[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 22 (Monday, February 5, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H774-H780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE RIGHT TO LIFE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Smucker). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege and honor to
address you here on the floor of the United States House of
Representatives, and I appreciate the honor and the privilege to do
that.
Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor here tonight to talk to you and
address the body about the issue that is so important to so many
millions of Americans, and that is the issue of life, the issue of
protecting innocent, unborn human life that doesn't have the ability to
speak out for itself, doesn't have the ability to scream for its own
mercy, but it does have the ability to squirm and move and belch and do
all the things that we do outside the womb and can feel pain, a beating
heart, and a throbbing heart of a heartbeat.
I mentioned this on the floor here a couple weeks ago of an
ultrasound that was sent to me with a little baby with 158 beats per
minute.
I would take people through some of the pro-life legislation that has
been moved or attempted to be moved here in the United States Congress,
Mr. Speaker. I would take you back to 1973 and Roe v. Wade and Doe v.
Bolton. Those two Supreme Court cases, working in conjunction with each
other, essentially translated into abortion on demand. We saw abortions
go from about 35,000 abortions a year in America, a number that I would
say I thought was horrible then, to something like 1.6 million
abortions in America, now ratcheted down with the weight of the
conscience of our society to some number about 1 million or maybe a
little bit less than 1 million.
Mr. Speaker, we don't get to count that difference between 1.6
million, roughly the peak, and a little under 1 million as 600,000
babies saved every year. Instead, it goes on our conscience the other
way. That is a cumulative total of 60 million babies who have been
sacrificed at the alter of this subject called pro-choice, judicial
activism.
I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that human life is protected in our United
States Constitution. It is protected under the 14th Amendment, and we
have a constitutional right here in Congress to protect and defend
life. In fact, I believe we have a duty to protect and defend life.
So I would first take us to that case of Roe v. Wade, and Doe v.
Bolton, and the two cases taken together, January 22, 1973, and we have
marched every year since then, including just last month on January 19.
But essentially this: Roe v. Wade was a case that was built on
several Supreme Court precedents, but the one that strikes me the most
is the Griswold v. Connecticut case. That was back in the mid 1960s
sometime, maybe 1964, where Connecticut had outlawed contraceptives.
They were a strong Catholic State at the time, and so they outlawed
contraceptives.
Griswold went to court and said: No. We are married. We should be
able to buy contraceptives, and the State of Connecticut shouldn't
interfere in that.
So the Supreme Court manufactured this thing called a right to
privacy, which was the privacy was protected by contraceptive
activities within the marriage. So that case went in as a precedent
case that established the right to privacy.
And then there was a follow-up case, and that would be the Eisenstadt
case, that said: Well, it doesn't matter whether you are married, you
have got a right to privacy whether you are married or not, so you
should be able to buy contraceptives if you are cohabiting rather than
being joined together in holy matrimony. The Supreme Court found in
their favor in that case.
And then, not that long later, 1973, here comes Roe v. Wade and Doe
v. Bolton. Roe v. Wade says: Well, there is a right to privacy, so I
guess if we are not going to interfere with reproductive choices of
married couples or nonmarried couples, then we are not going to
interfere with whether they want to terminate the life of that
innocent, beautiful, miraculous little baby.
So they came down with the decision that a right to privacy was more
important than the right to life. And on this floor, Mr. Speaker, I
brought this issue up numerous times to remind the body that our
Declaration of Independence articulated this very clearly. It laid out
the parameters for our Constitution. Our Constitution reflects those
parameters in the Declaration.
So there is a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And those are prioritized rights. The priority is this: life is
paramount. It can't be subordinate to anybody's liberty, and somebody's
pursuit of happiness can't trample on anyone's liberty or their life.
Yet the Court decided this right to privacy, this liberty, this right
to privacy that was manufactured in Griswold v. Connecticut in roughly
a decade or less earlier, was more important than the right of the life
of the innocent unborn.
And then they got into the concept of viability. But Doe v. Bolton is
the one that gave essentially the broad license. The viability piece
says: Well, can a baby survive at the end of the first trimester? No.
The end of the second trimester? Probably not. But into the third
trimester? That became more likely.
Yet even that didn't protect that innocent, unborn baby because Doe
v. Bolton put these exceptions in here for the health of the mother,
and that was defined and included the physical health, the emotional
health, the psychological health, the familial health, and age-related
factors.
So if you get into the emotional health, that is impacted by mental
stability. It is impacted by cash flow. It is impacted by anything.
What it amounts to is that this long list carried within it someplace
there that anybody could look at it and say: Well, that's a license to
abort a baby under any circumstance anytime, provided that the mother
just simply wants the abortion.
And we, just a little over a year ago, saw a President leave office
who stood on the floor of the Illinois State Senate and, multiple
times, took the position that if a woman goes to an abortionist and
wants an abortion, if the baby survives the abortion, she still has a
right to a dead baby.
And by the way, all the people speaking over here a little bit ago
all voted
[[Page H775]]
against the bill that protected a baby who was born alive and survives
an abortion.
