Mississippi state Rep. Bubba Carpenter (R) said that it’s OK for women to have coat hanger abortions because it’s for a greater good.

A video obtained by Rachel Maddow’s blog captures Carpenter saying he is proud of Mississippi’s attempts to outlaw abortion outright, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled abortions legal in the United States.

And what about women who will perform self-induced abortions because they cannot afford to go out of state to get the procedure? “Hey,” he says, “you have to have moral values”:

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

Watch it:

Mississippi recently passed a law meant that legislators claimed was meant to stop self-induced abortions, known as “coat hanger abortions,” which are generally extremely unsafe and dangerous to a woman’s health. At the same time, this law will likely force the state’s only abortion clinic to close.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R)

“[T]hey don’t care if the mother’s life is in jeopardy, that if something goes wrong that a doctor can’t admit them to a local hospital, that he’s not even board certified,” Bryant said of the Democrats’ opposition to the measure which would impose tough new restrictions on the clinic. “We passed that bill and I think you’ll see other states follow and when that happens at least these fly-in abortionists are going to be regulated under the state laws of the Medical Procedures Act here in the state of Mississippi as they should be across the nation.” Watch it:

Bryant is no stranger to extreme rhetoric. In November of 2011, as Mississippi voters went to the polls to vote-down a radical anti-abortion measure that equates abortion with murder and would outlaw some forms of birth control, then-Lt. Gov. Bryant warned that if the personhood amendment fails, “Satan wins.” “This is a battle of good and evil of Biblical proportions,” he said. Bryant was responding to a question from Cristen Hemmins, who was raped and shot twice during a kidnapping as a college student.

Lawmakers in Mississippi have resurrected the so-called “heartbeat” bill, a measure which “equates abortion of a fetus with a detectable heartbeat to child homicide.” A physician who performs an abortion where a fetal heartbeat is present “could face the maximum 30 years” and some women would be required to undergo “a transvaginal ultrasound to determine whether a fetal heartbeat is present.”

Under the measure, pregnancies that result from “rape or incest or that would endanger the life of the mother” are exempt from the requirement, but those that would pose health risks are not:

Rep. Ed Blackmon, D-Canton, presented several scenarios where he said the language of the bill would be too restrictive. For example, he said, no exception is made for a situation in which a woman is pregnant with twins and a doctor determines both fetuses will not survive, and one must be aborted for the other to live.

“It makes reference to the life of the mother, but it has no exception for the health of the mother – both physical and mental health,” Blackmon said.

Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, presented a scenario where doctors have determined a fetus will not survive long enough to come to term, but if the woman does not abort the child, she will become infertile. “You think that’s what God wants?” Brown asked.

The bill passed the Mississippi House on Tuesday, but faces an uphill climb in the Senate, where it died in committee last week. The heartbeat can often be detected as early as “six to seven weeks,” before a women even knows she is pregnant and is likely unconstitutional, flouting the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that forbids states from banning abortions until the fetus is viable, which is generally around 22 to 24 weeks.

Last week, lawmakers approved a bill requiring doctors performing abortions “to be a board-certified OB-GYN with admitting privileges at a local hospital,” a measure that could significantly hamper or even shut down the state’s sole abortion provider.

The number of teen births in the U.S. dropped again in 2010, according to a government report, with nearly every state seeing a decrease. Nationally, the rate fell 9 percent to about 34 per 1,000 girls ages 15 through 19, and the drop was seen among all racial and ethnic groups. Mississippi continues to have the highest teen birth rate, with 55 births per 1,000 girls. New Hampshire has the lowest rate at just under 16 births per 1,000 girls.

This is the lowest national rate for teen births since the Centers for Disease Control began tracking it in 1940, and CDC officials attributed the decline to pregnancy prevention efforts. Other reports show that teenagers are having less sex and using contraception more often. Studies have backed this up. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”

But 37 states require sex education that includes abstinence, 26 of which require that abstinence be stressed as the best method. Additionally, research shows that abstinence-only strategies could deter contraceptive use among teenagers, thus increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy.

For example, take the states with the highest and lowest teen pregnancy rates. Mississippi does not require sex education in schools, but when it is taught, abstinence-only education is the state standard. New Mexico, which has the second highest teen birth rate, does not require sex ed and has no requirements on what should be included when it is taught. New Hampshire, on the other hand, requires comprehensive sex education in schools that includes abstinence and information about condoms and contraception.