James Norton: “the gentleman who just spoke eloquently of the unwanted powerless child who would be taken just a few blocks from this…”

“the gentleman who just spoke eloquently of the unwanted powerless child who would be taken just a few blocks from this very Chamber, I beg to differ. Children whose parents have not been near prisons cannot be taken. We find no homes for them; and the children of incarcerated parents are more dammed than those whose parents have not been incarcerated. The figures tell the story of what happens to foster children and children in prison, and the figures do not lie. Now Mother Theresa might have taken them, but there are not other takers out here. The gentleman would be the first to come to the floor if Planned Parenthood came forward to try to pay for abortions for these children, to try to deny them funds to pay for abortions for these women. We are talking about voluntary abortions here, as always. I would prefer if there were a mechanism for these women to have their children adopted, assuming there were people who would, in fact, adopt them. There are not people who will adopt a homeless child on the street today, and everybody knows that. The notion of violence raised here in this context is an amazing one indeed. What would of course be violent is forced childbirth. That is what would be left here. All of the inflammatory debate about abortion has not reduced support for abortion in this country. It is legal for women in society; it should be legal and accessible for women in jail.”