EXCLUSIVE: Citizens for Life’s Jeffrey on Abortion Poll — and Reproductive Health Care Act Concerns
EXCLUSIVE: Citizens for Life’s Jeffrey on Abortion Poll — and Reproductive Health Care Act Concerns
“You heard of ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?’ This is ‘Mrs. Jeffrey Goes to Providence,’” said Jeffrey. “I went to hearings and kept hearing about this poll that 71% of Rhode Islanders support abortion. I went there to talk about my experience with Planned Parenthood. I had gotten a survey from Planned Parenthood — this is thirty years ago — saying, ‘Can you believe those anti-abortionists, they want to take away your right to an abortion up until nine months’ and I was like what? I’m not for that. So to hear that poll at the hearings, the 71% [in support of abortion], I was really wondering about that.”
“Then I found out it was just one question — do you support [legalized] abortion — which didn’t really define it,” said Jeffrey. “[And] reading about what was happening in New York, we don’t want New York’s extreme abortion law. So I said let’s get a poll. All I was trying to do is find the most accurate pollster I could use to give information to the General Assembly that they could use to make laws on. We’re not a political organization, we’re not religious. “
Jeffrey spoke to her concerns with the proposed Reproductive Health Care Act before the General Assembly.
“I’m not a lawyer but in my mind, Roe v. Wade looks like it was written by Rush Limbaugh compared to the Reproductive Health Care Act. I can’t call it a reproductive health care act. It’s not reproduction. It’s killing a baby. It’s not health, when no one can answer the question how is it healthy for a woman to have a second or third-trimester abortion. And thirdly, the act itself says that no one can be restricted from terminating a pregnancy regarding fetal viability..I’m not going to get the words right, but that’s the concept,” said Jeffrey.