{"id":254789,"date":"2021-10-08T08:35:19","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T13:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=254789"},"modified":"2021-10-07T15:57:05","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T20:57:05","slug":"jayapal-abortion-story-not-medically-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/jayapal-abortion-story-not-medically-necessary\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s abortion story does not demonstrate the ‘urgent need’ for abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On September 30, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) joined<\/a> other Congresswomen to testify in favor of abortion before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing called “A State of Crisis: Examining the Urgent Need to Protect and Expand Abortion Rights and Access.” Jayapal shared two personal stories \u2014 one involving the premature birth and health struggles of her first child and one of the abortion of her second child.<\/p>\n

“For you to understand how I ultimately decided to have an abortion, I have to start earlier with the birth of my first child, Janak,” she said<\/a>. Her child Janak was born at just 26 weeks and five days while she was on a two-year fellowship in India. The baby weighed only a pound and 14 ounces. Janak required blood transfusions, was fed drop by drop and the child’s heart had to be restarted several times. The family returned to the U.S. when Janak was three months old.<\/p>\n

“In those early, intensely difficult years, Janak had hydroencephalitis (water in the brain), seizures, and repeatedly returned to the emergency room because of life-threatening pneumonia,” she said. “The fact that Janak is a 25-year-old beautiful human being is a true miracle and the greatest gift in my life.”<\/p>\n

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