[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2009]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SUNSET MEMORIAL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TRENT FRANKS

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 12, 2008

  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I stand once again before this 
body with another Sunset Memorial.
  It is February 12, 2008, in the land of the free and the home of the 
brave, and before the sun set today in America, almost 4,000 more 
defenseless unborn children were killed by abortion on demand--just 
today. That is more than the number of innocent American lives that we 
lost on September 11, only it happens every day.
  It has now been exactly 12,804 days since the tragic judicial fiat 
called Roe v. Wade was handed down. Since then, the very foundation of 
this Nation has been stained by the blood of almost 50 million of our 
own children.
  Some of them, Madam Speaker, cried and screamed as they died, but 
because it was amniotic fluid passing over their vocal cords instead of 
air, we couldn't hear them. And all of them had at least four things in 
common.
  They were each just little babies who had done nothing wrong to 
anyone. Each one of them died a nameless and lonely death. And each of 
their mothers, whether she realizes it immediately or not, will never 
be the same. And all the gifts that these children might have brought 
to humanity are now lost forever.
  Yet even in the full glare of such tragedy, this generation clings to 
blindness and invincible ignorance while history repeats itself and our 
own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the most helpless of all 
victims to date, those yet unborn.
  Madam Speaker, perhaps it is important for those of us in this 
Chamber to remind ourselves again of why we are really all here.
  Thomas Jefferson said, ``The care of human life and its happiness and 
not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government.''
  Madam Speaker, protecting the lives of our innocent citizens and 
their constitutional rights is why we are all here. It is our sworn 
oath. The phrase in the 14th amendment capsulizes our entire 
Constitution. It says: ``No state shall deprive any person of life, 
liberty or property without due process of law.''
  The bedrock foundation of this Republic is the Declaration, not the 
casual notion, but the Declaration of the self-evident truth that all 
human beings are created equal and endowed by their creator with the 
unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Every 
conflict and battle our Nation has ever faced can be traced to our 
commitment to this core self-evident truth. It has made us the beacon 
of hope for the entire world. It is who we are.
  And yet Madam Speaker, another day has passed, and we in this body 
have failed again to honor that commitment. We failed our sworn oath 
and our God-given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly 4,000 
more innocent American babies who died without the protection we should 
have been given them.
  But perhaps tonight, Madam Speaker, maybe someone new who heard this 
sunset memorial will finally realize that abortion really does kill a 
baby, that it hurts mothers in ways that we can never express, and that 
12,804 days spent killing nearly 50 million unborn children in America 
is enough; and that this nation is great enough to find a better way 
than abortion on demand.
  So tonight, Madam Speaker, may we each remind ourselves that our own 
days in this sunshine of life are numbered and that all too soon each 
of us will walk from these Chambers for the very last time.
  And if it should be that this Congress is allowed to convene on yet 
another day to come, may that be the day when we hear the cries of the 
unborn at last. May that be the day we find the humanity, the courage, 
and the will to embrace together our human and our constitutional duty 
to protect the least of these, our tiny American brothers and sisters, 
from this murderous scourge upon our Nation called abortion on demand.
  It is February 12, 2008--12,804 days since Roe v. Wade first stained 
the foundation of this nation with the blood of its own children--this, 
in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

                          ____________________