[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 16235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DUNCAN HUNTER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 2, 2001

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation that, if 
passed, will once and for all protect our unborn children from harm. 
Over 1.3 million abortions are performed in the United States each year 
and over 38 million have been performed since abortion was legalized in 
1973. This is a national tragedy. It is the duty of all Americans to 
protect our children--born and unborn. This bill, the Right to Life 
Act, would provide blanket protection to all unborn children from the 
moment of conception.
  In 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Roe 
v. Wade, refused to determine when human life begins and therefore 
found nothing to indicate that the unborn are persons protected by the 
Fourteenth Amendment. In the decision, however, the Court did concede 
that, ``If the suggestion of personhood is established, the 
appellants'' case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life 
would be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.'' Considering 
Congress has the constitutional authority to uphold the Fourteenth 
Amendment, coupled by the fact that the Court admitted that if 
personhood were to be established, the unborn would be protected, it 
can be concluded that we have the authority to determine when life 
begins.
  The Right to Life Act does what the Supreme Court refused to do in 
Roe v. Wade and recognizes the personhood of the unborn for the purpose 
of enforcing four important provisions in the Constitution: (1) Sec. I 
of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from depriving any 
person of life; (2) Sec. 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment providing 
Congress the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the 
provision of this amendment; (3) the due process clause of the Fifth 
Amendment, which concurrently prohibits the federal government from 
depriving any person of life; and (4) Article 1, Section 8, giving 
Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to enforce all 
powers in the Constitution.
  This legislation will protect millions of future children by 
prohibiting any state or federal law that denies the personhood of the 
unborn, thereby effectively overturning Roe v. Wade.
  We have had some recent successes in protecting our preborn including 
the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and the Human Cloning 
Prohibition Act, as well as the introduction of the Born-Alive Infants 
Protection Act. These bills recognize the unborn child as a human and 
provide protection to the fetus. Because I firmly believe that life 
begins at conception and that the preborn child deserves all the rights 
and protections afforded an American citizen, I support these pieces of 
legislation. The Right to Life Act will finally put our unborn children 
on the same legal footing as all other persons. I hope my colleagues 
will join me in support of this important effort.

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