Georgia state Rep. Terry England compared women to farm animals while discussing an abortion measure on the Georgia state house floor.
The republican lawmaker was commenting on HB 954 -- a measure which would prohibit a woman from having an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy -- when he made the curious comparison, according to The Raw Story.
“Life gives us many experiences,” England explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”
England went on to tell the story of a man who expressed his concern about abortion with his own animal metaphor.
"[The man] said, ‘Mr. Terry, I want to tell you something. You tell those folks down there when they quit killing babies, they can have every chicken I’ve got,'" England said.
The controversial bill would even apply in situations where the fetus was not expected to survive. England's response to such concerns is what sparked the bizarre comparison.
Opponents of the bill believe that it would force women to carry stillborn fetuses or to have Caesarian deliveries. Regardless of any complications surrounding the pregnancy, under HB 954 a woman is expected to carry the child until birth.
Contraception and abortion have been the focus of a nation-wide debate in recent days thanks to controversies surrounding Susan G. Komen and Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who was called a "slut" by Rush Limbaugh after advocating for contraception coverage.