And it is abhorrent to me to think that you would abort a baby. But
the second thing is that if that baby survives the abortion, to go
forward and kill that baby anyway or put that baby off in a cold room
until that baby freezes to death, close the door, shut off the sound,
plug your ears, and come back and check in an hour or two or five and
see if it is done.
It is an appalling place that this country has gone. Sixty million
babies. And I have supported every piece of pro-life legislation that
has come before this Congress, including the Born-Alive bill. I support
the ban on abortions for sex selection. I support the Pain-Capable
bill, which passed the House here last October and went over to the
Senate where, thankfully, the Senate had a vote on the Pain-Capable
bill, and it failed, and we knew it would fail.
But it did establish that there is a pro-life majority, at least
under those parameters, in the United States Senate. And I believe
there will be some Senators who are held accountable for that vote.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that I believe this: I believe
that life begins at the moment of conception, begins at fertilization.
From that point forward, it is a unique being that is growing and
multiplying and shaping; and within about 18 days, we have scientific
evidence that the heart starts to beat. We know that there is nerve
activity.
We know that that baby--by about 20 weeks, it is clear, and I say it
is actually irrefutable, that the baby feels pain. We have watched them
in ultrasound move around in the womb and squirm.
We held a hearing last November 1 where we watched probably the
youngest witness to ever testify before the United States Congress, and
his name is Lincoln Glen Miller. This little boy was 18 weeks into
development, and we watched him on ultrasound as he jerked his arm
towards his face, sucked his thumb, moved his lips like he was trying
to talk to us, squirmed around.
This little guy, Lincoln Glen Miller, showed us the humanity inside
the womb here in this United States Congress for the first time.
So at the funeral of Phyllis Schlafly, who, prior to her death, was a
living, breathing icon, a very principled individual, someone who was
the clearest thinker of our time, I read most all of Phyllis' writings
and followed her closely and counted her as a friend, and she has had a
powerful impact upon this country, but at her funeral, Janet Porter of
Faith2Action and I sat down and talked about something that Phyllis had
asked: Would I bring a Heartbeat bill to the floor of the House of
Representatives and push it through for a vote here on the floor
successfully? Phyllis never wanted to do anything unsuccessfully, and I
don't either, Mr. Speaker--and send it over to the Senate and work to
nurture it over there so it can get to the President's desk for a
signature, because we have gone through 45 years of incrementalism.
Forty-five years of a little bill here, a little bill there, that saved
a few lives here and a few lives there.
Henry Hyde, the leader in the pro-life movement, and he was a
glorious man who I had the privilege to serve with here in this
Congress, and I enjoyed that time with him, Henry Hyde brought the Hyde
amendment, and that extrapolated into the Mexico City policy. The Hyde
amendment, coupled with the Mexico City policy, has saved 1 million
lives, perhaps as many as 2 million lives, during that period of time.
I was involved in the ban on partial-birth abortion, and there we
first saw the Supreme Court overturn our ban on partial-birth abortion,
that ghastly tactic of turning a baby around in the womb and delivering
the baby breech, feet first, until that baby's head and face are still
inside the mother, and then poking a pair of scissors or a scalpel into
the back of that baby's head and sticking a suction in and sucking the
brains out to collapse the skull and removing the balance of that baby
as that baby squirmed for mercy until the brain tissue was emptied from
his skull.
{time} 2045
Mr. Speaker, that sickening and ghastly and ghoulish tactic was
outlawed by this Congress, and it went to circuit courts around the
country. And those circuit courts found it unconstitutional because
they couldn't overturn Roe v. Wade or Doe v. Bolton, so it came to the
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, in the first round of the ban on partial-birth
abortion, found that killing a baby in that ghastly fashion was
entirely constitutional because Congress had failed to precisely define
to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court the act of partial-birth
abortion, and had failed to demonstrate by congressional findings that
a partial-birth abortion was never necessary to save the life of the
mother.
Mr. Speaker, we went back to work. We went back to the Judiciary
Committee and we held hearings before the Judiciary Committee, hearing
after hearing after hearing. We got out the word processor again--it
was a word processor in those days--and we precisely defined the act of
partial-birth abortion.
When I describe it here, it is more ghastly than I have ever spoken
publicly, and I regret the damage that it does to the ears and the
psyche of the people who are listening tonight, Mr. Speaker, but it
needs to be said. We defined that act absolutely, precisely, from a
medical perspective, and we had a lot of sets of eyes and ears on it to
weigh in on all approaches that we could do. And with those hearings,
medical doctor after medical doctor came through and testified. In the
end, we had congressional findings that concluded definitively that a
partial-birth abortion was never medically necessary to save the life
of the mother.
So we defined the act. We proved it was never necessary to save the
life of the mother. We passed the legislation, House and Senate, and it
went off to be litigated again to three separate Federal circuits, one
of them in Lincoln, Nebraska, which I attended in front of Judge Kopf.
I will not forget that. But each of those circuits all found that our
bill was unconstitutional in partial-birth abortion, not because we
didn't define the act precisely enough, and not because our
congressional findings weren't that, but because they did prove that it
was never necessary for a partial-birth abortion to save the life of
the mother.
They found our second bill unconstitutional because of the precedent
called stare decisis. Stare decisis is the precedent that the court
respects a previous decision. So anybody who thinks that there is a
piece of pro-life legislation that will save any lives, that is going
to be upheld at the lower court level, is, I think, barking up the
wrong tree.
It is not going to happen that any lower court and lower Federal
court in the United States is going to overturn a Supreme Court
decision, because they will respect stare decisis, the decision of the
Supreme Court. And there are too many Justices who have served in the
past on the Supreme Court who would also honor that stare decisis
decision.
If a similar case comes before them, they would look at the decisions
that were made before and say: Well, I guess the court has already
resolved this. There is no reason for us to relook at this. There is
going to be no de novo review. It is simply going to be whatever the
court has decided in the past. We are not going to challenge that going
forward. We will build all case law on the case law that is behind us
as we go forward.
That is an adherence to stare decisis and that is what we must
overturn if we are ever to put an end to abortion in this country.
That is why we have written legislation in the Heartbeat bill that is
designed to challenge Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton and ask a new
Supreme Court, after we pass the Heartbeat legislation, H.R. 490, and
bring it to this floor, get this vote, and pass it over to the Senate.
When the day comes that we have got the votes in the House and Senate
and we have a President that will sign the legislation--today, if we
could get there--and a Vice President that seems to be enthusiastic
about this--and I notice that the political adviser for the President,
Kellyanne Conway, had a heartbeat pin on her dress as she spoke just a
week or so ago.
[[Page H776]]
I appreciate that support that is there.
But with the votes that are here now in this House, and the votes
that need to be compiled in the Senate, and a Presidential signature,
we can ban abortion. If a heartbeat can be detected, the baby shall be
protected.
That is the Heartbeat bill, H.R. 490. But when it is passed--I pray
to God it is and soon--it will go to the lower courts because the pro-
abortion lobby will litigate everything. Nothing seems to get to their
conscience. They will litigate it. And we don't expect to win at the
lower court level. It all has to go to the Supreme Court.
When we designed this path for this legislation, it was designed for
a pro-life majority in the House, which we have; a pro-life majority in
the Senate, which was proven just a week ago we have; and a President
that will sign that legislation, a pro-life President who said just a
few days ago that he is a pro-life President again. I appreciate that
reinforcement.
We designed it for all of that with the expectations it would go
before not the court at the time we wrote the bill and not the court
now--perhaps the court now, but more likely a court that would be
formed by a subsequent appointment or two made by this President,
Donald Trump. All of that needs to be lined up for the Heartbeat bill
to have success. And we should remember that. This isn't a function of
waiting for the Supreme Court to be where we think it is favorable
alone.
It is, instead, a function that there has to be four windows that are
opened in the right sequence and we have to fly through those windows.
So the first window is open right now: the House of Representatives. We
just need a Speaker and a majority leader that will schedule the vote
here on the floor, with 170 cosponsors on this legislation, and a good
long list of folks who want to vote for the bill that just weren't
ready to sign on yet.
We will get there, Mr. Speaker. That is window number one. We have
got to fly the Heartbeat bill through window number one, and then send
it over to the Senate. And we have got to fly the Heartbeat bill
through window number two. That is harder. It is harder with the
filibuster rule, a 60-vote majority. But with 60 million lives at
stake, maybe the 60-vote majority is not such a requirement.
Perhaps they would be willing to waive that long tradition for the
purpose of saving lives. That will be my argument. We have got 60
million lives we have lost in this country and you are requiring 60
votes in the Senate, and that sets the stage for another 60 million
lives to be aborted if you can't get rid of that filibuster rule and
let a simple majority pass something through the Senate.
The window in the House is open now. The window in the Senate can be
opened if the Heartbeat bill goes over there. The window at the White
House is open right now. And the court is going to take a little time.
But if we sit back and we decide we don't want to send something out
this window of the House because we don't think that the Senate is
ready--the President is ready, by the way--or if we don't think the
court is ready, then there will be a window closed and it will be too
late.
We have got to move this legislation through. It is H.R. 490, the
Heartbeat bill that says this: that before an abortionist can ply his
trade, he must first check for a heartbeat. And if a heartbeat can be
detected, the baby is protected. It is that simple, that clear. And we
have the technology now that shows that definitive heartbeat on
ultrasound, where you can watch the baby move and squirm and gurgle and
suck its thumb and try to talk, and do all of those loveable things.
We have the technology that shows that in ultrasound. We have a take-
home kit where you can listen to the heartbeat of your baby. I get them
texted to me from young ladies who are moms already and they are
already bonding with this unborn baby. That technology says that, at
about 6 weeks, we can determine the definitive nature of that
heartbeat. And if that heartbeat can be detected, the baby is
protected.
Mr. Speaker, here is the problem that we have: 170 Members signed
onto this bill and another good bunch of them want this bill to come to
the floor and they want to vote on it. The will of the people is
reflected through the United States Congress, especially the House of
Representatives. Unelected people on the outside of this Congress are
the ones who are holding this bill back.
