NUMBER Act

Mr. Speaker, there are Kermit Gosnells all over American today inflicting not only violence, cruelty, and death on very young children but excruciating pain as well.

Many Americans, including some who self-identify as pro-choice, were shocked and dismayed by the Gosnell expose and trial. Perhaps the decades-long culture of denial and deceptive marketing has made it difficult to see and understand a disturbing reality. Even after 40 years of abortion-on-demand and over 55 million dead babies and millions of wounded mothers, many--until Gosnell--somehow construed abortion as victimless. That has changed. There are two victims, Mr. Speaker, in every abortion: the mother and her unborn child--three, if twins are involved.

The brutality of severing the spines of defenseless babies, euphemistically called ``snipping'' by Dr. Gosnell, has finally peeled away the benign facade of the billion-dollar abortion industry. Like Gosnell, abortionists all over America decapitate, dismember, and chemically poison babies to death each and every year. That's what they do.

Americans are connecting the dots and asking whether what Gosnell did is really any different than what all the other abortionists do. And the answer is, no, it's not different. A D&E abortion, which is described here as a common method after 14 months, is a gruesome, pain- filled act of violence that literally rips and tears to pieces the body parts of a child. And that's what they call ``choice.'' That is what they call safe and legal abortion.

Mr. Speaker, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, authored by Congressman Trent Franks and cosponsored by several Congresswomen and -men, including me, is a modest but absolutely necessary attempt to at least protect some babies, that is to say, those who are 20 weeks old and pain-capable, from having to suffer and die a painful death from abortion.

On May 23, Chairman Trent Franks convened a hearing in the Judiciary Committee's Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee on his legislation. The bill, H.R. 1797, entitled the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, was approved by the subcommittee on June 4 and now moves to the full committee and, hopefully, soon to the full House.

The testimony of several witnesses, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully submit is a must-read for anyone who cares about human rights, for anyone

who cares about women and children. One witness, Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, testified that he performed approximately 1,200 abortions. Over 100 of them were second trimester abortions like this D&E procedure that is described here in this graph.

He said:

Imagine, if you can, you are a pro-choice obstetrician/

gynecologist like I once was. Your patient today is 24 weeks

pregnant. If you could see her baby, which is quite easy on

an ultrasound, she would be as long as your hand plus half

from the top of her head to the bottom of her rump, not

counting the legs. Your patient has been feeling her baby

kick for at least a month or more. But now she is asleep on

an operating table.

He continued:

With suction of the amniotic fluid, after that is

completed, you look for what he called a Sopher clamp. This

instrument is about 13 inches long and made of stainless

steel. At the business end are located jaws about 2\1/2\

inches long and about three-quarters of an initial inch.

This is what he is talking about right here.

This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When

it gets hold of something, it does not let go.

A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The

baby can be in any orientation, he goes on, or position

inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the

Sopher clamp and grasping anything that you can.

At 24 weeks' gestation, the uterus is thin and soft, so be

careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you've

grasped something inside--this doctor, former abortionist,

goes on to say--squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull

hard. Pull really hard. You feel something let go and out

pops a fully formed leg about six inches long. Reach in again

and grasp whatever you can, set the jaw, and pull really hard

once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach

in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine,

the intestines, the heart, and the lungs.

The doctor goes on to say that, the toughest part of a D&E

abortion is extracting the baby's head. The head of a baby

that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free

floating inside of the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure

you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread as far as

your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when

you crush down on the clamp and you see a white gelatinous

material coming through the cervix. That is the baby's

brains, this abortionist goes on to say. You can then extract

the skull in pieces.

Many times, he went on in his testimony before Trent

Franks' subcommittee, many times a little face will come out

and stare back at you. Congratulations; you have just

successfully performed a second trimester D&E abortion. You

just affirmed the right to choose. If you refuse to believe

that this procedure inflicts severe pain on that unborn

child, please think again. It does.

