Boehner gets Judgment Day in own office

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio

WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, supports a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, so why are some of the nation's leading pro-life activists so upset with the GOP leader they plan to hold a sit-in at his office on Wednesday morning?

Because, they insist, he has mismanaged the bill into a state of limbo.

The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would ban abortions after 20 weeks, based on evidence that unborn babies feel intense pain by that age.

But the bill hit an unexpected roadblock when a number of female lawmakers, including Reps. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C.; Ann Wagner, R-Mo.; and Jackie Wolorski, R-Ind., who all have pro-life voting records, and even one of the bill's co-sponsors, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., expressed reservations about the legislation because it did not do enough to allow rape victims to have abortions, a move that Life News said "sabotaged" the bill.

When GOP House leaders feared they didn't have enough votes to pass the bill, they shelved it on Jan. 21, and they're now reportedly trying to carefully re-draft the legislation so it doesn't run into the same problem. Bohener told Life News that he's committed to bringing the bill back to the floor for a vote and passing it.

So, why are pro-life leaders planning to protest Boehner and not Ellmers?

Jill Stanek told WND they do object to Ellmers' proposed exception, but, "The buck stops with Boehner. The bill wasn't properly shepherded through the House. He didn't do a proper whip count, and he pulled the rug out from the bill's supporters."

She called it a "critical" lapse in leadership because, despite Ellmers' objections, she said on Facebook that she would have voted for the bill as it was, meaning that other lawmakers sharing her concerns likely would have voted for it, too.

Stanek also said "there is no way" it should have taken two months to "carefully re-draft the legislation," given the identical bill had already passed back when the GOP had an even smaller majority in the House.

Pro-life leader Jill Stanek

WND asked Boehner's office for a comment on his handling of the bill, and Press Secretary Olivia Hnat replied:

"Congressman Boehner is 100 percent pro-life and, indeed, the most pro-life speaker in the history of the House. The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act remains an important priority for the pro-life majority that he leads in the House."

Stanek was a registered nurse who was shocked to discover babies were being aborted alive to die without medical care. She held a 21-week abortion survivor until he died. The baby would have been saved had a 20-week ban been in place, so this ban holds particular meaning.

She became a leading abortion opponent who has testified numerous times before Congress on the subject. She also runs a top-ranked pro-life blog.

She, along with Operation Rescue President Troy Newman and Director of the Christian Defense Coalition Rev. Patrick Mahoney, plans to lead the sit-in at Boehner's congressional office at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Stanek told WND she does not question Boehner's pro-life beliefs but does question GOP House leadership's pro-life convictions.

Were this a pro-abortion bill sponsored by Planned Parenthood, she said, Democrats would have handled it with kid gloves to ensure it went through the process smoothly to passage.

"Furthermore," she insisted, "Democrats would never have pulled a Planned Parenthood bill at the 11th hour, particularly after such fanfare, and on the eve of an important day, such as it was for pro-lifers, January 22, when hundreds of thousands were coming to D.C."

In addition, Stanek said, part of the job of a legislator is to promote legislation – educate the public – not just vote in favor of bills, which she thinks is sorely lacking here.

Pro-life leaders were also upset that GOP leaders simply went silent after the bill was pulled.

Stanek told WND that Bohener hadn't said a word about the fate of the bill until the protest was announced, and that the sit-in will be "a continuation of holding his feet to the fire."

The former nurse also explained pro-life objections to the exemption Ellmers is seeking which would not require rape victims to report the crime to law enforcement before obtaining an abortion.

Stanek said she appreciates that the exception is meant to be sensitive to women who feel they're being forced to prove they were raped. But, she explained, supporters of the exception have not considered the consequences.

Rapists could go free if their crime goes unreported.

Also, "it would allow the abortionists a huge loophole. They can keep making big bucks off abortions if no evidence is required that the victim was raped. It would allow abortionists to just to check a box stating a woman was raped in order to profit off her abortion."

Stanek also noted that pro-lifers did protest Ellmers on Jan. 22, "when she was relevant to the conversation."

As WND reported Tuesday, the sit-in event outside Boehner's office is known as #FreeTheBan.

Boehner has said the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act still "remains an important priority for our majority," but the sit-in leaders signed a letter explaining why pro-life leaders felt "betrayed" by GOP leadership.

"This life-saving legislation [was] withdrawn on the eve of the 2015 March for Life, when hundreds of thousands of Americans had come to Washington, D.C., to embrace human rights and equality for all, and we were promised it would be passed on January 22 [the anniversary of Roe v. Wade]," the letter to Boehner states.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman

"Just one day before scores would be marching in the harsh winter conditions of January, we were still being assured a vote would happen the next day. Imagine our further sense of betrayal that, almost two months later, no vote has been rescheduled for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."

"I, for the most part, kept my silence, waiting … and waiting … and waiting for the GOP House leadership to circle back and fix their mess," Stanek elaborated in a blog post titled "Why I'm protesting Speaker Boehner's office on March 25." "The GOP must have mistaken our silence for indifference."

Newman told WND the stakes are so high it's worth the risk of civil disobedience.

"We have to implement a backbone policy for Mr. Boehner," Newman told WND. "It means we're serious. We're willing to take this to another level."

He noted it's been 42 years since abortion was decriminalized, and Congress now has the largest pro-life majority since then.

"We expect them to act," he said. "It's exactly why the voters put them there. It was in their platform, what they ran on."

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Newman called the developments in Congress a "slap in the face of the pro-life movement."

"We want a whole lot more," he said. "We expect a whole lot from this Congress."

The GOP expanded its majority in the U.S. House during the 2014 midterm elections and took control of the Senate for the first time in years.

"It's something that cannot be ignored," Newman said. "This speaker is weak, his policies are weak, his plan for implementing pro-life legislation is weak."

He said if it becomes necessary, there may be future events at additional congressional offices.

Such civil disobedience has been used before by the pro-life movement. Some of the efforts by Joe Scheidler and the Pro-Life Action League were so effective in the 1980s that abortion advocates took them to court and accused them of racketeering.

It took 28 years and three trips to the U.S. Supreme Court to finish the case – a decision in which the pro-lifers' actions were vindicated entirely.

WND's original report on the Boehner sit-in included an interview with Stanek.

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Jill Stanek:

"When we protest on March 25, it will have been two months. We've been patient, more than measured in our response, more than muted. I, among others, am just not going to stand for this anymore," Stanek said.

Organizers are inviting pro-life activists from across the nation to join them on March 25 at 11 a.m. Speaker Boehner's office is located at 1011 in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

The name of the event is #FreeTheBan. More information is available at the event's Facebook page.