[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.

                          ____________________