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Roe v Wade Hearing Remarks

Like so many women in America, for years, I struggled to

get pregnant. We tried everything we could to start a
family of our own.

Finally, we succeeded.

I had never been so happy. I had prayed for this moment

for years; I wanted to tell everyone, to shout it from the
mountain tops.

For weeks, I began to dream about our life and our

future together. And then, one day, I woke up covered in
blood.

It is hard to describe the agony of a miscarriage. It is

heartbreak, helplessness, pain and profound sadness.

Millions of women suffer from them, and I have heard

from many who felt guilty, as I did. Who felt as though
they aren’t worthy of having a child.

Those same feelings crept through my mind, and every

time I have these difficult discussions with other women,
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I remind them that they are strong and powerful beyond

measure. That their worth is more than their ability to
procreate.

However, it seems those in support of this ruling

disagree.

After my second miscarriage, I wondered, in my grief, if

God had decided I was never meant to be a mother.

So, when I finally got pregnant again, I was overjoyed. It

was as if God had a plan for me.

But, at four months, feeling terror and trauma in my

heart, I was rushed to the emergency room. There, with
my doctor, I learned I had suffered a fetal demise.

I was filled with anguish and sorrow and guilt. I had tried
so hard, and still, I felt I had failed.

My doctors thought it would be safer to end the

pregnancy naturally, without the medicines so commonly
used.
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So, for two weeks, I carried my dead fetus and waited for
labor.

For two weeks, people passed me on the street, telling

me how beautiful I looked, asking how far along I was,
and saying they were so excited for my future.

For two weeks, I carried a lost pregnancy and the

torment that comes with it.

I never went into labor on my own.

When the doctors finally induced, I faced the pain of

labor without hope for a living child.

This is my story. It is uniquely mine—and yet it is not

unique.

Millions of women in America—women in this room,

women at your homes, and women you love and cherish
—have suffered a miscarriage.

And so I ask, on behalf of these women; after which

failed pregnancy should I have been imprisoned?
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Would it have been after the first miscarriage?

After doctors used what would be an illegal drug to abort

the lost fetus?

Would you have put me in jail after the second

miscarriage?

Perhaps that would have been the time. Forced to reflect

in confinement at the guilt I felt, the guilt so many
women feel, after losing a pregnancy.

Or, would you have put me behind bars after my

stillbirth?

After I was forced to carry a dead fetus for weeks. After

asking God if I was ever going to raise a child.

And I ask because the same medicine used to treat my

failed pregnancies is the same medicine states like Texas
would make illegal.

I ask because if Alabama makes abortion murder, does it

make miscarriage manslaughter?
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I ask because I want to know if the next woman who has

a miscarriage at 3 months will be forced to carry her
dead fetus to term.

So, for the women in your life whose stories you do not
know. For the women across the country whose lives
you may not understand. And for the women in America
who have gone through things you cannot comprehend, I
say this:

Women’s rights are human rights, reproductive health

care is health care, and medical decisions should be
made by women and those they trust, not politicians and
officials.

We have a choice. We can be the nation that rolls back

the clock, that rolls back the rights of women, and that
strips them of their liberty.

Or, we can be the nation of choice. The nation where

every woman has theirs.

Freedom, is our right to choose.

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