When I talk to the leadership up the line and I say, ``I want to vote
on the Heartbeat bill and so do 170 Members who signed on and multiple
others who want to vote for it,'' the will of this Congress is clear,
but the leadership says, ``We don't want to divide the pro-life
community. We want to make sure that the pro-life community is
unanimous in this before we move legislation.''
I think that is an old rule that was put in place. It wouldn't be my
rule.
So the top organizations along the way would be National Right to
Life, the oldest and largest pro-life organization in the country. Now,
I have named them. I can name every other organization from Family
Research Council to Susan B. Anthony List, to Faith to Action, on down
the line. And I will name a bunch of them a little later this evening,
Mr. Speaker. Every other organization that I name supports this bill.
The only organization that doesn't support it is National Right to
Life. National Right to Life, protecting Americans since 1968. The
oldest pro-life organization, the largest pro-life organization.
I say: We need you on this bill because it is not going to move until
you say you support it or the rest of Congress rises up in a very
strong way.
So here is their answer. They tweeted this out here a little while
back: ``National Right to Life does not oppose the Heartbeat bill.''
That was their message: ``. . . does not oppose. . . .''
But in order for a piece of pro-life legislation to move--according
to what I think is an archaic rule--it has to be unanimous.
So that means Family Research Council, Susan B. Anthony List, and
National Right to Life, if they all say, ``We like this bill; we want
to move it,'' then H.R. 490, the Heartbeat bill, moves. If they don't
say they like the bill, it is a de facto veto that blocks the bill.
So the will of 170 Members who signed on, and a good number of folks
who are willing to vote for the bill who didn't sign on, the will of
the American people reflected in this constitutional Republic that we
are, is all being stifled and frustrated by one organization. It
happens to be the oldest and the largest pro-life organization in the
United States of America: the National Right to Life. Since 1968, they
say: ``National Right to Life does not oppose the Heartbeat bill.''
That is H.R. 490. There is no doubt about that.
I have had my conversations with Carol Tobias, and I have had my
conversations with David O'Steen. By the way, not in person, only by
phone. We couldn't get an in-person meeting. But a couple of their
lawyers came in and we had that conversation, too. They all say the
same thing. They all say: Well, our board doesn't like the Heartbeat
bill and doesn't support the Heartbeat bill, so we can't act unless our
board tells us to act.
I asked: So when was your last board meeting?
They said: Oh, several months ago. And there won't be another one
until after the March for Life.
This conversation took place the first week in December.
So call a special board meeting because this is important. The
Heartbeat bill grew a lot more momentum than you ever thought it was
going to. It wasn't your idea, I know. I will give it to you as an idea
if that is what National Right to Life wants. They can't meet with
their board. They can't call a board meeting. They can't poll their
board. They have to wait until the next scheduled board meeting.
Who are these board members?
I don't know. Fifty of them.
Mr. Speaker, can you imagine 50 dedicated pro-life people in America
who are on the board of National Right to Life and all of them sitting
there intransigently saying, ``Nope, I don't want to see the Heartbeat
bill move. It is not something I want to do. I don't support protecting
babies from the moment that a heartbeat can be detected''?
How in the world is it that you are the preeminent right to life
organization in the country and the best you can say is you do not
oppose the Heartbeat bill?
[[Page H777]]
The real truth is, if you don't oppose it, neither do you support it.
What it really means is the National Right to Life does not support the
Heartbeat bill for whatever those reasons are, Mr. Speaker.
And I would sure like to know. Because I think if you truly are pro-
life, then there wouldn't be a way you could sit there and say: I don't
want to protect the babies that have a heartbeat.
In fact, if I look through their tweets and their literature, and
they are full of references to heartbeat.
And I will get to that in a little bit, Mr. Speaker. But I wanted to
hear from the gentleman from Texas and set the stage a little bit here.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King),
my dear friend, for all of his work in this area; not just his work,
but his leadership.
I know his heart beats with a desire to make sure that any heart
beating is protected.
{time} 2100
I heard a comedian on television this last night saying something
about, ``Yeah, so many years ago I had an abortion because it is my
choice,'' something of that order. The audience cheered and clapped. I
thought, ``A comedian?'' My heart wasn't angry. My heart just broke for
that child.
As my friend knows, my wife and I, our first child came 8 to 10 weeks
early. They tried for 3 days to stop the contractions, and after 3 days
it was clear our daughter was coming. Back then, it was far enough back
that we really didn't know if we were going to be able to keep her.
The first day she was there in Tyler, we were losing her. I had had
malpractice cases as a judge that involved the condition. I know for
preemies they don't like to give too much extra oxygen because you get
to 100 percent and it may cause blindness. It is a condition called
retrolental fibroplasia. The retina has not matured enough, and in the
presence of oxygen, the blood vessels constrict and cause little fibers
to come out and separate from the back of the wall. I knew all of that.
I knew all about what was going on.
When the pediatrician came in and tried to intubate our child, tried
to get that tube in--he didn't intubate a lot of children. He was just
a wonderful, caring doctor. They lost her three times. The monitors
went off. They got her going again, tried to get the tube in so they
could get more oxygen to her little, undeveloped lungs. He didn't know
I was sitting there in the nursing station watching. It was like a
horror movie. I was sorry I ever started watching it, but I could not
leave until I found out how it came out.