Another witness, Mr. Speaker, Ms. Jill Stanek, a registered nurse, spoke of appalling stories of abortion survivors and the pain--the pain--the excruciating pain that they suffer when they are being aborted.

She pointed out that when she testified before the committee back in 2001:

it was to tell of her experience as a registered nurse in

the labor and delivery department at Christ Hospital in Oak

Lawn, Illinois, where she discovered babies were being

aborted alive and shelved, put on a shelf to die in the

department's soiled utility closet.

Indeed, this nurse went on to say at the hearing:

I was traumatized and changed forever by my experience of

holding a little abortion survivor for 45 minutes until he

died--a 21- to 22-week-old baby who had been aborted because

he had Down syndrome.

Since then, other appalling stories of abortion survivors either being abandoned or killed have trickled out.

In 2005, a mother delivered a 23-week-old baby in a toilet at an EPOC clinic in Orlando, Florida, and was shocked to see this little guy move. Abortion staff not only refused to help, but turned away paramedics, who her friend had notified by calling 911. Angele, the woman, could do no more than helplessly sit on the floor rocking and singing to her baby for 11 minutes until that infant died.

In 2006, Sycloria Williams delivered her 23-week-old baby born on a recliner at a GYN diagnostic center in Hialeah, Florida. When he began breathing and moving, abortion clinic owner Belkis Gonzalez cut the umbilical cord and zipped him into a biohazard bag, still alive.

The Kermit Gosnell case provides further evidence that the lines between infanticide and legal feticide, both via abortion, have become blurred. This abortionist was convicted only last week--that's when she was talking, when she testified--of three counts of first degree murder.

And also last week, as she went on to say, in yet another revelation and photos from three former employees who alleged that abortionist Douglas Karpen in Houston, Texas, routinely kills babies after they are born by puncturing the soft spot at the top of the head, or impaling the stomach with a sharp instrument, twisting off the head, or puncturing the throat with his finger.

Mr. Speaker, if that's not child abuse in its most extreme form, I don't know what is.

It is easy to be horrified, she went on in her testimony to say, this nurse, by heart-wrenching stories such as these and to imagine the torture abortion survivors endure as they are being killed. But it is somehow not so easy for some to envision preborn babies the same age being tortured as they are killed by similar methods.

Today, premature babies are routinely given pain relief who are born at the same age as babies who are torn limb from limb or injected in the heart during abortions.

Even the World Health Organization goes so far as to recommend analgesia for premies getting simple heel pricks for a couple of drops of blood. Likewise, prenatal surgery is commonplace, and along with it, anesthesia for babies being operated on even in the middle of pregnancy. Meanwhile, babies of identical age are being torn apart by D&E abortions with no pain relief whatsoever. Again, they suffer, and they suffer horribly.

It must be that some people inexplicably think that the uterus provides a firewall against fetal pain, or that babies marked for abortion are somehow numb while their wanted counterparts aren't. They're not numb. They feel every single bit of killing, whether it's the Sopher clamp or any other instrument is being used to dismember or to decapitate.

She concludes by saying:

This thinking is better suited for the Middle Ages than for

modern medicine.

Mr. Speaker, today there is ample documentation that unborn children experience serious pain from at least the 20th week--and most likely even before that. When it comes to pain, all of us go through great lengths to mitigate its severity and its duration. None of us ever want to die a painful death. Unborn children deserve no less.

I yield to the prime sponsor of this very important legislation, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks), the chairman of the committee and, like I said, the author of the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Stutzman, for your eloquent remarks as well as those of Chairman Franks', who is compassionate and courageous like you and like our next speaker, who is also eloquent in the defense of the most defenseless.

I would like to yield to Dr. Andy Harris, who is a board-certified anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital Medical Center.

I want to thank my good friend and very distinguished colleague, Dr. Andy Harris, for his very eloquent and very incisive remarks and for his leadership on behalf of human rights in general, including here in the United States.

