US House oversight committee hears testimony on abortion regulation

Washington D.C., Nov 15, 2019 / 15:53 pm

Members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee heard testimony Thursday on abortion from a new mother, as well as a mother who aborted her child because of a fatal fetal diagnosis.

"I am here today as a mom, fighting for a future for her kids in which rights are not dependent on whether a person is wanted, but upon their humanity," Allie Stuckey, a conservative Christian commentator, told members of the committee Nov. 14.

"With broken hearts, we knew that the greatest act of love that we could undertake as her parents would be to suffer ourselves instead to end the pregnancy, grant Libby peace, and spare her tiny, broken body a short life full of pain," Jennifer Box, a mother of three who aborted one of her daughters, Libby, who was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, said.

Missouri's abortion law, and the state's last remaining abortion clinic, were in the spotlight at the hearing in the Democratic-controlled House on "State Efforts to Undermine Access to Reproductive Health Care."

Ahead of the hearing, the committee said that states "have been taking draconian steps to restrict their residents' access to comprehensive reproductive health services, including abortion."

The committee heard the testimony of five witnesses, four of whom are supportive of abortion rights.

Both Box and Dr. Colleen McNicholas, OB/GYN, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, spoke to state laws or policies that they said were designed to coerce all abortion clinics in the state into closing.

Missouri enacted a law earlier this year that criminalized abortions after eight weeks gestation, and banned abortions conducted solely because of the baby's race, sex, or diagnosis of disability. If the eight-week ban were to be overturned in court, that would "trigger" other bans set up in the law at 14, 18, and 20 weeks.

Currently, Missouri has just one abortion clinic open, and that is solely because of a court order.

In June, the state's health department refused to reissue a license for the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic after it submitted a "statement of deficiencies" to a court; the state cited an "unprecedented lack of cooperation" by the clinic in its investigation, along with "failure to meet basic standards of patient care" and lack of compliance with state safety regulations.

In one case, the state said, the clinic would not have been prepared to handle a case of "severe hemorrhaging" of a female patient that she later suffered at a hospital. The clinic also agreed to perform extra pelvic exams on women before refusing to do so, the state said.

The clinic did submit a "Plan of Correction" but it did not sufficiently address all the stated deficiencies, the health department said. The state's Administration Hearing Commission conducted a hearing on the matter in October, and the clinic will remain open until a final decision is made.

McNicholas said on Thursday that the state "weaponized" the licensing process, and that officials "admitted under oath" that they targeted Planned Parenthood for extra scrutiny. Planned Parenthood did not want to perform the "extra" pelvic exam on patients that was unwarranted, she said.

In a later exchange with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), McNicholas was questioned about efforts to fight against protecting babies who survive botched abortion attempts.

"There is no way to oversimplify the medical conditions" of second trimester abortions, she said, noting that the "Born-Alive" act which would require doctors to give standard medical treatment to babies surviving abortions makes such botched abortions seem like a "real thing."

Stuckey testified in the minority.

Abortion advocates used to advertise "safe, legal, and rare" for the procedure, but now they champion abortion-on-demand through nine months of pregnancy, Stuckey said, despite evidence that doctors can feel a baby's heartbeat at six weeks gestation, and that babies can feel pain at 20 weeks, and survive outside the womb as early as 21 weeks.

"In speaking of abortion, its defenders ignore the existence of the child entirely," Stuckey said. "I am here as a woman who believes that female empowerment, equality and freedom are not defined by her ability to terminate the life of her child."

"I'm here as a human being, horrified by the violence, the oppression and the marginalization of a defenseless people group based solely on where they reside, the womb," Stuckey said.

Her testimony followed that of Box, who said she aborted her daughter because of a "fatal fetal diagnosis."

In her testimony in February before a Missouri state house committee, Box said her daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. She said she was first informed that he daughter was at "high risk" of the chromosome abnormality when she was 13 weeks pregnant, in a May op-ed for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the baby "would likely die within minutes or hours of birth," if not before.

Most babies with Trisomy 18 die before birth, and only around ten percent survive the first year of life. Abortion rates are high for babies with fetal chromosomnal abnormalities such as Trisomy 18.

Fearing her daughter would have to endure a "life of immediate and repeated invasive medical intervention," Box said she and her husband chose to procure an abortion.

However, she did not have insurance coverage for the abortion, Box said. According to the Guttmacher Institute, private insurance in Missouri only covers abortions in cases where the mother's life is in danger. A Catholic hospital which delivered her two other children refused to perform the abortion.

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"My actual abortion procedure was the most compassionate care I have ever received from a. physician," Box said. "Jake and I left that day knowing that we made the most loving and merciful choice for our daughter."

In her op-ed in the Post-Dispatch, Box said she recently discovered she was pregnant but would not find out the results of pre-natal tests until she was 24 weeks pregnant. At the time, Missouri had just enacted several bans on abortions, including at 20 weeks post-gestation.

"When we got to the car I sobbed, 'At 24 weeks it will be illegal in Missouri to have an abortion,'" Box wrote. "I don't want to fly to Colorado to end this pregnancy if something goes wrong."

"I speak for Libby," she said on Thursday. "It is an honor to share her name with this committee and the country today. Libby Rose Box."

"I have a rose tattoo above my heart so that she is with me every day. I am her mother, and she is my daughter and will always be my daughter. I made decisions from day one as her mother, and then made the most important decision of Libby's life when together with my husband, we decided to terminate the pregnancy. It was a sacred, painful, personal decision."

Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women's Law Center, testified that "it's not lost on me" that abortion is under its gravest threat "on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, when some women first gained the right to vote."