[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 135 (Friday, September 18, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6174-H6175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ratcliffe). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Franks) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I have a special guest with me 
tonight, my son Joshua, who was allowed the privileges of the floor. He 
has given me a speech tonight, and I appreciate it very much.
  Mr. Speaker, the United States of America is an exceptional Nation 
whose unique core premise is that declared conviction that we are all 
created equal and that each of us is endowed by our Creator with the 
unalienable right to live.
  Abraham Lincoln called upon all of us in this Chamber and beyond to 
remember those words of the 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 factions, some interests should set up a doctrine 
that some were not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness that `their posterity' ''--that is us, Mr. Speaker--``that 
their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence 
and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.''
  Mr. Speaker, the sincerest purpose of the Born-Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act that we voted on today is to renew that noble 
battle, to respect and protect those little fellow human beings among 
us who are at this moment being trodden on and degraded and imbruted by 
their fellows.
  Not long ago, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, 
authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and found a 
torture chamber for little born-alive babies that defies description 
within the constraints of the English language.
  The grand jury report at the time said, ``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 that 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 that it ``sounded like a little alien.''
  Now, in recent days, Mr. Speaker, numerous video recordings have been 
released that demonstrate to the world that Kermit Gosnell is just the 
tip of the iceberg of the abortion industry's unspeakable cruelty to 
these little babies.
  The veil has now been pulled back, Mr. Speaker, and all of us now see 
behind the walls of the abortion industry and the horrifying plight of 
its little human victims who, we must not forget, are also the least of 
these, our little brothers and sisters.
  Our response, as a people and a nation, to these horrors shown in 
these videos is vital to everything those lying out in Arlington 
National Cemetery died to save.
  Before any Senator, Mr. Speaker, decides to join a Democrat 
filibuster in the Senate against legislation that would protect little 
born-alive human babies, I hope they ask of themselves one question in 
the core of their own souls: Is filibustering against a bill to protect 
born-alive human babies from a torturous death at the hands of monsters 
like Kermit Gosnell who I truly am?
  Now, I know that legislation like this has been attacked by President 
Obama and even others because of the many obvious similarities these 
born-alive children have with late-term, pain-capable, unborn children.
  Mr. Speaker, this was an unborn child, but she was born alive and she 
survived. As hard as it is to consider that that could happen, she did.
  President Obama explained his reasons for voting four times--Mr. 
Speaker, let me say that again. President Obama explained his reasons 
for voting four times against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, 
which would have protected children born alive.
  He was afraid it might give born-alive babies personhood under the 
Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

[[Page H6175]]

  He said:

       It would essentially bar abortions because the Equal 
     Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child. 
     And if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion 
     statute.

  It is impossible to deny that President Obama had a very sad and 
ironic, if also completely merciless, point.
  Indeed, it does require enormous deliberate self-deception to say 
that those who deliberately kill a child who is born alive after 5 
months of pregnancy are guilty of murder and deserve prison, but those 
who deliberately kill the same exact pain-capable child at the same 
exact age and development, but are not yet born--those individuals are 
merely furthering freedom of choice and should actually get paid for 
doing it.

  But it still bears repeating, Mr. Speaker. The Born-Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act that we voted on today and passed out of this 
Chamber protects little children who have been born alive.
  No matter how blind opponents try to make themselves or convince 
others to be, no one can truly obscure the humanity and personhood of 
these little born-alive children of God, nor can they take refuge 
within the schizophrenic paradox Roe v. Wade to which this country has 
been subjected for now more than 40 years.
  The abortion industry has labored for all these decades to convince 
the world that born children and unborn children should be completely 
separated in our minds, that while born children are persons worthy of 
protection, unborn children, on the other hand, are not persons and are 
not worthy of protection.
  But, Mr. Speaker, those who oppose this bill today or those who might 
oppose it in the Senate that protects born-alive children now have the 
impossible task of trying to rejoin born children and unborn children 
back together again and then trying to convince us all that to condemn 
them both as inhuman and not worthy of protection after all is the 
thing to do.
  Mr. Speaker, to anyone who has not invincibly hardened their heart 
and soul to this absurd inconsistency, there is an opportunity for a 
profoundly enlightening moment because, you see, Mr. Speaker, this 
country has faced such paradox and self-imposed blindness and 
heartlessness before.
  There was a time that our own House rules banned any discussion or 
debate in this Chamber about the effort to end human slavery in 
America. But, Mr. Speaker, that debate did come.
  And with it came a time when the humanity of the victims and the 
inhumanity of what was being done to them became so glaring that even 
the hardest of hearts began to see the truth, and it moved an entire 
generation of people to find the compassion and the courage within 
their own souls to change their position. And now to this generation, 
Mr. Speaker, that time has come again.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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