WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
issued the following statement after the House of Representatives
approved HR 3660, legislation that would greatly limit a woman’s
right to choose.
“As a mother and grandmother of girls, I am deeply and
personally offended by this legislation. It implies that
American women just have to be stopped from frivolously deciding to
terminate a pregnancy just weeks or days before delivery. It
has been stated that these pregnant women have not explored all the
medical and surgical options to save their babies or to protect
their own lives. And it takes politicians to stop
them.
“The truth is the women who have late abortions are forced
to end wanted pregnancies either because the baby will surely die or
the women will seriously jeopardize their own lives and
health. Women are portrayed as irresponsible baby killers,
when in fact, it is the sponsors of this bill who show utter
disregard for the life or the health of women. This bill
implies that the current law allows women to have abortions up to
the last minute before delivery. That is not true. Despite all
the rhetoric to the contrary, Roe v. Wade strictly limits abortions
after viability.
“This isn’t about one procedure or even late term
abortions. This bill is so vague that it would ban most
abortion procedures, including some first and all second and third
trimester abortions. And that’s the goal -- to reverse Roe v.
Wade and to take away from women what the Supreme Court calls ‘the
most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,
choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, [and] central to
the liberty protected by the Fourteenth
Amendment.’” |