Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier Talks About Her Terminated Pregnancy [UPDATE]

Updated below...

WASHINGTON -- Before Rep. Jackie Speier took the House floor late on Thursday night, New Jersey Republican Chris Smith used his time to graphically describe the process of an abortion. That's when the California Democrat decided to scrap her planned remarks.

"That procedure that you just talk about was a procedure that I endured," she told a hushed chamber. "I really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey just put my stomach in knots, because I'm one of those women he spoke about just now. I had a procedure at 17 weeks pregnant with a child who moved from the vagina into the cervix."

After a weighty pause, Speier went on. "I lost a baby," she said, pausing again. "But for you to stand on this floor and suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous."

While she was a young congressional staffer, Speier was shot during the Jonestown Massacre. The Hill reported that as Speier began to tell her story, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took a seat to listen.

"I read about it this morning in the Washington Post, and when I got to the part of the article talking about what Jackie did and said, my first thing was, 'As soon as I get to the office, I'm sending her flowers. She is so courageous. It's so courageous," Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told HuffPost. "I think she's one of the most -- I think she is the most courageous woman in Congress. Yesterday, she certainly was."

Republicans are currently pushing a piece of legislation, spearheaded by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), meant to strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funding. The Pence measure would also prevent any entity that provides abortion services from receiving funds through Title X, which is meant to increase access to contraceptive services, supplies and information, especially among low-income Americans.

A vote on the Pence amendment is expected Friday. [UPDATE: the Pence measure defunding Planned Parenthood passed.]

O'Neill said that the assault on contraception and family planning, which broadens the abortion battlefield, has long been the aim of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The men in the black dresses -- the guys who like to dress up in the black robes, and I'm talking about the Catholic bishops -- have been doing this for decades. Their goal is to deprive women of reproductive health care services generally. Their strategy is to go after abortion first, contraception second," she said. "One in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. So, in fact, abortion is an essential, ordinary part of women's reproductive health care needs."

Speier questioned how an abortion debate was relevant to the House GOP's campaign pledges to focus on job creation. "To think that we are here tonight debating this issue when the American people, if they are listening, are scratching their heads and wondering, What does this have to do with me getting a job? What does this have to do with reducing the deficit? And the answer is, nothing at all," she said. "There is a vendetta against Planned Parenthood, and it was played out in this room tonight. Planned Parenthood has a right to operate. Planned Parenthood has a right to provide family planning services. Planned parenthood has a right to perform abortions. Last time you checked, abortions were legal in this country."

No federal funds are used by Planned Parenthood for abortion services, and such services make up a tiny fraction of its operations. Jess McIntosh, a spokeswoman for Emily's List, a Democratic-affiliated group that works to elect pro-choice women to Congress, noted that one in five women have visited a Planned Parenthood for health-related services, which will make the organization harder to demonize than ACORN, despite the similar assault being waged.

"This is a really clear example of why it's important that we have a representative Congress. You don't get that experience with a roomful of men," said McIntosh. "Republicans are trying to demonize women by describing faceless procedures with no real life consequences. And what Representative Speier did yesterday was make that impossible. She put a human face on a real life choice. It' much harder to demagogue that."

Comments

[SMBrown2]

11:25 AM on 03/11/2011

Oops. She went off script and said she'd lost a "baby."

[one1byke]

09:44 AM on 02/21/2011

Hats off to Mrs. Speier for sticking up for women in this Decade of the Woman.
I want to know the link between the Apple and the Orange, and usually Race being the Apple and Sexual Orientation or Gender being the Orange DOES NOT COMPUTE.

However, Mrs. Speier's comparison and mention of "HollowBurton" in relation to "Planned Parenthood" is spot on. I do see inherent harms with PP but to cut funding ala Drug Treatment in Illinois is "downright irresponsible."

Ima fan, Mrs. Speier. Now, I'll learn your "politics."

[SmileAndActNice]

03:26 PM on 02/20/2011

Planned parenthood is frequently the only medical care college students receive. If it weren't for them my room-mate would never have detected the lump in her breast in time. She'd be dead right now and her kids never born.

3 lives saved by Planned Parenthood.

Planned parenthood is the primary provider of pre-natal care for low income women. They helped my cousin birth a healthy baby boy.

Thank you Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is a pillar of my community. They aren't a bunch of armchair general windbags who just proclaim what other people should and shouldn't do. They are public servants who get off their lazy butts and do actual work to make this town a better place. They educate, outreach, and make contraception available. They treat infertility and help couples who want to have children conceive. Then they provide pre-natal throughout the pregnancy making our children healthy and happy.

Jesus said, "Hate the sin, not the sinner". Real Christians don't blind themselves to the massive good works of planned parenthood because they do one single solitary thing that you don't like.

You lot don't even have a plan to get something in place to take up the slack for everything else they do BEFORE tearing them down. But then again building is a lot harder than destroying. It takes a sense of responsibility and love.

[darcdante]

08:29 PM on 02/20/2011

"make contracept­ion available"

They still charge for it. By yourstandards, King Soopers and Exxon are pillars of your community lol. Along with anyone else who sells condoms. Big whoop.

