Abortion

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments on a case out of Mississippi commonly known now as the Dobbs case.

That case is all about a Mississippi law, where Mississippi passed a law saying, at 15 weeks, a child in development in the womb can be protected after that time period.

That strikes right at the heart of Roe v. Wade, where, in the arbitrary ruling from the Supreme Court in 1973, they made up a new rule saying when a child is viable--not something that is in law at any spot. It created that out of whole cloth.

Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court will reopen that conversation about viability. It is an important discussion for us to be able to have as a nation, and it is vital that we talk about it here as well. As it is being discussed across the street at the Supreme Court, there are issues that we should discuss as well.

So, for the next few moments, there are multiple different Senators who are going to speak on this one issue: When is a child a child, and when should States have the rights to protect their own citizens' lives?

The Supreme Court has made that murky and has the option tomorrow to be able to make that clear. This conversation, though, will circle around what should that legal standard be and how should we protect the lives of every citizen, no matter how small they are.

There will be multiple Senators who will be speaking on this, the first of which will be Senator Steve Daines, who leads the Pro-Life Caucus in the U.S. Senate.

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Mr. LANKFORD. In December of 1952 and again in December of 1953, the Supreme Court was packed. There were lines out into the hallway, with people waiting to get in to hear oral arguments. In December, the Court would hear arguments on the legality of segregation brought by Thurgood Marshall, representing the Brown family in Topeka, KS.

Just 56 years before Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was protected by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. They ruled that separate but equal facilities were constitutional, thus enshrining the national disgrace of segregation into America--an absolutely terrible decision by the Supreme Court that haunted our Nation for decades. It took 56 years before the Supreme Court corrected its wrong.

Now that more than a century has passed since the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Nation still celebrates the Court that decided the Brown v. Board of Education case, as Justices righted a great wrong against millions of people. There was a simple lesson in that decision: When the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake.

In a lesser known case that affects just about every American now, in 2018, the Supreme Court overturned by a 5-to-4 decision 51 years of precedent on the collection of taxes for businesses called the physical presence rule. Many people now know it as the internet tax rule. It changed the way taxes were collected on the internet.

When they made that decision in 2018, there was great confusion and consternation, statements that it would be impossible to implement it and it would bring certain destruction to internet commerce. In fact, in the dissent in that 5-to-4 decision, the minority in the Court stated this:

E-commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of our national economy against the backdrop of these established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any alteration of those rules with the potential to disrupt the development of such a critical segment of [our] economy should be undertaken only by Congress.

The Court should not act on this important question of current economic policy solely to correct a mistake it made over 50 years ago. It was hand-wringing by the Court, the minority there, that they opposed correcting the obvious mistake of the Court from 51 years before because it could hurt the cyber economy. In other words, doing the right thing involved a risk.

Well, yesterday was Cyber Monday. It was one of the largest single days of purchasing online in history. The Court did the right thing, and the economy kept going. There was a simple lesson in that decision: When the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake, even if it was 50 years later.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in what could potentially be the most consequential case for human rights in 48 years.

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., nine Justices will hear arguments and ask questions of the attorney general of the State of Mississippi and counsel representing an abortion clinic in Mississippi. Tomorrow morning, the Court will consider whether all previability prohibitions on elective abortions are constitutional.

Tomorrow, this Court has the opportunity to uphold the self-evident truth to personhood, the facts of science and of our heart's declaration, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Simply stated, the Court has an opportunity to correct its mistake from 1973, 48 years ago.

In 2018, the Mississippi Legislature enacted the Gestational Age Act, which limits abortion to 15 weeks of gestation except in a medical emergency and cases of severe fetal abnormality.

Jackson Women's Health Organization, an abortion clinic in Mississippi, sued. Federal courts held that the law was in violation of the Court precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Now it is known as the Dobbs case. It stands before the Supreme Court at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

This case presents an opportunity for the Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade and turn the role of legislating on the issue of life back to the States, where it was pre-Roe v. Wade.

