Sen. Josh Hawley Joins Pro-Life Advocates in Speaking Out Against Abortion Bill
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri compared pro-lifers’ battle against abortion to abolitionists fighting the “moral evil of slavery” on Wednesday.
“You think about the abolitionists who for decades and decades and decades fought against the moral evil of slavery, fought it when it was the majority position of the country, fought it when they were told that they were crazy, fought it because they knew, they knew that there was a moral truth that every person is created equal and has equal rights,” Hawley said.
“And they were willing to fight for that in our country.”
The Missouri Republican praised abortion survivor Melissa Ohden’s testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Democratic Women’s Health Protection Act, which would “create a statutory right for health care providers to provide abortion care.”
“You think about the abolitionists who… fought against the moral evil of slavery… because they knew there was a moral truth that every person is created equal and has equal rights,” says @HawleyMO.
“That’s what pro-lifers are fighting for, is that great moral principle.” pic.twitter.com/DNXNNno9ww
— Abigail Marone (@abigailmarone) June 16, 2021
“That’s what you’re fighting for,” he told abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, founder of the Abortion Survivors Network. “That’s what pro-lifers are fighting for, is that great moral principle. I look forward to the day when we look back and say, ‘How could abortion have ever been allowed in this country?’”
The abortion survivor told the Daily Caller News Foundation that she survived her mother’s abortion at 31 weeks after doctors misleadingly told her mother that her unborn baby was only 18-20 weeks along.
Ohden said that her mother’s parents orchestrated a forced saline infusion abortion with the help of her grandmother’s colleague, the local abortionist.
Saline infusion abortion is intended to poison and scald the child to death over 72 hours as the baby soaks in the fluid injected into the womb, Ohden said, after which doctors would then induce premature labor.
Ohden said the doctors struggled to induce her birth mother, leading Ohden to soak in the saline solution for not three but five days.
“They did finally succeed that fifth day, and I was delivered at St. Luke’s Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, in the final step of the abortion procedure, expected to be a successful abortion — a deceased child, but when I was expelled from the womb, I was accidentally born alive,” Ohden told the DCNF.
“I now know from admissions of my biological family that my grandmother was there when I was delivered alive and demanded to the nurses that they leave me to die,” Ohden said.
“We may never know how long I was ‘laid aside,’ in the words of a nurse who has communicated with me about her experience that day, but we know that ultimately, a ‘tall, blond nurse,’ rushed me to the NICU shouting out, ‘She just kept gasping for breath and I couldn’t just leave her there to die.’”
Pro-abortion groups are backing the progressive legislation, tweeting support for the Women’s Health Protection Act on Wednesday.
“The future of abortion access in the U.S. is at risk,” the Center for Reproductive Rights tweeted. “We need your help to protect it. Tell Congress to #ActForAbortionAccess and support the Women’s Health Protection Act now!”
The future of abortion access in the U.S. is at risk. We need your help to protect it. Tell Congress to #ActForAbortionAccess and support the Women’s Health Protection Act now! https://t.co/2mgF4rjLnh
— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) June 16, 2021
Americans United for Life President and CEO Catherine Glenn Foster also testified Wednesday, warning that the Women’s Health Protection Act “would effectively ban all lifesaving, state protections for women considering abortion, including those upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“This bill would wipe away protections for women, for children before viability, and even for many late-term viable children,” Foster said.
“These include protections from dangerous and painful late-term abortion, laws that prevent children from being eugenically aborted because they may have Down syndrome, and laws guaranteeing that children born alive during an abortion are provided basic medical care.”
“Informed consent standards, gone,” she continued.
“Health and safety standards, gone. As a legal and constitutional expert, I can say that this misguided bill would invalidate hundreds of constitutionally sound state laws that have been debated, passed, and enacted in states from coast to coast in an effort to protect America’s youngest citizens.”
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