Sanctity of Human Life Act

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct privilege to yield to Martha Roby, a new Member who was just elected. And she's an outstanding pro-life woman, a Member of Congress. And we're just so pleased to have her in the caucus.

I do thank the gentlelady for her very powerful and eloquent statement in defense of the innocent unborn child.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today, an abortionist in Philadelphia, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, was arrested and charged in the death of a mother and seven babies who were born alive but then killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

According to the CBS TV affiliate in Philadelphia, the district attorney said that in 1 year alone, Dr. Gosnell made approximately $1.8 million performing abortions.

The abortion industry, Mr. Speaker, is a multibillion dollar business. Planned Parenthood boasts that in 2008 alone, their abortionists killed over 324,000 babies, while raking in approximately $1 billion in fees and local, State, and Federal Government subsidies. The ugly truth is that abortionists often get filthy rich not by healing or nurturing or curing, but by dismembering and decapitating the fragile bodies of unborn children, by starving the child in the womb with lethal agents like RU486 or by other means of chemical poisoning. The ugly truth is that women are victimized by abortion, wounded and hurt physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Women deserve better than abortion.

The only thing the multibillion dollar abortion industry has produced in America and worldwide is victims, wounded women and over 52 million dead babies in the United States alone since 1973, more than six times the entire population of my home State of New Jersey. The multibillion dollar abortion industry systematically dehumanizes the weakest and most vulnerable among us with catchy slogans, slick advertising, clever marketing, and very aggressive lobbying, particularly here.

They have made the unacceptable--to be prejudiced and bigoted against a child in the womb--acceptable to some. This acceptable bigotry has been promoted for decades, despite breathtaking advances in fetal medicine, including microsurgery, underscoring the fact that an unborn child is a patient in need of care, diagnosis and care, just like anyone else, and despite the amazing window to the womb, ultrasound imaging.

In 1976, Dr. Willard Cates and David Grimes, then with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, presented a paper to a Planned Parenthood meeting entitled, and I quote this directly, ``Abortion as a Treatment for Unintended Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually Transmitted Disease.'' These two abortion doctors reduced the child in the womb to a disease, to a parasite, to something that had to be vanquished. As far as I know, no one at Planned Parenthood objected to this dehumanizing language and obvious bigotry towards children.

Mr. Speaker, the evidence of significant harm to women who abort increases each and every year. Abortion hurts women's health and puts future children subsequently born to women who abort at significant risk. At least 102 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression, and elevated suicide risk in women who abort. The Times of London reported that senior psychiatrists ``say that new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found that ``women who have had abortions have twice the level of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant.''

In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that almost 80 percent of the 15- to 18-year-olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression as compared to 31 percent of their peers. The study also found that 27 percent of the 21- to 25-year-olds who had abortions had suicidal idealizations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion.

Abortion isn't safe for subsequent children born to women who have had an abortion. And this fact is so underappreciated in the United States, and really around the world. At least 113 studies show a significant association between abortion and subsequent premature births. One study by researchers Shah and Zoe showed a 36 percent increased risk for preterm births after one abortion, and a staggering 93 percent increased risk after two. Same goes for low birth weight, similar percentages.

So what does this mean for the children? Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant mortality in the industrialized world after congenital anomalies. Preterm infants have a greater risk of suffering chronic lung disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments, and behavioral problems. Low birth weight is similarly associated with neonatal mortality and morbidity. Abortion causes great harm to children, to mothers.

Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, who we honored just this past Monday, has joined the growing coalition of women who deeply regret their abortions, and are, as they call themselves, Silent No More. Out of deep personal pain and compassion for others, Dr. King, who has had two abortions herself, and the other women of

Silent No More challenge us to respect, protect, and tangibly love both the mother and the child. The women of Silent No More give post- abortive women a safe place to grieve and a road map to reconciliation.

This week, with the full and unequivocal support of Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor, more than 125 Members and I will introduce the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a government-wide prohibition on taxpayer subsidization for abortion and conscience protections with durable remedies.