In Roe v. Wade, as this body knows extremely well, the Supreme Court decided the Constitution guarantees the right to have an abortion until the viability of a child, with very little understanding of the term ``viability.'' Years later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court also said that the government couldn't place an undue burden on access to abortion, which has been used to block many laws that aim to protect women and children.

Both decisions were completely arbitrary and not based in constitutional law. ``Viability,'' quite frankly, is impossible to define because children develop at different speeds. One child, Curtis Means, left the University of Alabama at Birmingham Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after he was prematurely delivered at 21 weeks, 1 day--the youngest child to be born ever. Another child, though, may not survive if they were even delivered at 32 weeks. Viability was completely invented by the Court in 1973 as a standard and is impossible to actually track.

America has not forgotten about these children. We have not moved on, and we have not just accepted Roe v. Wade, because when we see a child, as this one is at 15 weeks, we actually see a baby, shockingly enough. Forty-eight years ago, the Supreme Court may have decided that a woman has a right to an abortion, but we never lost track of humanity. Abortion is not just a medical procedure; it is the taking of a human life.

I talked this morning with an abortion survivor. And, yes, they do exist by the thousands. She is in her forties. She has children of her own now. She survived a botched abortion and was actually delivered alive during an abortion procedure. She was taken by a nurse to the NICU unit of that hospital, and she is still alive and thriving today. I sat there with that abortion survivor, thinking that abortion is not about random tissue; it is about a person--quite frankly, this morning, the person who was sitting right in front of me.

Now, I understand full well I am a pastor who is now a Senator. I am fully aware that I have a Biblical worldview. My dedication to children is not just because I am a follower of Jesus and believe that every person is created in the image of God; I also firmly can look at the science. The science is clear to anyone who is willing to get past the talking points and actually look into the womb.

At the moment of fertilization, a new and distinct human being comes into existence. It is not just a fertilized egg; it is a new human. This new cell, which is called a zygote, shows behavior that is unlike the behavior of any other cell around it that is in the woman's body. The DNA inside that cell is different than the DNA inside any other cell in the mom's body. That cell has everything that he or she needs to become a fully developed human being.

Everyone listening to me right now--everyone--was once a single-cell zygote, completely dependent on your mom for nutrition. That is why we encourage moms to eat good foods, take prenatal vitamins, stop smoking, and all those things, because we want to protect the development of her child. Why? Because we all recognize that that is a child, and what a mom does now will affect the future for that child.

As the baby grows in his or her mother's womb, it continues to develop. At 15 weeks, as this baby is--and that is what the Mississippi law is all about, is a baby who looks just like that. At 15 weeks, a baby has a heart, lungs, skin, eyes, a nervous system. By 15 weeks or a little over 3 months of pregnancy, this preborn baby is moving around in response to touch. All of her organs are formed, and she just needs more time for them to grow and develop. Her heart already has four chambers. It has already beaten millions of times and pumps more than six quarts of blood per day. She cannot breathe outside the womb, but she is breathing inside the womb. She has arms and legs. She has 10 fingers and 10 toes and normally by this point already shows a preference for being right-handed or left-handed. She has eyes, lips, a nose, fingernails, eyebrows, even taste buds. She can feel pain.

This decision has ethical, moral, and medical implications. Look in the mirror, anyone in this room. You have fingers and toes and lips and a nose and fingernails and eyebrows and taste buds. You can feel your heart beating. The only difference between you right now and this child is time. That is it.

But for some, it is easy to just close their eyes and ignore the self-evident fact because it is easier to talk about Court precedent or choice, because if we look at each child and recognized this child for who she is, it is hard to process that in the last 48 years, 62 million children have died by abortion in America. And for some, they can't allow themselves to acknowledge what is self-evident because it would be too painful to think about 62 million children.

Can I tell you, 62 million children is the combined population of Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Nevada, Iowa, Utah, Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, and Oklahoma--combined.

A Court decision that led to the death of 62 million children is a Court precedent that needs to be discarded.

Prior to 1973, each State had its own laws on abortion. That is what would happen again if the Court overturns Roe v. Wade. We will have a patchwork of laws on abortion, just like we do right now on homicide.

