[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 103 (Wednesday, June 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S3814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Abortion

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, many State legislatures across the country 
have taken action recently to protect unborn babies from the violence 
of abortion. My home State, for instance, Arkansas, has just passed a 
law to protect unborn babies after 18 weeks of development. This reform 
is not just supported by Arkansans; it is supported by a large majority 
of all Americans, more than 70 percent of whom believe unborn babies 
ought to be protected at or before that stage of pregnancy.
  These reforms are the work of the pro-life movement, which fights for 
the most vulnerable among us every day. The pro-life movement seeks 
change in the noblest tradition of our country and works within our 
democratic system so that our laws ultimately live up to our highest 
principle in the words of our Declaration of Independence--that all men 
are created equal and that all have a basic right to life.
  Of course, this is a democracy. So not everyone agrees when or even 
if we ought to protect the unborn. I understand that. I know there are 
decent people on both sides of this sensitive issue. We resolve our 
differences and reach compromise through democratic debate. What should 
never happen, though, is a billion-dollar corporation's trying to 
dictate these moral questions to us. Politically correct CEOs shouldn't 
be in the business of threatening normal Americans, but that is exactly 
what we have seen lately.
  The loudest objections to these pro-life laws haven't come from the 
bottom up, from normal citizens who happen to disagree with one 
another, but from the top down, from cultural elites and, increasingly, 
from giant corporations that wield their economic power as a weapon to 
punish the American people for daring to challenge their pro-abortion 
extremism.
  Giant media companies, like Disney, Netflix, and WarnerMedia, have 
threatened to cripple Georgia's film industry if its residents don't 
bend the knee and betray their pro-life convictions.
  Just last Monday, the New York Times ran a full-page advertisement 
that was organized by the pro-abortion lobby and was signed by the CEOs 
of hundreds of companies that read that legal protections for unborn 
babies are ``bad for business.'' How disgusting is that? Caring for a 
little baby is ``bad for business.''
  Now, I get why outfits like Planned Parenthood and NARAL would say 
babies are bad for business. Abortion is their business, after all, and 
they are just protecting market share. Yet what about all of those 
other CEOs? Why do they think babies are ``bad for business''? It is, 
perhaps, because they want their workers to focus single-mindedly on 
working, not on building families and raising children.
  All these politically correct CEOs want company men and women, not 
family men and women. They will support your individuality and self-
expression just as long as you stay unattached and on the clock.
  You couldn't find a more perfect example of this mindset than that of 
&pizza, one of those companies whose CEO signed the pro-abortion ad. 
This company, &pizza, doesn't even offer paid maternity leave to its 
employees, but it does celebrate their oneness and individuality. It 
will even pay employees to get a tattoo of the company logo. So if you 
want to be a walking billboard for your employer, &pizza will foot the 
bill, but if you are pregnant with a child, tough luck.
  In the spirit of some of these CEOs, I might call for a boycott of 
&pizza for their political correctness, but you could just skip them 
because their pizza is lousy anyway.
  There is a troubling trend among giant corporations using their 
wealth and power to force liberal dogma on an unwilling people. As 
liberal activists have lost control of the judiciary, they have turned 
to a different hub of power to impose their views on the rest of the 
country. This time it is private power located in a few megacities on 
the coasts.
  That is not an exaggeration. The overwhelming majority of companies 
that lashed out against the pro-life movement in that New York Times ad 
are headquartered on the coasts, hoping to rule the rest of us like 
colonies in the hinterlands. More than three-quarters are headquartered 
in New York or California alone. More than a dozen are foreign 
companies. Yet those same companies presume to tell all of America what 
we should think.
  For some reason, this outrage only seems to go in one direction. As 
States like Arkansas have passed pro-life laws, other States have sadly 
gone down a different path, stripping unborn children of recognition 
and protection under the law. States like New York, Illinois, and 
Vermont recently passed laws declaring abortion a fundamental right, 
accessible until moments before birth for practically any reason as 
long as you have a doctor's note.
  We have already begun to see the consequences of these laws which 
strain so mightily to defy and deny the humanity of the unborn. In New 
York City, prosecutors recently dropped a charge of abortion against a 
man who brutally stabbed to death his girlfriend and her unborn child. 
They dropped that charge because the pro-abortion law that had just 
passed the legislature in Albany removed all criminal penalties for 
killing an unborn child. According to the laws of New York State, that 
woman's child never existed.
  The pro-abortion laws passed in New York, Illinois, Vermont, and 
elsewhere truly deserve the label ``radical.'' So why isn't the 
national media covering these radical laws with the same intensity they 
have reserved for States like Georgia? Where are the indignant CEOs who 
profess to care so much for their female employees? They are nowhere to 
be found because their outrage is very selective. They don't speak for 
the majority of Americans, much less for women. Instead, they are 
actively trying to force a pro-abortion agenda on an unwilling public.
  These companies want to wield a veto power over the democratic debate 
and decisions of Arkansans and citizens across our country. They want 
to force the latest social fashions of the coasts on small towns they 
would never visit in a million years. They want us to betray our deeply 
held beliefs about life and death in favor of a specious account of 
equality. If there is one thing the New York Times ad got right, it is 
that ``the future of equality hangs in the balance'' when it comes to 
abortion, but their idea of equality doesn't include everyone. It 
omits, it degrades unborn babies as expendable, lesser than even bad 
for business. That is a strange kind of equality, if you ask me.
  This trend of intolerance ought to alarm everyone, no matter your 
views on this sensitive question. It threatens democratic debate on 
this question and ultimately on all questions.
  Despite the pressure campaign waged against us, I am heartened 
because I know the pro-life movement will carry on, as it always has, 
speaking to the inherent dignity of every human life. Not everything 
can be measured on a corporate balance sheet. Some things are bigger 
and more important than the bottom line or what wealthy, politically 
correct corporations consider bad for business. The cause of life is 
one of those issues worth fighting for.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.