We've been discussing human rights abuse here in the United States in trying to defend at least pain-capable unborn children from the violence of abortion. I would like to focus for a few moments on human rights abuse that is occurring halfway around the world in China.

Tomorrow, President Obama will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California to discuss security and economic issues. A robust discussion of human rights abuses in China, however, must be on the agenda and not in a superfluous or superficial way.

It is time to get serious about China's flagrant abuse of human rights. It's time for this President, this administration to end its manifest indifference towards human rights abuse in the People's Republic of China. It's time for President Obama to cease his numbing indifference towards the victims of Beijing's abuse.

Mr. Speaker, can a dictatorship that crushes the rights and freedoms of its own people be trusted on trade and security?

China today is the torture capital of the world, and victims include religious believers, ethnic minorities, human rights defenders like Chen Guancheng and Gao Zhisheng and hundreds and thousands of political dissidents.

If you are a political or religious dissident or believer of the Underground Christian Church, Falun Gong, a part of the Uyghur Muslim minority or Tibetan Buddhist, if you are arrested, you will be tortured, and in some cases you will be tortured to death.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, hundreds of millions of women have been forced to abort their precious babies pursuant to China's draconian one-child policy which has led to gendercide, the violent extermination of unborn baby girls simply because they are girls. The slaughter of the girl child in China is not only a massive gender crime, but a security issue, as well.

A witness at one of my hearings that I chaired--I chair the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. Over the years, I have chaired over 46 congressional hearings focused exclusively on China's human rights issues. One of the witnesses at one of my earlier hearings, Valerie Hudson, author of a book called ``Bare Branches,'' testified that gender imbalance will lead to instability and chaos and even to war because of the domestic chaos and instability that will occur. And that the one child has not enhanced China's security, but it has demonstrably weakened it.

Nick Eberstadt, the world-renowned AEI demographer, has famously phrased it and asked the question: What are the consequences for a society that has chosen to become simultaneously more gray and more male--the missing daughters, by the tens of millions in China--as a direct result of sex-selection abortion?

In 2000, Mr. Speaker, I authored a law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. It is our landmark

law in combating the hideous crime of modern-day slavery, sex, and labor trafficking. China has now become the magnet for the traffickers, buying and selling women as commodities, selling them in China against their will, of course, through coercion, because of the missing girls, the missing daughters, and the missing young women.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the world remembered the dream that was and is the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and deeply honored the sacrifice endured by an extraordinarily brave group of pro-democracy Chinese women and men who dared to demand fundamental human rights for all Chinese. Twenty-four years ago this week, the world watched in awe and wonder, as it has since mid-April of 1989, as hundreds of thousands of mostly young people peacefully petitioned the Chinese Government to reform and to democratize. China seemed to be the next impending triumph for freedom and democracy, especially after the collapse of the dictatorships of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. But when the People's Liberation Army poured in and around the square on June 3, the wonder of Tiananmen turned to shock, tears, fear, and helplessness. On June 3 and 4, and for days, weeks, and years, right up until today, the Chinese dictatorship delivered a barbaric response--mass murder, torture, incarceration, the systematic suppression of fundamental human rights, and coverup.

The Chinese Government not only continues to inflict unspeakable pain and suffering on its own people, but the coverup of the Tiananmen Square massacre is without precedent in modern history. Even though journalists and live television and radio documented the massacre, the Chinese Communist Party lies and continues to deny it, that it even occurred, to obfuscate, and to threaten anyone who dares speak out in China about the massacre and all of the terrible barbarity that followed.

In December of 1996, Mr. Speaker, General Chi Haotian, the operational commander who ordered the murder of the Tiananmen protesters, visited Washington, D.C., as the Chinese Defense Minister. You see, he was promoted after he killed all of those innocent people. Minister Chi was welcomed by President Clinton at the White House with full military honors, including a 19-gun salute--a bizarre spectacle that I and many others on both sides of the aisle protested. But why do I bring this up now? General Chi addressed the Army War College on that trip and in answer to a question said:

Not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.

