[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 36 (Monday, February 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1106-S1107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Abortion
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today for every child who has been
denied the chance to live; the little boys and the little girls who
never got the chance to breathe a breath of air, to live life; never
got the chance to grow up to be athletes, doctors, poets, or inventors;
never got the chance to live their own unique lives.
This year marks the 47th tragic anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the
Supreme Court decision that forced on all 50 States abortion on demand
and has tragically led to the loss of life of over 60 million unborn
children. Since that decision, so much life has been lost. So many
unborn and even newborn babies have suffered.
In recent years, we have seen the Democratic Party not listening to
the concerns of a great many people of good will on both sides of the
party but, rather, radicalize. We have seen leading contenders for the
Presidential nomination in the Democratic field declare that pro-life
Democrats are no longer welcome in the party. We have seen far too many
Democrats embrace extreme positions on abortion--abortion up until the
moment of birth and even, horrifically, after that.
I think the radicalization of today's Democratic Party was made
crystal clear for a great many Americans with the radio interview that
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam did on January 30 of last year. In that
interview, Governor Northam was speaking in favor of a bill that would
allow abortion when a mother was already in labor.
Stop and think about this for a moment. There have been debates about
abortion for a long, long time. A mother in labor, in the process of
delivering a child, this bill would allow a doctor to kill that child
instead of delivering the child in the midst of labor. For a great many
people, even Americans who identify as pro-choice, the idea of killing
a child while the mother is in labor delivering the infant is
horrifying beyond words. But Governor Northam didn't end there. He
wasn't content simply with saying that abortion should be allowed even
in the midst of birth. He went further. He said on that radio
interview:
The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept
comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what
the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion
would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
Now, so nobody is lost on what Governor Northam was saying, he was
describing something that has euphemistically been called post-birth
abortion. He was describing his view of the right way to approach
delivering a child, which is a child who is delivered, who is outside
the womb, who is breathing and crying and living. That is an infant.
And Governor Northam calmly, with virtually no emotion whatsoever,
described comforting that infant and then having a conversation about
whether to deny that child the necessary care to live or simply to
callously let a newborn infant die.
For virtually every American, that is a concept that is so extreme,
that is so radical, that--other than elected Democrats who have decided
to embrace a radical view of abortion in all circumstances--almost
every other American would be, rightly, horrified by the notion of a
doctor allowing a newborn infant outside the womb to die. That was
Governor Northam's position.
Well, tomorrow the Senate has an opportunity to speak out against
those extreme, radical positions, to say this isn't OK, to draw a line,
to find what should be some degree of common ground. We are going to be
voting on two bills in the Senate tomorrow: the Born-Alive Abortion
Survivors Protection Act and the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection
Act.
I am proud to be an original cosponsor of both pieces of legislation.
Those are both commonsense pieces of legislation that would work to
restore fundamental rights for the unborn and for newborn babies. They
are simple pieces of legislation.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires doctors to
provide medical care to infants who survive attempted abortion
procedures. It
[[Page S1107]]
would help make sure that, when an infant has already been born, when
the infant is alive, is breathing, is crying, is outside the womb, that
that child receives the medical attention he or she needs.
The second bill is the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that
would ban late-term abortions that result in pain and suffering and
agony for an unborn child.
What you will not hear from congressional Democrats is that after 5
months, an unborn child's toes and eyelids and fingers and eyelashes
have already formed. He or she has a heartbeat and can feel pain, and
science confirms this. We know that these late-term abortions, embraced
by more and more radical partisans, produce pain and suffering and
agony. We should not be a part of allowing the deliberate infliction of
pain on a little girl or a little boy.
These two proposals, in any sane and rational world, would be agreed
to unanimously. If you look at the last 3 years, we have seen enormous
victories when it has come to defending life, when it has come to
confirming 192 new Federal judges committed to following the law in the
Constitution; when it has come to restricting taxpayer funding of
Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in this country;
when it has come to defending the religious liberties of Americans all
across this country, including the Little Sisters of the Poor. We are
making major steps in the right direction, but we can go further. We
can agree on these commonsense provisions. We can also test whether
Senate Democrats agree with their colleagues running for President,
whether Senate Democrats agree with the chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, who has said: If you are a pro-life Democrat, get
out of the party; you are not welcome.
I can tell you in Texas, I certainly welcome pro-life Democrats to
speak up for their values and defend their values, and we should come
together behind commonsense propositions that say we should not be
committing procedures that result in pain and agony and suffering, that
science demonstrates causes that suffering, and we should not be
allowing newborn infants to die because medical care is denied to those
children.
This should bring us together. I urge our colleagues on both sides of
the aisle to stand together for life--every life, as a precious, unique
gift from God. Every life, whether the child has a disability, whether
the child is valued or not, that child should be valued, should be
protected because that child is precious.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.