Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, the discovery of thousands of fetal remains in Indiana at an abortionist's home last year horrified us all and highlighted a disturbing trend that Indiana has taken the lead in rectifying.

This bill is our chance to fix the problem nationally. I believe all human life deserves a dignified burial, and fetal remains deserve to be treated with respect, not as medical waste. Sadly, irreverence toward fetal remains, like Dr. Klopfer's grotesque collection, in our case, is not an isolated incident. For example, in 2015, a Minnesota hospital threw out the body of a stillborn baby with dirty laundry.

Indiana has led the way. Governor Mike Pence signed a law in 2016 protecting the dignity of fetal remains, upheld by the Supreme Court last year in Box v. Planned Parenthood.

This legislation, the Dignity for Aborted Children Act, builds on Indiana's success and provides guidelines for handling fetal remains and penalties for failing to respect the sanctity of human life, and it ensures that crimes like Dr. Klopfer's have consequences.

The bill would require abortion providers to dispose of the remains of unborn children just as any other human remains or to release the remains to the family, should the family wish to receive them. This bill does not tell anyone what to do with their body. It only holds human fetuses to a higher standard of dignity than medical waste.

Last week, this body could not agree to ban abortions after science tells us fetuses are capable of feeling pain. This body could not agree to ensure that babies born alive after botched abortions should receive the same standard of care as a baby born in a hospital.

At the very least, we should be able to agree to treat the remains of unborn children with the reverence befitting a human life rather than as medical waste.

2590 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, I think if we continue to make the argument with women's healthcare that it is mutually exclusive to consider that, and you define what we are talking about here--banning abortions where there is pain-felt capability or not trying to preserve the life of a baby born through a botched abortion--adding this as well: not treating the fetal remains with the dignity that they deserve--I think it is increasingly difficult to make the argument that we constantly hear about women's healthcare. They are not mutually exclusive. This is something that shouldn't be put into the category that it would impact any of that by putting this into effect.

I yield floor.

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