He claimed that the People's Liberation Army did nothing more violent than the ``pushing of people'' during the 1989 protest. Not a single person lost his or her life? Are you kidding?

That big lie and countless others like it, however, is, and it was then, the Communist Party's line about Tiananmen.

As chair of the Foreign Affairs Human Rights Committee then, I put together a congressional hearing within 2 days--December 8, 1996--and witnesses who were there on Tiananmen Square in 1989, including Dr. Yang Jianli, a leader and survivor of the massacre, and Time magazine Bureau Chief David Aikman, who were actually witnesses at my hearing this past Monday. We also invited Minister Chi, or anyone the Chinese Embassy might want to send to the hearing to give an accounting of that blatant lie. I guess Minister Chi thought he was back in Beijing when he was at the Army War College where the big lie is king and no one ever dares to do a fact check.

Last week, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Department of State asked the Chinese Government to ``end harassment of those who participated in the protest of 1989 and fully account for those killed, detained, or missing.'' What was the response from the Chinese Government? The Chinese Foreign Ministry acrimoniously said that the United States should ``stop interfering in China's internal affairs so as not to sabotage China-U.S. relations.''

We have heard that line from the Soviet Union. We heard it from those who supported apartheid in South Africa: Don't interfere.

Human rights are universal, and we need to speak out boldly and without fear when they are violated, wherever and whenever they occur.

``Sabotage'' Sino-American relations because our side requests an end to harassment and an accounting? It sounds to me like they have much to hide.

Therefore, Mr. President, tomorrow when you meet with the unelected President of China, and Saturday when you meet with him as well, please be informed, be bold, be tenacious, and seriously raise human rights with Chinese President Xi. No superficial intervention. No checking off on the box, Yes, I raised human rights. Raise real names. Ask for their release. Raise real issues, like the horrific one child per couple policy or the endemic use of torture by the Chinese dictatorship. Raise the 16 cases that are being raised and given to you to raise of individuals, people who in China are like the modern-day Natan Sharansky or others who have suffered so much for freedom for all these years--like Gao Zhisheng and others.

Mr. Speaker, we will not forget what took place in Tiananmen Square 24 years ago this past Monday and Tuesday. The struggle for freedom in China continues. Some day the people of China will enjoy all of their God-given fundamental human rights; and as a nation of free Chinese women and men, they will some day honor and applaud all those who suffered so much in the Laogai, the Chinese gulags, and sacrificed so much for so long.

Mr. President, the ball is in your court. President Obama, raise these issues and do it in a robust, sincere, yes, diplomatic, but very powerful way.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Well, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I don't often do this, but I'm going to step away from my prepared remarks just a moment and express a sincere gratitude to Congressman Chris Smith.

Mr. Speaker, years ago, when I came to Washington the very first time, it was on a weekend. I couldn't come here and visit the Congress, but I came to the congressional halls of where their offices were. There were two offices that I visited. One was the late Henry Hyde--one of the greatest human beings to ever sit in this place--and the other was Chris Smith. I just have to say to you--I know it embarrasses him terribly, but this is my heart--I believe this man to be truly one of the greatest heroes in this Congress. All the 30-plus years that he has been here, he has given everything he had to protect little children who couldn't vote for him.

I am just convinced, in the councils of eternity, that someone is going to look him in the eyes one day when he crosses over that threshold and say, ``Well done.'' And I am just grateful that we have men like that here.

Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster once said:

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the

Republic for which it stands. For miracles do not cluster--

and America is a miracle, Mr. Speaker. For miracles do not

cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years may never

happen again. So hold on to the Constitution. For if the

American Constitution should fall, there will be anarchy

throughout the world.

Our Founding Fathers wrote the words of our Constitution down for us because they didn't want us to forget their true meaning or to otherwise fall prey to those who would deliberately

undermine or destroy it. This has always been the preeminent reason why we write down documents or agreements or declarations or constitutions in the first place, to preserve their original meaning and intent.

