Kentucky senator Karen Berg has issued a passionate defence of abortion rights, telling her senate colleagues that legislation put forward to ban abortion in the state is a “medical sham” that will endanger women’s lives.
Senator Berg, who is also a diagnostic radiologist, told colleagues that banning abortion does not stop abortions from happening, it just makes the procedure more dangerous. She said the bill “does not even purport to listen to medicine”.
She was the only woman, and only physician on a committee debating a bill that recently passed the Kentucky senate that would dramatically limit abortion rights, banning the procedure after 15 weeks.
“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,” Senator Berg said.
“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 apologise 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.”
Last week, the Kentucky state senate passed a bill, modelled on Mississippi’s abortion law, that would ban abortion after 15 weeks. The Kentucky bill now advances to the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold the majority.
The Mississippi law is currently before the United States Supreme Court, and is a direct challenge to the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling.
Lawmakers in Florida have also recently passed an abortion ban after 15 weeks.