The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“MARCH FOR LIFE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H308-H314 on Jan. 21, 2010.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
MARCH FOR LIFE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. PITTS. I rise today on the occasion of the 37th anniversary of the infamous court decision Roe v. Wade. I rise on the occasion of the annual March for Life that will occur tomorrow with tens of thousands of citizens who will come to Washington to publicly speak out on this issue of life and the sanctity of life. I just want to say to those who are coming, I want to thank them, the people from all across the country who come, for their dedication to a cause that matters so much, the cause of life.
Every year on this day, people across the country pause to remember the millions of lives that have been lost since Roe v. Wade was decided on that fateful day in 1973. In just 37 years, nearly 52 million unborn children have been lost to abortion. Sadly, we can never know what those lives may have been--doctors, teachers, athletes, perhaps even Congressmen and Congresswomen. We mourn the loss of those unborn children.
But I also want to take a moment to rejoice in the millions of lives that have been saved because women have chosen life. Because of the caring people like those who will come and march this week in Washington, because of the pregnancy care centers, so many women have opted not to have abortions but instead carry their babies to term.
Many of us may have heard that this year's Super Bowl will feature a commercial that tells a story of a well-known quarterback, Tim Tebow. Tim's story is a powerful one. His mother, Pam, became pregnant while she was working with her husband in the Philippines as a missionary. While pregnant, Pam contracted amoebic dysentery through contaminated drinking water. She was told that the medications required to treat her illness would cause irreparable damage to her unborn child, and so Pam was encouraged to have an abortion. Thankfully, she refused, and her son, Tim, went on to play starting quarterback for the Florida Gators and in 2007 was awarded the Heisman Trophy.
Let me share one other brief story. As a baby, Patrick Henry Hughes was born with diseases that caused him to be both blind and crippled from birth. By some accounts, his life may have been considered less valuable. But Patrick has a unique gift. He has become an amazing multi-instrumental musician who inspires people across the country with his music. In 2006, he was recruited to join the marching band at the University of Louisville. He joined the band, playing the trumpet while his father pushed his wheelchair through the marching routines. Patrick is an inspiration to so many around him. And when asked about the challenges they have faced, Patrick's father said he now asks: What did we do to deserve a special young man who's brought us so, so much?
For both of these stories, there are hundreds of others that remain untold; hundreds of lives that may never have been were it not for those who continue to stand on behalf of the unborn.
First, I want to thank those who are coming tomorrow to visit and march for life.
Now, at this time, I would like to yield to my colleague from Ohio, Jean Schmidt, who's chairperson of the Pro-Life Women's Caucus.
Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you to my good friend.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about this issue. I'd like to take a few minutes to not only say that this is the 37th anniversary of one of the most dark days in the U.S. history, but to talk about the ramifications of what that act did.
To give you a little history, the pro-life movement actually began in Cincinnati, Ohio, and it began before 1974 in a little place called College Hill by folks by the name of Barbara and Jack Willke. Jack's a doctor. His wife, I believe, is a nurse, but I could be wrong. But they, along with some other folks, were involved in another crusade in Cincinnati, and they became aware that this whole issue of abortion was suddenly creeping up in the State legislatures and they wanted to make sure that Ohio did not allow abortions. So Barbara and Jack formed this little group to fight it in Ohio.
It was Barbara that said to Jack Willke, You know, Jack, under the Constitution, everybody deserves the right to life, including that of the unborn. And he looked at Barbara and he said, That's the name of our movement.
And look at how far that movement has grown. It is a national and an international movement. I'm proud to lay claim that Cincinnati is part of my district, and while College Hill is not technically in my district, it is part of Cincinnati. And I'm very proud of the work that Barbara and Jack have done, but also proud of the work that my parents did. I'm proud of the fact that they educated me on this issue when I was old enough to understand it, because the impact of abortions really hurts all of us. But I truly believe that it hurts women the most.
I want to talk a little bit about the privilege that it is for a woman to be able to have a child. If we didn't have the opportunity to create, none of us would be here. But it is the woman's privilege to carry that baby inside of her until it is full term. And women, if they pay attention to themselves, know that, yes, they're carrying that baby right from the beginning, because we see some things changing inside of us. But back in 1974, they didn't have all the fancy equipment that they have today. They didn't have all the ultrasounds and the three-
dimensional ultrasounds, and so in 1974 maybe it was a little easier to think that baby wasn't a life. But we know that it's a life today, and we know that it's a life immediately.
It's interesting, because the impact of the Supreme Court's decision has been immediate and devastating in the United States. The number of abortions in this country skyrocketed after that horrible, horrible decision. It skyrocketed from about 750,000 in 1973, to more than 1.3 million in 1977. Think about the lives that are lost. Think about the potential doctors, lawyers, football players, race car drivers, politicians, Presidents, Air Force Generals that have been lost; moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles. By 1985, the number has grown to an astonishing 1.6 million abortions performed in a year, and the United States soon became the country with the highest number of abortions. I could go on.
