Protecting the Rights of the Unborn

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you, Doug.

I would like to now close, and I want to thank my distinguished colleagues for their eloquent statements in defense of life.

Mr. Speaker, 42 years ago tomorrow marks the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous, reckless, and inhumane abandonment of women and babies to the abortionists--42 years of victims, dead babies, wounded women, shattered families; 42 years of government-sanctioned violence against women and children. Since 1973, more than 56 million--maybe 57 million--children have been killed by abortion--a staggering loss of children's lives, a death toll that equates to the entire population of England.

The passage of time has not changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights. Rather than gull our consciences to the unmitigated violence of abortion, however, the passage of time has only enabled us to see better and to understand better the innate cruelty of abortion and its horrific legacy--victims--while making us more determined than ever to protect the weakest and most vulnerable.

In his inaugural speech, President Obama said in pertinent part:

Together, we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, that all are created equal, and our journey is not complete until all our children are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

Yes, Mr. President. We must care for the vulnerable, but that also includes unborn children and their mothers. No one gets left out or left behind. All people are created equal, and our journey is not complete until all of our children, including the child in the womb, are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

Last night, right here in this Chamber, the President said to tell every child in every neighborhood, ``Your life matters.'' Again, Mr. Speaker, the President is leaving out a whole class of human beings, who because of the fact they are in utero--the fact that they are yet to be born--they are construed to be excluded from humanity and, therefore, from their basic human rights. It is unconscionable, Mr. Speaker. It is unconscionable.

Let me also say, in talking about victims, a couple of years ago, I met a woman named Linda Shrewsbury--an academic, an African American, with a degree from Harvard, who had an abortion. She said:
The lies that brought me to that day and to its sorrowful aftermath are crystal clear in my mind--falsehoods and deceptions that concealed the truth about abortion. Lies planted in my thinking by clever marketing and media campaigns and endless repetition led to a tragic, irreversible decision--the death of my first child.

Ms. Shrewsbury went on to say:

I really didn't understand back then. At age 20, I had no inkling of the mental and emotional darkness I was about to enter. I couldn't have grasped the immense psychological toll it would take for years into the future--unrelenting tears, guilt, shame, and depression. After spending many years in denial, I did eventually find healing.

Linda goes on to say:

When I understood and rejected distortions about fetal development, doublespeak about choice, rights, and planned and wanted children, I understood the reality and victimhood of my aborted child.

She went on and concluded:

I understood the absence of moral basis for choosing to disentitle an innocent human being of life. When I embraced the truth, the truth set me free, and I, finally, gained inner peace.

Some of my colleagues have mentioned the historic vote that we will take tomorrow on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This legislation, Mr. Speaker, as you know, is a modest but necessary attempt to at least protect babies who are 20 weeks old and who are pain capable from having to suffer and die from abortion.

I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I, like, I think, most people, avoid pain at almost all costs. When I have surgeries--when anyone has surgeries--I am put locally or generally under anesthesia so that I do not have to feel the pain. The unborn child, when he or she is getting an intervention to help cure a disability or to deal with disease or illness, gets anesthesia because we now know beyond any reasonable doubt that unborn children who are at least at 20-weeks' gestation feel that pain.

When the abortionist commits a D&E abortion or one of the other abortions--D&E is literally a way of dismembering the child--they feel this pain--``they'' being the children--and it is excruciating. Children, including children with disabilities, deserve better treatment than pain-filled dismemberment.

I would point out to my colleagues the expert testimony of Dr. Anthony Levatino's before the House Judiciary Committee. He is a former abortionist who has performed hundreds of dismemberment abortions. He described D&E. He said:

The baby can be in any position inside the uterus. Just reach in with a Sopher clamp, and grasp whatever you can.

The former abortionist went on to say:

Pull really hard, and out pops an arm. Reach in again and again, and tear out the spine, intestines, heart, and lungs.

Pull out a severed arm. Tear out the spine, intestines, heart, and lungs. This is child abuse, Mr. Speaker. Not only is this assault on a child inhumane, it is extremely painful as the child experiences that dismemberment. Again, I say that children, including children with disabilities, deserve better treatment than pain-filled dismemberment.

Again, tomorrow is the March for Life, and there will be tens of thousands of people there who are speaking out for the unborn and equally for their mothers. There will be numbers of women there from the Silent No More Awareness Campaign--all women who have had abortions and who now speak out eloquently and with great compassion to say to women who are post-abortive that there is hope, that there is reconciliation. Face the truth, and that is the beginning to that reconciliation.

We will be there tomorrow, praying, working, of course--even fasting--for that day when every life is cherished as a gift, every life loved despite one's disability, race, sex, color, religion, or condition of dependency, when every life is welcomed no matter the inconvenience.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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