[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 11, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H160-H161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              SAVING LIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I guess the opportunity to serve in the 
United States Congress with a little over 10,000 Members over the 
decades, and for the years of service that I have been given this 
privilege, and at the decision of my constituents allows me to look 
over the landscape of the journey that we have taken.
  I was here when medical procedures for parents who wanted nothing 
more than a healthy baby were then characterized as a criminal act and 
called partial-birth abortion when a mother had to make a decision with 
her God, her doctor, and her family.
  I remember the hearings in the Judiciary Committee where mothers were 
crying because of the medical procedure that was necessary to save 
their life.
  We have now come full circle, and the extremists want to again 
demonize parents who are desperate--desperate for a healthy child.
  I have seen this before: extremist views criminalizing a medical 
choice that has to be made, criminalizing abortion from east to west 
and north to south. I will not have it.
  I know that this is a most personal decision and one that families do 
not want to make. But as a person of faith, I believe it should be that 
woman, that family, that God, and that doctor.
  So, unfortunately, today we will have the effort to criminalize these 
actions of doctors. You see, Mr. Speaker, I come from a State where the 
State legislature and Governor passed a bounty hunter bill to go after 
doctors and nurses who would be giving medical care to innocent women 
and to individuals who were seeking that care.
  How outrageous in a constitutional democracy, Mr. Speaker, that you 
want to injure people and you want to undermine doctors and undermine 
nurses. What an outrage that, again, this extremist agenda continues.
  Yet, in the face of a 13-year-old being shot to death in the District 
of Columbia with a gun, the guns are rampaging across America, guns of 
a 6-year-old who shot a teacher; mass murders are more extensive in 
this last year, 2022, than ever, there is not a real effort to ensure 
that guns are not proliferating in the hands of those who should not 
get them, guns that should actually have penalties for those who do not 
store it; penalties for manufacturers who do not indicate, label, and 
insist that the guns be stored; or, in fact, the universal background 
check that has not been able to be passed. These are things that could 
save lives of living individuals who are now at the brunt end of gun 
violence.
  Yes, putting guns in the hands of people who should not have them, 
having better mental health services and red flag laws. But the way the 
bill was written, you have to opt in. States like Texas will not opt 
into a red flag law to protect people. And all I see in my area is--not 
because police are not working as hard as they can--domestic violence 
with guns day after day after day and week after week because guns are 
in the hands of the wrong people.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to say there is a lot of good 
work we can do together, there is a lot of good work that Democrats 
have done. We are seeing it in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and 
dealing with climate change which is evident by the tragedy that is 
happening to our friends in California.
  But I am glad to stand up here today and announce something really 
good that today, because of Democrats, the Social Security recipients 
will have an 8.7 percent increase in their COLA. I will go home over 
the weekend and over the days and into Martin Luther King celebrations 
where he believed in lifting the least of those and be able to say to 
those Social Security recipients: You got an 8.7 percent increase in 
your COLA because of Democrats and President Biden.
  We intend to do things and to be active on behalf of the American 
people. We intend to cure problems and not make problems. We intend to 
help our schoolchildren, help our teachers, help our nurses, help our 
doctors, and help those senior citizens whom I see in the

[[Page H161]]

senior citizen community centers saying: When are we going to get the 
ability to have a cost of living so that we can live because we have 
been the ones who have helped build this Nation?
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues and the administration to 
be unafraid of moving forward on H.R. 40.
  Isn't it time that we assess the impact of slavery in this country?
  Over 200 years it has never been addressed. It has never been 
addressed. H.R. 40 needs to pass on the issue of studying slavery and 
developing reparation proposals.

                          ____________________