Rep Rozar on Abortion Referendum

we certainly have gotten away from what the bill says that we're supposed to do is to send this to the people for a referendum but I knew that this bill would be a discussion on the issue of abortion so I would just like to add my perspective we have heard uh from the testimony that there are Physicians that will not come to our state if they're not trained or able to do abortions but I'd like to remind everybody there are pro-life Physicians who might come to this state for the same reason so let's not paint with such a broad brush that we might lose Physicians one thing that struck me during the hearing that we had in the health committee was I asked several people that testified when do you treat an unborn baby as a patient because we kept hearing from people my goal is to treat the patient my goal is to give the best medical care that we can give to the patient they were making the assumption that the patient was the woman who was pregnant and so I said to some of these medical students and physicians in your opinion when would you treat the baby the unborn baby as a patient and I couldn't get anybody to answer that question satisfactorily to me so I went home and I started think well I didn't go home but I went out of the building and I thought about what I had asked them and it hit me it was only if the baby was wanted was it going to be treated as a patient you all know that I have five adopted children I would like to just share briefly some of the stories about how we got those five children the first son that we adopted was delivered by a friend of my husbands who was in medical school with him and this girl had gone to spring break in Florida who knows where and had gotten pregnant that weekend came home hid that pregnancy for nine months walked in to deliver on a Saturday uh was that's a whole another story but was delivered by my husband's friend and the girl who had just delivered said I I can't take care of this baby I'm a college student do you know anybody who might want this baby and Andy said actually I do and so two days later I became an exg graduate student an unemployed nurse and a mother in about 36 representative from the 69th add dressed the chair please oh I'm sorry excuse me yes so that was how we got our first child our second child was a similar situation pregnant for the the third time uh knew our pastor uh the girl was in the Church of a friend of our pastors said I cannot care for this baby I have Financial Obligations I cannot afford to have another baby do you know anybody that would like to adopt this baby that's how we got our second child the third The Sibling Group that we adopted next uh sibling group of three um the mother was unable to care for those children and so we adopted that sibling group of three when we lived in West Virginia so these were Crisis Pregnancy situations someday I need to ask my five children do you would it have been better for you if your mothers had aborted you I now have grandchildren so they have had children so these were women in Crisis Pregnancy situations who knew they could not take care of these children but offered them life they did not go out and abort them they had Financial constraints all of that I don't know the circumstances of their pregnancy but I do know that they made a conscious decision not to abort those children because they could not afford them and now the rest is history it bothers me about the inconsistency I so appreciate people who have stood up and talked about the fact that these are people separate dnas often separate blood types um embryologically totally different from the mother these are unborn babies uh as the representative uh I can't remember I I keep my cataracts are keeping me from focusing on those words over there so it's already been brought forth that the word fetus means baby and so I'm tired of hearing that this is not a baby these babies there are homes for these babies about 61 and maybe even more percent of the population believes we should have some restrictions on abortion when you look down through those po r s restrictions are the first trimester rape and incest life of the mother there are very few people that believe that we should have abortion up until the day of birth partial birth abortion I just can't even fathom that somebody would think that that is not barbaric this bill doesn't talk about the merits of abortion it doesn't talk about the morality of abortion I'm sure that there'll be a lot of Education that would go on if this bill passes and is signed by the governor but this bill only puts the issue before the people and I think it's important to put our pulse on the people some U some of the representatives have talked about how this has already been talked about the uh people have been elected referendums have G gone forth I can't remember any referendum that was Statewide that asked people's opinions I know they're going to say well there have been because there have been elections but the extremes were talked about there Scare Tactics were used in those elections which made me sick to my stomach and so I ask you let the people decide let them let us know what restrictions they want please the vote is green on this I appreciate you listening to me Mr Speaker and um I appreciate everybody's support on this Bill thank you