[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 36 (Monday, February 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1101-S1102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Abortion

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, this week the Senate has another chance to 
vote on basic pro-life protections for babies, both born and unborn.
  This week we have another choice to live up to our Nation's highest 
principle--that every person has the right to life--or to stoop down to 
a narrow vision of humanity peddled by the abortion industry and its 
cronies.
  The first bill we are considering--the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act--would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, 
when there is clear, scientific evidence that these young babies can 
feel pain in their mother's womb.
  The abortion lobby and all of its defenders will dispute this 
science, claiming that babies or fetuses--which is the euphemism they 
like to use for babies--can't feel pain at all or at least until the 
very latest stages of pregnancy. Anyone pedaling that myth must have 
never visited a neonatal intensive care unit, or the NICU, as they are 
usually called. Ask any one of those NICU nurses who cares for little 
preemies, even micro-preemies, and they will tell you how they can hold 
that small infant sometimes even in the palm of their hands, and they 
can see it grimace at a poke or a prod, maybe even slap away a tube or 
a needle as they approach--just as older kids do, just as some grownups 
do.
  The undeniable fact of fetal pain in these young babies influences 
every aspect of how we care for the young in our hospitals. We swaddle 
them with only the softest fabrics because their little bodies are so 
easily stimulated. We give them pain medicine during surgery, whether 
they are in the womb

[[Page S1102]]

or outside it. But we offer no such comfort during abortions, even in 
the latest stages of pregnancy, when abortionists crush a baby's skull 
and dismember it.
  Indeed, a scientific paper published earlier this year in the Journal 
of Medical Ethics noted a curious fact: Abortion is the only--the 
only--invasive procedure performed on unborn infants without pain 
medication. Then again, abortion is unusual in so many ways, as so few 
hospital procedures are designed to end a life, not to save a life.
  Are we comfortable with this state of affairs? Are we comfortable 
with the fact that more than 11,000 abortions were performed after 21 
weeks when, again, we have clear, scientific evidence that these babies 
feel pain and that many of them could survive outside their mother's 
womb?
  I would suggest the American people are not comfortable with this 
situation, and we can do something about it in the U.S. Senate this 
week.
  The second bill we are voting on, called the Born-Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act, is even more modest but perhaps even more 
urgent. This bill would simply protect babies when they are born alive 
during an abortion.
  I know it is amazing to even hear this, but there are rare and 
horrible cases in which babies are intended to be aborted, yet they are 
born alive, and the doctors are under no obligation to provide medical 
care for that young baby with a spark of God living in its soul. So 
this bill would simply obligate abortionists to render lifesaving 
medical care to a baby struggling for life on the operating table. It 
would require abortionists to act as those babies' friends and their 
doctors, consistent with their oath--not act like the baby's mortal 
enemy.
  Of course, the abortion lobby will tell you: Oh, this never occurs. 
All of their defenders in the media will say that it never occurs. But 
if you are being honest, the facts are, they do occur.
  The implication here is clear. They simply want us to look away from 
this horror. That doesn't mean we should, though, because, in fact, we 
do know--we do know--that babies can survive abortions. We have the 
numbers to prove it from a handful of States that require abortionists 
to confess when they fail to kill a baby in the mother's womb and, 
instead, murder it on the operating table.
  In Florida, 11 babies were born alive during abortions in 2017; 
another 6 were reportedly born alive in 2018; and another 2, last year. 
There were 19 precious little babies born alive during abortions in 
just 1 State in just 3 years. Other States have reported dozens more 
cases.
  Still, the abortion industry will dismiss these lives as a mere 
rounding error: Let's not even focus on it. It is not a serious matter.
  But forgive us if most Americans see the matter differently. These 
are precious little children, made in the image of God and endowed by 
him with the same worth and dignity as you and me and all of us.
  We have a duty to these little children. We have a duty not to look 
away from them.
  These pro-life bills are modest and humane. They have the strong 
support of the American people--clear majorities. But the real reason 
we must protect these babies is not because it is popular but because 
it is right.
  Every human being is created equal and deserves recognition and 
protection under our laws. It says so right in the preamble to our 
Declaration of Independence.
  Our country doesn't always live up to that noble principle. But right 
now we have an opportunity to live up to it just a little bit more, if 
only in just a few more cases--but those cases in which life is most 
vulnerable and most innocent.
  So I urge my colleagues to seize this opportunity and protect life by 
acknowledging the humanity of these precious little children. We must 
not look away any longer.
  I yield the floor.