Leader Rodgers: This Extreme Agenda for More Abortion Promotes Fear and Dehumanization
We Should be Coming Together Around Human Rights of the Unborn
Washington, D.C. — Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) led debate against Democrats’ “Ensuring Access to Abortion Act” today.
DEMOCRATS PUSHING A FALSE CHOICE
“I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 8297, the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act.
“Just like the Democrats’ Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act, this bill is part of an extreme agenda to nationalize abortion for all nine months of pregnancy.
“Abortion is a false choice between taking care of a woman and taking care of a baby.
“What a woman needs is support. Every life is meaningful, and our actions significant.”
DEMOCRATIC FEARMONGERING
“76 percent of women seeking an abortion say they would choose life if their circumstances were different.
“Instead of promoting ways to support women and children with better health care, education, and financial stability and changing their circumstances, Democrats, including President Biden, are spreading fear, anxiety, and misinformation.
“This is a blatant attempt to spread fear and present abortion at any stage of pregnancy as a woman’s only option.
“So, I want to be very clear. It is already unconstitutional to prevent a woman from traveling between states.
“The pro-life movement does not support and has always rejected criminalizing and punishing women, period.
“State laws currently in effect have exceptions to save the life of the mother.
“Pro-life laws do not prevent women from getting care they need in cases of miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.”
THIS BILL PROTECTS PREDATORS
“Regarding this legislation, the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act, I have many questions and concerns.
“Its vague language—designed to promote more abortions—undermines parent consent for minors, opens loopholes for abuse, and eliminates medical supervision for chemical abortions.
“This bill does nothing to explicitly prevent an unrelated adult or a sexual abuser from taking a minor out-of-state for an abortion, without parent consent.
“It would prevent health care professionals, social workers, and schools in every state from reporting instances of child abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect because that could be seen as delaying or hindering access to abortion.
“It also undermines parental rights.
“Parents can be targeted by the federal government and sued for wanting to help their child just by asking them to delay traveling to get an abortion.
“If their child is 16 for example, the parents lose power to protect their teenager from being coerced by an older man to get an abortion.”
HARMING THE HEALTH OF WOMEN
“The Ensuring Access to Abortion Act undermines the health and safety of women.
“By pre-empting state laws regulating the practice of medicine, it overrides the majority of states that have determined it is safest for doctors to prescribe pills for chemical abortions.
“This puts women and minors in danger if they experience complications.
“Finally, these same provisions give sexual abusers and human traffickers more direct access to chemical abortions in all 50 states.
“It ensures that doctors in states like California, where there is no parent consent, can effectively become pill mills, by prescribing and mailing abortion drugs to children and minors and end lives all over the country.
“This is extreme.”
DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS
“Again, I ask my colleagues to abandon this agenda for unlimited abortions with no restrictions.
“It only promotes more fear, pain, and dehumanization of the most vulnerable, the helpless among us.
“Instead, let’s come together around the human rights of every person in this country—born and unborn.
“Let’s celebrate the dignity, value, and potential of every person.
“This is our chance to lead a new era of hope and healing in our country. For every person—for moms and their babies at every stage of life.
“Every life is worth living.
“I urge a ‘no’ vote on this bill and reserve the balance of my time.”