Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., continued his criticism of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's assertion that abortion benefits the economy and Black mothers in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Tuesday, saying her words were "callous" and "inhumane."
Yellen was not testifying about abortion before the Senate Banking Committee on May 10, but Sen Bob Menendez, D-N.J., brought the subject up when he asked her how an abortion ban could financially harm women in reference to the recent Supreme Court leak.
"I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades," Yellen responded, which drew a sharp response from Scott, who also is a member of the committee, at the time.
"To me, this was stunning. I thought I had misheard her," Scott wrote in the Post. "Was Yellen making the case for how abortion is good for America’s labor force? But when questioned, Yellen doubled down on what I believe is a callous, inhumane reason for ending innocent life."
“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy,” Yellen, citing studies, replied when Scott questioned her.
Scott has reminded in the past about how he and his brother were raised by a single Black mother who worked "16 hours a day, three days a week, and eight hours a day two days a week, just to keep food on the table and the lights on."
His mother worked as a nurse's aid, changing bedpans among other duties "because she wanted to teach my brother and me a lesson that there is dignity in all work and dignity in all life," he has said.
"In that moment, I felt compelled to speak up and speak out on behalf of people like my mom. There are voices today who would tell you that our lives were hopeless,” writes Scott, who is the only Black Republican member of the Senate. "That a life like the one we had as a family was not a life worth living, and that the United States would be better off if people like us didn’t exist at all."
"We live in a world where words are too often disconnected from the lived experiences of many Americans. Yellen’s cold and robotic reference to the issue of life is just the latest example of that," Scott said.
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