Abortion is not health care. We know that. And polls show that taxpayers strongly oppose publicly funded abortion, 67 percent, according to a recent university poll. Our new bill is designed to permanently end any U.S. Government financial support for abortion, whether it be direct funding, or by tax credits, or by any other subsidy.

Regarding conscience rights, last year Cathy DeCarlo, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, was compelled, despite her strong moral and religious objections, to assist in a grisly D&E abortion, which has been described by the U.S. Supreme Court as a procedure where the doctors use forceps to literally tear apart the unborn child. The child often feels pain. It's done later in pregnancy. D&E is a gruesome act of child abuse.

Ms. DeCarlo sued, asserting her right to conscience had been violated under existing Federal law, namely, the Church amendment. Her case was dismissed, however, due to the lack of prescribed remedies. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act protects conscience rights of individuals and institutions, entities as we call them, by empowering the courts with the authority to prevent and redress actual or threatened violations of conscience.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield to my good friend and colleague Doug Lamborn, who has been a great defender of life.

I yield now to the gentlewoman from Ohio, Jean Schmidt. I don't think there has been a single battle on the life issue that she has not been speaking out in front, speaking in defense of the unborn and their mothers.

I thank my friend for her statement and for her leadership.

I yield to Tim Huelskamp, who took the baton from Jerry Moran, who has gone on to the Senate, and thank him for joining us tonight and look forward to his comments.

Thank you so much for your statement and for your emphasis on adoption, an alternative that is often forgotten, and it provides such a meaningful way for building a family. Thank you for that.

I yield to Marlin Stutzman, the distinguished gentleman from Indiana.

I thank you for your very fine statement and very strong commitment to the sanctity of human life.

I would like to now yield to Ann Marie Buerkle who is both a nurse, but also got her law degree. So she brings both the law and the medicine side to this equation. So I yield to her.

I thank the gentlelady for her statement and for her leadership. This class, and I think the American public would really appreciate this, of 87 Members elected on this side of the aisle, they are overwhelmingly pro-life, and more pro-life women than ever now sit as Members of Congress. It is really very encouraging.

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from Illinois, Bob Schilling.

Mr. Schilling, thank you very much for your great statement. And your comments about your child saying, who will defend the baby? I remember a woman by the name of Jean Garton who was with Lutherans for Life. She was preparing a slide show of actual abortions, which are hideous to behold, but it is a reality that has to be understood to know what abortion really is. And her young child walked in and said, Mommy, who broke the baby? looking up at the shattered bodies of unborn children. So from the mouths of children, truth is spoken.

I would like to welcome back to the House, as we all do, Steve Pearce, a Member from New Mexico. We are just so glad to have you back.

Mr. Pearce, thank you.

One of the things that we have in Congress is a large number of medical doctors, OB-GYNs and others who are overwhelmingly pro-life. Dr. Roe from Tennessee is among us.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership and the expertise of being an OB-GYN who has been there and knows better than almost all of us how sacred and fragile the life is of an unborn child, as well as his or her mother.

I would like to yield to Jim Lankford from Oklahoma and thank him for being here this evening.

Thank you, Mr. Lankford, for your very powerful statement.

I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague from Georgia, a medical doctor as well, Dr. Paul Broun.

Dr. Broun, thank you for your eloquence and your kind remarks, and I want to thank you for your leadership. Again, as a medical doctor, I think you and Dr. Roe and the other docs bring such credibility.

I hope Americans are listening. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle who take the other side of this issue will begin listening. There needs to be a reevaluation. America needs to take a second look, a long and sustained look at the surface appeal arguments of the abortion rights side.

Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers a child; it decapitates a child; it chemically poisons a child. One of our earlier speakers talked about RU486 and how tailor-made abortions are being promoted by Planned Parenthood. RU486 actually operates in two ways. The first chemical starves the baby to death so the child in utero, the child in the womb simply cannot get nourishment to continue living. The second chemical brings about the expulsion of that baby--who is usually dead, but not always. If that isn't child abuse, if the other methods of abortion are not child abuse, I don't know what is.

