Congresswoman Cori Bush Highlights Deadly Consequences of SB 8, Texas Abortion Ban
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, in a House Committee on the Judiciary hearing examining the impact of Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) on people from low-income backgrounds and communities of color, Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01), directed the Committee’s attention to the specific harm of abortion restrictions on Black people, and the permanent effects laws like SB 8 have on communities nationwide.
As the first Black woman and nurse to serve the people of Missouri in Congress, Congresswoman Bush pointed out that SB 8’s enforcement is akin to the Fugitive Slave Acts, which at the time offered bounties for capturing and returning fugitive slaves. SB 8 awards a bounty—a minimum of $10,000 plus costs and attorneys’ fees—to the individual who successfully brings a suit under the law’s private right of action.
Today, Missouri has only one remaining abortion clinic in the entire state, located in the City of St. Louis. Following the implementation of SB 8, Missouri has resumed its plans to implement its own 8-week abortion ban.
A full video of the Congresswoman’s remarks can be found here, and transcript of her questioning and exchange with the witnesses is available below.
Transcript: Congresswoman Cori Bush at Hearing on SB 8, The Texas Abortion Ban (November 4, 2021)
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: St. Louis and I thank you Chairman for convening this hearing today.
My plea today is with my colleagues on this committee and with the American public watching — take a walk in the shoes of an 18 year old girl from St. Louis. A Black girl. A girl who is uninsured, and suffering from asthma, a health condition she likely got from the burning of fossil fuels in her community.
She can’t afford rent. She works a minimum wage job, and her friends consider her fortunate because at least she has a job. But even in this job, she is making less than her white counterparts.
She is also 9 weeks pregnant. Feeling alone and afraid.
That girl is me.
We don’t live in a world that nurtures and cares for Black girls like me. And if the world doesn’t care about a Black girl like me, then what will happen to our Black babies who grow up to become Black children and Black adults?
Professor Bridges, you talk about the high mortality rates among Black pregnant people. In a world in which Roe is overturned, what harms do abortion bans pose for Black pregnant people?
KHIARA BRIDGES, Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law: We would be coercing them to give birth, which is a dangerous proposition, which is something that should be embarrassing to the United States. The United States is one of the, it’s actually the only industrialized nation that has a maternal mortality rate that is increasing.
The racial disparities in maternal mortality mean that three to four times as many Black people should expect to die while attempting a birth. And so, to coerce birth, which is what abortion bans and regulations do, is to coerce Black people to engage in a task that is dangerous to them.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you Professor Bridges. Let me ask you another question: some scholars have compared this bounty system to the Fugitive Slave Acts—laws that offered a bounty for capturing and returning fugitive slaves and provided for fines of up to $1,000 against anyone who helped a fugitive enslaved person. I agree. Can you describe the white supremacist roots that link SB8 and the Fugitive Slave Acts?
KHIARA BRIDGES: Absolutely. So the Fugitive Slave Acts is an effort to ensure that people of color, Black people specifically, were human property. And that chattel slavery as an institution would be perpetuated, and that the people who purported to own those Black people would not lose their property. And so essentially, the Fugitive Slave Act allowed others to control the bodies, private actors, right, to control the bodies of other human beings. That is precisely what is happening in Texas today in deputizing private citizens to seek a bounty on other private citizens. We are allowing private citizens to control, terrorize, [and] regulate the bodies of other human beings.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you, thank you for explaining that Professor Bridges. Dr. Moayedi, SB 8 has been law for 64 days, and in those 64 days, clinics have closed and certain resources have been permanently erased. What are the permanent impacts of SB 8 on people of color and people living in poverty?
DR. GHAZALEH MOAYEDI, OB/GYN in Texas and Oklahoma and Board Member, Physicians for Reproductive Health: Thank you for that question and, Representative Bush, thank you again for sharing your story. It moves me and, every single time, it is the core of why I provide this care. When I first started working in abortion care and realized the desperate need for women of color to take care of other women of color, that is what inspired me to become a physician and inspired me to provide abortion care in Texas. So, this issue is very dear to my heart. This ban is disastrous for communities of color, especially the ones that I serve. Many of the people I take care of have never left the North Texas area. So travelling to Oklahoma City even is very challenging for them. Last week I took care of someone from the coast area in Texas that was coming to Oklahoma City, but because they had never left the state either, their friend made them a reservation at a hotel in Tulsa, instead of Oklahoma City, because they didn’t really understand where to go. And so that’s just one small story of how challenging and insurmountable getting out of the state for care can be. What is truly frightening for me is what we’re going to see in the next seven to eight months as far as maternal mortality in the communities that I serve.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you, thank you for sharing that. What I want to make clear here today as the first Black woman and nurse to serve the people of Missouri in Congress, is that the path to overturning Roe will be devastating for all people, especially Black people.
Abortion care will still exist, like it did before this landmark decision, but it will be deadly. In a world where Black pregnant people die four times more often than white pregnant people during childbirth, in a world where Black women are disproportionately evicted from their homes, in a world where Black trans women are more likely to turn to sex work for survival—failing to legislate reproductive justice is a death sentence for our neighbors, our coworkers, our families. We cannot afford to go backwards on our reproductive rights, we must legislate love, we must legislate justice for Black girls and non-binary folks and guarantee reproductive rights for everyone.
Thank you and I yield back.
###
Congresswoman Cori Bush sits on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, serves as the Progressive Caucus Deputy Whip, and proudly represents St. Louis as a politivist in the halls of the United States Congress.