Protecting Life in Crisis Act

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the topic of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, before yielding to my good friend and colleague, there are a number of Members who will be making their way over here. We do have an important caucus going on, on the Republican side, and that caucus is very intense; but we will have Members coming.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), my good friend and colleague, who has been a big leader in the pro-life movement.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for her remarks.

Madam Speaker, tonight is really an appeal--an appeal to my colleagues. It is a cry for survival and justice for unborn baby girls and boys. Unborn children need the President of the United States and all of us to be their friend and advocate, not powerful adversaries.

In his inaugural speech, President Biden said: ``The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.'' He spoke of ``a cry for survival from the planet itself. A cry that can't be any more desperate.''

I--we--believe the dream of justice for all cannot be achieved if an entire segment of society is legally ignored and legally discriminated against because of where they live, in their mother's womb, and how small and unbelievably defenseless they really are.

We know the President understands this. He gets it--or at least he once did. Years ago, then-Senator Biden wrote to a constituent explaining his support for a law against funding for abortion, and he said it would ``protect both the woman and her unborn child.''

Senator Biden said, ``I have consistently, on no fewer than 50 occasions, voted against Federal funding for abortions.'' He went on to say, ``Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.''

My colleagues on the floor and Americans all across the country agree with that. Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. According to public opinion polls, most Americans,--60 percent, according to the most recent Marist Poll--agree that taxpayers should not be compelled to fund abortion.

Madam Speaker, lives have been saved by the Hyde Amendment. More than 20 peer-reviewed studies show that more than 20 million people are alive today in the United States because of the Hyde Amendment, with almost 60,000 children spared death by abortion each and every year.

Madam Speaker, over 2 million people who would have been aborted, instead, survived because public funds were unavailable to effectuate their violent demise; and their mothers, instead, benefited from maternal and prenatal healthcare and support. As we all know, the science of human development has not changed and, thanks to ultrasound, unborn babies are now more visible than ever.

As we all know--my wife and I are grandparents--with each new child our children given birth to, our daughters and daughters-in-law, the first pictures we see, the first pictures we put on the refrigerator are ultrasound pictures. The first movies we see, the videos are of that ultrasound of that child sucking his or her thumb, doing somersaults, having great activity that will be great activity when they are born, as well.

Madam Speaker, it was Abby Johnson who quit as a Planned Parenthood director in Texas when she was told she had to assist in an ultrasound- guided abortion. And when she saw that child in realtime literally ripped and shredded and then sucked out of the womb by the suction machine, she walked out of that abortion clinic and has never gone back. She is now a very powerful and articulate spokeswoman for the right-to-life cause. Her book ``Unplanned,'' I recommend it. It is a book that changes hearts. She was on the other side for years, so much so that she was the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic. Yet when she saw the deed itself, the dismemberment of that child, she walked out, and walked out forever.

The same goes for guys, abortionists like Bernard Nathanson, who said, Once you see that ultrasound--and he was one of the founders of NARAL, a very large abortion rights organization. He said, ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I presided over 60,000 deaths.'' And he, too, became a pro-lifer. An ultrasound and prenatal surgery where the babies were treated as patients, not as a being, to be extinguished or exterminated changed his mind.

Madam Speaker, growing numbers of Americans are shocked that the methods of abortion include dismemberment. They include the literal decapitation of this helpless child. And, of course, drugs like RU-486 starve the baby to death before he or she is then forcibly expelled from the womb.

Madam Speaker, the multibillion-dollar abortion industry is very clever, and they cleverly market to savagery of choice while going to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize, and cover up the battered baby victim.

Madam Speaker, abortion violence must be replaced with compassion and empathy for women and for defenseless unborn babies. We must love them both. Birth is an event that happens to all of us. It is not the beginning of life. That child is just as vibrant before birth as after, just too big to continue inside the womb.

Sadly, more than 62 million babies have been killed by abortion in the United States since Roe v. Wade, a loss of children's lives that equates with the entire population of Italy. I truly believe that someday future generations of Americans will look back on us like we look back on people who did other things in previous centuries, in years back, and wonder how and why a society that prided itself on human rights could have effectuated and enabled the loss of so many defenseless babies--62 million and counting.

Madam Speaker, last week, President Biden overturned the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, the Mexico City policy. His executive order forces--forces--U.S. taxpayers to fund organizations that promote, lobby, or perform abortions on demand in foreign countries.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose using U.S. foreign aid to subsidize abortion. The Marist poll just last week found that more than three in four Americans, 77 percent, oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries--77 percent. Let's use those tax dollars to combat AIDS, to help people with malaria.

I am the author of the reauthorization of the PEPFAR program, the AIDS program that is now in effect. It was originally sponsored by our good friend and colleague Henry Hyde, and George W. Bush, it was one of his greatest achievements. That is where our foreign policy dollars and foreign aid dollars need to be spent, on nurturing. There is nothing benign about dismembering an unborn child or giving poisons that effectuate their death.

Among other pro-abortion executive orders, on January 29, the President announced steps to resume funding to the U.N. Population Fund, even though that agency has supported China's forced abortion policy for decades.

Madam Speaker, I have chaired hearings, 66 of them, on human rights in China over these many years. I have been here 41 years. I can tell you that China treats its unborn and its women in the most horrific of ways. One child per couple, now two children per couple, where coercion is used to enforce it, has led to massive, massive losses of life and to broken women. The U.N. Population Fund has been right there, cheerleading, supporting, aiding and abetting these crimes against women and children.

Finally, Madam Speaker, by reason of their age, dependency, immaturity, inconvenience, or unwantedness, unborn children have been denied justice. When the President calls, we all want justice. And they have been rendered legally persona non grata. Yet, their cries for survival, using the President's words, can't be any more desperate than they are.

These children need the President of the United States to be their friend and advocate, not another powerful adversary. They need us to be their friend and advocate and not powerful adversaries.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), my good friend and colleague.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for his leadership and bill, which will save lives.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Hinson), a new Member but a Member who has secured an important post in the Appropriations and the Budget Committees.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her very powerful statement and her leadership, which I know is going to be greatly appreciated.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Harshbarger), my friend who is a new Member. She is on the Education and Labor Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, and she is a pharmacist.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for her statement, and I look forward to working with her going forward in this Congress.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the lead sponsor of the Protecting Individuals With Down Syndrome Act, which prohibits abortions based on Down Syndrome.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for his leadership on that bill and his leadership on the issue of protecting defenseless lives for many years.

Madam Speaker, some Members are making their way over from our caucus, but I just want to say a couple of points before closing.

Years ago, a friend of mine by the name of Jean Garton, who was the head of Lutherans For Life, was preparing a speech, a lecture. In that lecture, she had a few slides of unborn children, just beautiful slides of that life before birth. But she also had a couple of slides that spoke truth to power. It was of what the abortion actually looks like, mangled bodies, dismembered children.

While she was preparing that talk, it was late into the evening. One of the children walked in, and out of the mouth of babes comes truth. That child said: Mommy, who broke the baby?

Abortion breaks babies. It hurts women, and we need a reappraisal in this Congress, in legislatures, where they are not supportive of the right to life.

As I said earlier, we will look back someday and say: How could we have allowed it, particularly in the age of ultrasound, where we speak so often of the importance of science?

Babies need help, growth, nutrition, and they certainly need protection legally from this assault on their lives.

Again, I thank my colleagues for participating. I have a number of Members who are submitting statements in the Record.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert) for that very passionate defense of life and the passionate and beautiful story of life.

Madam Speaker, we know that Dr. John Joyce is on his way. Congressman Joyce should be here momentarily.

Madam Speaker, I just want to point out one final thing. I just want to point out to my colleagues that we know that this is a difficult time for the pro-life movement in this Chamber. I have been here when we have had majorities and when we have had minorities. Based on what we think are the votes, we probably are in the minority right now. But I have to tell you, Madam Speaker, that any victory that results in more child deaths is a Pyrrhic victory. It is no victory at all. These children deserve our respect and our love, and the mothers as well, not the violence of abortion.

I would point out, too, that we do face these enormous challenges. I have been in the movement for 48 years. So I can say this with some sense of knowing the people who make up the pro-life movement. We love those who disagree with us. We respect even those with whom we fundamentally disagree, even when it is not reciprocated.

It is all about respect from womb to tomb and for each other. So as the debates heat up and as we go through this session of Congress, we will, with respect, hear you. We disagree fundamentally because we do believe that it is a truth and a fact that these children are deserving of respect. So I want you to know, Madam Speaker, this will be a very rough couple of years for the pro-life movement in this House.

It has happened before. I was here when Bill Clinton had majorities in both Houses and when Barack Obama had majorities in both Houses. But we will persevere and we will never quit because these children's lives are worth it.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen), who is a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Education and Labor Committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his statement.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce), who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the Small Business Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for his comments and for his leadership.

Madam Speaker, one of my friends now for quite a long time has been the niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King. Alveda King is her name. Dr. King used to be pro-choice. Very strongly so. She actually had two abortions. Then she became pro-life. And she has become passionately pro-life not just for the babies, but maybe even more so for the women.

She has said:

How can the dream of my uncle, Martin Luther King, survive

if we murder the children?

She speaks and reaches out to women who are post-abortive with such compassion, as do so many organizations and women; to women who have the abortions, to help them, to love them, and to care for them.

Alveda King is an example to be followed. Like her uncle and his bold and tremendous civil rights leadership, she argues--again, she is the niece of Dr. King--that this is the new civil rights movement and we need to protect and provide legal protection for these innocent unborn babies.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin). Dr. Brian Babin is a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Dr. Babin is the sponsor of H.R. 28, Protecting Life in Crisis Act.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise this evening with a heavy heart. Like many Americans, I am saddened by the loss of millions of innocent and precious lives over the last 48 years since Roe v. Wade.

I know that there are millions of pro-life Americans rising up to protect the unborn. Because of this, I am encouraged. I have hope. Over the last 4 years, we saw remarkable pro-life wins all across America. Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio, these States rose up to protect the most vulnerable among us. From both sides of the aisle, they passed heartbeat bills because they know life--every human life--matters.

Madam Speaker, when Roe v. Wade was passed, we didn't have 3D ultrasounds readily available. We didn't have readily accessible sonograms or the ability to provide lifesaving care to those whom we call miracle babies, children who are prematurely born as early as 21 weeks. I have held a child in my arms, in my hands, who was born at 23 weeks, 1 pound, 8 ounces. She is a miracle baby. America didn't know that pre-born children could feel pain as early as 21 weeks, or see videos of babies in the womb clapping as their mother sings to them.

Sadly, not all States have seen the light. Back home in Colorado, we are one of only seven States that allows full-term abortion in America. We have to do better than this.

The CDC states that, in 2017, 647,000 Americans died from heart disease, making it the leading cause of death in America. That is not true. The leading cause of death in 2017, in the United States, was abortion, killing 862,000 precious babies. This is not a tragedy; it is an atrocity.

Madam Speaker, I am the mother of four children--four wonderful boys, who I am raising to be men. I am raising my boys to love America, to love people, and to always do their best. I have been in the doctor's office, and I have seen my baby boys talking and turning in my womb. They are my children. They are made in God's image, in His likeness. They have a God-given purpose and a plan by their Creator who knows them intimately and deeply and loves them, who has a plan, a future, and a desired outcome for their lives. It is my job to raise them according to God's bent. Before they had taken their first breath, God knew them, and I was blessed to carry them.

Madam Speaker, I have seen women make the choice. I have a waitress in my restaurant who chose life. She was in a very questionable situation. Her life wasn't what everyone thought it should be. She ended up with child, and she had a choice. She had a choice to not go forward and be a mom, but she chose life, and now she is one of the greatest mothers that I know. Her name is Jasmine Higgs, and her baby boy is Darius. He is alive today because, glory to God, she chose his life. She said that his life is worth any of the consequences that may come against her.

Madam Speaker, today, with this rise, I encourage my colleagues to be hopeful because a culture that celebrates life is on the rise in America, and I am committed to working with pro-life patriots all across the country until we end the horror of abortion.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Smith for his work on this important endeavor. I appreciate his hosting this opportunity to lift up the sanctity of life. I think there would be no debate that every life is precious and worthy of dignity and respect.

Jeremiah 1:5 says: ``Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.''

I will repeat that. That is from the Holy Scriptures. ``Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.''

The right to life should not be a political debate. We should uphold the value and dignity of life, even those who are defenseless and not with us yet.

This January marked the 48th anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on the case of Roe v. Wade that made abortion available throughout pregnancy for nearly any reason. Since that tragic ruling, over 62 million innocent babies have been aborted. In the year following Roe v. Wade, one in every three abortions in the U.S. were funded via taxpayer funds.

Again, from the Scriptures, Daniel, one of the great prophets, would not have paid taxes in this country and probably would have gone to jail on that basis.

Congress made changes so that taxpayer-funded abortions were prohibited in spending bills, but the Democrats are now placing the long bipartisan Hyde amendment on the chopping block while President Biden rescinds important pro-life protections, like the Mexico City policy, which allows taxpayer dollars to go toward promoting abortion abroad. We are not only doing it here, we are doing this to the rest of the world.

As a father of four and a grandfather of 14, I feel very passionately about protecting unborn babies. Any and all measures that take steps to ensure the life of an unborn child will have my complete support, and I will adamantly oppose any that promote or defend such an immoral practice.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend from New Jersey for yielding and for hosting this special hour.

As Americans, we realize that our government was formed to protect our God-given rights, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, we recently marked the tragic anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, an anniversary that reminds us that nearly 62 million babies never got a chance to see the world.

This anniversary is also a call to action. As elected officials, we must stand for the rights of the unborn and be a voice for the voiceless. Instead of working to protect innocent life, President Biden has neglected this duty by signing executive orders that are neither pro-life nor pro-taxpayer.

He has reversed the Mexico City policy, forcing U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund abortions in foreign countries, a policy that is opposed by 77 percent of Americans, Democrats and Republicans. And he signaled that he will rescind the Title X protect life rule, which restricts funding organizations that consider abortion routine family planning.

I am proud to stand with Americans who believe in the sanctity of life, and I am proud to lead this movement in Congress with our Protecting Individuals with Down Syndrome Act to safeguard babies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome.

Thankfully, more pro-life leaders, activists, and legislators are rising up to defend the unborn across our country. In Kansas, over the last couple of weeks, our State legislature has passed a resolution that puts a Kansas constitutional amendment on the ballot next year to say with certainty that Kansas values both the life of the mothers and the babies.

There is so much more work to be done, and I look forward to representing the many pro-life Kansans in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is an honor to work with him and to stand with him and some of the colleagues for life--for the unborn.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise to remember 62\1/2\ million children who have lost their lives at the hands of abortionists. It has been 48 years since the passage of Roe v. Wade, and our children continue to suffer and die by the millions. It is unfathomable.

We know many of these children perished in the most horrendous and brutal of ways. The pain must have been excruciating, yet we are still failing to hear their cries. The single most-effective life-saving protection to stopping the spread of this scourge is the Hyde Amendment.

Over 2.4 million children are alive today because of Hyde's protections, which prevents taxpayer dollars from going to pay directly for abortions. We know the Hyde Amendment can't save every life, but it can and it has saved many. Yet this limitation on Federal funds is the number one target for many of my colleagues. Eliminating Hyde protection will cause more child deaths, not less.

Madam Speaker, I also rise today to remember women like Keisha Marie Atkins and Jamie Morales, who died as a result of the abortion procedure. I also remember the women who mourn the loss of their babies, who suffer physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma from their abortions. I remember abortion-seeking women today who are offered hopelessness and death and unsanitized, dirty, and subpar clinics when they should be offered hope, prenatal care, and life for the baby inside.

Today is a day of remembrance. So let us not forget the women and children who have suffered and perished from abortion. Let us hear their cry and silence them no more.