I’ve given this speech before.

The topic was Medicaid funding for abortion.  My first session in 1983, I was a floor whip for the pro-choice side.

The Republicans’ amendment would deny funding if the medical justification was the woman’s mental health.

I reminded my House colleagues that the voters of Maryland approved the law protecting a woman’s right to choose whether to have a child and to make that decision after consulting with the people she chooses.

Most of them knew that.

However, most of my students do not.

When we discuss abortion in my law school classes every fall, a majority of the class does not know that Senate Bill 162 – Abortion, was approved on referendum in 1992, 62-38%.  Delegate Larry LaMotte and I were the lead sponsors of the House bill.

As I wrote yesterday about the legislative process, my students should take nothing for granted.