Senate

GOP senator won’t support ‘flawed’ abortion bill

by Jordain Carney - 09/22/15 11:01 AM ET

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday that she would buck her party and vote against a “flawed” bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.

“I shall cast my vote in opposition to this well-meaning but flawed bill,” the Maine Republican said from the Senate floor.

{mosads}Collins’s comments come ahead of a procedural vote on a House-passed bill that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks.

The Maine senator, considered among the chamber’s more moderate Republicans, pointed to the lack of exceptions for the health of the mother as one of the reasons she will vote against the bill.

“The bill before us provides no exceptions for when the physical health of the mother is at risk of serious harm,” she said. “[That’s] the most glaring deficiency in this legislation.”

Republicans are expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the procedural hurdle. Without Collins’s vote, they would need at least seven Democrats to buck their party and vote to move forward with the bill.

She added that “the way the rape and incest exceptions to the bill are drafted is also problematic.”

“I do not question the good motives of the sponsors of this bill, as I share their goal of prohibiting late-term abortions,” she said. “My point, however, is that all of these language problems could have been solved.”

Tags 20-week abortion ban Abortion Planned Parenthood Susan Collins