This idea that life begins at birth belongs in another era, especially with ultrasound technologies available, as several of my colleagues have said, the ``window to the womb.'' As a matter of fact, it should be noted that even the leading pro-abortion activists in the 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Bernard Nathanson from New York, one of the three cofounders of NARAL, which is one of the leading pro-abortion groups in the country, Dr. Nathanson said he presided over 60,000 deaths to children as he ran the largest abortion clinic in New York City. He went on to become a pro-lifer. And what caused that huge change of heart both in his mind and in his heart? It was that he began doing blood transfusions and began to see that an unborn child is a patient just like any other patient who may be sick, have a disability, that early efforts and interventions could mitigate whatever that anomaly might be. And because of that he said, how can I be in one room killing a baby with poison or dismemberment while in another doctor's office or in another operating theater providing this prenatal surgery? He saw the schizophrenia inherent in treating some children because they're wanted as being acceptable, and we welcome them, and if they are unwanted, they're throwaways. The feminists had it right when they said no woman should ever be treated as an object. Well, we all know that the unborn child, if he or she is unwanted, is treated like an object and a throwaway, and no human life is a throwaway.

Let me also say that Abby Johnson, who just recently, a little over a year ago, left a Planned Parenthood directorship in Texas--what caused her to change? She saw an ultrasound abortion in real time and said, I just saw the baby crumple right in front of my very eyes. If that isn't a human rights abuse, I don't know what is either. So she became a pro- lifer and now speaks out very, very boldly.

Finally, Dr. Alveda King, as I mentioned earlier, is Martin Luther King's niece. Dr. King had two abortions. She was a ``pro-choicer.'' She now is one of the most eloquent pro-life leaders in the United States and even in the world. She has said, ``How can the dream survive''--talking about her uncle's dream of inclusion, of human rights, of civil rights for all--``how can the dream survive,'' she writes, ``if we murder the children?''

She goes on to talk about how the African American population in this country is so disproportionately targeted by Planned Parenthood and others. The number of abortions for African Americans is about five times the rate of Caucasians and it is because of targeting. There are other reasons, but that is one of the main reasons. That's where the Planned Parenthood clinics are, frankly.

Abortion hurts women, she makes it so clear. She is eloquent in her defense, as are others, in ministering to women who have had abortions. One thing about this pro-life movement--and I've been in it for 38 years, I've been in Congress for 31 years--it loves them both. It says to both the mother and to the baby, we want to put our arms around you, we want to help, we want to be of assistance. And to any post-abortive woman, we are all about trying to help and to assist and provide some kind of pathway to reconciliation. That's where the post-abortive women like Dr. Alveda King play such a crucial role in helping women who otherwise would feel so disenfranchised and left out.

I want to thank our leadership, Speaker Boehner, our majority leader, Eric Cantor. We have a very pro-life leadership who recognizes how sacred life is, how this Congress, this House needs to defend the defenseless. Tomorrow, I will be joining the distinguished Speaker as he speaks on the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. We will be having a press conference tomorrow. We have over 125 cosponsors. I have never seen a leadership so dedicated to protecting innocent human life as these individuals in our leadership. I would hope my friends on the other side of the aisle would take a second long look at the carnage, the unbelievable pain and agony and suffering that abortion has visited upon women. It is not pro-women. Abortion exploits women. And it's certainly not pro-child either because it decimates unborn children as well.

So we have a great leadership. We have an excellent group of Members, men and women, Democrats and Republicans. And I do hope that we will move this human rights issue forward. The young people are with us, and this is the greatest human rights struggle ever.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, it's time Americans, especially policymakers, health officials, the media, and law enforcement, took a second and critical look at Planned Parenthood. Not only does Planned Parenthood vigorously lobby and litigate against parental notification and parental consent laws, thus enabling secret abortions for very, very young girls to be procured in their clinics, but now we've learned from recent undercover taped investigations at several of its clinics that Planned Parenthood employees were found to be more than eager to assist people posing as sex traffickers to procure abortions for underaged girls.