Also, they were praying for my child and the doctor's hands and what
he was doing. But he finally got her intubated and came out sweating
profusely because he had that little child's life in his hands. I had
already held our child. I could hold her in one hand. I was careful and
preferred to use two.
But anyway, he made clear we needed to take her either to Dallas or
Shreveport. At that time--now all kids, if they have to go somewhere,
they go to Dallas, instate, from Tyler.
But at that time, I said: Well, which is more successful?
He said: It seems like the survival rate in Shreveport right now is a
little better.
I don't know what it is now.
But I said: Let's get her to Shreveport.
So I wasn't sure. Kathy had to stay in the hospital there in Tyler,
but I followed the ambulance and made sure she was checked in.
When I got over there, the doctor, I could understand why they had
such a good survival rate. His name is Dr. Tsing. He, with one of the
nurses, got me over to our daughter's isolette. It is open-air. They
had the monitors hooked up. They had the halo around her head piping in
extra oxygen.
He said: Please sit down here on this stool.
He said: Now, you are probably aware that her eyes are not
functioning properly. She can't recognize you when she opens her eyes
and tries to see, but she knows your voice. She has been listening to
your voice for months. She knows you, and she is comforted by your
voice because she knows you. So you sit here, and you talk to her, and
you caress her little arms and face and talk to her, and you will do
some good for her.
They said: We have a 2-hour limit on how long you can sit here, and
then you have to take a break for a couple hours and you can come back.
The last thing Kathy had asked was that I do anything I could to help
our little girl. So there I sat, and I caressed her little face.
The danger of a child born prematurely, the number one danger is the
lungs not being properly developed to get enough air in to actually
keep the child alive. So her breathing from the first moment of birth
was very, very shallow, and her heart rate was erratic, very fast. You
could see it on the monitors, very shallow, very fast, and very erratic
breathing and heartbeat. But she had a heartbeat.
As the gentleman from Iowa has said many times, my friend, and Janet
said many times: Gee, you walk in a room. You see a body not moving.
You check to see if there is a heartbeat; and if there is a heartbeat,
you know you have to call an ambulance. You have to do everything you
can to try to keep that person living, which is, again, the principle
behind the Heartbeat bill.
Her heart was beating just so very fast and erratically, but when I
was playing with her little hand, she took her whole hand, it wrapped
around the end of my finger, and she held on tight. It was a tight
grip. This was a child whose lungs are not working so well, eyes aren't
working that great, but she was holding on and holding tight.
I was there for 3 or 4 hours before Dr. Tsing came back. When he came
back, he said: Have you looked up at the monitors?
I had not for a couple of hours or so. I looked up, and the breathing
was very shallow, but it was no longer erratic. It had a regular beat,
a regular rhythm to it. The heartbeat was still very fast, but it was
not erratic. It was a regular heartbeat with a regular pattern.
Dr. Tsing said: She is drawing strength from you. She is drawing life
from you.
I can tell you, when you know this little child is drawing life from
you and strength from you, you don't want to leave. Finally, after 8
hours, the nurses and the doctor came over.
They said: You have to leave. It has been 8 hours.
I said: I don't want to leave. The monitors show she has a regular
heartbeat, regular breathing. I don't want to leave.
They said: You were supposed to leave 6 hours ago. You have to leave
now. Go somewhere.
I did leave and went to McDonald's. My heart was up there with our
daughter, and so I rear-ended a lady right there by McDonald's. The
policeman was very nice, and the lady that lived there in Shreveport
was extremely nice, but I couldn't wait to get back to our child.
She is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary in every way, one of
the top artists in the world. She was chosen to be one of the first 12
artists that Swatch Art Peace Hotel dedicated to the arts in Shanghai,
one of the first 12 they selected to live there as artist-in-residence
from all over the world. She was one of the first 12--amazing talent.
I think about the talent of so many, 60 million children. Every one
of them had some kind of gift, and they are gone.
I have appreciated the National Right to Life when I was in college,
when I was out of college, and when I was a prosecutor after law
school. When I was a practicing lawyer, local businessman, my own firm,
I was elected a judge, I never wavered in my appreciation of the
National Right to Life.
I want to make sure that people understand, we also have a Texas
Right to Life. It is not National Right to Life. It is its own
organization.
I have talked to the Grahams. The Grahams that head up the Texas
Right to Life, God bless them. They have done incredible work, but they
make clear, we don't care whose bill it is, we don't care who came up
with the idea; if there is any bill that will prevent even one precious
life from being aborted, that life being saved and allowed a chance to
be loved and to love and to not be aborted, then they are on board.
That is the way everybody I knew who is pro-choice, meaning you
choose
[[Page H778]]
to live, that is the way I thought everybody was. So it has been quite
an awakening to be here in Washington and to have any groups,
especially one that I put up on a pedestal for so many years, for
decades now, that says: Our board doesn't support a bill.
We have a bill, the pain-capable bill, heck, any bill--pain-capable?
Yes, sign me on--that saves 5 to 15 percent of abortions, count me in;
I am there.
