debate The Freedom Act, which Roe said will replace the former Patriot Act.
“I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning toward it,” he said.
One of the concerns he had with the Patriot Act, and initially with the Freedom Act, surrounded the issue of bulk data storage, Roe said.
“I was afraid. I’ve been to NSA headquarters, been through the whole place,” Roe said. “What worried me was you are going to collect so much data that you can’t find the needle in the haystack.”
Roe also voiced a concern with the collection of data on American citizens.
“I could see the government wanting to know if I’m calling Yemen every other day, that might be important,” he said. “But, this collecting data on American citizens without probable cause is illegal, in my opinion.”