Mr. Speaker, it really causes us to ask ourselves the question: Why was all of this effort made? Why are we really here in this Chamber?

And I would suggest to you that if we simply avail ourselves of the most cursory glance of the Founding Fathers, we are all here to protect the lives of Americans and their constitutional rights. And protecting the lives of Americans and their constitutional rights is the reason Congress exists in the first place.

The phrases in the Fifth and the 14th Amendments capsulate our entire Constitution when they proclaim that ``no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.'' It's that simple. Those words are a crystal clear reflection of our Constitution and the proclamation that the Declaration of Independence put forward to all of us when it declared that ``all men''--and I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that's all little babies too--``are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Those words are the essence of America, and our commitment to them for more than two centuries has set America apart as the flagship of human freedom in the world. It has made us the ``unipolar superpower'' of this planet, and yet unspeakable suffering and tragedy have occurred whenever we have strayed from those foundational words.

Our own United States Supreme Court did exactly that, Mr. Speaker, when they ruled that millions of men, women, and children were not persons under the Constitution because their skin was the wrong color. It took a horrible Civil War and the deaths of over 600,000 Americans to reverse that unspeakable tragedy. And we saw that same arrogance in 1973 when the Supreme Court said ``the unborn child was not a person under the Constitution.'' And we have since witnessed the silent deaths of now over 55 million innocent little boys and baby girls who died without the protection of the Constitution, the protection that the Constitution gave them, and without the protection this Congress should have had the courage to defend.

Mr. Speaker, the recent trial of Kermit Gosnell has played an instrumental role in exposing late-term abortions for what they really are--relocated infanticide. Kermit Gosnell is this now famous late-term abortionist convicted of murder, in part, for using scissors to cut the spinal cords of numerous little babies who had survived abortion attempts. One of his employees said that in one case that there was this little baby that had been so damaged by the process that it no longer had eyes or a mouth, but she could hear him screeching and making this sound like a little alien.

I know sometimes, Mr. Speaker, we deliberately try to hide those things from our minds. I know I do. But once in awhile it's important just to think on the life of this one little child that was only in this world outside the womb for a few minutes and found nothing but horror and suffering, not knowing why, not knowing what the purpose or the reason was, and no one was there. I just have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, if that isn't wrong, then we can absolve ourselves forever because nothing is wrong. Had Kermit Gosnell done the same thing mere moments before when that little baby was still inside the womb, in many States in this union, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, it would have been entirely legal.

We've seen similarly other late-term abortionists across this country exposed for such incomprehensibly barbaric practices. LeRoy Carhart in Maryland compared a ``baby in the womb before an abortion'' to ``meat in a crock pot.''

Abortion clinic employees in Arizona explained to a woman seeking an abortion at 24 weeks that ``sometimes they are sometimes alive, yeah, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it''--the baby--``will come out whole.''

Douglas Karpen in Texas has been accused by four separate employees of killing three to four born-alive babies per day by either cutting their spinal cords, forcing instruments in their soft spots on their heads, or twisting their heads off, completely off of their necks with his bare hands.

Very simply, Mr. Speaker, the public is beginning to learn that there are scores of other Kermit Gosnells out there. He was not an aberration. One of the saddest things that we must not miss here, is that as evil as this man was, and the horrible things that he did, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, they are not uncommon in America. And because of this, Americans are beginning to realize that somehow we are bigger than abortion on demand, and that 55 million dead children are enough.

We are beginning to ask the real question: Does abortion take the life of a child? Mr. Speaker, that is the question that I would put before all of my colleagues and anyone in the sound of my voice, to ask themselves in their heart--put aside the rationalization just for a moment and ask yourself: Does abortion take the life of a child? If it does not, I'm willing to walk out of here and never mention the subject again. But if abortion really does kill a little baby, if it really does, then those of us sitting here in the seat of freedom, in the greatest, the most powerful Nation in the history of humanity, also find ourselves standing in the midst of the greatest human genocide in the history of the world.

