Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 5, I call up the bill (H.R. 21) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. ROY. 21.
Mr. Speaker, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act protects one of our most vulnerable populations; innocent children.
I am proud that at the beginning of the 119th Congress, we are taking this step toward protecting life and the fundamental rights of our most vulnerable American citizens.
We are all too familiar with the horrors of abortion and the unchecked power of the abortion industry. We know it is simply common sense to provide lifesaving care to those babies who survive an abortion.
In 2013, Jill Stanek testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary about the horrific realities of being a nurse and seeing children being aborted alive and left to die alone in a dirty utility closet.
I can hardly believe that those words are coming out of my mouth standing here on the floor of the House of Representatives, in this, the beacon of hope for people around the world.
She said: I was traumatized and changed forever by my experience of holding a little abortion survivor for 45 minutes until he died, a 21- or 22-week-old baby who had been aborted because he had Down syndrome. That is hard to believe.
One of my guests for the inauguration, one of my dear friends from Austin, Texas, a somewhat well-renowned musician and songwriter, brought his son who has Down syndrome and is such a blessing to this world.
That child, as well as this child that was left to die alone in a dirty utility closet, was and is a fellow human being, a fellow American whose right to life should have been protected by the law. Congress cannot stand by and allow this type of suffering. We have both a moral and a constitutional duty here.
This legislation is simple: The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires that infants born alive under an attempted abortion receive the same protection under the law and degree of care of any newborn, combined with, by the way, the penalties associated with those who would ignore their duty under the law.
Mr. Speaker, it is a commonsense measure. Unfortunately, as evidenced by comments from many of my Democrat colleagues, not everyone believes that a child born alive should be protected.
In 2019, then-Virginia Governor Northam stated: ``The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,'' said the Democrat Governor of Virginia.
This blatant disregard for human life has no place in the medical profession in our country.
Last Congress, unfortunately, only one Democrat voted in favor of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and another voted ``present.''
My Democrat colleagues send a clear message to the American people that these innocent lives are not worthy of protection and those who intentionally let infants die after birth should not be held accountable.
If a baby American, a fellow American, is lying on a table dying and we cannot, as Congress, as the leaders of this country and the leaders of the free world, cannot say that under the language of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, under the language of the Declaration of Independence that animates our Constitution, and under the privileges of immunities--the roots of which are found in English common law that create the bedrock of our entire justice system--then we need to make sure that that child is protected even and especially because of its defenseless nature.
Mr. Speaker, that is our duty. That is why I rise in support of this legislation.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would note another abortion survivor, Melissa Ohden, testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 2015.
``You wouldn't know it by looking at me today, but in August of 1977, I survived a failed saline infusion abortion. . . . I know where children like me were left to die at St. Luke's hospital--a utility closet.''
Mr. Speaker, I now recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach) for 2 minutes.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, our heart goes out to our colleagues who have suffered personal tragedies. Unfortunately, none of the things that were just ascribed to this bill are true. The bill does none of those things.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), my friend and co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank Ann Wagner for her tremendous leadership and courage in authoring this important bill.
Madam Speaker, in a Florida abortion clinic, Sycloria Williams delivered a perfectly healthy, live baby girl at 23 weeks.
The clinic owner took the baby, who was gasping for air, cut her umbilical cord, threw her into a biohazard bag, and put the bag into the trash like so much garbage.
Heartbroken, Ms. Williams later had a funeral for her baby girl she named Shanice.
Madam Speaker, why are these live births so little known? We are talking about, in most cases, perfectly healthy babies who are killed but they survive.
The Philadelphia Inquirer did a cover story years ago called ``The Dreaded Complication.'' In it, the abortionists were complaining that so many children were surviving late-term abortions and they didn't know what to do. The partial-birth abortion ban, where the baby's brains are sucked out--we did the ban, but the actual procedure--was, in part, in response to that. They wanted to ensure that the baby was dead.
In that article, Dr. Willard Cates, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's abortion surveillance unit, said: Live births are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. It is like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit. What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives.
Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, one of the few who got caught, was convicted of murder for killing so many children and women in his abortion clinic in Philadelphia. The grand jury described it this way: Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies: He delivered them. He killed them. He didn't call it that. He called it ensuring fetal demise. The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that snipping.
These children are not junk. They cannot be treated as so much garbage. This legislation tries to say we need to protect them once they are born after the abortion.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act seeks to end or at least mitigate this egregious child abuse by requiring that a healthcare provider must--and this is from the bill--exercise the same degree of professional care, skill, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious healthcare practitioner would render to any other child born alive.
