Pro-life House Republicans are introducing legislation that would undermine Roe vs Wade by defining life as beginning at conception, just weeks after the conference unexpectedly pulled a bill that would ban most late-term abortions.

“There are thousands of unborn babies who need us to fight tirelessly on the issue of human life,” said Representative Alex Mooney (R., W. Va.) in a statement on his introduction of the bill. “I cannot think of a more important role for a benevolent society than to offer protection for the right to life of the most vulnerable among us.”

The legislation, originally authored by Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), is intended to address the Roe vs Wade opinion by knocking out one of the legs of Justice Blackmun’s majority opinion, according to Mooney’s office.

“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case [i.e. “Roe” who sought the abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment,” Blackmun wrote.

With that in mind, the bill would establish a congressional definition of life that might open the door to further regulation of abortion at the state-level.

Mooney is offering the bill with 50 original co-sponsors, including Representative Ann Wagner (R., Mo.) and Representative Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) — two key players in the disagreement that resulted in GOP leadership canceling a vote on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act on the eve of the March for Life.

“When I was in college, I would spend afternoons pamphleting the cafeteria as a member and then the President of the Dartmouth Coalition for Life,” Mooney says. “Even on a liberal college campus I found opportunities to turn hearts to the plight of the defenseless. That experience gives me hope for the success of the pro-life movement and for this bill.”