A Democratic congresswoman shared her forced abortion story. It should be headlines everywhere.

By Jonathon Van Maren

Last year, Missouri Democratic Representative Cori Bush made headlines when she testified in Congress that she had procured an abortion as a teenager. “I know, in my situation, I did choose life because I knew that I could not take care of a child. I knew I couldn’t,” she said. “So was I supposed to put a child in harm’s way, when I knew that I mentally and physically, emotionally was not able to take care of a child?”

Bush decided to share her story in defence of abortion rights as the fall of Roe v. Wade loomed. But in a recent interview with PBS, she shared another story—the story of her second abortion. This time, her testimony shed quite a different light on the abortion industry. She was a 19-year-old student at Harris-Stowe State University, and again decided that she did not want a child at that point. When she had second thoughts, the abortion staff simply ignored her.

“I was thinking back to the first abortion. ‘Okay. You’ve done this before. You know the rooms, you know what it looks like, you know what it feels like in this space, you know what to expect. You know you may experience even some harm, or some racism in this space,’” she told the interviewer. “I thought I was ready. I went in and I went through all the steps because it’s almost like an assembly line, you know: you go from room to room.”

“And I got into the last room, I was helped up onto the table by the nurse, and I lay there, and I started to think, well, one, I didn’t tell the father that that was about to happen. I just felt like I needed more time. So I said: ‘No, you know what, I’m not ready. And the nurse just, you know, wouldn’t listen to me. And I said: ‘No, I’m not ready.’ And as I’m saying ‘No,’ they continue to pull the instruments and…get everything ready. And it was just like: ‘No, calm down. No, you’re going to be okay.’”

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