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A nationwide abortion ban would widen disparities in health care and increase maternal mortality rates, particularly among black women, doctors and advocates told the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, told members of the US House Oversight and Reform Committee in a more than three-hour hearing: “Women’s advancement has always been tied to taking control of our own bodies.” Hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Frye continued, “Abortion was a vital thing for women and all those who gave birth. Research shows that restricting abortion has an impact on the health, safety and well-being of pregnant women.
Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) introduced a bill that would do just that. Abortion is prohibited nationwide at 15 weeksReplacing the restrictions set by the government and further intensifying the debate on abortion in June The US Supreme Court rejected the decision Roe v. Wade
Graham’s law comes as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country move to impose stricter abortion restrictions, forcing pregnant women to flee across state lines to seek care. Some of Graham’s fellow Republicans They withdrew themselves from the proposal..
“How does the abortion ban disproportionately affect communities of color, who are often left behind?” U.S. Rep. Shontell Brown (D-Ohio) asked Frye.
“What we really want is the ability for everyone, especially black and brown people and people of color, to have access to the health care they need,” Frye replied. “Abortion bans take decisions out of their hands. It forces them to rely on systems that perpetuate decades of disparity.”
Who are you going to be?
A witness told lawmakers that they face a bipartisan vote on abortion rights.
“Who will you be?” Pittsburgh resident Kelsey Leigh asked the panel. “Do you sit on pregnant people without knowing them and their condition? Or will you listen… and be the compassion our country so desperately needs right now?”
Lee, who miscarried at 20 weeks via ultrasound, described what she considered her unborn child to be “non-viable” and now at Allegheny Center for Reproductive Health She told lawmakers that when she spoke to abortion seekers in Pittsburgh, the facility was flooded with calls from people in neighboring Ohio and West Virginia, which have strict abortion bans.
“We’re the closest clinic to 70% of Ohioans,” Lehigh told U.S. Rep. Ro Canna (D-Calif.). “Two-thirds of the people I talk to every day are from Ohio and West Virginia. They are arranging rides and childcare.
‘turn back the clock’
In her opening remarks, the group’s chair, US Representative Carolyn Maloney (DNI), argued that Republicans on Capitol Hill and across the country are “turning back the clock on women’s rights,” citing a recent court decision in Arizona. Restoring the 158-year-old law It bans all abortions.
“Let the law that was passed a century before women get the right to vote come into effect,” Maloney said.
House Republicans have charged that most Democrats are using the hearings to sway votes ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections. They too He repeated the false claim A bill enacting Roe v. Wade into federal law would allow abortion up until birth.
“Let’s be clear about what today’s hearing is about – it’s not about advocating for women. It’s an effort to create a taxpayer-funded abortion system on demand,” said U.S. Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa). “Covering such hearings is to instill fear and further their far-left agenda.”
US Rep. Glen Groman (R-Wis.). Echoing his thoughts, he said, “The notion that there is a constitutional right to abortion is incorrect.” We have an age where judges go to law school and find ways around the Constitution. A bill that recently passed the House would legalize abortion up until birth. Other countries have restrictions on this.
A PolitiFact analysis in June “Mostly false,” he decided.
The bill would “authorize abortion up until birth, but only if it is deemed necessary to preserve the patient’s life.” PolitiFact reports that it does not explicitly require states to legalize the procedure in all cases.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), heard that constitutional argument.
“The Supreme Court has decided. Herein lies the problem. There is a question that needs to be answered: Who decides? Does the government decide if and when a woman is pregnant? Or is it a personal health care decision that should be made for the woman, her family, her faith, and her doctor?”.
GOP lawmakers also rejected arguments from witnesses on the panel that safe and legal abortions are a vital part of self-determination for pregnant women as they try to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (RN.C.) said, “This extreme bill, the Women’s Health Care Act, puts the United States on par with countries like China and North Korea. “It’s the Democrats who have taken a strong position on abortion, and they’re against the will of most Americans. It’s one thing to decide what happens in your body. It’s another. [thing] It is to decide the fate of the unborn child they are carrying,” he said.
Raskin, Pennsylvania
Looking across the state line to Pennsylvania, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) cited recent stories about Pennsylvania’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, in . Women who violated the six-week ban He was sponsoring and should be charged with murder.
After rejecting the ban, the people of Kansas have become a little more cynical and reluctant to ban abortion everywhere in the country, Raskin said in an August poll of Kansas voters. He rejected the proposed constitutional amendment. This would have stripped residents of their abortion rights.
“Now that they’ve hit the rock, it looks like the cat’s got their tongue. And the rock is the women who stand as America’s first class citizens,” Raskin said.
Medical experts who spoke on the floor of the House Thursday faced repeated questions from GOP lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Jody Hiss (R-Ga.), whether abortion care should be classified as health care.
“Abortion is not a health service. The goal is to kill the fetus,” said Dr. Monique Chireau-Wbenhorst, an obstetrician-gynecologist, referring to the order of the panel’s Republicans.
Dr. Nisha Verma, a fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, countered that Ubbenhorst’s comments were not the consensus among obstetricians and their professional organizations.
“The overwhelming consensus is that abortion is completely health care,” Verma said.
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