Abortion rights are disappearing in the United States. And Democrats have no plan | Moira Donegan

In moments like these, it would be helpful if we had a party with spine to vote for

The Democrats have no plan. On Wednesday, just over a week after Politico published a leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito's forthcoming majority opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, which will overrule Roe v Wade next month, the Senate did the only thing they could think to do: they voted on the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill to codify a federal right to abortion.

The bill had already been brought to a vote this past February - before the leak of the opinion, but long after it became clear that the supreme court would end the abortion right - and it had already failed. On Wednesday, it failed again, by 49 votes to 51, on party lines: only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, sided with the unanimous Republicans in denying women a federally recognized right to make their own decisions for their health and lives. This was no surprise: bringing the act to a vote was a mere symbolic gesture. Democratic women senators and their staff had walked to the floor for the vote chanting My body, my decision." But ultimately, they weren't powerful enough to get it passed. They didn't have the votes.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist