Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 5, I call up the bill (H.R. 21) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 21.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act protects one of our most vulnerable populations; innocent children.

I am proud that at the beginning of the 119th Congress, we are taking this step toward protecting life and the fundamental rights of our most vulnerable American citizens.

We are all too familiar with the horrors of abortion and the unchecked power of the abortion industry. We know it is simply common sense to provide lifesaving care to those babies who survive an abortion.

In 2013, Jill Stanek testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary about the horrific realities of being a nurse and seeing children being aborted alive and left to die alone in a dirty utility closet.

I can hardly believe that those words are coming out of my mouth standing here on the floor of the House of Representatives, in this, the beacon of hope for people around the world.

She said: I was traumatized and changed forever by my experience of holding a little abortion survivor for 45 minutes until he died, a 21- or 22-week-old baby who had been aborted because he had Down syndrome. That is hard to believe.

One of my guests for the inauguration, one of my dear friends from Austin, Texas, a somewhat well-renowned musician and songwriter, brought his son who has Down syndrome and is such a blessing to this world.

That child, as well as this child that was left to die alone in a dirty utility closet, was and is a fellow human being, a fellow American whose right to life should have been protected by the law. Congress cannot stand by and allow this type of suffering. We have both a moral and a constitutional duty here.

This legislation is simple: The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires that infants born alive under an attempted abortion receive the same protection under the law and degree of care of any newborn, combined with, by the way, the penalties associated with those who would ignore their duty under the law.

Mr. Speaker, it is a commonsense measure. Unfortunately, as evidenced by comments from many of my Democrat colleagues, not everyone believes that a child born alive should be protected.

In 2019, then-Virginia Governor Northam stated: ``The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,'' said the Democrat Governor of Virginia.

This blatant disregard for human life has no place in the medical profession in our country.

Last Congress, unfortunately, only one Democrat voted in favor of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and another voted ``present.''

My Democrat colleagues send a clear message to the American people that these innocent lives are not worthy of protection and those who intentionally let infants die after birth should not be held accountable.

If a baby American, a fellow American, is lying on a table dying and we cannot, as Congress, as the leaders of this country and the leaders of the free world, cannot say that under the language of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, under the language of the Declaration of Independence that animates our Constitution, and under the privileges of immunities--the roots of which are found in English common law that create the bedrock of our entire justice system--then we need to make sure that that child is protected even and especially because of its defenseless nature.

Mr. Speaker, that is our duty. That is why I rise in support of this legislation. That is why I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would note another abortion survivor, Melissa Ohden, testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 2015.

``You wouldn't know it by looking at me today, but in August of 1977, I survived a failed saline infusion abortion. . . . I know where children like me were left to die at St. Luke's hospital--a utility closet.''

Mr. Speaker, I now recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach) for 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), the lead author of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, our heart goes out to our colleagues who have suffered personal tragedies. Unfortunately, none of the things that were just ascribed to this bill are true. The bill does none of those things.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), my friend and co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy).

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the powerful words of my friend from North Carolina, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Onder).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentleman from Missouri.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, my colleagues like to dismiss this as if it is not a real problem. Of course, those who have suffered through it, including the baby whom I described who was being held as it was dying for 45 minutes after such a grotesque procedure, beg to differ, as do the 143 babies whom the CDC, which is hardly a paragon of pro-life propaganda, writes that between 2003 and 2014 at least 143 babies died after being born alive.

This is hardly a fiction. This is hardly something that we should ignore.

Certainly, these are babies who are deserving of equal protection under the law. Our fellow Americans deserve protection.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, for those who were not here at the beginning, I would repeat the testimony of Jill Stanek. She testified before the House Judiciary Committee after seeing the horrific reality.

She was a nurse, and she saw a child being aborted who was alive and was left to die alone in a utility closet. She went over and held the little survivor for 45 minutes until the baby died. Again, the baby had been aborted because the baby had Down syndrome.

I want to remind Members that Virginia Governor Northam said: ``The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired.''

We are talking about a fellow living American baby. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about abortion. We are talking about a child.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of strong women on this side of the aisle who beg to differ, including the lead author of the legislation.

I would note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to focus on the main point, which is ``born alive.'' We are talking about, again, a fellow living human being, a fellow American who is alive.

My colleagues don't want to address that because they know the horrors of that will not be accepted by the American people. We are just simply saying

that when you have a living human being, it should be protected and be given the same equal protection as any other American.

The fact of the matter is this is real life that we are dealing with.

Mr. Speaker, 284 babies were reported to have been born alive between 1997 and 2024. Florida alone reported 14 babies born alive in 2023. This is a real issue.

We are just simply saying that these precious babies, fellow Americans, deserve protection because they are alive. Under the Hippocratic oath, doctors should care for these living, fellow Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I was just handed by my pro-life, female legislative director information here about pregnancy centers.

Pregnancy resource centers nationwide serve millions of pregnant women and new mothers each year. These centers provide services and resources often at no charge and include ultrasounds, pregnancy testing, STD testing, diapers, clothing, and educational programs.

Private and public adoption agencies assisted approximately 115,000 adoptions in 2022. These are organizations and entities that want to protect life.

Again, I will note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not address and do not want to address the simple purpose of this bill: protecting a living American from being allowed to die without having medical treatment provided to that child.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to talk about jail and we are going to talk about who might be pardoned, then I am proud that President Trump seems to be on the verge of pardoning a large number of American citizens who have been put in jail at the hands of a weaponized Department of Justice against American citizens simply carrying out their First Amendment rights to speak out in defense of life.

For example, Lauren Handy, 31 years old--by the way, an active, progressive activist for human rights--was put in jail for 57 months.

I am glad that it seems that President Trump is on the verge of pardoning Lauren Handy. Even though I disagree with her on a whole lot of issues, I was proud to sit with her and meet with her when she was being targeted for prosecution by the weaponized Department of Justice under Joe Biden to be put in jail because she is pro-life.

I think great things are going to happen.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I simply say I am proud to have my colleague here from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach), who is coed the last time I checked.

The fact of the matter, as my friend from Maryland and the last speaker is

trying to allude to here, when we are talking about it is already against the law and it is murder on the books, here is the problem: Down here in the District of Columbia, we have the D.C. five, which were very clearly full-term abortions. We have the bodies of five babies discovered in Washington outside of a Washington clinic.

As subcommittee chairman, I sent a letter to Washington, D.C., authorities to preserve the records. Biden's Department of Justice refused to look into this information, but the D.C. five reveals the uncomfortable truth about abortion and a reality that we are all dealing with here.

Again, I go back to the point. Talking about murder, we are also talking about babies being allowed to die and babies being allowed to sit there and literally gasp out their last breath rather than have doctors resuscitate those infants.

That is the truth that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle just simply do not want to recognize.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, Gianna Jessen, another adult survivor of abortion, testified to the House Judiciary Committee in 2015, stating:

`` . . . I was delivered alive in an abortion clinic in Los Angeles on April the 6th, 1977. . . . Thankfully the abortionist was not at work yet. Had he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there to die.''

I will have plenty to answer for when I meet my maker and talk to the good Lord, for my life as a flawed and sinful human being, but I will not have to answer for not standing up in every which way that I possibly can to stop those kinds of horrors and to stand up for a fellow living American, a fellow living human being allowed to die, for the political whims of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would just note that, in the very text of the legislation, Congress finds: ``One, if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws; two, any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care.''

That is hardly anything to do with what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about. We just heard one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle describe very specifically, yes, what we are trying to say we shouldn't do, which is, after a procedure, an abortion or otherwise, if you have a living human being, that, yes, you should try to resuscitate and save that child.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde), my good friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, I started this about an hour ago, and I was moved to talk, as I said, about a woman who testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

She described having been a nurse, having witnessed what occurred where, in her testimony, the child was born after the abortion procedure. The child survived for 45 minutes having been discarded into a utility closet. This nurse held this 22-week-old child, a child of God, who had been aborted because the child had Down syndrome.

This legislation is very simple. If a fellow American, a fellow human being, who is afforded equal protection under the law, is alive in a hospital, in a clinic, frankly anywhere, where a doctor is there and present and can perform lifesaving treatment, it is our position that that child is deserving of the same equal protection under the law, under the Constitution of the United States, as any other living American, any of us in the Chamber, any of the Americans watching this now.

This child should not be left to die, should not be left in a utility closet without getting the care that a doctor, who is present, having taken the Hippocratic Oath, and could administer that care to save that child--that is what this bill is about, nothing more.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know this. It is why for the last hour they have literally refused to address those facts. They have literally refused to defend this grotesque procedure. In the greatest country in the history of mankind, we allow the most vulnerable of our citizens to be denied equal protection under the law and denied the care that they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, while their leader boasts of pardoning hundreds of convicted violent felons who attacked and brutalized 140 police officers in this building, the party formerly of Abraham Lincoln in Congress today is working to create a new crime and to perfect three great GOP legislative arts visible this week: Number one, complete legislative redundancy; two, interfering in other families' private lives to prey on their tragedies and medical catastrophes; and, three, threatening to send American doctors to jail.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished Congresswoman from the Third District of Minnesota (Ms. Morrison) who is a mother of three, an OB/GYN, and a former State legislator serving in her first term. This is her first speech on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), the minority whip.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the 26th District of New York (Mr. Kennedy), a father of three and the still-bereaved father of Brigid Nicole.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from New York.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Morrison, and Ms. Clark for their poignant, riveting personal testimonies. I hope our colleagues are listening to our colleagues over here.

This bill is all about demonizing women, threatening doctors, exploiting other people's tragedies, and dividing the country.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the passionate vehemence of the gentleman, but the whole substance of his argument completely undercuts the meaning of their bill.

In the case that I could hear him talking about, Kermit Barron Gosnell was an American serial killer who indeed engaged in precisely the conduct the gentleman is talking about and was convicted of murder in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.

Infanticide is against the law in 50 States in America, and this guy was picked up for the conduct the gentleman spoke of. He was prosecuted for it, and he was sent to jail.

No.

Madam Speaker, I would like my time restored.

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a letter calling this a dangerous government intrusion into medical care which injects politicians into the patient-provider relationship, signed by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Nursing, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and a dozen other organizations.

January 22, 2025.

Dear Members of Congress: We, the undersigned medical and

health professional organizations, stand in strong opposition

to H.R. 21/S. 6. This bill represents a dangerous government

intrusion into medical care.

H.R. 21/S. 6 is a departure from current law. It injects

politicians into the patient-provider relationship,

disregarding health care professionals' training and clinical

judgment and undermining their ability to determine the best

course of action with their patients. Patients need and

deserve access to compassionate and appropriate medical care.

Every patient needs to be able to make the decision that is

best for them and their family. H.R. 21/S. 6 would impose

criminal and civil penalties on clinicians that could chill

the provision of care by those who work with high-risk

patients in complicated situations, limiting access for their

patients.

Abortion is safe and is a component of comprehensive

medical care. Health care professionals who provide abortion

care comply with existing laws and provide excellent care.

People seeking abortion care, including those with pregnancy

complications, deserve the highest quality medical treatment

based on their individual health circumstances. H.R. 21/S. 6

seeks to undermine access to abortion by stigmatizing the

health care professionals who provide essential care.

We urge lawmakers to oppose the insertion of politics into

medicine and vote against H.R. 21/S. 6.

Sincerely,

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,

American Academy of Nursing, American Academy of Pediatrics,

American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,

American College of Nurse-Midwives, American College of

Physicians, American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society,

American Psychiatric Association, American Public Health

Association.

American Society for Reproductive Medicine, American

Society of Hematology, Council of Chairs of Obstetrics and

Gynecology, Infectious Diseases Society for Obstetrics and

Gynecology, National Association of Nurse Practitioners in

Women's Health, North American Society for Pediatric and

Adolescent Gynecology, Physicians for Reproductive Health,

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Society of Family

Planning.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), who is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Representative McBath herself has experienced three miscarriages and had to give birth to a stillborn child.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), who is the chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), who is the mother of two wonderful grown children and a consumer advocate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel), who is the chair emerita of the Democratic Women's Caucus and who is also a proud mother and grandmother.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we ask the mothers and fathers of America: Who do you want in the doctor's office with you making this decision, a medical decision, OB-GYNs and doctors who vehemently oppose this legislation, or the MAGA politicians who are applauding this week the release of hundreds of violent cop assaulting convicted felons.