Then, National Right to Life may save 80, 90 percent of the children
who are being killed; count me in. I am in.
I thought that is where everybody would be. I don't know. I really
don't understand. If it is a turf battle, it wasn't our idea. Why is it
that any group doesn't support saving an additional life?
I do read the Bible every day. I made that promise I would read the
Bible, and I do that. I have just gone, again, through some of the Old
Testament books, and when I read the prophets talk about how evil a
society was, they said that this king did right in the eyes of the
Lord, and this king did evil in the eyes of the Lord. When the writer
wants to really illustrate the point that a society had become so evil
that it was an abomination to God, they would point out that they
sacrificed their children on the altar of an idol.
I remember reading that as a kid, and I thought: What could be worse
than that? I just cannot imagine a parent being willing to sacrifice
their child. I can imagine my parents, lots of parents, fighting to the
death to protect their child, but I just couldn't imagine how that
could happen in these Old Testament days.
Then I came to realize we have been doing that since the seventies.
We have been sacrificing these children who could survive on their own
on the altar of individual choice: I am too busy to do other things. I
don't have time for a child when there are parents begging for children
to adopt.
So I just appreciate so much my friend speaking up on behalf of the
unborn. We have heard from our Democratic friends so many times that a
society is judged by the way they protect those who cannot protect
themselves and help those who cannot protect themselves. Clearly, there
is nobody more innocent and more in need of protection than a child not
quite born that someone wants to kill.
So I appreciate my friend's illumination of what is going on. I thank
him for his efforts not just tonight, but every day.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I so much thank the gentleman from
Texas for that, indeed, heartfelt description of what it was like, that
miracle little child who also is intelligent and beautiful as well as a
world-class artist.
Mr. Speaker, I stand here, and I don't understand National Right to
Life either. This is exactly what they are formed for. The Heartbeat
bill, H.R. 490, is an exact fit, as near as I can determine, into their
very mission statement. I made it a point to look up that mission
statement, and I happen to have it here.
The National Right to Life mission statement, Mr. Speaker, goes this
way: ``The mission of the National Right to Life is to protect and
defend the most fundamental right of humankind, the right to life of
every innocent human being from the beginning of life until natural
death.''
Now, if that is the National Right to Life's position and mission,
``from the beginning of life until natural death,'' I certainly support
that. I don't think we disagree on when life begins. But one might read
that statement literally to say ``from the beginning of life until
natural death'' may be National Right to Life's position is something
other than the moment of fertilization or the moment of conception on
when life begins because the mission statement doesn't say ``from the
fertilization until natural death'' or ``conception until natural
death.'' It says, ``from the beginning of life until natural death.''
{time} 2115
But I dig a little deeper. On their website, they have a statement
that starts with a question: When does life begin?
It answers its question this way: The life of a baby begins long
before he or she is born. A new individual human being begins at
fertilization when the sperm and ovum meet to form a single cell.
Perfect. I agree with that answer.
So the mission is to protect and defend the most fundamental right of
humankind, the right to life of every innocent human being, from the
beginning of life to natural death, the National Right to Life's
mission statement, and they define the beginning of life as when, at
fertilization, the sperm and ovum meet to form a single cell.
There should be no argument any longer on where National Right to
Life stands. They should be standing for protecting all innocent life,
from fertilization to natural death.
It is a fine, honorable position, and the history of National Right
to Life has actually spoken to the heartbeat issue in the Heartbeat
bill.
For example, there was a Heartbeat bill that passed out of the North
Dakota State Legislature back in 2009. It went to a Federal circuit
court. It was not upheld by that Federal circuit court. Just as I
described a little earlier, the lower courts will not overturn a
decision made by the Supreme Court. It has to be appealed to the
Supreme Court level. This was not. But they were supporting the
Heartbeat bill then.
So they are on record supporting the Heartbeat bill, and here are a
number of other times on their positions on heartbeat.
Heartbeat has been showing up pretty often in the information that
has come out of the National Right to Life. I would point out again
their lead, Carol Tobias or David O'Steen.
This is February, 5, 2013, Right to Life's tweet that went out. It is
@NRLC, if you want to send them a message. It says: An unborn child's
heartbeat is ``the most beautiful music,'' says Beyonce.
I looked that up because I wondered what that was. Beyonce was
pregnant. She actually had a miscarriage and lost that child. She loved
that child before that child was born. I don't have any doubts that her
heart was broken.
But she said: An unborn child's heartbeat is ``the most beautiful
music.''
That is posted on National Right to Life's Twitter page. That is
February 2013.
Here is a July 2013 Tweet from them: Unborn babies can feel pain,
they can dream, they have a heartbeat, they respond to their mother's
voice. Abortion ends their life.
It looks like National Right to Life understands the importance of a
heartbeat. I think they know something that I think I also know: that
beating heart is in our ears now.
Many of us have heard that beating heart on ultrasound. When we hear
that on ultrasound, we know that that is life. We also know that if
that heartbeat can be detected and the baby is protected, that baby has
at least a 95 percent chance of a successful birth.
So that is how viable that baby is at 6 weeks with a heartbeat.
