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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin was one of just 17 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against banning Russian energy imports Wednesday, but says he did so due to language in the legislation that could be turned against pro-lifers around the world.

Newsweek reports that two Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the Suspending Energy Imports from Russia Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House but may or may not be taken up by the Senate, and is separate from a ban announced by the Biden administration this week as the latest would-be deterrent to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Grothman, who previously said he was “horrified” by the invasion and partially attributed Russia’s actions to “American weakness over the past year,” appeared on Wisconsin conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell’s show Thursday to explain his vote (the interview begins roughly an hour into the video):

After noting that the ban had been watered down from its original version, the congressman explained that it contained a provision added late in the process which would amend the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which empowers the president to impose sanctions on “any foreign person” that he determines, “based on credible evidence,” is “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals in any foreign country who seek- (A) to expose illegal activity carried out by government officials; or (B) to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections.”

The new provision in the oil ban would replace that set of defined offenses with language letting the president sanction any foreign actor who is “responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse.” Grothman warned that Biden or his successors could use this far more vague language as a pretext to coerce nations into adopting their secular leftist values.

“Now human rights abuses can be not toeing the party line on abortion, not toeing the party line on the LGBTQ,” Grothman said, citing the fears of Christian conservatives in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

“I don’t think it’s hypothetical at all,” he continued. “And it’s in here for a reason, okay? They didn’t change this for no reason whatsoever, they changed it because there are a lot of people, when they talk about human rights, this is what they talk about.”

Grothman, who supports the underlying cause of banning Russian energy imports and previously sponsored other bills to do the same, added that House Republicans widely recognized the provision as objectionable; most simply concluded that their support for the oil ban outweighed their reservations.

Last November, former Trump administration Health & Human Services official Valerie Huber spoke out about how the Obama administration (in which Biden was vice president) weaponized foreign aid in the service of its leftist social agenda.

“What I learned very quickly was that pro-life and pro-family countries around the world, large and small, were being intimidated and even threatened with withholding foreign assistance if they didn’t either stay quiet about the national priorities they had in the protection of life and family or change their policies and laws as a result,” she said. “What was really striking was that our own government was complicit with this under President Obama and I fear that the same is true under President Biden, where it appear[s] that U.S. diplomacy with countries abroad was really only focused on their social issues regarding the family and abortion.”

During its four years, the Trump administration drew the ire of left-wing activists for excluding abortion-on-demand from its working definition of human rights and championing a more classical understanding of the concept in keeping with the Western natural-law tradition.

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