-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, Mother Teresa famously said:

I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child.

She went on to say:

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

That was Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast here in DC in 1994. I agree with those words. Frankly, it is shameful that the Democrats and pro-abortion activists have resorted to despicable tactics--some even illegal, some violent--in a last-ditch effort to intimidate the Justices in the Dobbs case to get the outcome that they want.

What began with the unprecedented leak of the majority draft opinion last Monday has quickly devolved into protesting at the Justices' homes, threatening and disrupting church services, vandalizing pregnancy resource centers that offer support services to pregnant moms, and even throwing Molotov cocktails at the offices of a pro-life organization. Frankly, it is chilling. It is unacceptable. We cannot let the far left's outrageous behavior obscure the fact that the Dobbs draft opinion authored by Justice Alito is a triumph of the Constitution and the rule of law.

There is no right to abortion in the text, in history or structure of our Nation's founding document, and the draft opinion masterfully marshals 98 pages of argument and evidence to demonstrate that very fact.

This watershed decision would be a tremendous victory for the fight for life and turn the page on a dark chapter of our Nation's history in which more than 62 million unborn children have been tragically killed. If the draft opinion stands--and I pray that it does--it transfers that power from unelected judges and gives it back to the American people, back to legislatures and elected representatives to enact compassionate laws that protect unborn babies and their mothers.

If the Democrats exploiting the unprecedented leak of the majority draft opinion, if it is to stir up the far left base and intimidate Justices, that is not bad enough, they are now trying to pass a radical bill to impose abortion on demand without limits across the entire country, even up to the moment of birth. Leader Schumer has once again scheduled a vote for tomorrow on the ``Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act.''

Now, my distinguished colleague from Connecticut used the words ``radical'' and ``extreme'' a number of times in his remarks. Let me tell you what is radical and extreme about what is going to be voted on tomorrow. This is barbaric. It is a radical abortion bill that would mandate that every single State be a late-term abortion State like California or New York, where unborn children can be brutally aborted up to the very moment of birth.

Let me say that again, the Democrats would allow abortion up until the very moment of birth itself. The Democrats' radical abortion bill would confer special benefits on the predatory abortion industry and eliminate popular State laws that protect both pre-born children and their mothers.

Commonsense laws requiring parental involvement in abortions for minors, health and safety standards for abortion facilities, informed consent laws, late-term abortion limits, bans on sex-selective or Down syndrome selective abortions, and conscience protections for doctors who don't want to perform abortions would be eliminated. That is how radical this bill is that will be voted on tomorrow.

Under this radical abortion bill, an unhatched sea turtle would have more protections than an unborn human baby. If you look at Federal law, if you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle--now, I said the eggs, not the hatchlings, that is also a penalty, but the eggs--the criminal penalties are severe, up to a hundred thousand dollar fine and a year in prison.

Now, why? Why do we have laws in place to protect the eggs of a sea turtle or the eggs of eagles? Because when you destroy an egg, you are killing a pre-born baby sea turtle or a pre-born baby eagle. Yet when it comes to a pre-born human baby, rather than a sea turtle, that baby would be stripped of all protections, in all 50 States, under the Democrats' bill that we will be voting on tomorrow.

Is that the America the left wants? I would ask my Democratic colleagues if the pre-born child in the womb is not a living human being, then what is it? Unborn babies feel pain, unborn babies have a heartbeat, they smile, they yawn, in fact, just last week in a telling slip of the tongue, President Biden himself admitted that abortion involves a child. A child. That is correct.

This is, in fact, the truth and the brutal reality of abortion that every abortion kills a precious child, the Democrats have tried for decades to avoid admitting this. And the science is clear, it has come a long way since 1973. It is time for the law to catch up with great advances that have been made in science and technology, in medicine, that indisputably show the humanity of an unborn child.

Instead, however, the Democrats' radical abortion bill denies the science. It would completely erase pre-born children from the law. That is chilling. Under the Democrats' bill, a pre-born child simply for the crime of being unwanted, inconvenient, or unplanned could be subjected to brutal dismemberment procedures in which the unborn child bleeds and feels excruciating pain as she dies from being pulled apart limb from limb.

The Democrats' abortion bill would codify an extreme abortion regime that is aligned with seven Nations that would have the most brutal--the most brutal laws that relates to abortion, also includes China and North Korea. That puts the United States in that category if this were passed.

It would impose abortion up until the moment of birth, without any limits, in all 50 States. In a nutshell, this radical bill would make the United States of America one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a pre-born child.

As I asked my colleagues in the hallway on the Democrats' side, give us just one restriction you might put in place for abortion, you just don't hear a response for that.

In tomorrow's vote, I pray that my colleagues will reject this horrific and barbaric legislation and take a stand for the most vulnerable among us. As the Justices continue to deliberate in the Dobbs case, I pray the Court will resist the intimidation tactics of the far left. By sticking to the Constitution, and repudiating the unprincipled and abominable Roe and Casey decisions, the Court has the opportunity to make history and strike a blow for justice for the most defenseless among us. The American people, those born, and millions yet unborn, deserve nothing less.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source