Why can't we have that standard to try to save that child? The bill empowers the women upon whom the abortions are performed to obtain appropriate relief through civil action. We passed a bill like this when Steve Chabot was the prime sponsor years ago, but the enforcement has been almost nil if not none.
This is humane, pro-child, pro-human rights legislation, and I hope my colleagues on the other side realize these children have great value and should not be treated like junk.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Onder).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentleman from Missouri.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, my colleagues like to dismiss this as if it is not a real problem. Of course, those who have suffered through it, including the baby whom I described who was being held as it was dying for 45 minutes after such a grotesque procedure, beg to differ, as do the 143 babies whom the CDC, which is hardly a paragon of pro-life propaganda, writes that between 2003 and 2014 at least 143 babies died after being born alive.
This is hardly a fiction. This is hardly something that we should ignore.
Certainly, these are babies who are deserving of equal protection under the law. Our fellow Americans deserve protection.
Mr. Speaker, for those who were not here at the beginning, I would repeat the testimony of Jill Stanek. She testified before the House Judiciary Committee after seeing the horrific reality.
She was a nurse, and she saw a child being aborted who was alive and was left to die alone in a utility closet. She went over and held the little survivor for 45 minutes until the baby died. Again, the baby had been aborted because the baby had Down syndrome.
I want to remind Members that Virginia Governor Northam said: ``The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired.''
We are talking about a fellow living American baby. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about abortion. We are talking about a child.
Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of strong women on this side of the aisle who beg to differ, including the lead author of the legislation.
I would note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to focus on the main point, which is ``born alive.'' We are talking about, again, a fellow living human being, a fellow American who is alive.
My colleagues don't want to address that because they know the horrors of that will not be accepted by the American people. We are just simply saying that when you have a living human being, it should be protected and be given the same equal protection as any other American.
The fact of the matter is this is real life that we are dealing with.
Mr. Speaker, 284 babies were reported to have been born alive between 1997 and 2024. Florida alone reported 14 babies born alive in 2023. This is a real issue.
We are just simply saying that these precious babies, fellow Americans, deserve protection because they are alive. Under the Hippocratic oath, doctors should care for these living, fellow Americans.
Mr. Speaker, I was just handed by my pro-life, female legislative director information here about pregnancy centers.
Pregnancy resource centers nationwide serve millions of pregnant women and new mothers each year. These centers provide services and resources often at no charge and include ultrasounds, pregnancy testing, STD testing, diapers, clothing, and educational programs.
Private and public adoption agencies assisted approximately 115,000 adoptions in 2022. These are organizations and entities that want to protect life.
Again, I will note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not address and do not want to address the simple purpose of this bill: protecting a living American from being allowed to die without having medical treatment provided to that child.
Mr. Speaker, if we are going to talk about jail and we are going to talk about who might be pardoned, then I am proud that President Trump seems to be on the verge of pardoning a large number of American citizens who have been put in jail at the hands of a weaponized Department of Justice against American citizens simply carrying out their First Amendment rights to speak out in defense of life.
For example, Lauren Handy, 31 years old--by the way, an active, progressive activist for human rights--was put in jail for 57 months.
I am glad that it seems that President Trump is on the verge of pardoning Lauren Handy. Even though I disagree with her on a whole lot of issues, I was proud to sit with her and meet with her when she was being targeted for prosecution by the weaponized Department of Justice under Joe Biden to be put in jail because she is pro-life.
I think great things are going to happen.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I simply say I am proud to have my colleague here from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach), who is coed the last time I checked.
The fact of the matter, as my friend from Maryland and the last speaker is trying to allude to here, when we are talking about it is already against the law and it is murder on the books, here is the problem: Down here in the District of Columbia, we have the D.C. five, which were very clearly full-term abortions. We have the bodies of five babies discovered in Washington outside of a Washington clinic.
As subcommittee chairman, I sent a letter to Washington, D.C., authorities to preserve the records. Biden's Department of Justice refused to look into this information, but the D.C. five reveals the uncomfortable truth about abortion and a reality that we are all dealing with here.
Again, I go back to the point. Talking about murder, we are also talking about babies being allowed to die and babies being allowed to sit there and literally gasp out their last breath rather than have doctors resuscitate those infants.
That is the truth that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle just simply do not want to recognize.
Mr. Speaker, Gianna Jessen, another adult survivor of abortion, testified to the House Judiciary Committee in 2015, stating:
`` . . . I was delivered alive in an abortion clinic in Los Angeles on April the 6th, 1977. . . . Thankfully the abortionist was not at work yet. Had he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there to die.''
I will have plenty to answer for when I meet my maker and talk to the good Lord, for my life as a flawed and sinful human being, but I will not have to answer for not standing up in every which way that I possibly can to stop those kinds of horrors and to stand up for a fellow living American, a fellow living human being allowed to die, for the political whims of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Mr. Speaker, I would just note that, in the very text of the legislation, Congress finds: ``One, if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws; two, any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care.''
