Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, undercover videos by The Center for Medical Progress have again brought into sharp focus that some babies actually survive abortion.

Dr. Ginde, medical director of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, says: ``sometimes we get--if somebody delivers before we see them for a procedure that they are intact .....'' That is, Madam Speaker, born alive, breathing, crying, gasping for air. One fetal tissue broker describes in the video watching a fetus that just ``fell out'' and was left to die.

We have a duty to protect these vulnerable children from violence, exploitation, and death. Humanitarian due diligence requires that born-alive babies be taken to a hospital to obtain care and enhance his or her prospects of survival. Abortion clinics, to the contrary, do not have neonatal intensive care units. They are not equipped to protect those children. They are in the business of killing those children--not saving them.

The grand jury in the abortionist Kermit Gosnell case said: ``Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies. He killed them.'' He euphemistically called ``snipping'' the born-alive baby's spinal cord ``ensuring fetal demise.''

Last week, Gianna Jessen, as Bob Goodlatte noted earlier, an abortion survivor, told his Committee on the Judiciary she had survived a Planned Parenthood late-term, multihour abortion because ``the abortionist had not yet begun the work. Had he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there to die.''

The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, authored by pro-life champion Trent Franks, simply says any child who survives an abortion must be given the same care as any other premature baby born at the same gestational age. This legislation builds on the landmark Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, authored by Steve Chabot, by adding important enforcement provisions.

Tragically, President Obama, the abortion President, has vowed to veto this pro-child, human rights legislation, a position that is extreme, antichild, inhumane, and indefensible.

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I do thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding and, again, I want to thank Chairman Bob Goodlatte for doing such an extraordinarily effective job as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a true human rights champion and a man who really understands these issues.

Last week's hearing with Gianna Jessen and another abortion survivor underscores the fact that there are abortion survivors. I remember, years ago, there was a Philadelphia Inquirer article, called, ``The Dreaded Complication,'' and it was all about all of the children who survived later-term abortions.

And do you know what the response of the abortion lobby was? We need a better death ensuring method of abortion, a more effective and efficacious method, to destroy those babies. That was part of the genesis of the hideous partial-birth abortion method--a method that actually suctions out the brain tissue of a child before birth, thus ensuring there won't be a child born-alive.

Let me also say, people on the other side were talking earlier about the relationship between doctor and patient. What about the new patient, that unborn child who is now a newly born child? Where is the doctor-patient relationship to help that child?

Abortion clinics are in the business of exterminating children through dismemberment and chemical poisoning. That is what abortionists do. Getting this child to a hospital ensures that lifesaving care will be provided. Healers have a mindset that says we need to save these children, the means to do so, including intensive care capability. Abortionists believe abortion means dead baby--born or newly born.

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