The reasons for abortions were easy to understand. Women thought that it was a way to get out of an unwanted pregnancy. They didn't understand that the consequences of that decision would be more lasting and more far reaching than it would be to have had the child alone. As reasoning for these abortions, one national survey found that a quarter of the women thought that the timing of their pregnancy was wrong. Another 19 percent thought that they could not afford to keep the child at the time, and almost 10 percent thought that they were just too young. Simply put, these answers indicate that the short-term legacy of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe was the enabling of the American woman to terminate the life of a child when it happened to be inconvenient or fitting for their lifestyle. You know, I could go on.
But the tide is changing. Maybe it's changing because of the miracles of modern technology. Maybe it's changing because a woman can find out immediately she's pregnant and immediately pay attention to those signs in her body. Go to the doctor, get that ultrasound and realize that baby is alive, well, and kicking. Those moms know that's a real live human being.
In 2005, the number of abortions performed were actually down to 1.2 million, a modest but welcomed decrease. And these abortions were performed by only 2 percent of this country's OB/GYNs. The reality is abortion is no longer a part of the mainstream medicine, and the vast majority of the hospitals in the United States, religious or secular, now choose not to perform elective abortions.
Yes, the tide is turning, but much has to be done. For example, the last 12 months have tested the pro-life movement here in this House--
its initiatives, its resolves--more than ever. During this time, pro-
life advocates like me have been forced vigorously to preserve this country's longstanding ban on the Federal funding of abortions, and it was a major success when the bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted in favor of including language equivalent to the Hyde amendment in the infamous health care bill. The Stupak amendment prohibited the funding of abortions. But we need to continue that fight on this issue in the upcoming months to ensure that similar language is included in any final bill that may come forth before this Congress, for the vast majority of Americans do not want their Federal tax dollars to pay for elective abortions.
But we also have to fight for our medical establishment. We have to fight to make sure that the conscience protections for our country's faith-based medical providers are in place. These individuals should not have to choose between their morals or their livelihood. They should not have to face discrimination or retribution for refusing to perform procedures that offend their deeply held beliefs. They should not be forced to participate in procedures like abortions that cannot be described as health care. Yet, there are those in Washington who want to abolish these conscience protection clauses for these people and force them to do just that.
We need to work together to ensure that their faith-based belief is held in tact, because when we make the choice to protect our country's medical providers and when we make the choice to preserve our country's laws prohibiting the Federal funding of abortion, we continue to reshape the lasting legacy of Roe v. Wade. This is the best way that we can honor the anniversary of Roe and the millions and millions of lives that have been lost.
I yield back.
Mr. PITTS. I want to thank the gentlelady for her eloquent words.
At this time, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, Joseph Cao.
Mr. CAO. Thank you very much for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, as America embarks on its 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands will participate in the March for Life in our Nation's Capitol. But, fundamentally, this year's anniversary of Roe v. Wade should have deeper meaning than previous years. Amid the current debate on health care reform, the abortion issue has once again risen to paramount importance. Unfortunately, the current bill has made an unsuccessful attempt to address affordable health care by ignoring the controversial issue of abortion.
Abortion is an inhumane perversion in our society. As I have stated previously, it is a distorted emphasis on rights, to the disregard of individual responsibilities. When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress last September, he said, ``under our plan, no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and Federal conscience laws will remain in place.''
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Why then is the current health reform under the Senate plan being touted as the right plan for America? The health care legislation passed by our friends in the Senate does not reflect the longstanding Federal policies that ban abortion funding, and I will absolutely not support it as it is written.
The fundamental right to life in this country was reinforced and more succinctly elaborated in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These 10 amendments, more commonly known as the Bill of Rights, have served as the heart and soul of our legal tradition and the foundation upon which we have built the most powerful democracy in the history of the world. Yet the balance between rights and responsibilities have served as a basis for an ethical context, but now it is skewed.
Our society has distorted this view of individual rights versus responsibility so that good somehow gets distorted with evil. We have misrepresented the rights to individual freedom, and now we basically have no regard for human life. The result is a social policy devoid of moral coherency. To protect individual rights, we have distorted the continuity of human development to portray the human fetus as something less than human and, therefore, can be disposed of. And there are those who diminish the words of pro-life advocates and aim to demean their passion for life by citing a woman's right to choose or a woman's right to protect her health. But I say that this is a distorted view of protecting a woman that is actually endangering the woman.
An abortion causes mayhem to the psychology of the mother and the future life of the entire family. Her emotional health is never the same, and though anesthesia may provide some physical relief, there is no anesthesia for her mental and spiritual health.
