Abortion Bill Tackling Late-Term Abortions Scrapped By House of Reps Over Rape

The Republican Party-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday shelved a controversial legislation prohibiting "late-term" abortions, approving instead a measure denying public funding for the said procedure or insurance policies covering such.

The first proposed law, "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," seeks to ban abortion for women who are beyond 20 weeks into their pregnancy, CNN reported.

The measure has to be put aside, however, after a bloc of female G.O.P. members led by North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers argued against a provision in the bill that gives exception to women who were raped.

Such provision requires women to show evidence that they have filed a police report in order to have access to the procedure. Concerned lawmakers argued that majority of rapes are unreported, some being the result of incest. Male congressmen agreed that the provision should not be included in the measure and asked House leaders to remove it.

"I'm pro-life," Florida G.O.P. Rep.Carlos Curbelo told reporters. But "I'm certainly not going to ever put myself in the position where I'm telling any woman that their account of a rape is valid or not."

A similar legislation on late-term abortions was passed by the House in 2013.

Due to the possibility of a divisive vote, the bill was withdrawn from consideration by House Speaker John Boehner. However, Republicans vowed to reintroduce the bill later this year.

The failure to pass the measure showed a rift in the G.O.P., whose conference now has 246 members after last year's elections.

"They didn't even have their act together," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was reported as saying.

"They're putting a bill on the floor that undermines the health of America's women. The bill is worse than the bill they pulled from the floor yesterday," Pelosi said.

"That affected thousands of women, maybe, this affects millions of women. It not only affects their health, it affects the personal decisions of how they spend their own money for health insurance," Pelosi added.

The cancellation of the vote on the measure made religious activists who were calling for more abortion restrictions "unhappy."

"I have nothing but respect for the Speaker, but this was not the best moment for the House Republicans by far -- and happening on the day on the March for life," said Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, as quoted by CNN.

Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania wants the G.O.P. to shift its focus instead on matters that would have a "greater appeal" to voters.

"I would prefer that our party spent less time focusing on these very contentious social issues, because that distracts us from broader economic messages where I think we have much greater appeal to the larger public," he said.