The GOP representative asks an abortion-friendly actress if an abortion survivor has the right to live – and she refuses to answer

Actress and pro-abortion lawyer, Busy Philipps, testified before Congress about abortion at a hearing held on Tuesday, including during a notable exchange during which Philipps refused to answer definitively the question of whether an abortion survivor had the right to live.

The question, posed by Texas Republican Representative Louie Gohmert, was based on the testimony of Melissa Ohden, founder of the Abortion Victim Network who is "the survivor of a saline infusional abortion having failed in 1977. "

"Would you agree that a person who has survived an abortion, like Melissa Ohden, has the right, once she is born, to live, to control her body there? where does anyone else not take it? " Gohmert asked.

Philipps hijacked the question with a joke: "Although I played a doctor on TV, sir, I'm actually not a doctor."

Gohmert was not distracted by the deviation.

"No, but you have given a very convincing testimony and I am grateful to you for having thought these questions well, which is why I am asking you," said Gohmert.

"I think it's something very important," replied Philipps. "I do not believe that the place of a politician is to decide what is best for a woman – it's a choice between a woman and her doctor."

"And a baby and the doctor?" Gohmert countered. "That's my question."

Philipps then said that she could not talk about the experience of Ohden because she was not there and finally clarified that she was there to talk abortion and not birth.

Philipps, not answering the direct question, invoked the classic arguments in favor of abortion, according to which abortion was only a conflict between a woman and her doctor, all by avoiding the crucial questions of individual identity that really define the debate about abortion. The question of whether and when abortion should be allowed basically boils down to when and if it is believed that the baby's right to life takes precedence over a woman's wish to not have the baby.

One can hope or expect that a question about the right of a survivor to an abortion to receive medical treatment to survive is not necessary, but many attempts in recent months of Congress and some states to make to pass the protections of survivors of a newborn abortion have been pushed back by advocates of abortions.

(Twitchy H / T)