While bragging about his state's attempts to outlaw abortion on May 10, Mississippi state Rep. Bubba Carpenter (R) suggested that coat hanger abortions were fine because "you have to start somewhere."
Referencing the fact that poor women who could not afford to leave the state for the procedure, Carpenter claimed that self-induced abortions would be part of a broader process to end abortion for good.
Here is Carpenter, in his own words.
It’s going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to– Roe vs. Wade. So we’ve done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They’re like, ‘Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger. That’s what we’ve learned over and over and over.’
But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we’ve decided to do. This became law and the governor signed it, and I think for one time, we were first in the nation in the state of Mississippi
There is also video of Carpenter's statement, courtesy of Rachel Maddow's blog.