Kansas is the Breadbasket of the World

Floor Speech

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Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Kansas farmers for their long hours during this year's wheat harvest and for their work to produce food for people all over the world.

With more than 15,000 wheat farms across the State and 5 million acres of wheat in the Big First District alone, Kansas leads the Nation in wheat production, is the largest exporter of hard red winter wheat, and is aptly named the breadbasket of the world.

The United States exports that wheat to more than 100 countries around the world, and some of that wheat from Kansas ends up abroad under the U.S. food assistance programs, like Food for Peace. In fact, it was the Kansas Farm Bureau who began sending surplus grain to those in need around the world, continuing U.S. leadership in addressing world hunger.

As I reflect on my own time on our family farm in Quinter, Kansas, I am reminded that harvest season is about more than just harvesting the crop. For Kansas farm families and communities, harvest is about coming together.

Harvest is when we share tractors and other equipment with our neighbor when theirs gets stuck. Harvest is when a grandmother takes food to the field so the rest of her family doesn't have to leave the field for a lunch break. It is when a father takes his child out on the combine to show him how the work is done. And it is when we reflect on our advancements in agriculture, thanks to land-grant universities, like the wheat breeding research at Kansas State University, yielding high-quality and plentiful harvests around the world.

Wheat harvest is a time for Kansas to be proud of the great strides they take to feed, fuel, and clothe the world. At the end of the season, we look back and know that each agricultural success is inexplicably tied to our Kansas values of faith, family, community, and grit. While we are at work here in Washington, they are back at home making the world go round, and for that we owe farmers our sincerest thank you. The Right to Life is Self-Evident

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Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I also rise today in support of one of the most basic functions of any government, the right to life.

Our Founding Fathers wrote 245 years ago, ``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.''

To them, the right to life was so overly obvious that they called it self-evident.

But, today, in America, some policymakers insist on denying the right to life to millions of Americans. Instead, they diminish that right through murderous abortion policies, policies that fail to recognize life until a child lets out his or her first cry in the delivery room, policies that justify abortion based on the belief that any unborn child may have Down syndrome, and policies that funnel taxpayer dollars to funding abortions and abortion services.

Today's technology and science has shown us proof of life inside the womb. We see 3D ultrasounds of a baby sucking her thumb and moving around. We know unborn babies can experience pain as early as 12 weeks. At 20 weeks, we can reveal if a baby is a boy or a girl.

Yet some of our country's leaders still proceed to support policies that devalue and eliminate the innocent child's life. For decades, these elected officials have spent more time protecting the right of potentially endangered species, like the lesser prairie-chicken or sea turtle eggs, than they do protecting unborn babies, human babies.

But not to me. I strongly believe life begins at conception. I believe every life matters. I support adoptions, foster care, and crisis pregnancy centers that work tirelessly to care for mothers and their babies. I have cosponsored pro-life legislation, including H.R. 18, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, permanently prohibiting Federal funding for abortions and abortion services. I even introduced my own, H.R. 714, which would require the executive branch to notify Congress and the American public before issuing any new executive order pertaining to pro-life provisions and the right to life guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Devaluing the life of unborn children has desensitized our Nation, and I pray we soon wake up and realize the horrors it has done. It is time to stop using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion services and focus on lifesaving resources that value the life of both the mother and the child. The right to life is self-evident, and I will fight to protect it at all costs.

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