The vast majority of American people reject this legislation and say: Let us trust the medical practitioners.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs).

Mr. Speaker, my distinguished colleague from Texas keeps referencing his female staff and colleagues, but it seems like there has been a coed exodus from his side of the aisle as support for this bill vanishes. In the meantime, I don't have enough time, and I am happy to be yielded time to share with my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bynum), the distinguished Representative and mother of two.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley), the co-chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Gillen), the distinguished Representative and mother of four.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her eloquent words. When will Republicans stop feeding on other people's tragedies? We don't need MAGA in the delivery room.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter), the mother of two and a critical care physician.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Simon), the mother of two, who, like so many women, was forced to make a choice when her child died in utero.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

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

Mr. Speaker, now we have had the opportunity to be lectured about life by a gun dealer. That is pretty impressive. I think he gave the game away when he finished his remarks by saying ``life begins at conception,'' a proposition that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of the American people who think that women have a right to choose, but that is a topic for another day. After spending all their time saying it wasn't about abortion, I am afraid he gave the game away at the end.

This bill is an exercise in complete legislative redundancy. It is an interference in other people's private and medical lives to prey on their personal tragedies and catastrophes as we have heard throughout the debate. It is a shocking threat to send OB/GYN doctors and physicians to jail at a time

when we have a chronic shortage of OB/GYN doctors and physicians as well as nurses across the country.

Their bill proposes to move in exactly the wrong direction, which is perhaps why they had a shortage of speakers on their side and we had a shortage of time because I could have had dozens more people who wanted to speak on behalf of the American majority against this absurd attempt to interfere in the medical lives of the American people.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank Ann Wagner for her tremendous leadership and courage in authoring this important bill.

Madam Speaker, in a Florida abortion clinic, Sycloria Williams delivered a perfectly healthy, live baby girl at 23 weeks.

The clinic owner took the baby, who was gasping for air, cut her umbilical cord, threw her into a biohazard bag, and put the bag into the trash like so much garbage.

Heartbroken, Ms. Williams later had a funeral for her baby girl she named Shanice.

Madam Speaker, why are these live births so little known? We are talking about, in most cases, perfectly healthy babies who are killed but they survive.

The Philadelphia Inquirer did a cover story years ago called ``The Dreaded Complication.'' In it, the abortionists were complaining that so many children were surviving late-term abortions and they didn't know what to do. The partial-birth abortion ban, where the baby's brains are sucked out--we did the ban, but the actual procedure--was, in part, in response to that. They wanted to ensure that the baby was dead.

In that article, Dr. Willard Cates, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's abortion surveillance unit, said: Live births are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. It is like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit. What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives.

Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, one of the few who got caught, was convicted of murder for killing so many children and women in his abortion clinic in Philadelphia. The grand jury described it this way: Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies: He delivered them. He killed them. He didn't call it that. He called it ensuring fetal demise. The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that snipping.

These children are not junk. They cannot be treated as so much garbage. This legislation tries to say we need to protect them once they are born after the abortion.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act seeks to end or at least mitigate this egregious child abuse by requiring that a healthcare provider must--and this is from the bill--exercise the same degree of professional care, skill, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious healthcare practitioner would render to any other child born alive.

Why can't we have that standard to try to save that child? The bill empowers the women upon whom the abortions are performed to obtain appropriate relief through civil action. We passed a bill like this when Steve Chabot was the prime sponsor years ago, but the enforcement has been almost nil if not none.

This is humane, pro-child, pro-human rights legislation, and I hope my colleagues on the other side realize these children have great value and should not be treated like junk.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, this year's March for Life is an engraved invitation to each and every one of us to seriously recommit and rededicate ourselves to the defense of the weakest and most vulnerable.

