January 22, 2015 11:23 AM UTC

Congress Ditches Vote on Abortion Bill After Internal Revolt

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• by: Colorado Pols

A very interesting and notable development in Congress, as CNN reports:

Mark it down as a rare win for House GOP moderates. After scrambling into the evening on Wednesday, House Republican leaders decided to scrap a vote on a controversial anti-abortion measure scheduled to coincide with an annual gathering of anti-abortion advocates on Thursday because they couldn't round up enough support…

…The "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," is a bill banning so called "late-term abortions" — those involving procedures for women who are beyond 20 weeks into their pregnancy. Several House GOP women protested language in the bill that requires those women who seek an exception to the ban because they were raped have to back up their claim with a police report. A similar measure has passed the House in 2013, but this time some female members — including some who voted for it last time — are pushing for that requirement to be stripped out.

Discussion about the issue at a closed door meeting on Wednesday morning got so tense that congressional aides were kicked out of the meeting when the debate turned emotional, according to several GOP sources.

The internal feud placed leaders in an awkward spot, because they targeted the vote for Thursday, the same day as the March for Life in Washington and the 42nd anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, which negated state laws that prevented a woman from having an abortion based on the constitutional right to privacy.

Moderate Republican women are being credited with leading the initial backlash against this legislation, which may or may not be good for them politically. It's true that Republicans need to attract more support from women if they hope to win the White House in 2016, but the people who are really paying attention to this are the more active political folks — the kind of Republicans who vote in Primary Elections and won't be happy to know that they couldn't even bring this bill to a vote despite holding a Congressional majority.