Republican senators seek to add anti-abortion amendments to proposed budget bill

Five new anti-abortion amendments have been filed by Republican senators to their proposed budget resolution as part of the marathon voting session known as "vote-a-rama," The Huffington Post reported Friday.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) filed the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation in Washington, D.C., while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced an amendment that would make it a crime to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion in order to evade parental consent laws. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) wants to enact an amendment that would ban abortions based on the gender of the fetus, and the amendment offered by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) would allow hospital or health care workers to opt out of participating in an abortion procedure or dispensing emergency contraception if they morally object to it.

The fifth and final amendment, introduced by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), would stop all U.S. dollars to the United Nations Population Fund, an international organization that provides family planning and reproductive health services to women around the world. The fund's $25 million would be redirected to the president's Malaria Initiative.

"The Senate has a critical opportunity today to vote in favor of common-ground measures supported by popular opinion," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. "Across the country, Americans overwhelmingly support parental rights, ending taxpayer funding of abortion at home and abroad, stopping sex-selection abortion of baby girls, and protecting babies capable of feeling pain prenatally."

The amendments have little chance of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Watch the video report on this story, uploaded March 22 by HuffingtonPost.com:

[Annoyed woman via Shutterstock.com]