Senate Republicans Jeopardize Human Trafficking Bill with Anti-Abortion Provision

Politico: How abortion politics scuttled a human-trafficking bill, by Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim:

It’s a cause any politician would have a hard time opposing: cracking down on human trafficking.

Instead, in a breakdown sensational even by Senate standards, a bill to address the issue is set to go down in a partisan firefight. The cause of the row? Democrats didn’t read the 68-page bill to discover its provisions dealing with abortion, and Republicans didn’t disclose the abortion language when Democratic staffers asked them for a summary of the legislation.

The spectacle has infuriated groups that advocate for cracking down on sex trafficking and left Democrats and Republicans even more skeptical of whether they can trust each other. . . .