In a committee markup last week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that residents of the District of Columbia have a disproportionately large number of abortions because D.C. is disproportionately African-American.
In our nation’s capital, 41 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion, twice the national average given by the Guttmacher Institute. Democrats in Congress are pushing to legalize taxpayer funding for non-lifesaving abortions in DC, which is currently prohibited by federal law and opposed by most Americans.
Audio of Durbin’s comments is here
The issue arose last Thursday when the Senate Appropriations Committee took up the bill that funds the federal district. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) invoking President Bill Clinton’s formulation that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” asked why Congress should pursue a policy that will make abortion even more common in D.C. than it already is.
“Forty-one percent of pregnancies — that’s not rare,” he said. “We do not need to have more abortions in the District of Columbia.”
Durbin’s reply to this point — and Brownback’s interruption of him — follows below.
Durbin:In terms of safe, legal and rare, to the Senator from Kansas, I will tell you two things. First, it is a fact that a disproportionately large number of African Americans seek abortion in America, not just in the District of Columbia, but all across the nation.
Brownback:41 percent?
Durbin:No, but it’s also a fact that a disproportionately large number of African Americans live in the District of Columbia.
Brownback:41 percent?
Durbin:I’m telling you, look at the numbers.
Brownback:I’m telling — I’m just asking you, aren’t there enough [abortions] here?
Durbin:Look at the numbers, and you will find this to be true.
Brownback:This — this is not high enough?
Brownback’s amendment to preserve the ban on taxpayer-funded abortions in D.C. failed, 13-15. The underlying bill still bans the use of federal money by D.C. for abortion, but this is essentially meaningless — money is fungible and D.C. can simply shift it to different uses by source.
Brownback said during the markup that in 1994, before the ban was in place, D.C. shifted $1 million away from a fund for AIDS patients and shifted it to fund abortions.
UPDATE: Audio of Durbin’s comments is here.