To recommit with love and compassion to tangibly assist women-- especially through the extraordinary work of pregnancy care centers--in order to protect their precious babies and their own lives from the violence and cruelty of abortion.

Pregnancy care centers are under siege by Planned Parenthood--also known as Child Abuse Inc.--an organization that has killed more than 10 million babies in its clinics.

This year we recommit to exposing abortion methods to a society that has chosen to be blind to the realities of brutally dismembering helpless babies with sharp knife-like curettes or poisoning babies with pills that literally starve them to death and often result in their bodies being flushed down a toilet.

We are a people of indomitable hope--we absolutely refuse to entertain discouragement or defeat.

We thank President Trump for defeating not one but two extremist pro- abortion candidates--Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris--and for his amazing defense of unborn children.

Abortion-President Joe Biden is gone--but his morbid legacy of packing the judiciary with litmus tested abortion activists, using executive orders to kill more babies and integrating the nefarious abortion agenda into countless benign and necessary programs like veterans' health and global health must be immediately reversed.

President Trump has done more to protect the innocent than any other president in history--and now, thank God, he's back.

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade--achieved by the three Supreme Court justices President Trump appointed--half the states have enacted laws to protect unborn children, saving over 200,000 children over two years.

On Monday, President Trump issued a powerful executive order designed to defund the outrageously pro-abortion World Health Organization (WHO), and another--the expected reinstatement of the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance to reverse Biden's hijacking of global health funding, which shamelessly promoted abortion on demand around the world including in President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Last week, the most recent revelation was that PEPFAR broke U.S. law to pay for abortions in Africa--a tip of the iceberg of the Biden- Harris anti-child activism at home and abroad. The 2025 Marist poll has found that 73 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars for abortions in other countries.

Other pro-life executive orders are expected soon.

Special thanks to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate for their ongoing courageous legislative initiatives, including legislation to save babies born alive during the grisly abortion process.

The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act under consideration in both the House and Senate seeks to end or at least mitigate this egregious child abuse by requiring that a health care provider must ``exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age'' or be fined and/or face up to five years in prison.

The bill makes clear that no mother of a child born alive can ever be prosecuted.

It also empowers the woman upon whom the abortion is performed to obtain appropriate relief in a civil action.

This is humane, pro-child, human rights legislation.

Why is there opposition? Dr. Willard Cates, MD, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Abortion Surveillance Unit, explained years ago: ``(Live births) are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. It's like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit . . . What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives.'' Cates was quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer in ``Abortion: The Dreaded Complication.''

Bottom line: pro-lifers are a people of persevering faith in God willing to bear any burden and endure any attack. We know that the cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever and that each day, despite setbacks, many unborn children and their mothers have been and are being protected. We have hope. We have just begun.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 21, an assault on women's healthcare and fundamental rights. On October 19, 2007, my wife Katie gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Brigid Nicole Kennedy. My wife and I had lost some pregnancies. We were so excited when we got the news she was expecting. It was a girl, and we named her Brigid. She was kicking and doing all the things a

parent would expect during a pregnancy.

Six weeks before my wife gave birth, we went for an ultrasound and received the worst news imaginable. Brigid was diagnosed with hydrops fetalis, compressing her lungs with fluid, putting her and my wife's life in danger. We were devastated. The only answer was to terminate the pregnancy in order to save the life of my wife whose health was becoming more and more threatened.

It was a choice we did not want to make. It was a choice we had to make. We wanted our baby more than anything. We saw doctors, specialists, and neonatologists. We traveled where we were promised we would receive the best care. If there was something we could do to bring her safely into this world, we did it.

We embraced each other as a family and prayed.

Then, with the guidance of our doctors, knowing that we were losing our child, knowing that she would be born and we would have only a very short period of time with her, we chose palliative care to keep our daughter comfortable and to love her during her time on Earth.

Baby Brigid, who was already loved, would not live the beautiful life we had dreamed for her.

We had to schedule what we knew would be a devastating delivery for the sake of my wife's health. We held her, baptized her, and sent her on to the Lord. She was with us for only 4 minutes. We watched our baby girl become our baby angel, and our lives were transformed forever.

