In a state legislature debate on a new abortion restriction, Democratic state representative Alvin Holmes told all white proponents of the bill that they would be in favor of abortion if their daughter was going to have a black baby, according to an AL.com report.
“Ninety-nine percent of all of the white people in here would raise their hands that they are against abortion,” he said. “On the other hand, 99 percent of the whites that are sitting in here now, if their daughter got pregnant by a black man, they are going to make their daughter have an abortion.”
The proposed bill, approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and now in the state senate, would ban abortions any time after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Holmes went on to talk of a hypothetical lawmaker’s daughter: “She’s going to have a black baby running around there in the living room, in the den, with the rest of them? They’re not going to let that happen.”
When he asked a specific lawmaker if she would let her daughter have a black child, she replied, “Yes, sir.” Holmes then asked what she would do with the child after it was born. “Let it run around in my living room and enjoy it as my grandchild,” she said.
“Well, I need to commend you then,” Holmes said. “It wouldn’t be one out of 100,000 that would do that.”
Holmes’s full remarks are below: