Providing for Congressional Disapproval of A Rule Submitted By the Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency--Veto--
Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is a basic American value: Families.
America has gotten particular about our families. We love our families and we love our kids. It is one of the struggles we have had recently as a nation because we have seen this collapse of the American family, this basic value. We see that unit struggling. Families begin, a husband and a wife, in that incredible moment when a lady looks at a pregnancy test, sees that little line, and realizes there is a baby on the way.
Forty-three years ago as a country there was a decision made by the Supreme Court. That decision forever changed the structure of our families, forever changed the values within the country, because the values shifted 43 years ago, and it changed from there is a baby on the way to that family gets to choose if that is a baby or not. To literally be able to say, based on the preference of the mom, it is tissue or it is a baby, we should handle those two things very differently.
I can remember distinctly in my family 19 years-plus ago now, when we saw that little line on the pregnancy test and we started getting a house ready and getting things organized and we started trying to figure out how to get our finances in order and everything ready to go because there was a baby on the way. In those first moments, before my wife could even feel that she was pregnant, we found out that she was. That was a child coming to our family. She has a name now. Her name is Hannah. With the first of our two daughters--Hannah and Jordan--we understand full well how things started and what things were like in those earliest days. It is remarkable to me that so much of the conversation now circles around preference. At that moment we knew that if we didn't do something right away to actually reach into the womb and take that child out of the womb--Planned Parenthood and other folks would say ``just to remove the tissue''--that if something wasn't done from that moment on, there was a baby coming, a baby who would look up into our face and would smile and would have a name.
Americans have lost track of this basic principle. That is not tissue in the womb. When that pregnancy test comes up positive, that is a baby. Regardless of the preference of any individual, that is a baby on the way. Cells are dividing. For many they don't find out for maybe a couple of months even and begin to figure out something is really changing and they do a quick test. Sometimes by the time they even do a test there is a beating heart there. They look in with a sonogram and count 10 fingers, 10 toes. If you were to reach in and do a DNA test, you would find out that lump of tissue that is in there is not tissue. It has DNA different than the mom, different than the dad. That is a child. It is a unique life. That life is not determined based on a preference. That life is determined based on that dividing cell as a child with 10 fingers and toes.
I can't think of anything else we have in America where anyone can say, based on their preference, I choose for that to be alive or I choose for that not to be alive. I can't just look at this desk and say I choose to call that a life because we know life has basic criteria. It has dividing cells. It can function on its own. It can reproduce. It is life. We know what life is. We can't casually say one thing is life and one thing is not, just like we casually don't just try to fight off the destruction of tissue in other ways.
I always smile when I hear some folks on the other side of this argument say they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. I hear it all the time--safe, legal, and rare. When someone says that to me, I always ask the question: Why rare? I understand safe and legal. Why would you care if it is rare? If it is just tissue, why does it matter if you remove it?
No one has a big national movement to fight individuals from taking warts off their hands because everyone knows, if you have a wart on your hand, it is just tissue and no one cares if you take that off. They understand that really is your body. It is a wart on your hand and it doesn't look good, so take it off. Everyone is fine with that. For some reason there is a push to say safe, legal, and rare when it comes to abortion because I believe inherently even the individuals who say safe, legal, and rare understand it is not just tissue or you wouldn't say it has to be rare. You understand it is an incredibly painful, difficult decision that a mom is making because she knows in her gut that is not tissue. That is a child, a child who would one day have a name and a smile. That is a child.
In China the government gets to decide whether it is just tissue or a child because the government will step in and say: If you have a second child, you can't have that one. You have to destroy the second child. Now, in their benevolence, China has shifted to say you can have up to two children in certain areas and in certain regions, but if you have a third one, you have to destroy that child. In America, for whatever reason, we have individuals with the freedom to be able to say: I prefer for this not to be a child. Suddenly, somehow our culture says: OK. You can pick.
The Supreme Court in 1973 looked at this issue, and they argued a lot about viability, what they call quickening. This conversation about viability really circled around whether States could actually make laws protecting the lives of children once they reach viability. In 1973, viability was very different than what it is today. In the NICU units-- neonatal intensive care units--you will find a very large area in most hospitals. You ought to go by and visit and walk into an NICU area because you will find many rooms and many beds there. Decades ago that wasn't true because children at 22 weeks and 24 weeks didn't survive before. Now a higher and higher percentage are.
There are children who are in Oklahoma City right now in NICU who weigh just a tiny bit more than two iPhones. That is their weight when they are born--just a tiny bit more than two iPhones in weight. Yet they are growing up to be healthy, productive kids. They are children.
We are getting better at NICU as well, learning how to provide oxygen so their lungs develop. I visited some of the physicians in the NICU at OU Children's Hospital over the Christmas break and said: What have we learned? What have we gained? Is this getting better?
They talked about how we feed differently now than we did decades ago. At NICU, we understand how they are developing and receive food, and we want their digestive systems to develop. Things are very different now in science. It is forcing the country to rethink an issue again: When is a child a child? And in our basic American values, should we stand up for them?
I believe we should. I am amazed at the number of moms who--if they will get a sonogram and see the picture of their child in their womb, they understand clearly that is not tissue; that is a face looking back at them. Those are fingers and toes that they can count. There is a beating heart there. That is not random tissue.
In fact, I don't know if you knew this, but they can now do 3-D sonograms and then send the sonogram to a 3-D printer and actually print out a model of what the child looks like in the womb in that exact position. Not only is that cool as a parent, to be able to say that I can actually hold a model of what my child looks like right now at 20 weeks of development, 28 weeks of development and to be able to see and look at their face, but it is revolutionary for physicians that at 20 weeks they are reaching into the womb, giving anesthetic to the child, and they can actually see exactly what the imperfections are so when they go in to do surgery, they can practice on the outside before they reach into the inside.
The technology continues to advance. I say to my colleagues, at what point will our laws catch up with our science? How long will we deny clear science and not understand that is a child?
I think in the decades ahead, our Nation will catch up to the science and will look back on a season in our country when we ignored the obvious: When a pregnancy test says positive, that is not positive for tissue; that is positive for a baby.
I also want to affirm thousands of volunteers around the country-- many of them coming this week to the March for Life--who serve every single week in crisis pregnancy centers around the country, who lovingly walk with moms through some of the most difficult days of their lives as they make hard decisions. With great compassion, they walk them through a tough pregnancy. Then they are with them in the days after delivery, bringing diapers to them, bringing formula to them, helping them in those early moments. Thousands of volunteers around the country do that every single week. Good for them. Good for our country. Good for our value for life. I am always proud when Americans stand up for other Americans no matter how weak they are.
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