Here is another Tweet, September 24, 2014, from Right to Life's
Twitter account: Listen to an unborn baby's heartbeat at just 6 weeks.
Just the amount of time I gave it.
Another heartbeat message, going on down the line, this is 2014,
also, a Right to Life tweet: Did you know, babies by 20 weeks can feel
pain? They already have a heartbeat and detectable brainwaves by then.
That is the Pain-Capable bill that just failed in the Senate.
Heartbeat about 6 weeks. So they are telling us this heartbeat
matters. A heartbeat is a sure sign of life. If there is a heart
beating there, there is a live baby there--a baby with a 95 percent
chance, or better, of a successful birth.
Moving on in 2014, also. Here is Carol Tobias, the lead in the
National Right to Life. She tweets out on this day, 24 March 2014: New
smartphone appcessory allows moms to hear unborn child's heartbeat.
I am glad that we noticed this. It is important that we know that.
That is the place where these heartbeat sounds have been texted to me
from young mothers who are at 6, 7, or 8 weeks along. They will send me
the sound of that heartbeat. It comes on my phone, and I can open that
up and I can hear that heartbeat surging at, say, 158 beats per minute.
That is one of the most precious things that came to me about 2\1/2\
weeks ago; 158 beats per minute.
Here is the next tweet, February 2015. This is an abortionist. The
National Right to Life's tweet is quoting an
[[Page H779]]
abortionist who said: ``I know that the fetus is alive during the
process''--meaning the process of abortion--``. . . I can see fetal
heartbeat on the ultrasound.''
I can see the heartbeat on the ultrasound.
That abortionist stops that beating heart that ends the life of that
baby. But this is why Right to Life put this up. They know that
heartbeat beats also in our conscience. It beats in theirs.
They want to stop abortions. That is their mission statement. They
are the oldest organization in the country, the largest organization in
the country. The Heartbeat bill couldn't more perfectly fit their
mission statement, their cause for being, or the messages that come out
here time after time in what one would presume would be laying down the
predicate for the Heartbeat bill itself.
Here is another one from Right to Life. Their tweet says: I have a
heartbeat.
It is a baby.
It continues: I have detectable brainwaves. I can feel pain. Don't I
deserve human rights?
Yes, as soon as we can possibly provide them and stop this carnage of
abortion. Don't I deserve the human right to life, is what this quote
is, the National Right to Life.
Going on to another tweet, this one is in November of 2017. There is
a continuum here that brings this through to 2017. The National Right
to Life's tweet says: Did you know an unborn child's heartbeat starts
around 20 days into a pregnancy? Most mothers don't even know they are
pregnant by that time.
It is not easily detectable. It is not detectable by the technology
we call for in the Heartbeat bill, but that is how early that is.
The Knights of Columbus has put up billboards that say: My heart
began beating at 18 days.
We all start small. Abortion stops a beating heart.
Heart, heart, heart. It rings in our conscience. It should ring in
the conscience of National Right to Life.
Here is National Right to Life in their tweets: Heartbeat; heartbeat;
heartbeat; heartbeat; heartbeat.
Why not support the Heartbeat bill? You are actually doing so
verbally here, but you go back to this canard: the National Right to
Life does not want to--they want to say oppose; but, instead, I say it
is more appropriate to say do not support the Heartbeat bill. Why?
It is beyond my comprehension how an organization that has these kind
of convictions cannot be supporting the Heartbeat bill.
We have polling that tells us where this stands. It is a majority
opinion all the way across the board. In a Barna poll taken in 2017, 69
percent of adults support the Heartbeat bill. Actually, it has slightly
more polling support than the Pain-Capable bill that has already passed
the House and just failed in the Senate, but with a majority vote.
Sixty-nine percent of adults support the Heartbeat bill, 86 percent
of Republicans, and 55 percent of Democrats. Even pro-choice/pro-
abortion Democrats, the people who vote for them, support them, also
support the Heartbeat bill with what we call a landslide level, if it
were an election, and 61 percent of Independents.
Eighty-six percent of Republicans support Heartbeat, 55 percent of
Democrats, and 61 percent of Independents support the Heartbeat bill.
We are getting down to the place here where it is making even less and
less sense that National Right to Life would not support the Heartbeat
bill.
There is another big set of reasons here. Mr. Speaker, this isn't the
whole set of reasons. This is maybe half, maybe not quite half the set
of reasons.
Not only 170 Members of Congress have signed onto this bill, and a
good number of them that will vote for it on the whip card on top of
that, but 130 pro-life organizations and leaders support the Heartbeat
bill, H.R. 490.
You can't read this from very far away because we tried to jam as
many names on there as we could. There is another sheet and probably at
least another one behind that. It is 130 pro-life organizations.
We look down through that, and who are we missing?
I couldn't come up with anybody that we were missing, as far as
supporting this, other than the National Right to Life.
I am looking on top here. Here is Susan B. Anthony List at the top of
the list. Here is Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research
Council. These are the top three organizations right here that some
have referred to as the Holy Trinity that control pro-life legislation
and whether it comes to the United States Congress or not, whether the
will of the people can be realized as being stuck right here in red.