Throughout America's history, the hearts of the American people have always been moved with compassion when they discover a theretofore hidden class of victims. Once the humanity of the victim and the inhumanity of what is being done to them finally becomes clear in their minds, America changes their heart.

I would submit to you, Mr. Speaker, America is on the cusp of another such realization. And I fear if we fail to respond this time--because after this, after Kermit Gosnell, no excuse remains, we have seen the worst--if we do not respond, then we will slide into that Sumerian darkness where the light of human compassion has gone out and where the survival of the fittest has prevailed over humanity, and it must not happen on our watch in this generation.

Medical science regarding the development of unborn babies and their capacities at various stages of growth has advanced dramatically, and it incontrovertibly demonstrates that unborn children clearly do experience pain. The single greatest hurdle to legislation like H.R. 3803 has always been that opponents deny unborn babies feel pain at all, as if somehow the ability to feel pain magically develops instantaneously as a child passes through the birth canal.

Mr. Speaker, this level of deliberate ignorance might have found excuse in earlier eras of human history, but the evidence available to us today is extensive and irrefutable: unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks and, as Congressman Smith said, very likely substantially earlier.

This information, Mr. Speaker, is at www.doctorsonfetalpain.org. I would sincerely recommend to anyone in this Chamber that is interested to really know the truth to go there and find out for themselves, rather than to have their understanding cemented in some earlier time when scientists still believed in spontaneous generation, and that the Earth was flat. That is the invincible ignorance sometimes that we find ourselves trying to break through on this seminal civil rights issue of our time.

Most Americans think that late-term abortions are rare, but in fact there are approximately 120,000 late-term abortions in America every year, or more than 325 late-term abortions every day in America. Mr. Speaker, I believe we're better than that. We're better than 325 late- term abortions every day in this country. I believe that we're better than dismembering babies who can feel pain at every agonizing moment. And I sincerely hope that we can at the very least come together to agree that we can draw a line in the sand at that point. That we can agree that knowingly subjecting our innocent unborn children to dismemberment in the womb, particularly when they have developed to the point when they can feel excruciating pain every

terrible moment leading up to their undeserved deaths, belies everything America was called to be. This is not who we are.

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing to babies is real. It is barbaric in the purest sense of the word. It is the greatest human rights violation occurring on U.S. soil, and it has already victimized millions of pain- capable babies since the Supreme Court gave us all abortion-on-demand that tragic day in 1973.

Thomas Jefferson said that the care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government. And ladies and gentlemen, using taxpayer dollars to fund the killing of innocent unborn children does not liberate their mothers. It leaves their mothers oftentimes with the brokenness and the emotional consequences without anyone there to really recognize what they have dealt with. It is not the cause for which those lying out under the white stones in Arlington National Cemetery died, and it is not good government.

Abraham Lincoln called upon all of us to remember America's Founding Fathers and their enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into this world to be trodden on or degraded and imbruded by its fellows.

He reminded those he called posterity--those, us--that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest should set up a doctrine that some were not entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that their posterity--that is us, ladies and gentlemen-- might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.

Mr. Speaker, may that be the commitment to all of us today.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this because we come to Washington to make tough decisions. That's what the country expects of us.

Mr. Speaker, I will offer the fact that one of the most difficult decisions we have to come to grips with is when do we begin to protect human life. The gentleman from Arizona was absolutely right. We have to answer the question: Does abortion take the life of a human child? If we all agree that it does, then we have to ask ourselves and come to an agreement on at what point do we begin to protect that life; at what point are we as a Nation going to say that human life is worthy of protection.

