Four House Democrats voted with Republicans on Wednesday to support GOP-sponsored abortion measures, crossing the aisle to help pass the first anti-abortion pieces of legislation in the House Republican majority.
The first bill, titled the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, passed in a 220-210-1 vote. The legislation would require that all infants born after attempted abortions receive medical care.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) was the only Democrat to support the measure, while Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) voted present. The Hill reached out to the two lawmakers for comment on their votes.
Cuellar, an anti-abortion Democrat, has broken with his colleagues on abortion-related measures in the past. In July — less than one month after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade — Cuellar was the only Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would enshrine the right to abortion in federal law.
Cuellar’s vote is likely to spark frustration among progressives, who worked to oust the congressman last year. Some left-leaning lawmakers supported Jessica Cisneros in a Texas House primary last year and criticized the chamber’s Democratic establishment for backing the incumbent.
“On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter in May, the day of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The second measure the House approved on Wednesday was a resolution condemning attacks on anti-abortion facilities, groups and churches. The chamber adopted the resolution in a 222-219 vote.
The measure laid out a number of incidents involving vandalism, violence and destruction at anti-abortion facilities that occurred between when the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked and when the bench officially released the ruling.
Some Democrats criticized the resolution for not including violent incidents targeting abortion providers.
Nonetheless, three Democrats — Gonzalez and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) — joined Republicans in supporting the measure.
The Hill reached out to the trio for comment on their votes.
