[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 13, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H2949-H2951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        PASSAGE OF THE PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILD PROTECTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it has been an amazing day. We 
passed a major bill today, Mr. Speaker, that I think is going to have 
some significant reverberations in this country for a long time.
  I know that whenever the subject has been abortion that, somehow, the 
rules always change. Somehow, we don't see it the same way that we do 
other issues. We don't apply the same principles of logic and reason 
and even compassion. It seems like that gets lost in it all. It seems 
like we sort of overlook the reality of it all.
  The real question with abortion, Mr. Speaker, really is: Does 
abortion really kill a baby?
  If it doesn't, then people like me would be completely satisfied to 
never bring up the subject again; but, if it really does take the life 
of a child, then those of us living here in the seat of freedom, in the 
freest country in the world, are living in the midst of a great human 
genocide, and it is something that we cannot and must not turn our 
backs upon.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that it has been a long time that we have debated 
in this country. I remember in 1965 the Governor of Colorado signed a 
bill that would allow abortion in rare circumstances, and it created a 
great outcry because people knew that that might lead to more 
widespread abortion on demand.
  At the time, those who were concerned about that were ridiculed and 
ignored many times; yet that is, in fact, what the Supreme Court did in 
1973, when seven Justices decided, for all Americans, that there was a 
constitutional right to hire someone to take the life of a child.
  Mr. Speaker, I sometimes wonder how we miss the reality of it all. I 
know that there are sincere people on both sides of the issue, but it 
just seems like that, ultimately, we keep coming back to that central 
question: Is there another life here?
  Because if there is, in order for America to be true to her greatest 
ideals, then the American people are going to have to precipitate a 
change, either in their leadership or to convince their leadership to 
precipitate a change in their own hearts--after all, I believe there 
are only two ways that we can change public policy in this country, and 
that is that the people either have to elect the right leaders, or 
somehow, they have to beg the wrongs ones to do the right thing.
  For a long time, our people have tried desperately to get their 
leaders to do the right thing on this issue, but we have been hamstrung 
by a Supreme Court decision. Once again, the Supreme Court was never 
meant to make law for the country. They were meant to decide cases, not 
issues.
  Even though we have put the Supreme Court in the position of deciding 
those cases and giving us opinions on

[[Page H2950]]

constitutional analysis, when each of us as Members of Congress swore 
to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, we put our 
hand, as we swore to do that, to support and defend the Constitution.
  We didn't say that we will support and defend the Constitution if the 
Supreme Court says it is all right. We said we would do that. The 
Founding Fathers knew that there had to be this tension between the 
three branches of government and that each one of those branches had a 
responsibility and a sworn oath to defend the Constitution the best 
they knew how on their own.
  Certainly, we give deference to opinions of the Court on cases, but 
if this body says that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the 
Constitution, then we have to quit taking that oath.
  If this body says that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter 
because of their ability and the power that we would ostensibly give 
them to answer all constitutional questions, if we say that, then, Mr. 
Speaker, we can go outside here and board these windows shut, and the 
Congress can go home, and we can finally quit pretending to be that 
great Republic that the Founding Fathers dreamed of because we will 
have become, at that time, a judicial oligarchy, where unelected judges 
have arrogated unto themselves the power to answer really all legal 
questions, and then this magnificent dream that the Founding Fathers 
had would be vitiated completely.
  I just, somehow, hope that we understand that the Supreme Court of 
the United States is a critically important part of our Republic, but 
it is not the sole arbiter of the Constitution. Again, if it is, the 
Republic is dead.
  Mr. Speaker, today, we debated the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act, and it kind of occurs to me that we have had to parse 
this out in ways that the opposition could finally understand.
  The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act doesn't protect any 
children in the first 5 months, even though I think they should be 
protected; and, if we don't protect them, then what will we find, in 
terms of political courage, to protect any kind of liberty for anyone?
  This act today only protected children beginning at the sixth month 
until birth. Now, that shouldn't be a hard question. That it got any 
dissenting votes is a disgrace that beggars my ability to express.
  I truly believe that those who voted against a bill that would simply 
have protected children in the sixth month, beginning at the sixth 
month and beyond, that when they lay their head down on that pillow in 
the nursing home, if there is any conscience remaining, that there will 
be great regret for such a vote because, in coming years, I believe 
that we will understand more and more how real and how human these 
little babies really are.
  We will begin to understand, as a people and as a country, that we 
overlook them, that somehow these little forgotten children of God just 
escaped our notice.
