[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 115 (Monday, July 14, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1452-E1454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SUNSET MEMORIAL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TRENT FRANKS

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 14, 2008

  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I stand once again before this 
House with yet other Sunset Memorial.
  It is July 14, 2008, in the land of the free and the home of the 
brave, and before the sun set today in America, almost 4,000 more 
defenseless unborn children were killed by abortion on demand. That's 
just today, Madam Speaker. That's more than the number of innocent 
lives lost on September 11 in this country, only it happens every day.
  It has now been exactly 12,957 days since the tragedy called Roe v. 
Wade was first handed down. Since then, the very foundation of this 
Nation has been stained by the blood of almost 50 million of its own 
children. Some of them, Madam Speaker, cried and screamed as they died, 
but because it was amniotic fluid passing over the vocal cords instead 
of air, we couldn't hear them.
  All of them had at least four things in common. First, they were each 
just little babies who had done nothing wrong to anyone, and each one 
of them died a nameless and lonely death. And each one of their 
mothers, whether she realizes it or not, will never be quite the same. 
And all the gifts that these children might have brought to humanity 
are now lost forever. Yet even in the glare of such tragedy, this 
generation still clings to a blind, invincible ignorance while history 
repeats itself and our own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the 
most helpless of all victims, those yet unborn.
  Madam Speaker, perhaps it's time for those of us in this Chamber to 
remind ourselves of why we are really all here. Thomas Jefferson said, 
``The care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is 
the chief and only object of good government.'' The phrase in the 14th 
Amendment capsulizes our entire Constitution. It says, ``No State shall 
deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of 
law.'' Madam Speaker, protecting the lives of our innocent citizens and 
their constitutional rights is why we are all here.
  The bedrock foundation of this Republic is the clarion declaration of 
the self-evident truth that all human beings are created equal and 
endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. Every conflict and battle our Nation has 
ever faced can be traced to our commitment to this core, self-evident 
truth.
  It has made us the beacon of hope for the entire world. Madam 
Speaker, it is who we are.
  And yet today another day has passed, and we in this body have failed 
again to honor that foundational commitment. We have failed our sworn 
oath and our God-given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly 
4,000 more innocent American babies who died today without the 
protection we should have given them.
  So Madam Speaker, let me conclude this Sunset Memorial in the hope 
that perhaps someone new who heard it tonight will finally embrace the 
truth that abortion really does kill little babies; that it hurts 
mothers in ways that we can never express; and that 12,957 days spent 
killing nearly 50 million unborn children in America is enough; and 
that it is time that we stood up together again, and remembered that we 
are the same America that rejected human slavery and marched into 
Europe to arrest the Nazi Holocaust; and we are still courageous and 
compassionate enough to find a better way for mothers and their unborn 
babies than abortion on demand.
  Madam Speaker, as we consider the plight of unborn America tonight, 
may we each remind ourselves that our own days in this sunshine of life 
are also numbered and that all too soon each one of us will walk from 
these Chambers for the very last time.
  And if it should be that this Congress is allowed to convene on yet 
another day to come, may that be the day when we finally hear the cries 
of innocent unborn children. May that be the day when we find the 
humanity, the courage, and the will to embrace together our human and 
our constitutional duty to protect these, the least of our tiny, little 
American brothers and sisters from this murderous scourge upon our 
Nation called ``abortion on demand.''
  It is July 14, 2008, 12,957 days since Roe versus Wade first stained 
the foundation of this Nation with the blood of its own children; this 
in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
    

[[Page E1453]]

                       SENATE COMMITTEE MEETINGS

  Title IV of Senate Resolution 4, agreed to by the Senate on February 
4, 1977, calls for establishment of a system for a computerized 
schedule of all meetings and hearings of Senate committees, 
subcommittees, joint committees, and committees of conference. This 
title requires all such committees to notify the Office of the Senate 
Daily Digest--designated by the Rules committee--of the time, place, 
and purpose of the meetings, when scheduled, and any cancellations or 
changes in the meetings as they occur.
  As an additional procedure along with the computerization of this 
information, the Office of the Senate Daily Digest will prepare this 
information for printing in the Extensions of Remarks section of the 
Congressional Record on Monday and Wednesday of each week.
  Meetings scheduled for Tuesday, July 15, 2008 may be found in the 
Daily Digest of today's Record.