As a prime sponsor of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, I found it appalling to watch Planned Parenthood personnel again and again and again offer to provide and facilitate abortions for hypothetical sex trafficking victims as young as 13. In light of a recent comprehensive study suggesting that 100,000 American girls, mostly runaways, are forced into prostitution each year, average age 13, the videotapes of Live Action, the NGO headed by a courageous young woman, Lila Rose, that did the undercover work, is an engraved invitation for serious investigation by the Attorney General of the United States and law enforcement everywhere. It further begs the question: Why are taxpayers giving hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year to Planned Parenthood?

Despite the best and slickest market branding money can buy, the stubborn fact remains that Planned Parenthood clinics are among the most dangerous places on Earth for a child. Planned Parenthood's own personnel are now taking a second look--many of them--and, thanks to ultrasound, are clearly seeing what is being done to millions of children in the womb, like the 332,278 babies exterminated in Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics in 2009.

One of those abortion providers who took a second look and walked away is Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director. In her book ``Unplanned,'' Abby Johnson exposes the duplicity and cruelty of what really goes on behind closed doors at a Planned Parenthood clinic. In it she writes how she witnessed and assisted in an abortion of a 13-week-old baby by holding the ultrasound probe, and as she pointed out in the book, it was the first ultrasound-guided abortion at that facility.

She writes in the book: ``The details startled me. At 13 weeks you could clearly see the profile of the head, both arms, legs, and even tiny fingers and toes. With my eyes glued to the image of this perfectly formed baby, I watched as a new image emerged on the video screen. The cannula, a straw-shaped instrument attached to the end of the suction tube, had been inserted into the uterus and was nearing the baby's side. It looked like an invader on the screen: out of place, wrong. It just looked wrong.''

She goes on to write: ``My heart sped up; time slowed. I didn't want to look, but I didn't want to stop looking either. At first, the baby didn't seem aware of the cannula. It gently probed the baby's side, and for a quick second I felt relief. But I couldn't shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.'' Remember, this is an abortion clinic director saying this.

``The next movement was a sudden jerk of a tiny foot of the baby as he started kicking, as if trying to move away from the probing invader.''

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

``As the cannula pressed in, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that the fetus could feel the cannula, and it did not like the feeling. And then the doctor's voice broke through, startling me: `Beam me up, Scotty,' the abortionist said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction, in an abortion the suction isn't turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.''

This abortion clinic director went on to write: ``I had a sudden urge to yell, Stop; to shake the woman and say, Look at what's happening to your baby. Wake up; hurry. Stop them. But even as I was thinking those words, I thought of my own hand and saw my own hand holding the probe. I was one of them performing this act'' of abortion.

``My eyes shot back to the screen. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment it looked as if the baby was being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then the little body crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube. And then everything was gone. The image of that tiny dead baby mangled and sucked away kept replaying in my mind. What was in this woman's womb just a moment ago was alive. It wasn't tissue. It wasn't cells. This was a human baby, fighting for life. A battle was lost in the blink of an eye.

``What I have told people for years''--8 years as a clinic director at a Planned Parenthood clinic--``what I have told people for years,'' Abby Johnson continues, ``What I believed and taught and defended is a lie.''

I ask Members to read this book, ``Unplanned,'' and realize the scandal of the killing of these unborn children and calling it choice.

Mr. Chairman, there is nothing whatsoever benign or caring or generous or just or compassionate or nurturing about abortion. Earlier one of our colleagues called abortion healthy for the child. Abortion dismembers children piece by piece. Planned Parenthood's own fact sheet talks about D&E abortions done during the second trimester period. Have you ever seen what a D&E is? The doctor goes in with forceps and this device and literally hacks that baby to death. Planned Parenthood itself says it takes 10 to 20 minutes to literally dismember that child.

Then there's the shots in the heart. There's a doctor right here in this area, that on perfectly healthy babies gives them cardiac sticks with either feticide poison or a burst of air which kills the unborn child.

So it is not healthy for children and we know for a fact it is not healthy for women, either.

