Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, often the swing vote in an evenly-divided Senate, announced he would oppose his fellow Democrats’ legislation to protect abortion rights, but said he’d vote to codify Roe v Wade.
Mr Manchin told reporters on Wednesday that he would oppose the legislation, called the Women’s Health Protection Act.
“We’re going to be voting on a piece of legislation which I will not vote for today,” he said. “But I would vote for a Roe v Wade codification it was today. I was hopeful for that.”
Mr Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who has opposed abortion rights in the past, said he learned in Democrats’ caucus meeting this week that would not happen. Mr Manchin’s announcement comes the same day that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to hold a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act.
Democrats want to hold a vote on the legislation in response to a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade. The 1973 Supreme Court decision said seeking an abortion was part of the right to privacy guaranteed in the 14th Amendment and therefore, constitutional.
In response, Democrats hope to plan a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act. The legislation said that state governments would not be allowed to restrict an abortion provider’s ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion services via telemedicine or immediately provide services if they determine that a pregnant person’s life is endangered by a delay.
The legislation also says state governments cannot mandate abortion providers to perform unnecessary medical procedures, provide medical misinformation, have credentials that do not apply to abortion or carry out all services that relate to an abortion.
Mr Manchin’s opposition comes as Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who opposes abortion and whose father is the namesake of the 1992 Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood v Casey, said that he would support the legislation.
