Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1947, Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1797, Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. I thank the ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to H.R. 1797, which would callously and cavalierly limit access to abortion for women across the country.

Boy, I tell you, the House GOP has truly pushed the limits this time by offering this unconstitutional bill.

Madam Speaker, this week, the much-maligned Miss USA contestant, Miss Utah, alluding to the power dynamics between men and women in the workplace, was lampooned for a flubbed answer when she said, and I quote:

I think especially the men are seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to create education better so that we can solve this problem.

However inarticulate, I think Miss Utah was on to something.

When you consider the subject at hand, women's right to a medically safe abortion, we once again see men taking leadership roles and invading the privacy and medical decisions of women so that now we have before us a bill that is borne of ignorance and disregard for medical science in every way, shape, and form. There is no concern for the biology, physiology, sociology of the woman.

Perhaps, if we could create education better of the importance of women's lives, we would not be here with this bill before us. This bill is an abomination, plain and simple, at its foundation, its heart, its utter disrespect for the dignity and health of women. It also has other harmful effects.

Now, I am sympathetic for those women, as well, who face an abortion at 20 weeks. Often these women are facing complications that endanger their health or they have found out about a severe fetal anomaly. Others are victims of rape or incest. These are the most difficult decisions in their lives.

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Ms. MOORE. Medical providers have told us of harrowing tales of women who have developed life-threatening pre-eclampsia with impaired kidney functions, seizures, dangerously high blood pressure that threatens their health. They also tell us of the women who receive an aggressive cancer diagnosis right in the middle of their pregnancy and have to make the difficult choice between their pregnancy and their own life.

In situations like these, women need to be able to consult their families and their doctors and no one else. Perhaps their own priest or rabbi or imam, but most certainly not their politician denying the care they need. It is hazardous, cruel, and simply the wrong thing to do.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding time.

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