Mr. Chairman, the Pence amendment simply seeks to end U.S. taxpayer complicity with this massive violence against children. Who we back, who we subsidize does matter. Not just what but who.

Planned Parenthood does more than 300,000 abortions each and every year. They are the largest provider; about a fourth of all the abortions in the United States. It is child abuse. It is time to take a second look at Child Abuse, Incorporated.

Support the Pence amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the greatest moral issue we face as a Nation is the killing of 4,000 unborn children every single day through abortion. Mr. Speaker, God cannot continue to bless

America while we are killing these children. They're children. They're babies. They're human beings.

When I came to Congress in 2007, the very first bill I introduced was my Sanctity of Human Life Act. I am a medical doctor. I know without any question that life begins when the spermatozoa, the sperm cell, enters the cell wall of the oocyte, the egg, and produces a one-celled human being called a zygote. That zygote is totally different from its mom. It has every function, every bit of genetic makeup to be a grown human being if we just nurture it and allow it to grow and allow it to live.

I have been involved with a crisis pregnancy center in Athens, Georgia. Not long ago, we had a young lady who was considering abortion. She came there, and she had an ultrasound. She was about 10 or 12 weeks along. I don't recall exactly, but it was early on in her pregnancy. She had just found out a few weeks before that she had missed her period, so she came for a pregnancy test.

When she saw that ultrasound, her exclamation was, ``That's a baby.''

That's what we see over and over again with these expectant moms when they see those ultrasounds. That's the reason she understood it was a baby. It is a baby. It is a human being. There is no greater freedom, no greater liberty, than to live. There is no greater protection that we as a government can give to protect human beings all the way from the time of fertilization until they have natural deaths.

You see, Mr. Speaker, God creates those children. We do not have the moral authority to take their lives. We've got to protect their lives. In a free society, where liberty is held in the highest esteem by every individual in this country--whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative--the right to life is a fundamental form of liberty. We have to protect life. That is the reason the first bill I introduce in every single Congress will continue to be my Sanctity of Human Life Act.

My friend and fellow Member from California, Duncan Hunter, Junior, has reintroduced his dad's bill, Duncan Hunter, Senior. Their bill is called Life at Conception Act. I am a cosponsor of their bill, as Duncan Hunter, I, and now Duncan Hunter, II, are of my bill. We have to stop this travesty, this awful, horrendous attack, moral attack, upon our basic rights as human beings--and that is the right to life.

Mr. Speaker, if we cannot protect life, then we cannot protect any liberty. We cannot protect any freedom that our Founding Fathers created the Constitution to protect--those God-given rights.

We have had many of our colleagues tonight speak from the preamble that Thomas Jefferson penned in 1776, the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is considered one of the least religious of our Founding Fathers, but he believed in life. That's the reason he penned it there. He believed in God. We're not taught that in school anymore, but that's factual.

You see, even if you don't believe in God, from a scientific perspective, there is only one place in a person's life where you can draw the line between no life being there and life and human being and personhood being established, and that's at the time of fertilization.

Roe vs. Wade, in the decision, was predicated on there being no legislative definition of the beginning of life. That's the reason it is absolutely critical that we define life as beginning at fertilization--to protect those one-celled human beings.

It is absolutely critical that every person in this country who loves liberty and who wants to protect life contacts their Congressmen, contacts their Senators and says, We have to protect life. We have to protect all our God-given freedoms, particularly life. ``Contact your Senators,'' is what I tell my constituents.

What I tell people all over this country is ``Contact your Senator. Contact your Congressman.'' Tell him to support the Sanctity of Human Life Act, my bill, or Duncan Hunter's bill, the Life at Conception Act. Join in this fight because there is no greater moral issue that this country faces. If we want God's blessings upon America, we have to protect these most vulnerable of human beings--the unborn children.

In Proverbs, God says, Speak up for the speechless in the cause of those appointed to die. That's what we are here tonight to do is to speak up for those speechless, those appointed to die by abortion.

