Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding time. You know, as we hold this debate, I remember back to a morning as a young resident at Parkland Hospital starting out in a residency in OB/ GYN and our major professor, our department chairman, Jack Pritchard, addressing us and telling us that starting into a career in OB/GYN, we were in a unique position in medicine. Every time we took a case, either as a primary doctor or consultant, we would have the unique opportunity to be taking care of two patients who had a combined life expectancy of over 100 years. He said nowhere else in medicine are you going to be able to affect the future to the degree that you can as an OB/GYN. In nearly 30 years of practice back in Texas, I have taken care of women with ectopic pregnancies. We did it before. We will continue to do it. It is a surgical emergency, and you don't shy away from it. Unfortunately, some pregnancies do conclude in a miscarriage, and some of those do require the attention of a physician. I would not hesitate to do that, then or now. But what I would not do and could not do was disrupt a viable pregnancy where a child could issue from that care. None of that changes, either before or after the Supreme Court decision. Look, there have been times when I have had to step in when someone had care at another facility and sought refuge in my emergency room because of severe complications they were having from an abortion done elsewhere.…”