Late-term abortion bill sends message to Senate
U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Adriana Cohen Show” yesterday to talk about the House passing a measure to ban late-term abortions. Here are excerpts:
Q: What do you think the chances are that this 20week abortion ban will pass the Senate?
A: It’s going to take some real pressure to get this done in the United States Senate, and we needed to send the message over there and set the bill on Mitch McConnell’s desk so he got another good thing that he has the opportunity to do. But at this point there’s a path to getting it to the floor of the Senate for a vote. I don’t think it’s clear to anybody at this point, but it’s a terrific debate that we had throughout the day yesterday and the vote that went up on the board, 237 yes votes. We lost just about two or three Republicans somehow, maybe picked up three Democrats who voted yes on it, that tells you something about how polarized the pro-life issue has become from a political standpoint.
Q: How do you feel about this measure?
A: One of the things I said in my speech on the floor (Tuesday) is that doctors know that these babies feel pain and when they do surgery on a pregnant mother they also give anesthetics to the in utero baby because they don’t want the baby to feel the pain from the surgery and they don’t want that baby to be flinching and jerking and trying to escape any kind of surgery that they’re doing.
So that tells us we know this, but it’s a cruel thing that’s been going on in this country, it’s ghastly when you think about it in its scope. So a good message sent and hopefully the Senate will pick it up,
I’m sending a message to them as we speak, so I want to encourage them to get it to the floor and let’s have a vote.
Q: How is it possible that we wouldn’t get a simple majority in the Senate? You think there are Republicans who wouldn’t vote for this?
A: Well I noticed two of them at least did (Tuesday) and I hadn’t seen the full report yet this morning. But again, I don’t know what they’re thinking. For me it’s indefensible for anyone to vote against protecting lives that can’t live outside the womb ... I fought back the temptation to ask those that opposed it, “Could you do this yourself? Could you pull this baby apart, a leg, an arm at a time?” ... I mean that’s about as far as I can go even talking about it. It’s just so sickening to me.