Jeff Fortenberry: “Maddie Brinckerhoff was an early feminist author and lecturer from the Midwest, where I live, and she had this to say…”

“Maddie Brinckerhoff was an early feminist author and lecturer from the Midwest, where I live, and she had this to say about abortion: ``It is evidence that either by education or circumstances that she''--the woman--``has been greatly wronged.'' In this spirit, Madam Speaker, I think there is an opportunity here to perhaps bring Congress together around a humane proposition that requires thoughtful but necessary reflection on the deepest meanings of pain. We all know pain. But pain teaches us profound lessons about suffering, sacrifice, patience, and the redemptive healing possibilities of encountering one another in our vulnerability as humans living in the interdependency of community. Pain is something from which we naturally recoil, but it also enables us to build compassion toward those who are weak, or dependent, or alone. Madam Speaker, in letting our natural impulse to respond to another who is in pain, we can grasp what it means to be truly ourselves, to be truly human, and to care deeply about everyone, and to really internalize what is at issue here.”