As we faced one of our darkest days as a family, the last thing we needed was legislation that served to stand between the health of my wife, unborn child, and the future of our family.

If this bill had been law, doctors would have been required to whisk Brigid away from us, inhumanely poke and prod our baby girl with tubes, needles, and IVs, causing her needless pain, suffering, and torture.

My wife and I would have been robbed of those precious minutes with our baby Brigid. It would have eviscerated the one moment my wife and I cling to as baby Brigid's parents.

It would have only added to our pain, hurt, and helplessness--that is, if they would have performed the procedure at all, for fear of breaking the law and going to jail or losing their license in order to save my wife.

I thank my wife, Katie, for allowing me to share our story, and I share it because it is not ours alone.

Countless women and families with dreams for their children and their future face difficult decisions and unthinkable circumstances every day. Our government has no business intruding on a family's deeply personal medical decisions, yet the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision has opened the floodgate for States to rob women and families of the ability to make healthcare choices with their doctors, including the very difficult choice to access safe, legal, and oftentimes medically necessary abortions.

Madam Speaker, they are now using this bill, built on a despicable lie rooted in neither medicine nor science, to restrict access to abortion nationwide. It would levy criminal charges against healthcare practitioners and providers, jeopardizing their ability to deliver proper medical care to women. It impacts people all over this country.

Madam Speaker, today, I will vote ``no'' on H.R. 21, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Vote ``no'' to criminalizing healthcare and ``no'' to imposing more hurt on families facing very difficult days.

The morning after we said good-bye to Brigid, I woke up in the hospital and a rainbow appeared. It was a sign from above that our baby girl, Brigid Nicole, was home in Heaven.

Mr. Speaker, we are more than 3 weeks into January, yet Republican leadership in this Chamber has failed to call a vote on a single piece of legislation to address the pressing needs of hardworking families. There has been nothing to ease the burden of grocery prices, nothing to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and nothing to make it easier for an American to buy a home.

Instead, what is the priority for the Republicans this week? A vote on H.R. 21, the so-called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that will give politicians here in Washington the power to monitor women's pregnancies and criminalize doctors and nurses who provide lifesaving care to women in need. I wish I was kidding.

Over the next couple of days, we are going to hear Republicans get up here and use scare tactic after scare tactic in attempting to justify this vote, so let's set the record straight about what this legislation does.

At first glance, its stated goal might sound reasonable: ``to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.''

That sounds logical on paper, but here is the reality: This situation almost never happens. When Texas passed a law requiring reporting on abortions resulting in live births, they reported zero live births over 3 years--zero. The same was true in Oklahoma.

What is this bill actually targeting? As we dig into H.R. 21, it becomes clear that this legislation purposely distorts what abortion care really is. It sweeps up highly complex and deeply personal medical situations, including those where a mother learns that her life is in danger because her baby has a fatal abnormality and cannot survive outside the womb.

Imagine the agony of that mother, a woman who dreamed of holding her child, now forced to make the unthinkable decision to induce labor to save her own life.

As her baby is born in agonizing pain with just minutes or hours to live, because no amount of medical intervention can save them, this bill seeks to make that horrifying situation even worse by overruling any decision by the mother and her doctor to provide compassionate, appropriate medical care.

Instead, it threatens doctors and nurses with jail time, even if the only alternative is prolonging the pain, suffering, and, tragically, the inevitable death of the baby.

Tell me, Mr. Speaker, how does that make sense? Why do Republican Members of Congress insist they know what is better for a mother and her baby than she and her doctor do?

This bill is not about protecting life. It is about pushing out blatant lies about women's healthcare, and it is about control. It is about extreme Republican politicians inserting themselves into the most personal, private, and heartbreaking decisions a family has to make.

The cost is that women's lives are put at risk because some here would rather legislate ideology than acknowledge the complexity of real-life medical decisions.

To my colleagues across the aisle, instead of advancing a dangerous, divisive bill that exploits women's health for political gain, let's focus on what Americans are actually asking us to do. Let's work to lower costs. Let's expand access to healthcare. Let's give families the tools they need to thrive. The American people sent us here to do that work together.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the GOP's reproductive healthcare surveillance act.