[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 34 (Monday, February 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S1410]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, this 
week the Senate will resume our work in the personnel business by 
considering yet another of President Trump's qualified judicial 
nominees.
  Eric Miller has been chosen to sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals, and one look at his legal career to this point says he is well 
prepared to do so.
  Mr. Miller is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago, 
where he served on the Law Review editorial staff. He has held 
prominent clerkships on both the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and the 
U.S. Supreme Court. His record of public service at the Justice 
Department and in private practice reflects a legal mind of the highest 
caliber.
  I hope each of my colleagues will join me in voting to advance the 
first circuit court nominee of this new Congress. That will be 31 since 
President Trump took office. But first, in just a few hours, the Senate 
will vote on advancing a straightforward piece of legislation to 
protect newborn babies. This legislation is simple. It would simply 
require that medical professionals give the same standard of care and 
medical treatment to newborn babies who have survived an attempted 
abortion as any other newborn baby would receive in any other 
circumstance. It isn't about new restrictions on abortion. It isn't 
about changing the options available to women. It is just about 
recognizing that a newborn baby is a newborn baby, period.
  This bill would make clear that in the year 2019, in the United 
States of America, medical professionals on hand when a baby is born 
alive need to maintain their basic ethical and professional 
responsibilities to that newborn. It would make sure our laws reflect 
the fact that the human rights of newborn boys and girls are innate; 
they don't come and go based on the circumstances of birth. Whatever 
the circumstances, if that medical professional comes face-to-face with 
a baby who has been born alive, they are looking at a human being with 
human rights, period.
  To be frank, it makes me uneasy that such a basic statement seems to 
be generating actual disagreement. Can the extreme, far-left politics 
surrounding abortion really have come this far? Are we really supposed 
to think that it is normal that there are now two sides debating 
whether newborn, living babies deserve medical attention?
  We already know that many of our Democratic colleagues want the 
United States to remain one of seven nations in the world that permit 
elective abortions after 20 weeks--seven countries, including North 
Korea, China, and the United States of America. But now it seems the 
far left wants to push the envelope even further. Apart from the entire 
abortion debate, they now seem to be suggesting that newborn babies' 
right to life may be contingent--contingent--on the circumstances 
surrounding their birth. Well, evidently, the far left is no longer 
convinced that all babies are created equal, but the rest of us are 
still pretty fond of that principle.
  My colleagues across the aisle need to decide where they will take 
their cues on these moral questions. On the one hand, there are a few 
extreme voices who have decided that some newborn lives are more 
disposable than others. On the other side is the entire rest of the 
country.
  I would urge my colleagues: Let's listen to the voices of the 
American people. Let's reaffirm that when we say every life is created 
equal, we actually mean it. Let's vote to advance the Born-Alive 
Abortion Survivors Protection Act later today.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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