Rep. Cori Bush Shares Her Abortion Story With House Panel

The right to abortion debate flared up again on Capitol Hill after the Supreme Court refused earlier this month to block a Texas law banning most abortions. As other states rush to impose similar restrictions, and the court, now Conservative-dominated, prepares to open a case that will replace the 1973 Roe v. Wade could pick it up, the Democrats make the issue a core part of their campaign strategy for next year’s midterm elections.

They are also trying to drive legislation that would codify the Roe decision; To that end, the House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act last week. But in the narrowly divided Senate, in which the Republicans are strongly against, the bill has little chance.

The hearing on Thursday, at which women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem also appeared virtually, showed the depth of this party split. Kentucky Republican Rep. James R. Comer, Kentucky Republican, insisted that Congress should continue to ban taxpayer-sponsored abortions, while Rep. Virginia Foxx, Republican from North Carolina, said she feels “deeply saddened” for women who have terminated their pregnancies.

“Instead of glorifying this terrible act of despair, let us mourn the tens of millions of Americans who never had the opportunity to take their first breath and see their mother’s face,” said Ms. Foxx.

A recent NBC poll found that a majority of Americans – 54 percent – believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. These included clear majorities of women, suburbs and people who live in the northeast. But the majority of evangelical Christians, rural Americans, and southerners said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

The hearing, titled “A Dire State: Examining the Urgent Need to Protect and Expanding Rights and Access in the United States,” also revealed how the issue of abortion is intertwined with America’s racial segregation. Ms. Bush described how humiliated she felt as a black teenage girl “when I was told that if I had this baby I would end up on food stamps and welfare.”

Ayanna S. Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is black, in her opening statement spoke about how denial of abortion care affects people with color differences, including “our lowest-income sisters; our queer, trans- and non-binary siblings. “