Pro-life advocates are sounding the alarm on congressional Democrats’ plan to nationalize abortion up to birth if the balance of power swings decidedly left in the midterm elections. And their claims aren’t simply campaign rhetoric, but proposed legislation that’s hiding in plain sight.
This election cycle, SBA Pro-Life America and its affiliated entities are spending $80 million to educate voters about the potential deadly consequences of a blue wave in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
As part of their investment to reach 10.5 million voters in the midterms, SBA and Women Speak Out are going door to door mobilizing voters with a warning of the left’s goal to establish a Massachusetts-style national all-trimester abortion mandate, deceptively named the Women’s Health Protection Act.
“Massachusetts’ barbaric new Abortion Up Until Birth Act is the Democrats’ agenda for the entire country,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser says. “If they control the levers of power in Washington, D.C., they will pass a national law requiring every state to allow elective abortion on demand throughout the second and third trimesters. Brutal late-term abortions done by dismemberment and lethal injection into a baby’s heart will be greenlit across this nation and states will be banned from protecting unborn children at any point.”
The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and backed by more than 200 Democratic cosponsors. The text of the bill explicitly prohibits governmental restrictions on abortion both before and after fetal viability. Consequently, it would be legal in all 50 states to kill viable babies who can live outside the mother’s womb.
Under the proposed statute, post-viability abortions would be legally protected nationwide whenever a single healthcare provider deems the procedure “necessary for life or health”—reasons that can be defined as virtually anything to make all abortions legal.
Pro-life advocates argue that the inclusion of a broad “health” exception, without specific medical definitions or limitations, effectively establishes a federal mandate for unrestricted abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Opponents also point out that the bill would systematically dismantle established state-level protections, as its enforcement provisions authorize the Department of Justice and individual abortion centers and abortionists to sue state governments, completely overriding standard statutory immunity.
“When Republicans expose this extremism, they will reap the benefits in the midterms and thwart the shocking de facto position of the Democrat Party,” Dannenfelser said. “This is a shared goal of establishment Democrats and socialist candidates: They want to ban any and all limits on abortion, everywhere.”
Ten states plus the District of Columbia currently allow abortion at any point. The U.S. is 1 of 8 countries in the world along with China that allow abortion at any point, according to a 2024 study. The Charlotte Lozier Institute reports that over 60,000 abortions a year occur after 15 weeks—a developmental benchmark which science shows that a baby can feel pain.