Now, as a physician, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you I am always puzzled by the question because, scientifically, everyone who has taken a genetics course knows that, from the moment of conception, it is a unique human life. The one-cell embryo is a unique human life, different from every other one in the world--ever. Every cell in each and every one of our bodies has the exact DNA that we had when we were one cell big. The only difference is the number of cells we had. One would argue, certainly, as the illustration here shows, that this is not a one-celled fetus, or baby--it's a human being that given time will grow, that will grow to be your size or my size. I'm 6-foot-4. I'm a little bigger than normal. Some people are shorter than average, but we're all human beings, so size doesn't make the difference.

Again, from a scientific point of view, to me, it's clear: it is a human life from conception and should be protected. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I understand the country doesn't agree. Some people don't agree it should be protected. So the question is: At what point do you protect it?

A lot of people would say at this point it probably is worth protecting that human life. Certainly, the jury in Pennsylvania said that you couldn't kill that baby right after it was born. Strangely enough, Federal law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, says that it can be legal to kill that child 5 minutes before that birth. I think most Americans find that repulsive--that with a baby at almost 9- months' gestation, in many States, it is legal to kill that child 5 minutes before birth, but in Pennsylvania it resulted in three murder sentences because it was 5 minutes after birth.

So what this bill says is let's come together, and let's agree on a time when human life is going to be protected. It's not going to be a perfect agreement. It's going to be arbitrary because, again, that human life started when it was one cell large. At conception, that human life started. We all agree that, Mr. Speaker, you and I are human life and worthy of protection, so the only question is: Where do we draw the line?

Again, the gentleman from Arizona suggested correctly that we need to draw that line. This bill attempts to draw the line. The Supreme Court attempted to draw a very clumsy drawing of the line in the Roe v. Wade decision because it said it is viability, but the problem is that viability, over the 30-plus years I've practiced medicine, has changed. It's a moving target.

Viability then was 25 weeks. Now it's 23\1/4\. It's a moving line. And what does viability mean? Viability means it can survive without the support of that mother.

That's a little arbitrary, Mr. Speaker. If that mother had an elderly mother or grandmother at home, perhaps disabled with Alzheimer's disease, totally dependent on that mother--now, it's not their mother, but it's the mother of a child, a fetus. That grownup could be totally dependent on that

other human being, that other human adult; and yet that human adult doesn't have the option of saying, Well, since that individual is dependent upon me, I can make a life-and-death decision for that individual. No, that would be wrong. We'd all say that's wrong. So we're going to have to draw the line somewhere.

This bill says, Let's do it when we believe that baby begins to feel pain, that, in fact, a D&E procedure will be exceedingly painful. Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what happens in a D&E procedure. The fetus, the baby is literally torn apart. Literally. This is what happens with it.

So we're all going to have to agree that, first of all, this is certainly not pleasant to look at. The medical illustrations when I was studying, of course, which was around the time of Roe v. Wade, didn't have this kind of illustration; but abortion policy in this country in the past 30 years forces us to actually illustrate what it looks like. This is it.

So this bill says--again, in the context of the Gosnell trial showing all America that--and I think almost all America agrees that what happened in Pennsylvania, knowingly killing by snipping the spinal cord of an alive, awake baby right after an abortion procedure that resulted in a live birth is, in fact, murder. It's the taking of a human life subject to punishment.

But most people would say, How are we going to protect this child? I offer that this is a compromise that maybe we all can work around and say that if that child during that procedure feels pain, then it probably should be protected under our law.

The question again is not clear cut. There will be some disagreement among people when that pain can be felt. There's a lot of indication scientifically and chemically and with neurodevelopment that that child feels pain at 20 weeks. It's certainly a little more subject to discussion whether it's earlier.

I will tell you later shouldn't be subject to discussion because, Mr. Speaker, you know that if you do a procedure on a premature infant born and brought to the neonatal intensive care unit, you actually administer pain relievers when you do the procedure. So the medical community has already decided that by 23 weeks it already feels pain; and believe me, Mr. Speaker, it didn't magically occur with birth, the ability to feel pain.