A study in New Zealand, where abortion is legal, showed negative effects in women who had abortions. Researchers for the Christchurch Health and Development Study conducted a 25-year study on the long-term effects of abortion on the mental health of young women between the ages of 15 and 25. These scientists reported to the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry that those having an abortion have elevated rates of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and drug-use disorders.
Another study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo in Norway compared 40 women who had had miscarriages with women who chose to have an abortion. Although miscarriage was associated with more mental distress in the 6 months after the loss of the baby, abortion had much longer lasting negative effects. The proportion of women having had a miscarriage who were suffering distress decreased during the study period to 22.5 percent at 6 months and to just 2.6 percent at 2 years and 5 years respectively. But among the abortion group, 25.7 percent were still experiencing distress after 6 months and 20 percent after 5 years. The researchers also said that women who had an abortion had to make an effort to avoid thinking about the event.
Mr. Speaker, I just came back from Southeast Asia on a CODEL to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan. While I was in Cambodia, I had the opportunity to visit the killing fields in Cambodia. And while visiting the killing fields, they showed us a tree where the followers of Pol Pot would hang and would slam innocent little children on the trees. The Pol Pot regime killed approximately 1.6 million of its people between 1976 and, if I remember correctly, 1980, and the world screamed in outrage at the deaths of 1.6 million people. The Holocaust killed 6 million, and we continue to scream in outrage at the 6 million Jews who were killed during World War II by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust.
From 1973 to the present, in the United States alone we have murdered over 40 million children. Just imagine that: If we scream in outrage at the innocent children that were slammed and hung on the tree in the killing fields, yet, after 40 million children killed in this country, we still hold a policy that allows for the legal killing of innocent children. If that is not a skewed sense of ethics, I don't know what is.
I agree that America needs responsible health care reform, and I agree that we all have the right to exercise the freedom of individual liberties but not at the expense of our children and the future of our families. The majority of the American people, including those in my home State of Louisiana, stand firmly on the side of life, and they will not support any measure that seeks to fund abortion with their hard-earned income.
Again, as we arrive at the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I ask America to reflect deeply on the value of all life, born and unborn, and that we not consider any piece of health care legislation unless it includes sufficient language to prohibit this inhumane act.
Mr. PITTS. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for that very informative and important statement. He is a great leader here in Congress. At this time I want to turn to another leader in Congress. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jim Jordan.
Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I also thank the gentleman for his years of standing up and defending life and for his work in the Pro-Life Caucus, along with Congressman Smith and our newest Member, Mr. Cao, who just spoke, and Jeannie Schmidt and also Parker Griffith, who is here on the floor with us as well. There are a countless number of Members who over the years have said, Life is sacred, life is precious and should be protected.
You know, although this is the week when we mark that terrible decision of 1973, I love this week. Thousands and thousands of Americans are going to come to the Nation's Capital, and they're going to celebrate life. They know that life is precious. And that in this great country, the greatest nation in history, we should celebrate life. We should understand that life is precious, life is sacred and that it should be protected.
I am reminded--I have been in Congress now 3 years. Three years ago this month is the anniversary of the first State of the Union that I had the privilege of being at. Then President Bush recognized a great American who happened to be sitting right up in the gallery. In the middle of his speech, he pointed to this guy, Wesley Autrey, the subway guy. Not Jared, the one we see on TV, but the subway guy, the guy who risked his life, jumped in front of a subway train to save a fellow human being who was having a seizure on the track. He put his life on the line simply because a fellow human being's life was at risk. That is how precious life is. That captures the sentiment that the vast majority of Americans have in this country. They understand how precious life is and that it should be protected through all stages.
As is so often the case, the American people get it long before the politicians get it. Wesley Autrey was a great example of that understanding. The vast majority of people who will be here this week, the vast majority of people who make up this great country understand what our Founders understood, understand what Wesley Autrey understood. And that is, just like they said in the document that started it all, that started this grand experiment in liberty and freedom we call the United States of America, where the Founders and the Framers wrote these words, which I say next to Scripture are the greatest words ever put on paper: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.''
What great principles are contained in the statement that started it all. First, they understood a basic fact--there is a Creator. We are made in God's image. We got our rights not from government; we get them from God. And government's fundamental job should be to protect those rights that the Creator gave his creation. An amazing, amazing principle. No other country ever started on that premise. And then the second thing that just jumps right out at you from that statement is the order in which the Founders placed the rights they chose to mention. Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness. Can you pursue happiness? Can you go after your goals, your dreams? Can you go after those things that have meaning and significance if you first don't have liberty, if you first don't have freedom? And do you ever experience true liberty, true freedom if government doesn't protect your most fundamental liberty, your most fundamental right, your right to life.
That's what thousands of Americans are coming to town for this week. That is what they want to celebrate. They understand exactly what the Founders understood. They understand what this country is really all about. And someday, as previous speakers have pointed out, someday Roe v. Wade will no longer be the law in this country, and we will protect every single human being because that is what the Founders intended, and that is what Americans understand.
With that, I will yield back to my friends and colleagues who have done so much--Representative Pitts, Congressman Smith and others who have done so much to protect life. I appreciate them taking the time to have this Special Order hour on the preciousness of human life.
Mr. PITTS. I thank the gentleman. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama, Parker Griffith, another pro-life supporter.
Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much for this opportunity. This is a very, very important day for us, and certainly it will be an even more important day for us tomorrow.
As a lawmaker and a physician for over 40 years, I recognize the importance of continuing to protect the sanctity of life. The 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade tomorrow reminds us all that life is precious and should not be taken for granted. Fortunately, we can be thankful that a majority of the Congress can see that taxpayer-funded abortions is morally abhorrent to most Americans.
So with the current health care legislation before us, I commend my colleagues for supporting the Stupak amendment, which passed the House with an overwhelming majority of 240-196, with one voting present. I fully support protecting the unborn in any and all future bills. The Stupak amendment is clearly a high-water mark for opposition to government funding of abortion and a critical firewall to keep abortion from being mainstreamed as a routine medical procedure.
As the 111th Congress presses forward on the eve of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I would like to remind Members on both sides of the aisle of the importance of continuing to protect the sanctity of life in all policy.
Mr. PITTS. I thank the gentleman for that statement and his leadership on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey, Chris Smith, our Pro-Life Caucus Chair, a wonderful eloquent voice for life.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is recognized for the remainder of the hour.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank my good friend and colleague Mr. Pitts for his leadership, and for that of all of those who have spoken. Doc, thank you for your eloquent words. Mr. Fortenberry, Mr. Cao and Jean Schmidt.
I do want to welcome His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church of America, here, and his brother bishops. They are most welcome, and I thank them for their incredible stance in favor of the sanctity and sacredness of all human life, from womb to tomb, and that we all need to act as our brothers' and sisters' keepers.
Matthew 25, where our Lord said, Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do likewise to me. His Beatitude Jonah lives that, as does his church and as do, God willing, all of us. But they do it in such a superlative way, and I thank them for their example. It is awe inspiring.
Mr. Speaker, I have been in the pro-life movement for 38 years, in the greatest human rights struggle on Earth, the right-to-life movement. What I still don't get is this: How can so many seemingly smart, sane, compassionate, and accomplished people, especially in politics, support, promote and--if President Obama has his way in the pending health care legislation--lavishly fund with public dollars the violent death of unborn children and the wounding of their moms by abortion?
Is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence against children, a pernicious form of child abuse, falsely and aggressively marketed as choice, a human right or as health care? How long will we permit the pro-choice cover-up and the bogus safety claims to misinform, especially in light of the reams of evidence documenting serious injury to women who abort?
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Abortion, safe? What unmitigated nonsense.
Women have been profoundly ill-served by the all-too-familiar pattern of denial and deception so skillfully employed by the abortion industry. Women deserve better. They, at the very least, deserve the truth.
Mr. Speaker, years ago a friend of mine, Dr. Jean Garton, wrote a book which included how her young child unexpectedly walked in the room as she was preparing a lecture on abortion. Her 3-year-old child took one look at the badly bruised and battered body of the aborted baby on the screen and shouted: Mommy, who broke the baby?
That young child saw the brutality of abortion with unclouded comprehension. That child was unencumbered and unaffected by the deceptively clever and preposterously misleading propaganda dished out by the multi-billion-dollar pro-choice industry. That child saw, and knew immediately, that babies are smashed and broken to bits by abortion. And with alarm, that 3-year-old boy wanted to know who did it.
Last fall, like that young child, Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director in Texas, with 8 years at that facility, watched an ultrasound image of an abortion in progress on a 3-month-old unborn child. Like the victimized baby on the ultrasound monitor being dismembered right before her eyes, Ms. Johnson was crushed by what she saw. Self-described as ``extremely pro-choice,'' but now pro-life, she said she watched an unborn child crumple before her very eyes as the infant was dismembered and vacuumed to death by a hideous suction device 20-30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. She said: I could see the baby try to move away. In a startling moment of truth and clarity, she said, I just thought, What am I doing? Never again. And she walked out the door of that abortion mill.
I will never forget, my wife, Marie, and I, right outside the Supreme Court, met a group of women called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. These women were telling their stories, very, very powerful stories about how they had been hurt emotionally and physically by abortion.
One woman told the story how as she was actually on the gurney, in the process of getting an abortion, and the doctor, the abortionist said: It is trying to get away. Being only partially sedated, she heard all of that. She shot up quick and she said: Get me out of here. And they said: It is too late; the abortion has already started. But the child instinctively was trying to get away.
We also know from people like Dr. Alveda King, one of the founders and leaders of a group called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a courageous woman, who has had two abortions. Dr. King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King and she now says, How can my uncle's dream survive if we murder the children? Dr. Martin Luther King talked about inclusion, the politics of inclusion, not disenfranchising someone by reason of their age or condition of dependency or race or by reason of their sex. She now heads up a group that reaches out to women who have had abortions and have suffered and offers the path through faith, through God, and through friendship to come to a sense of reconciliation and restoration as a result of the trauma of abortion.
As Abby Johnson, the abortion clinic director at Planned Parenthood, said as she walked out, ``never again,'' but never again comes too late for the approximately 52 million babies who have been slaughtered in Planned Parenthood clinics and abortion mills throughout America since the infamous holding of the United States Supreme Court in 1973; 52 million babies lost. It is staggering, stunning, and beyond tragic.
But it doesn't have to come too late for the millions of other children who face extermination today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, if we awake from our slumber, from our indifference, from our callous attitude and start to truly combat the cruelty and injustice of abortion.
The longer I am in the pro-life movement, just like the example of Dr. Alveda King, who is like so many other silent-no-more women, speaking out and doing so courageously, there is even more to the pro-
choice cover-up than just dead kids.
Abortion hurts women, physically, psychologically, and the data strongly suggests that it even mal-affects children subsequently born to women who abort. Last year the Times of London reported: ``Senior obstetricians and psychiatrists say new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found that women who have had abortions have twice the level, twice the level, of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant.
In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that 78.6 percent, almost 79 percent, of the 15- to 18-year-olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression compared to 31 percent of their peers. And it also found that 27 percent of the 21- to 25-year-old women who had abortions had suicidal ideations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion.
I say to my colleagues: there are at least 102 studies that comport with those findings of psychological harm to women who abort.
Serious questions also remain concerning the link of abortion to breast cancer. Despite the fact that more than 28 studies from around the world, including the United States, have shown that procuring an abortion significantly increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30 to 40 percent, the abortion industry cover-up has largely succeeded in the unconscionable suppression of those facts.
Nevertheless, according to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 2009 was a pivotal year in the debate about the abortion-breast cancer link. Three studies were published from Turkey, China and the United States which matter of factly demonstrate the abortion-breast cancer link as one of many breast cancer factors.
For example, the recent U.S. study by Jessice Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrated that an abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40 percent. Why isn't that emblazoned across the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post? Forty percent. Study co-authors included Janet Daling and Louise Brinton. Amazingly, Brinton was a chief organizer of a 2003 National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop denying the link. Now a study that she co-authored reiterates the link and reports it as consistent with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor for breast cancer.
And now even Time magazine, among many others, has finally reported on another suppressed fact, suppressed by the pro-abortion industry, that abortion adversely affects the health of subsequent children born to women who abort.
A total of 113 studies demonstrated an association between abortion and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies. Studies have indicated that the risk of preterm birth goes up 36 percent after just one abortion, and a staggering 93 percent after two or more abortions. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 36 percent after one and 72 percent after two or more abortions. Prematurity and low birth weight, as we all know, are leading causes of disabilities in children. Abortion not only affects the child who is aborted; it affects in a very negative way children born, brothers and sisters born to that same mother in subsequent pregnancies.
All of this begs a very serious question, Mr. Speaker: Why then is the Obama administration expanding this vicious assault on women and children often by massively subsidizing pro-abortion nongovernmental organizations around the world and in the United States to do the dirty work, to do that in the U.S., Africa, Latin America, everywhere?
You know, I said at the opening, How could so many seemingly sane, smart, compassionate politicians buy into the big lie? Well, maybe some politicians aren't so smart or compassionate after all.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to a stalwart in the pro-life movement, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).
Mr. FORTENBERRY. I thank Mr. Smith from New Jersey for the recognition and for his passionate understanding and belief of this most fundamental aspect of human rights and the need for justice in our world today around this essential issue, the protection of our most vulnerable. Thank you, sir, for your leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to add that tomorrow thousands of people from across the Nation will gather just steps away from this very Capitol along the National Mall. They will be huddled against the cold, but nonetheless they have come out to speak out against the 37 years of human rights abuses and affronts to our fundamental rights and liberties.
We especially welcome the youth who will come out tomorrow who will take time away from their studies to stand at the feet of our Nation's seat of power and give voice to the voiceless. They faithfully make the trip to D.C. each year to regret the anniversary of the Supreme Court's passage of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion in this country. Tomorrow these thousands, young and old, will lift their voices in one resounding cry for one fundamental cause of justice, the idea that women deserve better than abortion; the idea that life gives hope and that we are big enough and we should be loving enough as a Nation to care for the lives of every mother and the child nestled within her.
This idea is essential to the well-being of our entire country. A truly good society must stand for the protection of all persons' rights, above all the right to live. To stand for goodness and justice, we must protect all life, particularly that which is most vulnerable. Wherever it takes place, abortion is so often a decision that is brought on by either physical or emotional abandonment. We must not accept a culture that says if you have been abandoned, your only option is to abandon the life within you as well. We cannot let this hopelessness breed hopelessness, nor despair breed more despair.
However, many of our leaders here in Washington, Mr. Speaker, send a much different, less-affirming message to those most in need of encouragement and assistance. Last year, Secretary of State Clinton appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and confirmed that it is this administration's goal of including abortion as an integral element of reproductive health care provided by the United States. President Obama has rescinded the Mexico City Policy, making millions of dollars available to foreign entities that promote and perform abortion.
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We now export abortion and project, in turn, our own woundedness in this country upon others. The National Institute of Health has created the largest Federal incentive to date to destroy human embryos for research, distracting scientific attention away from adult stem cell research, research that is achieving real results and does not cause ethical divides.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Sebelius may soon rescind a regulation protecting from discrimination our health care providers who choose not to participate in the act of abortion. All four of these, and other actions taken by the administration, are a direct and pernicious assault on the sanctity of human life.
And today, when twice as many black children in this country are eliminated through abortion than are born, we also hear repugnant assaults on the dignity of minority populations from our leaders. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year commented in the New York Times, and this is a direct quote, ``Frankly, I had thought at the time Roe was decided there was concern about population growth, and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion,'' close quote.
Mr. Speaker, let's reflect on that for a moment. Quote, ``populations that we don't want too many of,'' from a Supreme Court Justice. These statements deserve the strongest public rebuke. Abortion is not health care, no matter how much some leaders in Congress would like it to be. Abortion hurts women. Abortion is decimating urban America. And this cannot stand. But together, we can stand for life. We can win this fight for good.
And Mr. Speaker, those who share this deep concern for the sanctity of life, I would say they are the new abolitionists. They are the inheritors of the great American tradition of seeking justice and uplifting the most vulnerable.
On the eve of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, countless Americans have awoken to this reality. And the civic engagement of thousands who will gather here tomorrow, and the millions more who remain at home, will hopefully hasten the day when the Nation fully recognizes the unborn as persons worthy of protection under the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If I could with my friend and colleague, and I thank him for his eloquent statement, you mentioned the statements made by Justice Ginsburg. Not only did you not take them out of context, because they were very troubling to me and I think many people--who are ``those people''?--but it also follows a line of thought that predates her.
Margaret Sanger, as you know, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenist. In the twenties and the thirties she wrote extensively against minority populations, against Africans, against Catholics, against people who didn't look just like her. And I have read her books. One of her books is known as The Pivot of Civilization. And in that book, chapter five is called The Cruelty of Charity. The Cruelty of Charity. And she makes a case that is pathetic and sickening that somehow we ought to not provide maternal health care to indigent women, to poor women who happen to be of color or of some other minority status that she deems to be unacceptable. The Cruelty of Charity.
That organization, Planned Parenthood, kills 305,000 unborn babies in their clinics every year. And I would hope my colleagues, and I really believe it is time to take a second look at Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse, Incorporated. They like to say that the abortion part is only 3 percent of what they do. Of course killing a baby versus handing out a condom hardly are equivalent in terms of actions. And they count just about everything else to get that number low. Three hundred five thousand abortions.
Some people have gone undercover and discovered, to their shock and--
maybe not shock, but certainly to their dismay--that there is a racist attitude in those clinics where these undercover individuals have gone. And it is very disturbing. But it is all reminiscent of its founder, who had such a jaundiced and prejudicial view towards minorities. And that was Margaret Sanger.
I would also add that our distinguished Secretary of State got the Margaret Sanger Award last year. I did a floor speech on this and said how can it be that the Secretary of State of the United States of America is in awe of a eugenicist? Because in her speech, and I read it on the State Department Web site, she went on and on about how the work of Margaret Sanger remains undone. Margaret Sanger was a self-
proclaimed eugenicist, who felt that certain individuals, and that would include the disabled, their lives are not worth living or protecting. They are throwaway human beings. And I have asked the Secretary of State to give that award back.
I yield to my friend from Ohio.
Mrs. SCHMIDT. I just want to say a couple of things about the Planned Parenthood organization in my district. As of record, there have been two cases of underage children that have received abortions without parental--well, in one case it was a father who raped his daughter under age. That has been prosecuted in Warren County. And in another case it was a teacher that brought a 15-year-old girl--13-, or 14-, or 15-year-old underage girl into Planned Parenthood. That case is now under review in court.
But right now I really want to have my good friend from Missouri, Todd Akin, address you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. AKIN. Thank you, lady, and thank you for your leadership here on the floor. Thank you, Congressman Smith, for your great leadership.
I came here really in a way to say thank you. Also to deliberate a little bit on the unique history of great leaders. Every great leader in history has had this in common: that at some point, by faith, hope, and love, they have hung tenaciously to some great enterprise in spite of the apparent hopelessness of that cause. The pilgrims on the beach. Washington at Valley Forge. And yet these great leaders found that God providentially provided relief and help in their time of need, sometimes from very unique quarters.
I think of the great threat to lives in America that the socialized medicine bill that we were looking at a day or two ago posed to the cause of life, and of the unique quarter through which God provided relief, the State of Massachusetts. Not something that you would expect politically.
And so today I would like to say thank you to the great leaders in America who have had the perseverance to stay with the pro-life cause year in and year out, when times look good and when they looked bad. And so to you I say thank you and God bless you.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you very much.
And these really are growing numbers of people. The polls certainly reflect it. By over a two-thirds margin the American public have said, in virtually every poll, they don't want abortion in health care, in ObamaCare. They absolutely do not want it in there. It is one of the reasons why ObamaCare is on such thin ice, if you will.
I would want to say to my colleagues something else. There is a reappraisal going on in America. I remember when I got elected in 1980, I would go out to the high schools and schools throughout my district, and whenever the issue of abortion came up, it was very hot and it was very often very antagonistic to my pro-life position. I began to see changes in that in the nineties and after the year 2000. There has been a dramatic shift among our young people in favor of life.
Every one of the young people that you and I, Jean, and others might see in our schools, one out of every three of those children had been killed by abortions. One out of every three. Next time you are in a classroom count desks, one, two, missing child killed by abortion. And for every child that is killed by abortion there is a wounded mother in great need of reconciliation and embrace and love.
And that is the part of the pro-life movement that I have always found so absolutely appealing. It is a nonjudgmental movement. It loves even the abortionists who are killing the children so maliciously each and every day. We have embraced so many former abortionists, former clinic workers, like Abby Johnson, who left Planned Parenthood last year, walking out the door when she finally saw an abortion on a screen. She watched it and said, ``Never again. I can't be a part of this any more.''
Probably the biggest change of heart in the entire pro-life, of the last 40 years, was a man by the name of Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Dr. Nathanson founded NARAL. He, Betty Friedan, and Lawrence Lader founded NARAL, one of the biggest pro-abortion groups. We all hear them in our mail and as they lobby Capitol Hill. He founded it. He was a primary abortionist in New York City, ran the largest abortion clinic in all of New York City. In the 1970s, he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I have presided over 60,000 deaths.'' He quit and then he became a pro-life leader. I have met him many times. He is smart, he is articulate, but he was so terribly misguided, somehow believing he was doing right when he was doing so egregiously wrong.
You know what helped bring him to the pro-life side? He began doing microsurgeries. He began working at St. Luke's Hospital in New York. In one room they would be doing everything humanly possible, taking heroic methods and actions to mitigate disease and disability in unborn children, including blood transfusions. And in the other room they were putting in high concentrated salt solutions and other chemicals, poisons, or dismembering the child piece by piece. And he said it is schizophrenic. That child is either a patient, a human being, or he or she is not. And he came down on the side of life.
Add to that the enormous deleterious damage being done to women, which I said earlier in my comments has been documented over and over. Mental health consequences, consequences to subsequent children that are profound and lifelong. The problem of breast cancer. And believe me, the abortion lobby will continue to say it is not true. They will pull out some two or three studies that suggest that it is not true against the huge evidence that suggests otherwise. And if you want to believe that, then believe what the Tobacco Institute used to say in the sixties and seventies, that there was no linkage of tobacco to lung cancer. They got away with that for decades. The abortion lobby and the industry that makes billions of dollars is getting away with that right now. And we wonder why the sad fact that some of those women who are now marching, some of the survivors, thank God of breast cancer, thank God, but some of those have been precipitated and caused by that abortion. And again, that is 28 studies and counting that have clearly posited that as a very significant negative outcome.
But Dr. Nathanson, he should be the model for politicians. If he can get it, if he who was right there, the one who said, who came up with the idea that women were dying from illegal abortions in America at the rate of 5,000 to 10,000 per year. And you know what he told us in his book when he wrote it? He said, ``I made it up.'' Dr. Nathanson made up that figure, and was shocked and surprised how easily and how gullible the media was and politicians to just take that bogus number and regurgitate it over and over again as if it had a foundation in fact.
The real number, according to the Center for Disease Control, in 1972, prior to the legalization of abortion on demand, was under 40 women. Forty too many. But women are dying today from legal abortions. And let's not forget that. Maternal mortality, we want to cut that and help women with difficult and crisis pregnancies here and around the world. But you do it with essential obstetrical services, you do it with good birthing practices, especially in the developing world, where maternal mortality is a problem. You don't do it by killing babies and wounding their mothers.
I would like to yield to my friend, Mrs. Schmidt, for any final comments.
{time} 1515
Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you to my good friend from New Jersey.
One of my family member's favorite movies is ``It's a Wonderful Life.'' It is a story about George Bailey, who thinks he's losing the family bank, played by Jimmy Stewart, and Clarence Oddbody, played by Henry Travers, the angel who points out to him how important his life is. And in the end, he realizes it, and, yes, Clarence gets his wings.
I think about that because I think of the family member and the fact that if his mother had had the opportunity in 1964 to have had an abortion, she may have made the fatal decision not to have had that person. That person is a wonderful human being. He is a father. He is a husband. He has two children. He has a wonderful life.
I yield back.
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow--January 22, 2010--marks the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, a decision overturning the laws of the various States and setting the stage for the termination of tens of millions of unborn children.
Mr. Speaker, I came to Washington to defend all human life. And in my nearly 20 years serving the House, the Congress and Executive branches have made tremendous progress in protecting the life of the unborn.
We have made certain that federal funds could not be used to pay for elective abortions both domestically and abroad. We passed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. We gave our schools the choice to offer abstinence education and we limited federal funding for embryo destructive stem cell research.
But within the first 100 days of his administration, President Obama overturned the Mexico City Policy permitting federal funds to international family planning organizations that also perform elective abortions. President Obama also insisted that federal taxpayer funds be directed to UNFPA--the family planning agency at the U.N. that has supported China's one child policy. The President also overhauled the country's embryonic stem cell policy, creating more incentives to destroy human embryos in the name of research.
The current Congress has also taken steps to unravel long-standing pro-life policies. Last December, Democrats eliminated long-standing policy--first established in 1989--that has prohibited the District of Columbia from using its Medicaid funds to provide elective abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate of women who are enrolled in Medicaid more than doubles if they live in a state where Medicaid is able to pay for elective abortions.
Over the last year, Democrats have attempted to overhaul the current health care system. Their proposals have included policies that would permit public funding of abortion--through federal subsidies and plans that would be managed by the federal government. More than 65 percent of the American people oppose public funding of abortion.
Mr. Speaker, we need to pause and reconsider the direction the majority and President Obama are headed with regard to protecting human life. All human life has value and it is the role of the branches of the federal government to protect it. I call on my colleagues to put an end to passing destructive legislation and instead fight to defend life.
Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, thirty-seven years ago this week, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Roe v. Wade, making abortion legal in the United States.
The Court's decision recognized a fundamental, constitutional right to privacy that protects a woman's personal decisions from governmental interference.
This landmark decision greatly advanced women's rights, but we must never take those rights for granted.
Because as I speak, there are groups bent on taking away those rights.
Opponents of women's rights are attempting to hijack the healthcare reform bill, and use it as a vehicle to curtail access to reproductive healthcare.
We cannot and will not allow women's reproductive rights to be sacrificed for healthcare reform.
Thirty-seven years ago we took a historic step forward for women's reproductive rights.
Now we are on the brink of another historic step.
But we must ensure that a move forward for healthcare does not result in a step backward for choice--a step backward for Roe v. Wade.
Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, as an obstetrician and gynecologist, I've delivered close to 5,000 babies and I strongly support the sanctity of life. Using technology like the 3-D ultrasound has given us windows to the womb that show unborn children as living, breathing, feeling human beings. I have looked through that window with my own eyes. I have seen human development occur from the earliest stages of human development all the way through birth, which strengthens my conviction in the right to life.
Life is a precious miracle from God that begins at conception. It's our responsibility and privilege as legislators to protect those who do not have a voice. I will always fight for the right to life because it is my conviction that we are all unique creations of a God who knows us and loves us before we are even conceived.
Tomorrow, we will mark one of the most tragic, misguided Supreme Court cases in our nation's history, Roe versus Wade. Since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been denied the right to life. We must make our laws consistent with our science and restore full legal protections to all who are waiting to be born. If government has any legitimate function at all, it is to protect the most innocent among us.
Congress has prevented taxpayer funded abortions for over 30 years, and the healthcare reform bill has reopened the door to change this effort. As we debate the proposed healthcare legislation, we must fight to prevent it from becoming the largest expansion since the pivotal Roe versus Wade decision, and work to ensure that the door to taxpayer funded abortions remains closed.
I am glad to be fighting for the rights of the unborn.
General Leave
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New Jersey?
There was no objection.
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