[sorjuana]

12:58 PM on 02/20/2011

Barney Frank is right. Republicans and Anti Abortioners believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth. They use this very personal and painful issue for their political agenda. They are beneath contempt!

[darcdante]

08:30 PM on 02/20/2011

And what's beneath contempt? Earth worms! I love earth worms though, they help plants. So uh...grub worms! Yeah, they're nasty looking and slimy ewww....

[luckydog1857]

12:49 PM on 02/20/2011

Pregnancy is more dangerous than an abortion.

[SmileAndActNice]

03:39 PM on 02/20/2011

Fun Fact:

We all know that Roe Vs Wade examined a challenge to a Texas law making it illegal for doctors to perform abortions.

What you don't know is that the law being challenged did not make it illegal for women to perform abortions on themselves.

A historical study of abortion law in this country ( part of the Roe opinion that propaganda artists don't find useful and thus don't mention ) shows that in the beginning it was legal everywhere. It was done at home primarily using abortificaent herbs that were common knowledge at the time. These herbs, however, didn't always work. Modern women who try to abort using these methods find them to work only about half the time (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/323315/natural_abortion_inducing_miscarriage.html?cat=68)

When doctor's in hospitals started offering surgical abortion services ... well they weren't very good at it. They had no training. They were better than back alley butchers but nowhere near as good as today. Going to them posed a significantly higher risk of death than using home remedies or carrying to term since they were still learning.

The Texas law didn't make it illegal to have an abortion, it outlawed this dangerous medical hackery. There was no penalty whatsoever for aborting by traditional methods. But medical science had advanced since the law was written and made surgical abortion the safest option so the intent of the Texas Law was no longer applicable.

[SmileAndActNice]

04:49 PM on 02/20/2011

Really let that sink in. Roe wasn't asking for the right to have an abortion. She already had that. All she was demanding was the right to have her abortion using modern medical techniques rather than having to use touch-N-go traditional methods of her foremothers.

http://www.abortionfacts.com/court_cases/roe/court_opinion_blackmun.asp
----
Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion "performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions";
----

Roe was not facing criminal charges. A participant of the case that doesn't get mentioned much was. Dr. Hallefford. *He* was the one being charged for performing allegedly elective abortions, not the women who got them.

http://www.abortionfacts.com/court_cases/roe/court_opinion_blackmun.asp
----------
Dr. Hallford is, therefore, in the position of seeking, in a federal court, declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the same statutes under which he stands charged in criminal prosecutions simultaneously pending in state court.
--------

http://www.abortionfacts.com/court_cases/roe/court_opinion_blackmun_part_3.asp
----
Parties challenging state abortion laws ... claim that most state laws were designed solely to protect the woman ... Proponents of this view point out that in many States, including Texas, by statute or judicial interpretation, the pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another.
----

Blows your mind don't it?

[luckydog1857]

12:48 PM on 02/20/2011

I want to see HIS face while she was speaking!

[jusathot]

12:29 PM on 02/21/2011

Me too.

[jusathot]

12:27 PM on 02/20/2011

"That procedure which you just TALK about..." Way to go Congresswoman Speier!

[lynninny]

07:37 AM on 02/21/2011

Maybe she was misquoted, maybe not. Hey, jusathot, why don't you hop up there and address congress the next tim you feel strongly about something, and let's see if your grammar and pronunciation are perfect.

In the meantime, her bravery outweighs her incorrect tense, here. You are being petty.

[jusathot]

12:30 PM on 02/21/2011

Where is the incorrect grammar? What are you talking about?

[Roadrun]

10:57 AM on 02/20/2011

That was a brave and important thing for her to do. I am sad to say I think someone will jumble it into something totally different in order to make political hay.

Again, that was a brave and important thing for her to do.

[Pat Padrnos]

10:54 AM on 02/20/2011

She is one incredible lady. I have attended a couple of events in the SF Bay Area where she was a guest speaker. Great speaker, knowledgable - very much into health issues and is able to talk with confidence about her subject. No simple talking points and nothing written on her hand. For those who know a bit of her younger years, you also know what a remarkable history she has.

[Grabit]

12:17 PM on 02/20/2011

Hers is quite a history. She's had to deal with adversity that most couldn't even comprehend.

[SmileAndActNice]

02:07 AM on 02/20/2011

The next time someone tells you they support an abortion ban except in the case of rape or medical necessity ask them this:

--Rape--

Will you wait until after the rape trial or is just the claim of rape enough to get a waiver?

If they want a conviction before allowing the abortion, remind them that in America we believe in innocent until proven guilty which means we let guilty men go if there isn't enough evidence to go beyond a reasonable doubt.

If they still want a conviction, remind them that trials take *many months* during which the raped woman is suffering.

If they still want a conviction, call them a monster to their face, turn, and walk away. They are beyond reasoning with.

If just the claim is enough, what if they don't know who their assailant was? Perhaps they were slipped roofies at a party and didn't even know they'd had sex.

If an unprovable claim is enough, why make a law at all? Just wasted money and paperwork.

