In a hearing on yet another anti-abortion bill in the KY legislature (SB 321), Rep. Karen Berg delivered a stinging rebuke of both the bill and the committee. The video went viral, as it should have.
Here is the tweet containing the video:
Kentucky is worth fighting for, and legislators like @karenforky are crucial in that fight. Watch as Rep. Berg takes down #KYGA22's cruel 15-week abortion ban, then tell your legislator to keep #BansOffOurBodies: https://t.co/5GsqyBxGcJ pic.twitter.com/0uV6UsWIKA
— Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates - East (@PPAAEast) March 16, 2022
And here is the transcription:
“I’d like to explain my no vote. You know, I’m a diagnostic radiologist. And diagnostic radiologists historically and in many places in this state still do all of the first trimester OB ultrasounds.
“So I am extraordinarily personally familiar with the development of a fetus in the womb. And for you to sit here and say that at 15 weeks a fetus has a functional heart – a four chamber heart that can survive on its own – is fallacious. That is not true. There is no viability.
“I look around at my colleagues on this committee. I am the only woman on this podium. I am the only physician on this podium. This bill is a medical sham. It does not follow medicine. It does not even purport to listen to medicine.
“And for each and every one of my colleagues to be so willing to cast an ‘aye’ vote when what you are doing is putting your finger, putting your knee, putting a gun to women’s head… you are killing women. Because abortion will continue. Women will continue to have efficacy over their own bodies. Whether or not you make it legal.
“I vote no and I really, really apologize to the people of Kentucky that we are spending this much time and this much effort when we have families in poverty. We have single women heading households in poverty at a higher rate than any other group in this state. You all are not addressing that. You all are making it worse.”
The bill is modeled after the Mississippi bill now before SCOTUS. Like that bill, it limits abortions to the first 15 weeks of the pregnancy. And like that bill, and as Dr. Berg says, it is a sham and a travesty that, if made into law, will kill women all across this state.
But apparently the male representatives on that committee, and in the legislature, are more intent on winning votes than on saving the lives of those women.
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