Abortion Industry Threatens to Cut Off Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for Refusal to Support Change in Filibuster Rule

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (C), D-AZ, departs from the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Octobe
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

A desperate abortion industry is now threatening Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) for her refusal to support the Senate Democrats’ attempt at a federal takeover of elections through an effort to break the filibuster rule.

In a year that has seen the U.S. Supreme Court allow the Texas Heartbeat Act to stand and hear oral arguments in a case focused on a Mississippi abortion restriction law that is the most significant challenge in decades to the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, abortion rights advocacy group Emily’s List said Tuesday it will cut off funding to Sinema for her refusal to support the Senate Democrats’ push to overturn the filibuster.

Laphonza Butler, president of Emily’s List, whose mission is to elect pro-abortion rights Democrat women to national, state, and local office, said Tuesday her organization will cut off its funding to Sinema for her refusal to support the Democrats’ attempt to destroy the filibuster rule.

Butler repeated the false Democrat narrative that the legislation’s purpose is to promote voting rights and that Republicans are attempting to suppress the right to vote:

Our mission can only be realized when everyone has the freedom to have their voice heard safely and freely at the ballot box. Ongoing Republican efforts at voter suppression don’t just undermine our mission, but the very democratic ideals that should be at the center of our government. Protecting the right to vote is fundamental to our work and to our electoral system.

Butler said the efforts of Emily’s List and its allies to “impress upon Sen. Sinema the importance of the pending voting rights legislation in the Senate … have not been addressed.”

She added:

We have not endorsed or contributed to Sen. Sinema since her election in 2018. Right now, Sen. Sinema’s decision to reject the voices of allies, partners and constituents who believe the importance of voting rights outweighs that of an arcane process means she will find herself standing alone in the next election … So, we want to make it clear: if Sen. Sinema can not support a path forward for the passage of this legislation, we believe she undermines the foundations of our democracy, her own path to victory and also the mission of EMILY’s List, and we will be unable to endorse her moving forward.

Emily’s List was the largest contributor to Sinema’s Senate campaign in 2018. OpenSecrets reported the abortion rights group gave $405,588 toward her successful bid.

Abortion rights advocacy organization NARAL echoed Emily’s List late Tuesday in a statement asserting it would not support senators who oppose changing the Senate’s rules to pass legislation that would allow the federal takeover of elections in the United States.

“Our democracy is in peril,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju, adding the legislation must be passed “by any means necessary”:

Anti-choice, anti-democracy forces—including all 50 Republican Senators—are dead-set on dismantling the very foundation of our republic. We cannot let this happen. It is past time for the Senate to pass the voting rights protections in the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act and safeguard the freedom to vote by any means necessary. We will not endorse or support any senator who refuses to find a path forward on this critical legislation.

Both Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) rejected Thursday President Joe Biden’s attempt to undermine the 60-vote filibuster threshold that would ultimately allow the obliteration of election integrity.

As Breitbart News reported, Sinema defended the filibuster last week on the floor of the Senate.

“But what is the legislative filibuster, other than a tool that requires new federal policy to be broadly supported by senators, representing the broader cross-section of Americans?” she asked. “Demands to eliminate this threshold from whichever party holds the fleeting majority amount to a group of people separated on two sides of a canyon, shouting that solution to their colleagues.”

Sinema said that while she supports the Democrats’ legislation to federalize local elections, “These bills help treat the symptoms of the disease, but they do not fully address the disease itself.”

“And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division affecting our country,” she added.

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