--Medical--

Ask them if they think doctors are all-knowing and never make mistakes.

If they say "yes", call them insane and leave.

If they say "no", ask them how they will live with themselves the first time a medical waiver is denied and the woman is killed by her pregnancy. Since they prevented her from getting life-saving medical care, they murdered her. Statistically, this will happen several hundred times a year.

[SmileAndActNice]

04:00 PM on 02/20/2011

On the net, when you pose questions like these that reveal how their religious desires are completely inappropriate and unworkable as public policies, they can just refuse to respond to the post and instead only address arguments they think they have a good answer too.

In real life, they have to come up with an answer. Ask these questions in real life at every opportunity.

Please.

The biggest weapon the zealots have is the fairytale of righteousness they feed their followers. The simplistic assumption that dealing with this issue is as simple as making a law.

[darcdante]

08:38 PM on 02/20/2011

It's not as simple as making a law, I agree, though I would propose a law that requires any medical procedure proposed for an individual be described in detail by the physician. Every person has a right to know what is going to be done to them; abortion is no different.

[SmileAndActNice]

11:47 PM on 02/21/2011

For higher visibility:

Such a law would have no effect on abortion providers as abortion is probably the most informed medical choice a woman will ever make.

If you doubt this, go to a planned parenthood and ask about it. They'll talk your ear off about every detail you could conceivably want to know.

No other medical procedure has as many lies told about it as abortion so no other physicians are as puppy-dog eager to educate you about a procedure as an OB/GYN is about abortion.

The idea that women only have an abortion because they don't know the facts on it is a propaganda tactic. In reality knowing the biological facts about abortion makes people more comfortable with it. So spreading lies about it is the first priority of opponents. And claiming that "they" are hiding something from you that "we" will tell you the straight dope on is a staple of conspiracy theorists and advertisers.

[VagabondSaint]

04:22 PM on 02/25/2011

Copied, pasted, and carried around in my backpack. . .

[SmileAndActNice]

02:37 AM on 02/20/2011

So ensure that medical facilities and funding are available to all so that it can be done well before the 13 week state if you are squeemish.

At 8 weeks, for example, we are dealing with something the size of a grape.

http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
-----
52% of all abortions occur before the 9th week of pregnancy, 25% happen between the 9th & 10th week
-----

Most of the rest are either medically necessary ( so even if you are squeamish it doesn't matter how human the fetus **appears** ) or only happened that late because the woman couldn't get access to care sooner.

You can fix the second case by ensuring early access.

I want you to understand something very clearly. People don't change their minds and go from wanting to keep a pregnancy to not wanting one unless there is a medical problem. They do sometimes change their minds from not wanting to keep it to wanting it thanks to the hormonal cocktail that Momma nature throws at them during pregnancy. But those drugs only work one way.

If you ensure that they have access they will abort shortly after missing their period. The thing they abort will be smaller than a peanut and vaguely fish shaped.

You are creating the very situation that bothered you when you make it hard to get an abortion and delay things.

[JHCorcoran]

01:26 AM on 02/20/2011

GOP; Welcome to Iran folks. There are many rights that they wish to take away; primarily for woman, but also for men.

[darcdante]

08:39 PM on 02/20/2011

"Welcome to Iran"

That's just silly.

[JHCorcoran]

12:37 PM on 02/21/2011

That is your perspective.

[Danlar]

01:26 AM on 02/20/2011

if abortion were to become illegal....the rich would get abortions illegally or in Canada/Mexico while others like the poor and very young would attempt home abortions.....or just have their kids....
abortion is not going away....we should all be trying to lower them to a minimum through good contraception and education, manual sex, oral sex, abstinance etc.

[darcdante]

08:41 PM on 02/20/2011

Mexico has stricter laws on abortion than America. They leave it up to the states.

[EllaBelle18]

12:13 AM on 02/20/2011

Wow, she's an inspiration

[ShoreSage]

10:06 PM on 02/19/2011

Besides Chris Smith being an embarrassment to NJ, let me see if I get this straight...GOP hates abortion, GOP hates birth control, GOP hates welfare to pay for children who aren't aborted...the GOP hates abortion, etc, etc, etc...don't abort, don't control, just starve 'em to death...is that it?

[Sfarrell67]

11:30 AM on 02/20/2011

Don't forget: take away their health care; they'll die off eventually and the problem will take care of itself...

[lynninny]

07:38 AM on 02/21/2011

And, of course, don't educate them, unless they live in wealthy suburbs...

[darcdante]

08:42 PM on 02/20/2011

The GOP hates birth control? I don't recall anyone in my lifetime wanting to ban condoms.

[nowheregirl]

11:57 PM on 02/20/2011

I think ShoreSage is likely referring to the abstinence policy that many in the GOP support. i think "ban" is your word, not the poster's. What is clear is that the GOP would prefer to stick with their "abstinence works" nonsense rather than taking the one step that would likely assure fewer elective abortions are necessary, and that is making birth control more readily accessible. I can only assume that premeditated immorality is not acceptable, which is sad for everyone -- nobody looks at having an abortion as a goal in life.