Some reporters and pundits have said that Democrats in Congress simply lacked the votes to ever enshrine in federal statute a right to abortion. But a closer look at the last two unified Democratic governments — the first under the Clinton presidency in 1993 and 1994 and the second under the Obama presidency in 2009 and 2010 — shows there very likely were congressional majorities in support of a federal right to abortion. There just weren’t enough votes to enshrine a right as expansive as the one that activists wanted…

As CQ explained:

[FOCA] would have the effect of overturning existing state laws that require 24-hour waiting periods and would nullify some parental notice and consent laws for minors. Many House members and senators want to allow precisely those types of restrictions on abortion. But abortion rights groups and their allies in Congress are adamantly opposed to such limits.

FOCA’s legislative text made plain that no state could restrict abortion “at any time” in pregnancy so long as the procedure was needed to protect the “health” of the mother. The term “health” was left undefined, and an open amendment process could have narrowed its meaning, so that the bill would protect only those with serious physical — as opposed to psychological — health issues.