Democratic Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen angrily lashed out at black conservative activist Star Parker this week because she testified against abortion during a congressional committee hearing.
WATCH:
I’m appalled by how @RepCohen spoke to StarParker.Sir your party screams #BlackLivesMatter yet u shame a black woman #NoProLifeGirlsAllowed pic.twitter.com/So4KpjhsCe
— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) November 3, 2017
Parker testified Wednesday in front of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice about legislation that would ban abortion after a baby’s heart starts beating.
Parker said she felt it was “disingenuous” to conflate social issues in impoverished communities with a perceived need for abortion, stating, “Abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community today.”
“Abortion feeds a narrative that women are victims, that they have no control over their sexual impulses,” she continued. “And the result of this narrative being forced down into our hardest-hit communities – we are seeing now recklessness in sexual activity and marriage has collapsed. In the 50s, 70% of black adults were married. Today, that number is 30 percent.”
Cohen immediately snapped at Parker that he would “like to say that I am not disingenuous about anything I say about Medicaid, or Medicare … or SNAP programs.”
“And to suggest I’m disingenuous shows your ignorance or your absolute inability to deal with Congresspeople the way they should,” he yelled. “I believe in those issues and I think they’re proper, and to say I’m disingenuous is just wrong and I expect an apology.”
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert told Cohen he should apologize to Parker for “calling our witness ignorant when it seems to me she has a whole lot more knowledge and wisdom.”
Rep. Steve King, the committee chairman, then ended the hearing because of the “lack of civility.”