[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 57 (Tuesday, May 1, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT OF 2001

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 26, 2001

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record, the 
following testimony pursuant to the vote on H.R. 503, the Unborn 
Victims of Violence Act.

   [From the National Right to Life Committee, Inc., Washington, DC]

       My name is Shiwona Pace.
       On August 26, 1999, I was a 23-year-old college student in 
     Little Rock. I was the mother of two--my five-year-old son, 
     and an unborn baby girl named Heaven Lashay. I had named my 
     baby ``Heaven'' two months earlier, after an ultrasound test 
     revealed that she was a girl. August 26 was one day before my 
     predicted full-term delivery date.
       But that night, three men brutally murdered my unborn baby 
     daughter.
       I curled up face down on the floor, crying begging for them 
     to stop beating me. But they did not stop. One shouted, 
     ``F*** you! Your baby is dying tonight.''
       They choked me, punched me, hit me in the face with a gun. 
     They kicked me again and again in the abdomen. After about 
     thirty minutes, they left me sobbing there on the floor.
       At the hospital, they found Heaven had died in my womb. She 
     was a perfect baby, almost seven pounds. She almost looked as 
     if she were sleeping.
       The assailants were arrested. They had been hired by Erik 
     Bullock, my former boyfriend. He paid them $400 to kill 
     little Heaven Lashay.
       Only a month before, a new state law took effect that 
     recognized unborn children as crime victims. If that law had 
     not been enacted, Erik Bullock would have been prosecuted 
     only for the assault on me, but not for the death of my baby.
       But thanks to the state law, Bullock was also convicted for 
     his role in killing my baby. The men who attacked me are also 
     being prosecuted for what they did to Heaven.
       I tell my story now for one reason: If this same attack 
     occurred today within a federal jurisdiction, the men who 
     killed my baby could be prosecuted only for assault.
       That is why I urge members of Congress to support the 
     Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 503, S. 480), which 
     would recognize unborn children as victims under 68 federal 
     laws dealing with crimes of violence.
       I was dismayed to learn that some members of Congress 
     oppose this bill, and insist on adoption of a radically 
     different bill (the Lofgren Amendment) that says that such 
     crimes only have one victim--the pregnant woman.
       They are wrong. On the night of August 26, 1999, thee were 
     two victims. I lived--but my daughter died. I lost a child 
     and my son lost the baby sister he had always wanted--but 
     little Heaven lost her life.
       It seems to me that any congressman who votes for the 
     ``one-victim'' amendment is really saying that nobody died 
     that night.
       And that is a lie.

       

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