(Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

During a debate in the Alabama House of Representatives over a proposed abortion ban, one Democratic representative made an astonishing remark about why he opposed the bill.

“It ought to be a woman’s choice,” said Representative John Rogers of Birmingham. “I’m not about to be a man and tell a woman what to do with her body. She has a right to make her decisions herself.” So far, a fairly standard argument in favor of the right to abortion. But Rogers didn’t stop there.


“Some kids are unwanted,” he went on. “So you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them into the world unwanted, unloved, then send them to the electric chair. So you kill them now or kill them later.”

Alabama Senate majority leader, Republican Greg Reed, issued a statement in response to this horrific comment. “Representative Rogers’ remarks are chilling,” Reed said. “‘Kill them now, or you kill them later’? His comments should be condemned at the state and national level.”

Reed also noted that the abortion ban in question passed the Alabama House by an overwhelming 74–3 vote and said the measure will be taken up in the state senate in the next few days.


While Rogers’s defense of abortion is certainly chilling, it’s also a striking reminder of how rarely abortion-rights activists openly admit the reality of the right they are demanding. Most often, they dismiss unborn human beings as a “clump of cells” or a parasite within the mother. With his horrifying comment, Rogers has exposed those lies, admitting, as abortion defenders so rarely do, that every abortion procedure — no matter when or how it takes place — intentionally ends an innocent human life.


Here’s a video of Rogers’s comment: