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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2019

CONTACT: Mallory Quigley [email protected] | 202-223-8073

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing titled “Threats to Reproductive Rights in America” today, June 4 at 10:00 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building. Pro-life witnesses Melissa Ohden, founder and director of the Abortion Survivors Network, and pro-life speaker Christina Marie Bennett, communications director at the Family Institute of Connecticut, will share powerful personal testimony of surviving abortion.

Ohden’s testimony reads in part:

“It’s easy to talk about women’s reproductive rights until you recognize that without first the right to life, there are no other rights. How do you reconcile my rights as a woman who survived a failed abortion with what’s being discussed here today? …I’m alive today because someone else’s ‘reproductive right’ failed to end my life, as are the 287 abortion survivors I’ve connected with through my work with The Abortion Survivors Network, 184 of whom are female.

“There’s something wrong when one person’s right results in another person’s death. There’s something deeply disturbing about the reality in our world that I have a right to an abortion but I never had the simple right to live.”

Bennett writes in her testimony:

“Two years ago, I had a profound experience while visiting the National Museum of African-American History. I was reminded of the ways African-Americans were denied the right to equal protection and due process, treated as property and dehumanized because of the color of our skin. The museum memorialized the many ways African-Americans have been unjustly targeted and killed for centuries. While they showcased examples of the progress African-Americans have made, an ache remains in my heart because of the denial of equal protection and due process to another class of people – the baby in the womb. The sacrifices my ancestors suffered to achieve the freedom and civil rights I enjoy today are not able to protect future generations from a decision made just 8 years before my birth. The Roe v. Wade decision rendered 60,000,000 lives unworthy of legal protection and has led to the deaths of over 20 million Black babies since 1973.”

WHAT:          U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing 

WHO:             Melissa Ohden, founder and director of the Abortion Survivors Network

Christina Marie Bennett, pro-life speaker and communications director at the Family Institute of Connecticut

WHEN:          Tuesday, June 4 at 10:00 a.m.

WHERE:        2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515

The hearing comes as lawmakers in New York, Virginia, Illinois, and other states seek to expand abortion on demand through birth and even infanticide, while Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, and others have passed unprecedented pro-life protections, and extreme abortion bills have been defeated by bipartisan majorities in Rhode Island and New Mexico. Democrats in Congress have repeatedly blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, legislation supported by 77 percent of Americans. President Trump has consistently called out the Democratic Party for their support of late-term abortion and infanticide.

SBA List is a network of more than 787,000 pro-life Americans nationwide, dedicated to ending abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders.

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