That is hardly anything to do with what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about. We just heard one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle describe very specifically, yes, what we are trying to say we shouldn't do, which is, after a procedure, an abortion or otherwise, if you have a living human being, that, yes, you should try to resuscitate and save that child.
Mr. Speaker, I started this about an hour ago, and I was moved to talk, as I said, about a woman who testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee.
She described having been a nurse, having witnessed what occurred where, in her testimony, the child was born after the abortion procedure. The child survived for 45 minutes having been discarded into a utility closet. This nurse held this 22-week-old child, a child of God, who had been aborted because the child had Down syndrome.
This legislation is very simple. If a fellow American, a fellow human being, who is afforded equal protection under the law, is alive in a hospital, in a clinic, frankly anywhere, where a doctor is there and present and can perform lifesaving treatment, it is our position that that child is deserving of the same equal protection under the law, under the Constitution of the United States, as any other living American, any of us in the Chamber, any of the Americans watching this now.
This child should not be left to die, should not be left in a utility closet without getting the care that a doctor, who is present, having taken the Hippocratic Oath, and could administer that care to save that child--that is what this bill is about, nothing more.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know this. It is why for the last hour they have literally refused to address those facts. They have literally refused to defend this grotesque procedure. In the greatest country in the history of mankind, we allow the most vulnerable of our citizens to be denied equal protection under the law and denied the care that they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, this year's March for Life is an engraved invitation to each and every one of us to seriously recommit and rededicate ourselves to the defense of the weakest and most vulnerable.
To recommit with love and compassion to tangibly assist women-- especially through the extraordinary work of pregnancy care centers--in order to protect their precious babies and their own lives from the violence and cruelty of abortion.
Pregnancy care centers are under siege by Planned Parenthood--also known as Child Abuse Inc.--an organization that has killed more than 10 million babies in its clinics.
This year we recommit to exposing abortion methods to a society that has chosen to be blind to the realities of brutally dismembering helpless babies with sharp knife-like curettes or poisoning babies with pills that literally starve them to death and often result in their bodies being flushed down a toilet.
We are a people of indomitable hope--we absolutely refuse to entertain discouragement or defeat.
We thank President Trump for defeating not one but two extremist pro- abortion candidates--Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris--and for his amazing defense of unborn children.
Abortion-President Joe Biden is gone--but his morbid legacy of packing the judiciary with litmus tested abortion activists, using executive orders to kill more babies and integrating the nefarious abortion agenda into countless benign and necessary programs like veterans' health and global health must be immediately reversed.
President Trump has done more to protect the innocent than any other president in history--and now, thank God, he's back.
Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade--achieved by the three Supreme Court justices President Trump appointed--half the states have enacted laws to protect unborn children, saving over 200,000 children over two years.
On Monday, President Trump issued a powerful executive order designed to defund the outrageously pro-abortion World Health Organization (WHO), and another--the expected reinstatement of the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance to reverse Biden's hijacking of global health funding, which shamelessly promoted abortion on demand around the world including in President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Last week, the most recent revelation was that PEPFAR broke U.S. law to pay for abortions in Africa--a tip of the iceberg of the Biden- Harris anti-child activism at home and abroad. The 2025 Marist poll has found that 73 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars for abortions in other countries.
Other pro-life executive orders are expected soon.
Special thanks to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate for their ongoing courageous legislative initiatives, including legislation to save babies born alive during the grisly abortion process.
The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act under consideration in both the House and Senate seeks to end or at least mitigate this egregious child abuse by requiring that a health care provider must ``exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age'' or be fined and/or face up to five years in prison.
The bill makes clear that no mother of a child born alive can ever be prosecuted.
It also empowers the woman upon whom the abortion is performed to obtain appropriate relief in a civil action.
This is humane, pro-child, human rights legislation.
Why is there opposition? Dr. Willard Cates, MD, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Abortion Surveillance Unit, explained years ago: ``(Live births) are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. It's like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit . . . What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives.'' Cates was quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer in ``Abortion: The Dreaded Complication.''
Bottom line: pro-lifers are a people of persevering faith in God willing to bear any burden and endure any attack. We know that the cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever and that each day, despite setbacks, many unborn children and their mothers have been and are being protected. We have hope. We have just begun. =========================== NOTE ===========================
On January 23, 2025, on Page H344, in the first column, the following appeared: Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time
The online version has been corrected to read: Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, this year's March for Life is an engraved invitation . . . and are being protected. We have hope. We have just begun. The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time ========================= END NOTE =========================
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