Again, we can know by the development of the nervous system, by things we can see and measure. We believe that at 20 weeks that fetus, that baby, can feel pain and therefore deserves protection.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that's a compromise we all ought to be able to work with. Again, it is a compromise because, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that human life does begin at conception. The discussion here is not going to be when human life begins. It's when should this body, this Congress, this government protect the most innocent of human life.

I'm going to agree that I think it's very reasonable to say when this fetus, this baby, can feel the pain of that procedure, it ought to be protected in some ways. Is it the perfect way? Maybe not. But we ought to begin that discussion because right now, Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law allows a State to allow an abortion that kills a baby right up to the moment of birth, and that's just not right. We need to set some line in law.

Again, I'll agree with the gentleman from Arizona that it may not be a perfect line, but we all have to agree we need to draw it to begin thinking about it; and I would suggest this is a reasonable one. When are we no longer going to subject that baby to the pain of a procedure and begin to protect that baby's life?

I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey again. He's brought the issue before this body. If we believe that this is just some abstract thought about when we protect human life, as I've spoken about on the floor and the gentleman from New Jersey has--Mr. Speaker, I suggest if you want some very interesting reading tonight, go home and Google the Journal of Medical Ethics and look for the article published last November where academics from Australia and Italy wrote an article suggesting that it should be all right to kill a human baby up to some certain amount of time after birth if that human baby is inconvenient to the mother and the family to which it belongs.

I would offer, Mr. Speaker, I hope that never happens in this country, that that suggestion never takes root here. I think we would find that horrendous. But it does bring up the question that if we find it so horrendous 1 minute after birth, shouldn't it be horrendous 1 minute before birth? And if it's 1 minute before birth, how about 1 week? How about 1 month? How about 2 months? We can go all the way back. Should it be when the heartbeat appears at 7 weeks? At 7 weeks' gestation, the heartbeat appears. Even earlier. Should it be when the baby moves, when quickening is felt? That's the medical term: quickening.

This bill sets a reasonable point of discussion. Let's do it when we think a baby would feel the pain of that abortion.

Chinese Human Rights

I thank the gentleman from Arizona, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for their passion and also for their sharing with us today such an important issue that faces us as a country. It is a privilege and an honor to stand here with Mr. Smith and Mr. Franks. I thank you for your work, for all you have done for so long on an issue that is close to my heart and close to many people's hearts across the country as well. To see the picture here that Mr. Smith showed, if that doesn't touch a part of you, I don't know what will. So thank you for the information and for the heart that you show for these little ones that are blessed with life until it is ended in such a brutal way.

Mr. Speaker, the horrific case of Kermit Gosnell stripped away the abortion industry's euphemisms and showed that abortion isn't safe and that it isn't rare. Gosnell murdered newborn babies; he preyed on vulnerable women; and he stuffed bodies into freezers, trash bags and cat food tins. While a jury has handed down its verdict for Kermit Gosnell, we as the American people must render our verdict on abortion.

Americans must take a hard look at abortion's grim reality. Gosnell's clinic, the court case and the verdict for Kermit Gosnell brought us as Americans face-to-face with the brutality of abortion. We cannot turn our backs on it now. It is time for an open and honest discussion about abortion in this country. Kermit Gosnell's crimes shocked civilized people everywhere.

The inescapable truth is that there is no moral distinction between ending a child's life 5 seconds after birth or 5 weeks before. Sadly, across this country, abortion providers like Planned Parenthood routinely perform brutal late-term abortions on unborn children who are able to feel pain. The end result at a Planned Parenthood clinic is the same result that occurred at Kermit Gosnell's clinic--and that is death.

So I am proud to stand here today to cosponsor Mr. Franks' legislation to prohibit the gruesome abortions of unborn children, who can feel pain. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his consistent and strong support of the measure and, to a larger extent, for his support for the unborn children as we've seen today as he spoke so eloquently from the floor.

Today, I am proud to join my colleagues Mr. Smith, Mr. Harris and others who have stood up for those who cannot speak for themselves. I am confident that we will expose big abortion's lies and restore a lasting respect for innocent life.