Rep. Katrina Jackson, of House District 16 in Louisiana, had a message for Alaskans as she spoke in Fairbanks and Anchorage this weekend: Abortion is not a partisan issue.
Jackson was the keynote speaker at the annual fundraising banquet for the Alaska Family Council, which stands in the gap to defend traditional values of marriage, God-given genders, and the rights of the unborn.
Jackson was among a handful of Democrats in the room, but she argued that in her state, Democrats and Republicans are united on “life” issues, because lawmakers are informed by their faith.
“If you are 46 or younger, the U.S. Supreme Court says you were a choice,” she said, referring to the landmark decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which made abortion legal.
She is the sponsor of a bill that adds abortion providers to the list of surgery specialties that require admitting privileges in hospitals within a 30-mile radius of the abortion clinic. Her bill, which passed 88-3 in Louisiana, is going to the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a lawyer by training, she is making arrangements to argue the case herself.
In Louisiana, even those who remove a mole must have admitting privileges at a hospital in case something goes wrong and the person needs to be admitted. But abortion clinics are more recent developments, and the law had not been updated to include them.
But Jackson’s message wasn’t focused on the legality, so much as the moral and faith challenges of abortion and the fact that in Louisiana, the public is overwhelmingly united on the issue:
“When God got ready to answer the greatest problems in this earth, he did so through a mother’s womb,” Jackson said. “The person who might cure HIV or cancer is going to come through that womb. We never know who, day by day, we are killing.”
In Anchorage, it was a room full of the faithful at O’Malley’s on the Green on Saturday night, and Jackson’s address was attended by mainly Republicans, including a handful of lawmakers: Sen. Shelley Hughes, Sen. Mia Costello, Rep. Cathy Tilton, Rep. Sharon Jackson, Rep. Laddie Shaw, and Rep. Josh Revak. Also attending were Alaska Republican Party Chairman Glenn Clary, former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, Anchorage Assemblyman Fred Dyson, and candidate for Assembly Rick Castillo.
As if to prove the theory that abortion is not a partisan issue, Rep. Chris Tuck also attended. He is a pro-life Democrat who represents Anchorage District 23, south of Midtown. When jokingly asked by GOP Chair Clary when he was going to change his party affiliation, he said that there needs to be more Democrats elected like him, who stand for the rights of the unborn.
SURPRISE APPEARANCE: ISABELLA CHOW
Also featured on the program was Isabella Chow, a former student senator from the University of California, Berkeley, who was kicked out of her own “Student Action” party on campus after she would not support a student resolution that promoted LGBTQ+ lifestyles. She was harassed, bullied, and intensely pressured to resign or face a recall because of her religious views.
[Read about her experience at this Fox News link]
As a young college student at Berkeley, this was especially difficult, but Chow stood fast with her Christian values. She believes some acts and lifestyles are in conflict with the Gospel and are not reflecting what is “good, right, and true.” She explained that although she has no animosity toward those who identify as LGBTQ+, as a student representative, she felt compelled to represent the beliefs of other Christians on campus, even if those views were in the minority.
She was, in loud public forums on campus, berated, called fascist and bigoted and she faced a crowd that held up a sign calling her a “Nazi scum.” Ultimately, she abstained from voting on the largely symbolic bill.
Chow’s story is described in own words in this Prager University video:
