Military Construction, the Department of Vetreans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Senate has now passed a continuing resolution to keep the lights on, to keep the government employees paid, to pay our military and make sure our veterans get the benefits they are entitled to from now until December 11.

I think it is important to reflect on why it is we had to do this in this way, with all of the attendant drama and the suggestion that we were going to somehow shut down the government, which was never a likelihood. The main reason we find ourselves in this posture is because for the first time since 2009, the Senate has actually passed a budget. This new majority that was elected last November saw that one of the most important things we could do in terms of the basic fundamentals of good governance was to pass a budget--something that hadn't happened since 2009.

There are many benefits, of course, of passing a budget, but one of the benefits was to allow the Appropriations Committee to begin to go to work and take up and pass 12 different appropriations bills that would keep the whole of the Federal Government funded.

As the Presiding Officer knows, there is a lot of policy written in those Appropriations Committees. You can make a decision not to fund something because it is not working or maybe it is obsolete or outdated or perhaps to fund something else; say perhaps we need to reform the way this particular service is delivered and consolidate it in a way that it is cost-effective and more efficient.

So it is important to pass a budget and to pass appropriations bills. Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues are trying to use the appropriations process to hold it hostage in order to force us to increase government spending. The way they try to do that is to filibuster the appropriations bills and to say: We are not even going to take up a defense appropriations bill, the one that actually pays our troops and takes care of their families. Well, they are going to have a chance to vote on a veterans appropriations bill very soon, and we will see whether they keep up this tactic of holding hostage our appropriations process, creating all this unnecessary drama associated with whether there is going to be a shutdown here or a shutdown there. It is very important that we get back to work and we do the basic work of governance--passing a budget, passing appropriations bills. I know the Presiding Officer agrees with that.

I think lost in all of this debate over government shutdowns and over appropriations bills has been the shocking videos we saw of Planned Parenthood, these Planned Parenthood videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives speaking callously about the unborn. These are late-term abortions. These are unborn babies who could well be viable outside of the womb, because after 20 weeks, give or take 2 weeks, it is amazing what neonatologists and what medical science can do. I know we have all seen babies as small as 1 pound or less who actually grow into thriving adults later on, and it is amazing what can be done even with these young babies as young as 20 weeks or more. But of course these videos I think have served one important role; that is, to be a wake-up call, to try to wake up the moral conscience of our Nation. Somehow we have trivialized this whole process and talked about choice and talked about the convenience of adults, when in fact there is another competing interest involved; that is, the potential life of a human being that is being overlooked.

At different times in our Nation's history I think we have seen that somehow we became so desensitized, we became so self-focused on ourselves that we forgot the fact that this speaks about our humanity and who we are as a people. So I think these sorts of wake-up calls that these videos have provided have been useful if we make the most of them.

I know that as we have talked about the continuing resolution and the so-called shutdown scenario--which is not going to happen--there has been concern that this might be the only way that we stop this horrific practice of late-term abortions and harvesting of fetal body parts for sale that were depicted in these videos. But I am thankful there are a number of pro-life groups in Texas and nationally who understand that we need to make sure this is a long-term agenda and not just a one-vote situation. As I mentioned yesterday, earlier this week two groups involved in the pro-life mission in my home State announced their support for efforts in Congress to hold Planned Parenthood accountable and to work toward long-term, meaningful change on the pro-life agenda. One of those groups, the Texas Alliance for Life, released a statement that affirmed actions taken last week--a vote to defund Planned Parenthood and to redirect funding to other providers of women's health services that are not involved in the abortion industry. If we are truly concerned about women's access to health care--and we all are--then why can't we take the money that goes to pay the No. 1 abortion provider in America and redirect it to community health centers that actually do provide women's health services?

The statement of the Texas Alliance for Life went on to say that the group was ``not asking for a government shutdown over the issue'' and that ``better options exist for achieving success.''

I want to spend a moment or two focusing on ``better options [than a shutdown] exist for achieving success'' because the Senate continues to work on several measures, including key pieces of legislation that would advance the culture of life in this country--legislation such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This would do what Texas has already done, which is to say there can be no elective abortions after 5 months of gestation. It is at this stage in development--just 20 weeks--that many experts believe an unborn child can feel pain. I am still unclear why our Democratic friends across the aisle would block such a simple, moral imperative like protecting these young lives as they did last week, but I would like to also remind our friends across the aisle that this legislation is not going away, and we will not stop raising the visibility of this issue and making the point that a child at 5 months--a child with fingerprints and taste buds--deserves protection under the law.

Our country also needs another piece of legislation that I cosponsored and that actually passed in the House. This is called the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, which the Presiding Officer is the lead sponsor of. Quite simply, this bill would mandate that doctors provide infant care to newborns who survive an abortion procedure. This is different, I think, in kind from the defund Planned Parenthood debate. This is about the delivery of a born child and whether a physician or the abortion provider has any duty--which they should--to make sure that child gets the care they need so they can survive or whether they can, at their option, simply end that life as part of an abortion practice. It is a sad commentary on the conscience of America when we need a law like this to spell out the fact that doctors should care for babies once they are born.

This legislation was introduced last week, and I hope we are successful--as I said, the Presiding Officer is the lead cosponsor--in getting broad support of cosponsors on this bill. Then we can go to Senator McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and ask him to schedule this legislation for a vote.

So this bill, along with the pain-capable bill, will not only save thousands of unborn lives a year, but if enacted would be the biggest step forward for the pro-life movement since the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law a decade ago.

Both of these bills are part of a long-term, proactive strategy to fight for the lives of the unborn and to make this country one that truly prizes the life of the unborn as a young life with limitless potential. It took time for the enactment of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. I was in the Senate when we passed that legislation. It is incredible to me it took as long as it did for that to pass, but it also took a commitment from leaders to stand up, time and time again, not to just have one vote and then call it quits, to say we tried and we were unsuccessful, but to stay after it until we actually achieved passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. I believe, with the same sort of long-term commitment on the Pain-Capable bill and on the Born-Alive bill, we can continue to make progress in this House, as well as the House of Representatives, and to be able to tell our constituents back home we have changed the culture of Washington, DC, and on a national level and shown the respect for unborn life it deserves.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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