  With all of the new technologies and all the new ways that we do 
things, Mr. Speaker, I foresee a day when we will be able to have such 
a clear look into the lives of these little children, and we will see 
this as we have so many times before in past days, where there was a 
victim and no one was really paying much attention to them.
  I hope that, somehow, we can consider our own history and back up a 
little bit and say, You know, we don't have to continue to let 
ourselves be blind.
  Mr. Speaker, for too long, a great shadow has loomed over America. 
More than 42 years ago, the tragedy called Roe v. Wade was first handed 
down. Since then, because of that decision, the very foundation of this 
Nation has been stained by the blood of more than 55 million of its own 
little children.
  Exactly 2 years ago today, one Kermit Gosnell was convicted of 
killing a mother and murdering innocent, late-term, pain-capable babies 
in this grisly torture chamber they called an abortion clinic.
  Now, when authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Gosnell, they found a 
torture chamber for little babies that defies description within the 
constraints of the English language.
  According to the grand jury report--now, this is a quote from the 
grand jury report, Mr. Speaker: ``Dr. Kermit Gosnell had a simple 
solution for unwanted babies. 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 in the back of the baby's neck and cutting the 
spinal cord. He called it `snipping.' Over the years, there were 
hundreds of 'snippings.' ''
  Ashley Baldwin, one of Dr. Gosnell's employees, said she saw babies 
breathing, and she described one as 2 feet long that no longer had eyes 
or a mouth but, in her words, was making like this ``screeching'' 
noise, and it ``sounded like a little alien.''
  For God's sake, Mr. Speaker, is this who we truly are?
  Kermit Gosnell now rightfully sits in prison for killing a mother and 
murdering innocent children, just like the one I described; yet there 
was and is no Federal protection for any of them.
  If Dr. Gosnell had killed these little pain-capable babies only 5 
minutes earlier and before they had passed through the birth canal, it 
would have all been perfectly legal in many of the United States of 
America.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. Speaker, we may have sanitized Gosnell's clinic, but we can never 
sanitize the horror and inhumanity forced upon the tiny little victims. 
And if there is one thing that we must not miss about this unspeakable 
episode, it is that Kermit Gosnell is not an anomaly; he is just the 
face of this lucrative enterprise of murdering pain-capable unborn 
children in America.
  More than 18,000 very late-term abortions are occurring in America 
every year. It places the mothers at exponentially greater risk, and it 
subjects their pain-capable babies to torture and death without 
anesthesia. This, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
  According to the Bartlett study, a woman seeking an abortion at 20 
weeks is 35 times more likely to die from an abortion than she was in 
the first trimester; at 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely 
to die than she was in the first trimester.
  Regardless of how supporters of abortion on demand might try to 
suppress it, it is undisputed and universally accepted by every 
credible expert that the risk to a mother's health from abortion 
increases as gestation increases. There is no valid debate on that 
incontrovertible reality.
  Supporters of abortion on demand have also tried for decades to deny 
that unborn children ever feel pain, even those, they say, at the 
beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy, as if somehow the ability to 
feel pain magically develops the very second the child is born.
  Mr. Speaker, almost every major civilized nation on this Earth 
protects pain-capable babies at this age, and every credible poll of 
the American people shows that they are overwhelmingly in support of 
protecting these children. Yet we have given these little babies less 
legal protection from unnecessary pain and cruelty than the protection 
we have given farm animals under the Federal Humane Slaughter Act. It 
is a tragedy that beggars expression.
  But today, Mr. Speaker, I am filled with hope. The winds of change 
are beginning to blow, and the tide of blindness and blood is finally 
beginning to turn in America. Because today, Mr. Speaker, we voted to 
pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in this Chamber.
  And no matter how it is shouted down or what distortions or deceptive 
what-ifs or distractions or diversions or gotchas, twisting of words, 
changing the subject, or blatant falsehoods the abortion industry hurls 
at this bill and its supporters, this bill and its passage today are a 
deeply sincere effort--beginning at the sixth month of pregnancy--to 
protect both mothers and their pain-capable unborn babies from the 
atrocity of late-term abortion on demand; and ultimately, it is a bill 
that all humane Americans will support when they truly understand it 
for themselves.
  The voices who have hailed the merciless killing of these little ones 
as freedom of choice will now only grow louder, especially the ones who 
profit from it most. When we hear those voices, we should all remember 
the

[[Page H2951]]

quote of President Abraham Lincoln, when he said: ``Those who deny 
freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just 
God, can not long retain it.''
  Mr. Speaker, for the sake of all of those who founded and built this 
Nation and dreamed of what America could someday be, and for the sake 
of all of those since then who have died in darkness so Americans could 
walk in the light of freedom, it is so very important that those of us 
who are privileged to be Members of the United States Congress pause 
from time to time and remind ourselves of why we are really all here. 