In some States, like mine, if a pregnant mother and her child are killed, the perpetrator faces two charges of murder, one for the mom and one for the child. In other States, the perpetrator would only face one charge of murder because that State doesn't recognize that child's existence at all. I think that is absurd, but that is a law in one State, and it changes from State to State. People can speak to their own State legislators about changing that law in their State and about recognizing the value of every child, even a child in the womb, but until they do, that child is a nonentity in some States. That kind of difference in homicide laws is allowed by the Supreme Court already. This Court should give that same right to every State for every preborn child, not just for some.

The law being debated in the Supreme Court tomorrow reflects the will of the people of Mississippi, just as many pro-life laws in Oklahoma and in our legislature have reflected the will of the people of Oklahoma.

The arbitrary, outdated viability standard established by the Court makes it harder for States to protect women from physical risk that accompany late-term abortions. It makes it difficult to allow States to protect preborn babies in the second trimester, who can experience pain. The viability standard prevents States from banning dismemberment abortion. The viability standard deters States from protecting children diagnosed with Down syndrome, developmental disabilities, and children being aborted simply because they are male or female. It also prevents States from protecting the lives of their own citizens at any stage of development.

I don't understand how infants have become a partisan issue. I really don't.

There are some issues, as I talk to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, where I can see their perspective and their point of view. I may not agree, but I can understand their point of view.

But on this issue I do not understand how some people see a baby sucking their thumb in the womb and they see them only as medical waste. I don't understand how some people can support an abortion in one moment, but when they talk to a woman who has had a miscarriage, they immediately respond with ``Oh, I am so sorry.'' If a miscarriage is the loss of a child, then what is an abortion?

I don't understand how the same person who fights to protect the right to abort children also brings a gift to a baby shower and celebrates a mom and a baby. How can one child be worth celebrating and the other child be medical waste? I just don't understand that compartmentalization.

Frankly, I don't understand how some people who are pro-abortion justify protecting Bald Eagle eggs in Federal law but have no problem supporting the taking of human life in the womb.

Children are not medical waste. Children are beautiful, innocent, and valuable. Some people who are pro-abortion call pro-life people horrible names, and they say they are trying to limit a woman's choice and her freedom while they work to protect her right to have her own baby literally have its arms and legs torn off in the womb so the child would bleed to death in the womb and then each body part would be suctioned out separately.

I don't consider that freedom. I consider that cruel and inhumane.

They say it is a woman's choice. But when does the child get to choose? Some people in our Nation actually celebrate the death of children like it is some glorious empowerment of a woman that she is able to pick and choose which baby will live or die based on her decision. I don't think that is empowerment. I think that is barbaric.

Mother Teresa stated: ``It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.''

Change begins tomorrow. Tomorrow the Court will have the opportunity to uphold our Constitution; eradicate the outdated, oppressive, and deadly precedent; and turn our discussion about life over to the legislators in each State. Now is the time for this Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Our Nation prides itself on human rights and individual liberties, but we have this huge, glaring exception: We deny the obvious fact of a child until they are born. We ignore a child's existence until it is convenient.

I really believe, in the decades ahead, our Nation will catch up and we will look back on these years with grief. We will be shocked that when we saw a pregnancy test that said ``positive,'' somehow we didn't figure out that meant positive for tissue; it meant positive for a baby.

I look forward to the day when the United States will be a beacon of justice for every child and not just a few; when we will be a Nation that protects the weak, not just a Nation that stands up for the strong; when we will lead the world to protect the innocent and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves; when America is a beacon of hope for every child.

Southern slave owners in 1830 denied humanity to their slaves. Men in 1900 denied women a right to vote. The United States rounded up Japanese Americans in World War II and put them into camps.

All three of those were considered legal and appropriate at the time. All three of those were fought tenaciously when they were changed, and all three of them are a national embarrassment now.

There was a time when the Court ruled that separate but equal was justice. Then, six decades later, they reversed course, ending segregation. Justice requires, when the Court gets it wrong, that they correct their own mistake. This time there are millions of children counting on the Court getting it right.

``Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble''--Psalm 41, verse 1.

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