It’s no secret that reproductive rights are under attack throughout the United States. In states such as Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Louisiana, however, a far right abortion group called Personhood USA is gaining a foothold on state legislators. Due to the group’s influence, the Louisiana House recently debated a bill that would criminalize doctors who perform abortions or prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to patients. Republican Louisiana Rep. John LaBruzzo introduced the bill that would make an exception if pregnancy endangered the woman’s life but would not make exceptions for women who became pregnant through rape or incest.

When a female lawmaker questioned if such a bill would actually reduce the abortion rate and raised other concerns during a committee hearing, LaBruzzo responded by comparing abortion recipients to criminals such as heroin addicts.

“We’ve illegalized murder and drugs for a long, long time, and yet those crimes continue to take place,” LaBruzzo said. “And it’s not our stance here to say that ‘just because people smoke pot and break the law or use heroin and break the law, then we should legalize it.”’

To liken abortion recipients to recreational, or even serious, drug users is callous to say the least. Women who terminate pregnancies aren’t suffering from a disease. They do so because they’re not emotionally, economically or otherwise equipped to bring a child into the world. The choice to bring a child into the world or not to can be agonizing, and Rep. LaBruzzo does a disservice to all women by speaking so thoughtlessly of abortion. Demand that he apologize for his choice of words.