The House on Thursday passed legislation that could subject certain doctors to criminal penalties if they perform abortions, Republicans’ first attempt to restrict reproductive rights since the party has secured its governing trifecta under President Trump.
The 217-to-204 vote was almost entirely along party lines, save for one anti-abortion Democrat, Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, who voted with Republicans in favor of the bill. Another, Representative Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted present.
It was the second time in two years that the Republican-lead House has passed the legislation. But the measure appeared doomed in the Senate, where Democrats blocked a version of it on Wednesday.
The bill would require that infants born alive after an attempted abortion receive the same protection under the law and degree of care as any newborn baby, and it threatens medical providers with up to five years in prison for failing to resuscitate babies born alive during abortions.
Federal law already requires that a baby who survives an attempted abortion receive emergency medical care, and live births during abortion procedures are rare. But the legislation would create new penalties for medical providers involved in such procedures, which could also apply to those treating women with severe late-pregnancy complications who find themselves in agonizing situations in which their children have no chance of survival.
House Republican leaders said Thursday that they did not plan on bringing up any additional anti-abortion legislation. But they said action on the bill was an important opportunity for them to portray Democrats as radical on reproductive rights, an issue that has proved to be politically toxic for G.O.P. candidates in every election cycle since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“This is extreme,” Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan, the No. 4 Republican, said in an interview. “What we’re going to do is continue to point out the extreme nature of the Democrats. This is really, ‘Do you believe in murdering a child, or not?’”
On the floor, Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Democrat of California, said that “last I checked, infanticide is already illegal in all 50 states.” She called the bill a “first step of Republicans’ radical agenda.”
And Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrat of Florida, said the bill was “another attempt to control a woman’s body, to wedge the government between couples and their doctor when faced with incredibly difficult decisions.”
Action on the bill came during the same week as the annual March For Life in Washington, and was part of a continuing Republican effort to appeal to its conservative, anti-abortion-rights base.
