Once once more, an anti-abortion Republican lawmaker argued in opposition to entry to the process by evaluating pregnant ladies to breeding livestock.
While debating a possible 14-week abortion ban Thursday, Wisconsin state Rep. Joel Kitchens advised his colleagues he is aware of that “abortion is not health care” due to his profession as a veterinarian working with pets, cattle, horses and different livestock.
“You know, in my veterinary career, I did thousands of ultrasounds on animals, you know, determining pregnancy and that kind of thing,” Kitchens stated. “So I think I know mammalian fetal development better than probably anyone here. And in my mind, there’s absolutely no question that’s a life, and I think the science backs me up on that.”
No main scientific or medical group agrees with Kitchens’ claims about fetuses.
The second was first reported on and shared by Heartland Signal.
This isn’t the primary time a lawmaker has in contrast pregnant ladies to livestock. A 12 months in the past, Idaho state Rep. Jack Nelsen was pressured to apologize after he advised his expertise as a “lifelong dairy farmer” gave him some experience on ladies’s reproductive well being.
“I’ve milked a few cows, spent most of my time walking behind lines of cows, so if you want some ideas on repro and the women’s health thing, I have some definite opinions,” Nelsen joked throughout a gathering of the state’s House Agricultural Affairs Committee.
When a 20-week abortion ban was on the desk in Georgia in 2012, then-state Rep. Terry England, who spent years as a farmer, advised that if livestock needed to ship useless offspring, then so might ladies.
“I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it,” he stated whereas advocating for the invoice.
Being pressured to hold a non-viable fetus to time period can kill a pregnant particular person.
Later on Thursday, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Assembly permitted the measure calling for a statewide referendum to ban abortion after 14 weeks of being pregnant. It’s unclear whether or not the hassle will go within the state Senate and in the end go to voters in April.