                           MEETINGS SCHEDULED

                                JULY 16
     10 a.m.
       Environment and Public Works
       Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine the Nuclear Regulatory 
           Commission's licensing and relicensing processes for 
           nuclear power plants.
                                                            SD-406
       Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
         To hold hearings to examine global nuclear detection 
           architecture, focusing on ways to build domestic 
           defenses to combat a possible future attack.
                                                            SD-342
       Judiciary
         To hold hearings to examine the Administration's detainee 
           policies and the fight against terrorism, focusing on 
           sound legal foundations.
                                                            SD-226
       Rules and Administration
         To hold hearings to examine administrative and management 
           operations of the United States Capitol Police.
                                                            SR-301
     10:30 a.m.
       Aging
         To hold hearings to examine smart ways Americans can save 
           for their retirement.
                                                            SD-562
     11 a.m.
       Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
         To hold hearings to examine racism in the 21st century, 
           focusing on understanding global challenges and 
           implementing solutions.
                                            B318, Rayburn Building
     2 p.m.
       Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
       Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, 
           and the District of Columbia Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine the human capital crisis at 
           the Department of State, focusing on its global 
           implications.
                                                            SD-342
     2:30 p.m.
       Armed Services
         To receive a closed briefing on the status of 
           negotiations with Iraq on a strategic framework 
           agreement and a status of forces agreement.
                                                            SR-222
       Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
       Children and Families Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine childhood obesity, focusing 
           on declining health of America's next generation (Part 
           I).
                                                            SD-430
       Foreign Relations
         To hold closed hearings to examine North Korea's 
           declaration of the Six-Party Talks.
                                                    S-407, Capitol
       Energy and Natural Resources
       Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine S. 2354, to direct the 
           Secretary of the Interior to convey 4 parcels of land 
           from the Bureau of Land Management to the city of Twin 
           Falls, Idaho, S. 3065, to establish the Dominguez-
           Escalante National Conservation Area and the Dominguez 
           Canyon Wilderness Area, S. 3069, to designate certain 
           land as wilderness in the State of California, S. 3085, 
           to require the Secretary of the Interior to establish a 
           cooperative watershed management program, H.R. 3473, to 
           provide for a land exchange with the City of Bountiful, 
           Utah, involving National Forest System land in the 
           Wasatch-Cache National Forest and to further land 
           ownership consolidation in that national forest, H.R. 
           3490, to transfer administrative jurisdiction of 
           certain Federal lands from the Bureau of Land 
           Management to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to take 
           such lands into trust for Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk 
           Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria, H.R. 3651, to 
           require the conveyance of certain public land within 
           the boundaries of Camp Williams, Utah, to support the 
           training and readiness of the Utah National Guard, H.R. 
           2632, to establish the Sabinoso Wilderness Area in San 
           Miguel County, New Mexico, and S. 2448, to amend the 
           Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to 
           make certain technical corrections.
                                                            SD-366

                                JULY 17
     9:30 a.m.
       Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
       Investigations Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine financial institutions 
           located in offshore tax havens, focusing on ways to 
           strengthen United States domestic and international tax 
           enforcement efforts.
                                                            SD-106
     10 a.m.
       Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
         Business meeting to markup an original bill entitled, 
           ``The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and 
           Divestment Act of 2008.''.
                                                            SD-538
       Finance
         To hold hearings to examine leveraging innovation to 
           improve health care quality for all Americans.
                                                            SD-215
       Indian Affairs
         To hold an oversight hearing to examine tracking sex 
           offenders in Indian country, focusing on tribal 
           implementation of the Adam Walsh Act (Public Law 109-
           248).
                                                            SD-562
     10:30 a.m.
       Environment and Public Works
         To hold hearings to examine ways to make the nation's 
           highways safer for travelers.
                                                            SD-408
     11:30 a.m.
       Judiciary
         Business meeting to consider S. 3155, to reauthorize and 
           improve the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 
           Act of 1974, S. 2746, to amend section 552(b)(3) of 
           title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as 
           the Freedom of Information Act) to provide that 
           statutory exemptions to the disclosure requirements of 
           that Act shall specifically cite to the provision of 
           that Act authorizing such exemptions, to ensure an open 
           and deliberative process in Congress by providing for 
           related legislative proposals to explicitly state such 
           required citations, S. 3061, to authorize 
           appropriations for fiscal years 2008 through 2011 for 
           the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, to 
           enhance measures to combat trafficking in persons, S. 
           2838, to amend chapter 1 of title 9 of United States 
           Code with respect to arbitration, S. 3136, to encourage 
           the entry of felony warrants into the NCIC database by 
           States and provide additional resources for 
           extradition, S. 1276, to establish a grant program to 
           facilitate the creation of methamphetamine precursor 
           electronic logbook systems, and S. 3197, to amend title 
           11, United States Code, to exempt for a limited period, 
           from the application of the means-test presumption of 
           abuse under chapter 7, qualifying members of reserve 
           components of the Armed Forces and members of the 
           National Guard who, after September 11, 2001, are 
           called to active duty or to perform a homeland defense 
           activity for not less than 90 days.
                                                            SD-226
     2 p.m.
       Appropriations
         Business meeting to markup proposed legislation making 
           appropriations for the Departments of State, Foreign 
           Operations and Related Programs, Agriculture, Rural 
           Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
           Agencies, and Military Construction and Veterans 
           Affairs, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year 
           ending September 30, 2009.
                                                            SR-325
     2:30 p.m.
       Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
       Disaster Recovery Subcommittee
         To hold hearings to examine major disaster recovery 
           assessing the performance of the Federal Emergency 
           Management Agency (FEMA) since October 2007.
                                                            SD-342
       Foreign Relations
         To hold hearings to examine the nominations of Mimi 
           Alemayehou, of the District of Columbia, to be United 
           States Director of the African Development Bank, 
           Kenneth L. Peel, of Maryland, to be United States 
           Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and 
           Development, and Miguel R. San Juan, of Texas, to be 
           United States Executive Director of the Inter-American 
           Development Bank.
                                                            SD-419


[[Page E1454]]


                                JULY 22
     9:30 a.m.
       Armed Services
         To hold hearings to examine the nominations of Michael 
           Bruce Donley, of Virginia, to be Secretary, General 
           Norton A. Schwartz, for reappointment to the grade of 
           general and to be Chief of Staff, and General Duncan J. 
           McNabb, for reappointment to the grade of general and 
           to be Commander, United States Transportation Command, 
           all of the United States Air Force.
                                                            SR-325
     10 a.m.
       Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
         To hold hearings to examine ways for America to gain 
           energy security.
                                                            SD-342

                                JULY 23
     9:30 a.m.
       Veterans' Affairs
         To hold an oversight hearing to examine the Department of 
           Veterans Affairs, focusing on responding to the needs 
           of returning United States Guard and Reserve members.
                                                            SR-418