During a Health committee meeting last month, state House Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga, argued the case for a bill he co-sponsored that would make abortion legal in cases of rape and incest. It failed because GOP lawmakers refused to go along with it.
“I would hope that we can see that the humane thing for us to do would be not force those persons under those circumstances to carry that child,” Rep. Hakeem said during the Feb. 6 committee meeting. “I give as much to the life of a woman as I do the life that they carry.”
But Rep. Andrew Farmer, a Republicans from Sevierville, was unmoved.
“It makes it sound like all lives brought into this world are worthless and have no meaning if they came from rape or incest,” he said at the meeting. “I’m expressing the opinions of my constituents and of myself.”
Well, Farmer might want to check what his constituents really believe and pay attention to what public opinion polls show.