We have got to end abortion. We don't need a constitutional amendment. We need a legislative definition: the beginning of life to occur at fertilization. Once we have that placed into law, we will stop this blight upon our society, this dark era in the history of this Nation that began in 1973 with this awful decision of the Supreme Court called Roe vs. Wade. We have to protect life. We have to protect liberty. We have to protect every single human being's God-given rights.

Protecting life is important--from fertilization all the way to natural death--and I promise that I will continue with every bit of my being, and many other of our colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, will continue to fight for life.

So, Mr. Speaker, if we want God's blessings upon America to continue, we have to end this blight upon America.

We have to define life beginning at fertilization and protect life for these unborn children.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. And I want to personally thank you for your tireless fight in this issue because you've been a stalwart here in this House for many, many years, and I greatly personally appreciate the great work you've done for years and years in protecting life. So thank you and God bless you. And we have to get the killing of these unborn children stopped so God can continue to bless America.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Make no mistake about it. This is about abortion.

Just prior to coming to the floor tonight, before this debate ever began, I was answering an email I got from a friend of mine in Atlanta. And he said, stop public funding of abortion. I was talking to him on the phone when I saw Mr. Pence come down here and start this debate. And he was telling me about his sister-in-law that had an abortion about 30 years ago. She has nightmares. She has visions of these two babies that she aborted.

I'm a medical doctor. I've performed all these health services that my Democratic colleagues keep talking about, and I have for years. I like women. I'm married to one. I have two daughters. I have thousands of patients that I've seen over the years, and I've done pap smears and breast examinations and sexually transmitted disease tests and all those health care services that my Democrat colleagues keep talking about. This is not about that.

We keep hearing about the Hyde amendment. And certainly the Hyde amendment is in place. But make no mistake about this. What Planned Parenthood does is the proverbial shell game, shifting funds so taxpayer dollars still go to an organization that provides abortion, and the more we pour money to this organization, the more abortions they're going to try to promote and provide. And, in fact, Planned Parenthood was established on the philosophy of eugenics. And they're still carrying out that philosophy. There are more black babies killed through abortion today proportionally than there are white babies or any other colored babies.

And we've also seen tapes where Planned Parenthood operatives have even promoted that type thing.

I move to strike the last word.

So this is all about preventing abortion. I know my Democrat colleagues are well-meaning. They all say the same talking points, and I believe in the depths of my heart that you all really believe what the Democratic colleagues say. And I know they're well-meaning.

But the American people demand better. My patients demand better. The taxpayers, your taxpayers, Democratic colleagues, demand better.

This is about abortion. Planned Parenthood is not going to shut down if the Pence amendment is passed and this continuing resolution is signed into law. Planned Parenthood won't go away. They can continue to supply the services that they get from other financial sources. They can continue to provide abortions. So it's not going to even stop that.

I believe very firmly in my heart that we must stop abortions because these are babies. I introduced H.R. 212, which is the Sanctity of Human Life Act that defines life beginning at fertilization, and I know, as a medical doctor, that's when my life began, that's when all of our lives began.

Those babies deserve the right of personhood. They deserve the right to live. So this debate is about life. It's about giving children the right to grow up and become functioning citizens in our society. And it's about taxpayers' funds continuing to support an organization, the largest provider of abortions in the world, to continue that process of killing babies. So we must take the taxpayer funds away.

It's not going to stop Planned Parenthood from doing Pap smears, breast examinations, STD exams, all those things that my Democrat colleagues keep talking about. It's not going to stop that.

What it will do is just take taxpayers dollars out of the equation. Planned Parenthood can no longer do the cost shifting, use taxpayer dollars for other purposes besides the stated purpose of abortion. And hopefully, they won't continue to provide abortions with taxpayer dollars. It's not fair to taxpayers. It's not fair to women. It's not fair to my patients. It's not fair to even the Planned Parenthood patients that are not seeking abortions.

I encourage my colleagues, let's have some sanity here. Let's have some civility here. Let's think about what really this is all about. It's about abortion, not providing health services to

underprivileged women. I have provided those services. I have given away hundreds of thousands of dollars of my services over an almost four-decade career practicing family medicine.

