[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 16, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             RIGHT TO LIFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a fundamental 
human right, a right declared to be an inalienable right by our 
Founders who proclaimed we are all created equal and have the God-given 
right to live--to live freely and to pursue happiness.
  Our Founding Fathers carefully articulated that life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness are the human rights that encompass the 
American way and are the logical foundation for freedom.

                              {time}  1115

  Unfortunately, it seems that Planned Parenthood has a logic problem. 
The CEO of Planned Parenthood tweeted just last week that the 
organization's ``core mission is providing, protecting, and expanding 
access to abortion and reproductive healthcare.'' And she called the 
procedure of an abortion a ``fundamental human right.''
  Mr. Speaker, abortion is not a human right. Abortion, to the 
contrary, is death. Abortion is the antithesis of life, the fundamental 
human right.
  For years, we have been fed the same argument that Planned Parenthood 
operates to ensure women's health and prenatal care, but straight from 
their CEO, we know this is not the truth. Planned Parenthood's mission 
is abortion. Planned Parenthood's mission is death, and their actions 
prove it.
  Planned Parenthood ended the fundamental right to life through 
321,384 abortions in 2016. That is 881 abortive deaths per day. This 
means that every 98 seconds a life was extinguished by Planned 
Parenthood.
  The CEO said in the same tweet that the organization ``will never 
back down from that fight'' to not only expand access to abortion but 
to deem it a human right.
  Mr. Speaker, as freedom-loving Americans, we must stand on our core 
principles that all are created equal, and we cannot back down from the 
fight to preserve life and to protect those who can't protect 
themselves.
  I look forward to continuing work to ensure that our taxpayer dollars 
do not fund death and abortion, a procedure that denies the right to 
live and contradicts the core founding principles of our freedom and 
our Nation.

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