Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding. Madam Speaker, I especially thank the gentlewoman from Missouri, Ann Wagner, for leading this effort for so many years.

I am so proud to rise in support of this bill that is about human dignity; and, frankly, it is about common sense. The idea, Madam Speaker, that if a baby is born alive outside the womb that that baby in America could be killed and it be called abortion and not murder defies logic. It defies humanity.

Over the years Kat Cammack has had a discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor. So many others all across the country have asked Congress to address this issue, and the first thing that people express is shock.

They say: Wait a minute. If a baby is born outside the womb alive, how could you then kill that baby and that be legal? How is that not already murder?

I questioned how it wasn't myself, and yet in a number of States it is legal, and it is happening today.

This is America. Madam Speaker, you see this in countries like China and North Korea. There aren't many countries in the world that allow this practice. The United States should not be one of those countries.

This is inhumane. This transcends the abortion debate. Before the Dobbs decision, this bill still would have been constitutional to pass because we are not talking about 20 weeks, we are talking about the baby born alive outside the womb.

Yet, in America there are some States that allow that baby to be killed and called abortion.

You can call it whatever you want, Madam Speaker. It should be murder. It shouldn't be allowed, and this bill takes care of that. Everybody should vote for this bill.

When you talk to people who identify as pro-choice, so many of them are shocked that this is a legal process. Some, obviously, still want it to continue, but we shouldn't. We should be better than that as a country.

There is an amazing group called the Abortion Survivors Network. Ann Wagner and I and so many of us have surely met with some of these incredible people.

If you want to talk about a walking miracle, Madam Speaker, these are people alive today in their twenties, thirties, and forties living incredible lives who were the result of an abortion that wasn't successful. They lived through it. Think of the special plan God has for them that they survived an abortion, and they are alive today. They are incredible people. Everybody in this country should reach out and go meet them. It is a group, and you can look them up.

Their stories are incredible.

Why should they be denied life?

We are a country of laws. We are a country of great rights. Of our inalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--the first among those is life. Very few countries in the world allow this to happen to someone if they are born alive.

So while they are shocked when people find out that it is legal, we are the United States Congress, we can actually do something about it.

Thank God we have people who are willing to stand up for those babies. I am not even talking about inside the womb. They are outside the womb born alive. If someone takes their life after they are born alive outside the womb, that should be murder.

We should be protecting those young babies. That is what this bill does. It is a bill we should all be proud to support. It is a list that the United States should want to take itself off of. We shouldn't want to be associated with the very few countries that allow this barbaric process to happen.

Let's pass this bill. Let's become an even more perfect Union.

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