I care for my patients. I want them to have the services that they need. I have provided those services. But this is about abortion. Let's stop the funding of Planned Parenthood by taxpayer dollars. Let them do their business until we outlaw abortion. Hopefully, we can, because it's killing babies.

You see, I don't believe that God can continue to bless America while we're killing 4,000 babies every day. They are babies. They are human beings. We treat green turtle eggs better than we treat human being babies in the womb. We've got to stop it.

That's the reason I support the Pence amendment. That's the reason I hope all my colleagues and the American public will demand a stopping of the public funding of abortions through Planned Parenthood by supporting the Pence amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my colleague from New Jersey for hosting this time in the House Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of one of the most basic functions of any government. Three thousand years ago, a mom taught her son, the king, how to be a wise ruler. We have her words written down in Proverbs 31, where she told him, ``Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.''

Two hundred thirty-five years ago, our founders wrote a despot king, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''

This truth that all people have the right to life is so obvious, so clear that they called it ``self-evident.'' But in America, millions of people cannot pursue happiness and they cannot appreciate liberty because their first God-given right was denied--life.

In recent days, discussion from the left has turned to reducing the numbers of abortions. I applaud this line of thinking because it admits one thing--abortion is wrong. It destroys a life and it devastates a future of a mom.

I ask: Why should abortion be reduced if it is just another medical procedure to remove some unwanted tissue from a woman? If it is just tissue, what does it matter? No one is saying that we need to reduce the number of skin moles being removed or reduce the number of warts that are removed, that that is unconscionable. Why? Because we know that a wart is unwanted tissue. But a fetus, that is a baby.

We can use any euphemism, like ``fetus'' or ``dividing tissue'' or ``embryo,'' or just simply ``inconvenience,'' but no one comes to the family and says: How is the embryo? No one says to a pregnant woman or hears a pregnant woman say: Excuse me, I just felt the fetus kick. No one comes to a baby shower and says: Here is a gift for your inconvenience.

Say what you want, split hairs all you want, we know that is a baby.

Decades ago, we could not look into the womb and see the development of the child. People were told the child in the womb was just like a chicken embryo. But now, with 3-D ultrasound, we can look into the darkness of the womb and see a child kicking her feet, sucking her thumb. We can count her fingers and toes and watch their tiny heartbeat.

At 20 weeks, we can look at the child inside and even say boy or girl. Why? Because it's a child, not just an embryo. The difference between an adult and a child in the womb is just time. They are a person who must be given their most basic of all human rights--life.

I strongly support defining life at conception. I strongly support adoptions. I strongly support crisis pregnancy centers and Hope Pregnancy Centers, which are doing such a great job all around the country and all around my district in Oklahoma. It is time to cut off Federal funding for abortion.

Why is it in America that taxpayers who are mortified at the thought of abortion are required to also give their tax money to fund abortions around the world?

When a constituent comes to me and asks, Why are my taxes so high? I have to tell him, Partially because your government is spending some of your hard-earned money on abortion funding around the globe.

Why is it in this Chamber today we can debate for hours if an infant should be guaranteed health care coverage, but yet some of the same individuals who demand insurance protection for that child would find no issue in killing that infant only moments earlier when it was in the womb?

Earlier today, a clinic in Philadelphia was raided, where a physician was arrested for fully delivering infants 6, 7, 8 months into the pregnancy and for stabbing with scissors those children after they had been delivered--today.

This is the United States of America. This issue is not about oppressing women or denying choice. It is about protecting children and honoring the self-evident truth that everyone is endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including and especially life.

Almost four decades ago, individuals in this Chamber laid the foundation for a court ruling that has stripped the womb of its glory and its majesty. For decades since, legislators in this Chamber have protected bald eagle eggs, migrating insects, snail darters, and rare flowers, but we refuse to protect children.

May God have mercy on our Nation, and may we awaken one day to the horror of what abortion policies have done to our Nation. We would rather protect our fundraising, our leadership and our convenience than protect the unborn child. This is not a difficult choice. It is a clear choice--and we should choose life.