Do we still hold these truths to be self-evident?
  You know, Mr. Speaker, I think sometimes we forget the majestic words 
of the Declaration of Independence: ``We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--that to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men.''
  Oh, I wish so desperately that every Member of Congress could truly 
absorb those words in their hearts because it is very clear that it is 
almost a theological statement because it recognizes all of us to be 
created in the image of God, that we are created. And that makes all 
the difference, Mr. Speaker, because if we are created, if we have a 
purpose, if there is something miraculous about this magnificent gift 
of life, then we all should pay very close attention to what that 
purpose is. And if our rights don't come from government, if they don't 
come from the hand of men, if they, indeed, come from the hand of God, 
then we have a great responsibility to try to protect them from one 
another and for one another.
  Mr. Speaker, the Declaration goes on to say: ``That to secure these 
rights, governments are instituted among men.'' That is why we are 
here.
  Mr. Lincoln called upon all of us, Mr. Speaker, to remember that 
magnificent Declaration of America's Founding Fathers and ``their 
enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the divine image and 
likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on or degraded and 
imbruted by its fellows.''
  He reminded those he called posterity that when in the distant future 
some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that 
some were not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 
that ``their posterity''--that is us, Mr. Speaker--``their posterity 
might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage 
to renew the battle which their Fathers began.''
  Wow.
  Thomas Jefferson, whose words marked the beginning of this Nation, 
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 Fifth Amendment capsulizes our entire Constitution. 
It says, no person shall ``be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law.''
  And the 14th amendment says no State ``deny to any person within its 
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''
  Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of all Americans and their 
constitutional rights, especially those who cannot protect themselves, 
is why we are all here. It is why we came to Congress.
  You know, not long ago, I heard Barack Obama speak very noble and 
poignant words that, whether he realizes it or not, so profoundly apply 
to this subject. Let me quote excerpted portions of his comments.
  He said: ``This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our 
first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. 
That's how, as a society, we will be judged.''
  President Obama asked: ``Are we really prepared to say that we're 
powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? 
Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year 
after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?''
  The President also said: ``Our journey is not complete until all our 
children . . . are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.''
  ``That is our generation's task,'' he said, ``to make these words, 
these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness real for every American.''
  Mr. Speaker, never have I so deeply agreed with any words ever spoken 
by President Barack Obama as those I have just quoted. And how I wish--
how I wish with all of my heart--that Mr. Obama and all of us could 
somehow open our hearts and our ears to this incontrovertible statement 
and ask ourselves in the core of our souls why his words that should 
apply to all children cannot include the most helpless and vulnerable 
of all children. Are there any children more vulnerable than these 
little pain-capable unborn babies we are discussing today?
  You know, Mr. Speaker, it seems like we are never quite so eloquent 
as when we decry the crimes of a past generation. But, oh, how we often 
become so staggeringly blind when it comes to facing and rejecting the 
worst of atrocities in our own time.
  What we are doing to these little babies is real, and the President 
and all of us here know that in our hearts. Medical science regarding 
the development of unborn babies beginning at the sixth month of 
pregnancy now demonstrates irrefutably that they do, in fact, 
experience pain. Many of them cry and scream as they are killed, but 
because it's amniotic fluid going over the vocal cords instead of air, 
we don't hear them.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, it is the greatest human rights atrocity in the 
United States of America today.
  So, Mr. Speaker, let me close with a final contribution and wise 
counsel from Abraham Lincoln that I believe so desperately applies to 
all of this in this moment. He said: ``Fellow citizens, we cannot 
escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be 
remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or 
insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through 
which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest 
generation.''
  Mr. Speaker, the passage of H.R. 36 will be remembered. It will be 
considered in the annals of history and, I believe, in the counsels of 
eternity.
  Protecting little pain-capable unborn children and their mothers is 
not a Republican issue. It is not a Democrat issue. It is a basic test 
of our humanity and who we are as a human family.
  Today we began to open our eyes and allow our consciences to catch up 
with our technology. Today Members of the United States Congress began 
to open their hearts and their souls to remind themselves that 
protecting those who cannot protect themselves is why we are really all 
here.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that it sparks a little thought in the minds of 
all Americans so that we might all open our eyes and our hearts to the 
humanity of these little unborn children of God and the inhumanity of 
what is being done to them.
  I don't know if that will happen or not. But, Mr. Speaker, as of 
today, when we passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, we 
have come a step closer, and for that, I am grateful.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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