[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 122 (Tuesday, July 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4840-S4841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Abortion

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last month, Speaker Pelosi was asked if she 
thought a 15-week-old unborn baby was a human being. She declined to 
answer. A few days later, the President's Press Secretary was asked if 
the President thinks a 15-week-old unborn baby is a human being. She 
also declined to answer.
  In case the President and the Speaker are in any doubt, let me just 
clear things up for them. A 15-week-old unborn baby is a human being. 
That baby has a human mom and a human dad, and human beings have other 
human beings. That is not a complex moral or philosophical question. 
That is biology 101.
  Of course, I am pretty sure the reason the Speaker and the 
President's Press Secretary declined to answer these questions is not 
because they are confused about the answer. I don't think there is 
anybody out there who isn't aware on some level that unborn human 
beings are human beings. The moment of birth does not magically confer 
humanity.
  No, the Speaker and the President don't want to admit that unborn 
children are human beings because admitting it would make it hard to 
defend the fact that they support the right to kill these babies. If 
you support abortion, it is much easier to pretend an unborn baby is 
just a clump of cells rather than a separate human being with his or 
her own fingerprints and DNA. It is a lot easier to defend killing that 
baby if you pretend that baby is just a part of the mother instead of a 
unique, separate, unrepeatable individual.
  That is why the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the 
Press Secretary for the President of the United States have declined to 
answer a question any 10-year-old could answer: whether the baby inside 
his or her mom is a human being.
  At the end of May, President Biden released his budget. It was a slap 
in the face to pro-life Americans. The President's budget abandons 
decades of bipartisan compromise and calls for the elimination of the 
Hyde amendment, which protects taxpayers from having their tax dollars 
go to fund abortions.
  And that is not all. The budget contains a whole host of pro-abortion 
measures that would, among other things, direct taxpayer dollars to 
fund abortion providers here at home and overseas.
  This isn't just some theatrical proposal. Democrats in the House of 
Representatives have already acted in committee to exclude the Hyde 
amendment and other pro-life measures from appropriations bills. If we 
can't agree that unborn human beings deserve to have their human rights 
protected, we should at least be able to agree that taxpayers should 
not be forced to fund the killing of unborn persons.
  The American people don't think taxpayers should fund abortions. In 
fact, nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of 
abortions. The President himself has, as recently as his Presidential 
campaign, supported the Hyde amendment, but there is one interest group 
that controls the Democratic Party. It is the abortion industry and its 
supporters, and I guess the President figured that he needed to 
sacrifice his support for the Hyde amendment if he wanted to win the 
election.
  And now Democrats and the President are following through by 
attempting to force taxpayers to pay for abortions. To hear Democrats 
talk, you would think abortion on demand, without limits, up until the 
moment of birth, was the standard position of this country and the 
world. But it is actually not. The United States is one of only a tiny 
handful of countries in the world--in the entire world--that allow 
elective abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy.
  Americans are squarely to the right of the Democratic Party on 
abortion. A strong majority of Americans believe abortion should be 
illegal or there should at least be some restrictions on abortion, and 
that has been the position of the American people for a long time
  Despite the Democrats' best efforts, Americans still aren't convinced 
unlimited abortion on demand should be the law of the land. It is 
really not surprising. No one who has ever heard the thump, thump, 
thump of an unborn baby's heartbeat really thinks that we are just 
talking about a clump of cells. No one who has ever looked at an 
ultrasound screen and seen an unborn baby waving her hands or kicking 
her feet is in any doubt that that baby is a human being.
  And at some level, every person knows that human beings have human 
rights and that human beings deserve to be protected, even when they 
are small and weak and vulnerable--especially when they are small and 
weak and vulnerable.
  No matter how hard the abortion lobby pushes, they can't convince the 
majority of Americans that abortion is an unqualified good. 
Unfortunately, however, they succeeded in turning the Democratic Party 
into their legislative arm. And President Biden and Democrats in 
Congress are obediently pursuing a radical abortion agenda that puts 
them squarely to the left of the majority of the American people.
  It is not limited to taxpayer funding of abortion or abortion 
providers. President Biden nominated a radical pro-abortion crusader as 
the Secretary of Health and Human Services. In May, Secretary Becerra 
appeared before a House subcommittee where he chose to answer a 
question on Federal abortion law by indulging in a game of semantics. 
Not only did he fail to commit to enforcing the Partial-Birth Abortion 
Ban Act, he refused to even acknowledge its existence, even though he 
voted against the law repeatedly during his time in the House of 
Representatives.
  Then there is the so-called Equality Act--Democrats' unprecedented 
assault on free speech and religious liberty that would also erode 
conscience protections on abortions as well as restrictions on Federal 
funding. Under the Equality Act, doctors and nurses who have a moral 
objection to participating in abortions could be forced to participate 
or lose their jobs.
  I haven't even mentioned the Women's Health Protection Act, sponsored 
by almost every Democrat in the Senate, which would threaten even the 
mildest State limits on abortion.
  It is deeply disheartening that making sure unborn children are 
deprived of their human rights has become a defining cause for one of 
the two major parties in this country. We can do better than this. We 
have to do better than this.
  Congressman Henry Hyde, for whom the Hyde amendment was named, once 
noted that abortion--which, as he said, denies ``an entire class of 
human beings the welcome and protection of our laws''--is a betrayal of 
``the best in our tradition.''
  And he was right. What kind of a message does it send to our children

[[Page S4841]]

when we tell them that an entire class of human beings is not worthy of 
protection, when we deny human rights to the most innocent and 
vulnerable humans among us? We have to do better.
  To my Democratic colleagues, I would say, if we cannot act today to 
secure justice and human rights for unborn human beings, let's at least 
stand for the great American tradition of freedom of conscience and 
protect the rights of doctors and nurses who decline to participate in 
abortions. Let's at least spare Americans who oppose the taking of 
innocent human life from having their tax dollars go to fund abortions. 
At the very, very least, we should be able to agree upon that.
  As I said, I am saddened and disheartened that a major political 
party in this country made depriving unborn human rights as their 
defining cause, but their right to life will not be ignored.
  While Democratic leaders may deny the humanity of the unborn, there 
are a lot of Americans out there--a lot of Americans--who recognize it. 
I have faith that sooner or later this country will live up to its 
founding promise and the best of its tradition and extend the 
protection of its laws to every human being, born and unborn.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to finish my remarks, roughly 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.