WASHINGTON — For the third time in three days, Senate Democrats filibustered legislation designed to combat human trafficking due to an anti-abortion provision that they say must be stripped out.
The vote Thursday was 56-42, short of the 60 needed for the bill to proceed.
“The abortion language has to come out,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said.
The main bill is overwhelmingly bipartisan. Democrats strongly object to language that would restrict the ability of trafficking victims to use compensation funds they receive, collected from perpetrators, to obtain an abortion.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) offered Democrats a tweak to break the impasse: provide the victims compensation funds through the appropriations process, rather than a separate pool of fees, in order to avoid an expansion of the longstanding Hyde Amendment which bans taxpayer funding of abortion.
“Democrats have repeatedly requested that these dollars go through the appropriations process, so that is what we will do,” a Cornyn aide said. “Given that this is what Senate Democrats have repeatedly requested, it is unconscionable that they would continue to filibuster this bill.”
But that proposal was quickly rejected by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
“We want that language out,” Feinstein told reporters. Asked if nothing short of stripping the language entirely would suffice, she said, “That’s right.”
The concern that Democrats have with the Cornyn compromise is that rape victims would still have to jump through legal hoops to obtain an abortion with the trafficking compensation funds, aides said.
“There’s a compromise possible. Take it out,” Feinstein said.
Aides said Democrats would discuss the issue at a lunch meeting on Thursday.