Democrats’ extremism on abortion and assisted reproductive technology was on full display on Wednesday as senators on the Judiciary Committee heard testimony from activists, doctors, and in vitro fertilization clients.
In a hearing titled “The Continued Assault on Reproductive Freedoms in a Post-Dobbs America,” Democrats, led by Chairman Dick Durbin, argued that pro-life wins like life-saving limits on abortion and recognizing vulnerable unborn children as humans are dangerous and radical.
In reality, Democrats and their witnesses repeatedly lied about the science, data, and laws surrounding life in the womb to sugarcoat their radical belief that adults have a “right” to create and murder children at whatever whim or cost. Here were some of their worst falsehoods:
Lie 1: Women are Being Denied Critical Medical Care
Durbin invoked Amanda Zurawski, a Texan who testified to the committee last year about going into premature labor and sepsis at just 18 weeks gestation, as an example of women with “non-viable life-threatening pregnancies” being denied what he called “medical care,” or abortions.
Durbin purported that Zurawski’s doctors wanted to give her an abortion but couldn’t under Lone Star State law. In fact, he claimed doctors in general are “no longer … able to use their best medical judgment to treat patients anymore” due to pro-life laws.
Zurawaski did eventually get her abortion, and none of her medical team was prosecuted because it wasn’t an illegal abortion.
Women under every pro-life law on the books are entitled to care for ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, or any other potentially fatal complications like Zurawski’s that crop up during gestation. At least 22 states maintain clear and explicit exceptions for induced abortion if a mother’s life is in jeopardy.
Lie 2: Alabama Embryo Ruling Forced IVF Halt
Durbin asserted that the Alabama Supreme Court’s “heartbreaking” ruling recognizing frozen embryos as life under a state law “resulted in numerous IVF clinics in in the state halting their services.”
It was of their own volition that fertility facilities stopped IVF operations due to concern that the “standard practice” of serially creating and discarding unlimited embryos might put them on the legal hook for negligence.
Lie 3: Rape and Incest Survivors Can’t Get Abortions
At least eight pro-life states have exceptions for abortions in the case of rape or incest. Yet Durbin incorrectly claimed that “rape and incest survivors are being victimized by a system that makes it harder for them to end an unwanted pregnancy.”
Lie 4: IVF Is a Medically Necessary Right
Witness Jamie Heard, an Alabama woman whose IVF cycle was put on hold last month, said in her opening statement, similar to Democrat claims, that “IVF is medically necessary” and reproduction by whatever means is a “human right.”
Neither is true. The serial creation of embryos, most of which will be frozen, discarded, or dismembered for “research purposes,” is not necessary to produce a child. Similarly, outsourcing reproduction, especially for couples that have the natural capacity to conceive with some natural treatment and tweaks, is no more a legal or human right than killing unborn babies.
As Them Before Us founder Katy Faust told The Federalist in January, “There is no ‘right’ to artificially and commercially manufacture children in a laboratory, nor a ‘right’ to separate them from one or both biological parents.”
Lie 5: Embryos Aren’t Humans
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who served as a witness during the hearing on Wednesday, referred to a human embryo as merely a “cluster of cells” that is “not yet a human being.” She also asserted that classifying embryos as life is merely a “moral” belief.
“The fundamental reality is that while every fertilized egg is unbelievably precious, unfortunately, not all will become a living, breathing child whose laughter and joy will fill our hearts and enrich our lives,” Duckworth said.
On the contrary, modern science, medicine, many states, and even, at times, abortion giant Planned Parenthood have agreed life begins at conception. Plenty of parents who lose their babies to lab accidents like in Alabama, through miscarriage, or by stillbirth acknowledge that even children who don’t make it out of the womb to become “a living, breathing child whose laughter and joy will fill our hearts and enrich our lives” have inherent value and are worth protecting.
Lie 6: Duckworth’s Bill Would Not Protect Radical Procedures
Duckworth claimed during her testimony that her stifled “Access To Family Building Act” only shielded “evidence-based medical standards of care for IVF” from regulation.
The vague language in the bill, however, could easily be construed to cover the creation of motherless and fatherless designer babies, commercial surrogacy, and experimental transhumanist technologies such as artificial wombs, “gene editing,” and reproduction without women. If passed, the legislation would effectively prohibit politicians and states from reining in even the most unethical and immoral aspects of Big Fertility.
Lie 7: Late-Term Abortion Is the Same as Delivery
Lourdes A. Rivera, the president of Pregnancy Justice and another one of Democrats’ witnesses, would not explicitly tell Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee if she supported any abortion limits. Instead, she repeatedly claimed abortions that happen close to the ninth month of gestation are considered “labor and delivery.”
As witness Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst noted in her testimony, the key difference between late-term abortion and normal birth is that one is designed to end with a dead baby while the other hopes to end with a living one. Any attempted abortion of a full-term child that results in that baby being born alive is considered “botched.”
Lie 8: Abortion Pills are Safe
Sen. Amy Klobuchar claimed during her questioning time that abortion pills are perfectly “safe” for women to use to expel babies from their wombs. On the contrary, research shows mifepristone is responsible for a 500 percent increase in abortion-related emergency room visits and has caused infant and mother fatalities.
Thanks to radically relaxed policies introduced by the Biden administration, droves of women began downing the drugs at home alone, leaving them susceptible to hemorrhage and other complications such as a “fast, weak pulse,” “shortness of breath,” diarrhea, dizziness, headache, vomiting, and “pain” across the back, arms, neck, and abdomen.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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