Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Tuesday rebutted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s narrative about abortion during a congressional hearing.
Yellen suggested that abortions mainly happen among teenage women, especially black and low-income teenage women.
“In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often black, who aren’t in a position to be able to care for children have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce,” she said.
She went further to imply that those children—if they are born instead of aborted—will “grow up in poverty and do worse themselves.”
Scott, who is the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate, interrupted Yellen and denounced her statement.
“I'll just simply say that as a guy raised by a black woman in abject poverty, I’m thankful to be here as [a] United States senator,” he said.
The dramatic exchange happened when the treasury secretary was testifying at the Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) annual report to Congress and the state of the U.S. financial system.
Scott also suggested that the issue raised by Yellen—if it’s true—can be solved in several more productive ways like tax credits, child care, or financial literacy.
“We can .... have a real conversation about increasing child tax credits that are refundable. We can, at the same time, have a conversation about the opportunity to have a more robust system around the issue of child care, of early childhood education. We could have a conversation about financial literacy,” he stated
“There’s a lot of ways for us to address the issue about the child that is here,” he concluded.
Additionally, Yellen’s description of the demographic characteristics of abortion seems to contradict official data.
Data shows most abortions happen among adult women, not teenage females.
Almost eight out of ten abortions happened in those age groups.
The youngest two age groups, women below 15 years old or between 15 to 19 years old, account for only 8.8 percent of all abortions.
The percentage of black women who had abortions, 38.4 percent, appears to be higher than that of white women at 33.4 percent and Hispanics at 21.0 percent.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Treasury Department for comments.