So we put this in red. I held this back and reserved this spot on the
sheet for Carol Tobias of the National Right to Life. Just pick up the
phone and call the Speaker is all, Mr. Speaker, that Carol Tobias needs
to do and the Heartbeat bill comes to the floor of the House and the
will of the people can be reflected. It can go over to the Senate, it
can sit on Mitch McConnell's desk, and they can have a vote over there
and we will find out where those Senators all are. If it doesn't pass
on the floor of the Senate, there might just be some new Senators sent
in who will protect innocent, unborn human life.
So I can go down the list. Lila Rose, the president of Life Action, a
strong supporter, enthusiastic supporter of the Heartbeat bill. Tom
McCluskey, March for Life. We have sat down and had a conversation. He
is supporting of this.
Then we have got Kristan Hawkins, the president of Student for Life.
On down the line. Anita Staver, president of the Liberty Council; Ed
Martin, president of the Phyllis Schlafly's organization, Eagle Forum.
He is the Eagle's president. He solidly supports the Heartbeat Bill. In
fact, he was there in that church that day that we put that plan
together and has been a driving force.
But the real, strongest driving force of all is Janet Porter, the
president of Faith2Action. Janet Porter really carried this in the
State of Ohio. I went to Ohio to help conclude that. What we found out
in the State of Ohio is that not only did the Heartbeat bill pass in
Ohio, Mr. Speaker, but it passed over the resistance of the local
affiliate of National Right to Life.
They will tell me, and David O'Steen told me, they are not in control
of their State organizations. You heard Congressman Gohmert address
that, also. The State organizations kind of run their own show.
But when it was resisted in Ohio, it made no sense. They lobbied John
Kasich to veto the bill. Why?
Under the grounds that it would be found unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court in Ohio. Seriously?
Do we go through all that work and then just decide we are going to
preempt the court decision, pass a law, sign it into law, and save the
babies' lives?
Every step we take along the way saves lives.
Keith Rothfus made an argument that I want to give him credit for. He
said that even just debating the Heartbeat bill saves lives, because
the debate causes people to talk about it, to think about
it differently, and to make different decisions about the lives that
they are in charge of protecting, and that is the innocent unborn
lives.
So here we are with 130 pro-life organizations and leaders supporting
the Heartbeat bill, H.R. 490. We look down through this list--and I
will put it all public, if it needs be, Mr. Speaker--but I saved a spot
up here in red for Carol Tobias and David O'Steen and the National
Right to Life. Just give us a call. Send me an email, a text. Pick up
the phone. Call the Speaker. We will move this bill, and we will save
lives together.
Meanwhile, if that doesn't happen, I am going to continue to ask the
question: How in the world can you not support this bill?
How in the world can the Nation's preeminent pro-life organization,
the National Right to Life, who says they do not oppose the Heartbeat
bill, and I say they do not support the Heartbeat bill, how can that
be?
How can you form 50 people on a board of directors, all of them
pledged and dedicated to your mission statement to protect life from
the beginning of life to natural death, and not find one among those 50
who support the Heartbeat bill, when 170 cosponsors are already on it
here in the House of Representatives and multiple others are
[[Page H780]]
standing up ready to vote for the bill, and not one among your board
supports the Heartbeat bill?
There is something wrong. There is something wrong inside an
organization.
Those statements came both from Carol Tobias and David O'Steen. Maybe
there were a couple along the way, there is a little clause in there,
but generally this: Who on your board supports the bill?
You can't name any. That is essentially it.
{time} 2130
If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, then there is something seriously
wrong in the National Right to Life and something that seriously needs
to be corrected because there are babies who must be protected. If a
heartbeat can be detected, the baby is protected, and we need the
support of the entire pro-life community in order to get this
legislation moved out of the House and over to the Senate, to the
President's desk.
It will eventually get before a Supreme Court. We will eventually
have one or two more appointments to that Supreme Court. It has got a
shot today. It is clearly more constitutional than the pain-capable
legislation because it is precisely drafted with these things all in
mind. It is a solid case to go before the Supreme Court.
I would say, instead, there is no reason to litigate it, but I kind
of think it will be because the enemies to life litigate everything
that saves and protects lives. But these little babies are too
precious, they are too unique, they are too miraculous for us to waste
a minute in protecting their lives. I want every little baby that has
got a heartbeat, have every little baby have that chance to be born,
that chance to live, to love, to laugh, to learn, to worship, to be a
parent of its own, and to be a gift from God to this country, to this
planet, and to posterity. That is the miracle of every little child.
When Congressman Gohmert spoke of being able to hold his little
daughter in one hand, that sacred, protected little girl now has grown
into a glorious and beautiful and intelligent woman who is contributing
to this society and to this world, and that is true for everyone where
all give glory to God. But 60 million babies--60 million babies--cannot
continue. We have to put an end to this atrocity of abortion.
The Heartbeat bill, H.R. 490, does that, and there is only one entity
standing in the way, and that is National Right to Life. And I plead
with you, and I pray that you will come around to support. Your history
says that is who you are and what you do, and it is time, now, to get
on the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks
to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.
____________________