[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3176-3177]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    THE PREMEDITATED MURDER OF NEW-BORN BABIES JUSTIFIED AS MORALLY 
                         EQUIVALENT TO ABORTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
  Late last month, two bioethicists--Dr. Alberto Giubilini and 
Francesca Minerva--published an outrageous paper in the Journal of 
Medical Ethics, justifying the deliberate, premeditated murder of new-
born babies during the first days and even weeks after birth.
  Giubilini and Minerva wrote: ``When circumstances occur after birth 
that would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion 
should be permissible.''
  Madam Speaker, they've just coined a brand-new phrase, ``after-birth 
abortion,'' which is the killing of newborns, the killing of little 
children--boys and girls--immediately after their births and up to 
weeks later. These bioethicists argue that if a newly born child poses 
an economic burden on a family or is disabled or is unwanted that that 
child can be murdered in cold blood because the baby lacks intrinsic 
value, and according to Giubilini and Minerva, it is simply not a 
person.
  Giubilini and Minerva write: ``Actual people's well-being--'' and you 
and I, Madam Speaker, are actual people; adults are actual people 
according to them ``--could be threatened by a new-born, even if 
healthy child, requiring energy, money and care which the family might 
happen to be in short supply of.''
  As any parents--especially moms--will tell you, children in general, 
and newborns in particular, require an enormous amount of energy, 
money, and boatloads of love. If any of those things, however, are 
lacking or pose what Giubilini and Minerva call a ``threat,'' does that 
justify a death sentence? Are the lives of new-born children and new-
born babies so cheap? so expendable?
  The murder of newly born children is further justified by Giubilini 
and Minerva in this renowned journal's article--why they carried it is 
certainly suspect--because new-born infants, like their slightly 
younger sisters and brothers in the womb, ``cannot have formed any aim 
that she is prevented from accomplishing.'' In other words, no dreams, 
no plans for the future, no ``aims'' that can be discerned, recognized 
or understood by adults equal no life at all.
  This preposterous, arbitrary, and evil prerequisite for the 
attainment of legal personhood is not only bizarre; it is inhumane in 
the extreme. Stripped of its pseudo-intellectual underpinnings, the 
Giubilini and Minerva rationale for murdering newborns in the nursery 
is indistinguishable from any other child predator wielding a knife or 
a gun.
  Giubilini and Minerva say the devaluation of new-born babies is 
inextricably linked to the devaluation of unborn children. Let me say 
that again. The devaluation of new-born babies, even into weeks of 
their lives outside their mothers' wombs, is inextricably linked to the 
devaluation of unborn children and is, indeed, the logical extension of 
the abortion culture. They also write this: that they ``propose to call 
the practice after-birth abortion rather than infanticide in order to 
emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed--'' that is to 
say the baby ``--is comparable to that of a fetus . . . Whether she 
will exist is exactly what our choice is about.''
  So let's again get this right because the unborn child has been 
deemed to be a nonperson and can be killed at will. For the new-born 
child, who is very, very similar in almost every aspect except 
dependency and its not being a little bit more mature, the choice is, 
if it is unwanted, that the parents can order the killing, the 
execution, of that child.

                              {time}  1320

  Madam Speaker, these anti-child, pro-murder rationalizations remind 
me of other equally disturbing rants from highly credentialed 
individuals over the years. Princeton's Peter Singer suggested a couple 
of years ago--and I quote him in pertinent part:

       There are various things you can say that are sufficient to 
     give moral status to a child after a few months, maybe 6 
     months or something like that, and you get perhaps a full 
     moral status, really, only after 2 years.

  Break that down. Only after 2 years, Madam Speaker, should we really 
confer a sense of personhood to a child who is no longer a baby anymore 
because of this particular intellectual's perspective.
  Dr. James Watson, the Nobel Laureate for unraveling the mystery of 
DNA many, many years ago, wrote in Prism Magazine:

       If a child were not declared alive until 3 days after 
     birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a 
     few have under the present system. The doctor could allow the 
     child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of 
     misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only 
     rational, compassionate attitude to have.

  Compassionate to allow a newborn to die? I think not.

[[Page 3177]]

  In like manner, Dr. Francis Crick, who received the Nobel Prize along 
with Watson said:

       No new-born infant should be declared human until it has 
     passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and that 
     if it fails these tests it forfeits the right to live.

  Madam Speaker, the dehumanization of unborn children has been going 
on for decades. What is less understood and appreciated is the 
dehumanization of new-born and very young infants. That too has been 
going on for years, but it has gotten in the last few years 
demonstrably worse.
  Giubilini and Minerva's article must serve as a wake-up call. The 
lives of young children who are truly the most unprotected class of 
individuals in our society are under assault. Hard questions need to be 
asked and answered and defenders of life must be mobilized. I truly 
believe we have a duty to protect the weakest and the most vulnerable 
from violence; and now even the hospital nursery is not a place of 
refuge or sanctuary.
  Madam Speaker, we must strive for consistency. I have been hearing 
about it for 32 years, and I've worked every single day of my 
congressional life on human rights issues, from human trafficking to 
religious freedom. I've written the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 
back in 2000 to combat modern-day slavery. I work against torture all 
over the world, wherever and whenever it rears its horrific head. That 
is especially in places like China, North Korea, and elsewhere.
  But I am left to wonder why so many who claim to be proponents of 
human rights systematically dehumanize and exclude the weakest and the 
most vulnerable human beings from legal protection.
  Why the modern-day surge in prejudice and ugly bias against unborn 
children and now, by logical extension, new-born children? Why the 
policy of exclusion rather than inclusion? They are indeed part of the 
human family. We should embrace them, love them, and protect them. Why 
is lethal violence against children, abortion, and premeditated killing 
of new-born infants marketed and sold as somehow benign or progressive, 
enlightened, and compassionate? Why have so many good people turned a 
blind eye and looked askance as mothers are wounded by abortion and 
their babies in the womb pulverized by suction machines 20 to 30 times 
more powerful than household vacuum cleaners or dismembered with 
surgical knives or poisoned with chemicals? Looking back, how could 
anyone in the House or the Senate or President Clinton justify the 
hideous procedure called ``partial birth abortion''?
  Madam Speaker, since 1973, well over 54 million babies have had 
abortion forced upon them. Some of those children have been 
exterminated in the second and third trimester. These are known as 
pain-capable babies. Those kids have suffered excruciating pain as the 
abortionist committed his violence upon him or her. Why are some 
surprised that now the emerging class of victims, new-born kids, new-
born children, are being slaughtered in Holland and elsewhere while a 
perverse proposal to murder any new-born children, sick or healthy, is 
advanced in an otherwise serious and respected ethics journal?
  I urge Members to read this article. It will make you sick. It 
certainly is the opening salvo in an assault on new-born children.
  In conclusion, Madam Speaker, children born and unborn are precious. 
Children sick, disabled, or healthy possess fundamental human rights 
that no sane or compassionate society can abridge. The premeditated 
murder of new-born babies, those who are 1 day old after birth, 2 
weeks, 3 weeks old is now being justified as being morally equivalent 
to abortion.
  I respectfully submit, Madam Speaker, that the Congress, the courts, 
the President, and society at large have a sacred duty to protect all 
children from violence, murder, and exploitation. We don't have a 
moment to lose. The child predators are working overtime to create more 
victims.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________