[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5073-5079]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     REGARDING NATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE OF PHILADELPHIA MURDER TRIAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pittenger). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New Jersey?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, will the decades-long national 
news media cover-up of the brutality and the violence of abortion 
methods ever end?
  Will Americans ever be told of the horrifying details as to how and 
how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison 
innocent babies?
  Will Americans ever be informed by a conscientious, unbiased national 
news media that in the past 40 years over 55 million child victims have 
been brutally killed by abortion, a staggering loss of children's lives 
that equates to the entire population of England, and that many women 
have been hurt physically, emotionally, and psychologically? And 
according to the Center for Disease Control--and this is a very 
conservative estimate from CDC--over 400 women have actually died from 
legal abortions.
  Will Americans ever be told that of the 55 million children, Planned 
Parenthood alone claims responsibility for destroying 6 million babies 
and that just 2 weeks ago a Planned Parenthood leader in Florida 
testified at a legislative hearing at a State initiative to protect 
born-alive infants that even when a child survives an abortion, the 
decision to assist or kill the born-alive infant should be ``up to the 
woman, her family and her physician''? In other words, if a child 
intended to be aborted survives the assault, the choice to kill 
remains--so-called ``after-birth abortion.''

                              {time}  1430

  Isn't that extreme child abuse?
  Murdering newborns in the abortion clinic, it seems to me, is 
indistinguishable from any other child predator wielding a knife or a 
gun. Why isn't the child also seen as a patient in need of medical 
care, warmth, nutrition, and--dare I say--love?
  Now another national media coverup--in this case, even when a Jeffrey 
Dahmer-like murder trial of an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell, who 
ran the benign-sounding Women's Medical Society unfolds in a 
Philadelphia courtroom, replete with shocking testimony of beheadings, 
unfathomable abuse, death, and body parts in jars. To this day, the 
national news media remains uninterested, woefully indifferent--AWOL.
  Why the censorship? Why does Gosnell's house of horrors--his trial--
fail to this day to attract any serious and meaningful national news 
reporting?
  Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for eight counts of murder. One count 
is for the death of a woman, a victim who died during an abortion in 
his clinic. Seven counts are for babies who survived their abortions 
and were born alive but then killed by severing their spinal cords with 
a pair of scissors.
  In the words of the grand jury report: ``Gosnell had a simple 
solution for unwanted babies--he killed them.'' He didn't call it that. 
He called it ``ensuring fetal demise''--a nice euphemism. The way he 
ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's 
neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ``snipping.'' Over the 
years, according to the grand jury report, there were hundreds of 
snippings.
  Indeed, the national news media has not only taken a pass and looked 
the other way, but their stunning indifference has done a grave 
disservice to Gosnell's victims: the woman killed, other women injured, 
and children slaughtered by Gosnell. Because of the national news 
media's indefensible silence and because of their failure to report, 
other women and children at other abortion mills might also be at risk.
  The grand jury report, again in January of 2011, pointedly pointed 
out and noted that an absence of press coverage and gross negligence by 
the health department in Pennsylvania enabled Gosnell to show a 
``contemptuous disregard for the health, safety, and dignity of his 
patients that continued for 40 years.''
  Right from the beginning of Roe v. Wade, he was overlooked by a media 
that was disinterested. Some media commentators, however, are beginning 
to take note of the national news media blackout and the bias that 
undergirds and is inherent in that blackout.
  The title of an editorial yesterday in the Investors Business Daily 
was ``Newtown in the Clinic: The Media Ignore the Gosnell Trial.'' It 
begins in part:

       Media bias: A basketball coach who shoves and curses at his 
     players merits constant coverage by a media also transfixed 
     by Newtown; but a Philadelphia doctor on trial for murdering 
     a woman and seven babies? It's ignored.
       Those who get their news from the three major networks have 
     probably not heard of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, now on trial in 
     Philadelphia, charged with seven counts of first-degree 
     murder and one count of third-degree murder for killing seven 
     babies who survived abortions and a woman who died after a 
     botched painkiller injection.

  The editorial points out that, according to the Media Research 
Center, in 1 week, Rice--who is the coach from Rutgers--received 41 
minutes, 26 seconds on ABC, CBS, and NBC in 36 separate news stories. 
Gosnell received zero coverage.
  The editorial points out:

       If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven 
     infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the 
     subject of Presidential hand-wringing.

  In today's edition of USA Today, columnist Kirsten Powers writes:

       Infant beheadings, severed baby feet in jars, a child 
     screaming after it was delivered during an abortion 
     procedure. Haven't heard about those sickening accusations?
       It's not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania 
     abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been 
     precious little coverage of the case that should be on every 
     news show and front page.

  She goes on to write in her column:

       A LexisNexis search shows none of the news shows on the 
     three major national television networks has mentioned the 
     Gosnell trial in the last 3 months. The exception is when 
     Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment 
     on ``Meet the Press.''

  Again, I ask my colleagues, and I ask the news media: Why the 
blackout?
  Will America ever be told the brutality of abortion and the violence 
that is commonplace inside the abortion industry; or will the media, 
the national media especially, continue to censor and censor and, in 
this case, censor a trial--a trial of the century--that exposes all of 
the all too inconvenient truth: that not only are unborn children 
destroyed in these killing centers by being decapitated and dismembered 
but that even babies who survive the abortions can't escape the deadly 
hand of these child predators?
  I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Vicky 
Hartzler.
  Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you so much. I appreciate this opportunity to 
share today, as we look at the national media coverup of this very, 
very horrific act.
  As we gather today to bring awareness to the trial of Kermit Gosnell 
and to the horrific actions he has been charged with, we remember the 
many who were murdered at the Women's Medical Society clinic and denied 
the chance to be our siblings, playmates, our friends, our peers. We 
mourn their losses, and we mourn the deep pain and confusion that 
abortion has inflicted upon women, men, and their families.
  This trial provides revealing insights into the abortion industry, 
and it specifically highlights the reality that abortion involves 
taking a human life. These killings expose the very gruesome nature of 
what happens in abortion clinics all across this country

[[Page 5074]]

where over 1.2 million unborn children die in abortions every year.
  As a legislator, I will continue to speak in defense of the most 
basic human right--life. I will continue to support legislation that 
would stop the Federal funding for abortion providers, and I will 
continue to champion the inherent human dignity of every life born and 
unborn.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend and colleague Mrs. 
Hartzler for her very eloquent statement, for her championing the 
rights of the unborn and their mothers, and for joining us in this 
Special Order today.
  I'd like to now yield to a medical doctor who has been the leader on 
conscience rights in the House of Representatives, in the Congress, Dr. 
Fleming.
  Mr. FLEMING. I certainly want to thank my good friend from New Jersey 
for all the great work that you've done on this and the work you 
continue to do.
  I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that just hearing about this trial--and 
quite frankly, I haven't heard about it on TV. If I weren't informed 
about it in leading up to this Special Order, I wouldn't know about the 
Gosnell trial--one in which, I think, it is really sickening just to 
hear the facts.
  It's interesting. This country has reached a point in which we have 
focused so much on the humane treatment of animals--that is, to treat 
animals like humans. Then that leaves the question: Why do we not treat 
people like people? Why don't we treat humans humanely? I think that is 
an important question. What do people say who themselves have survived 
abortion?
  I was at a meeting several months ago, and I met two fantastic 
mothers, mothers of children today. As to one of them, her mom, while 
she was still pregnant with her, attempted to have an abortion, but for 
whatever reason, she never could get around to it. She couldn't get it 
lined up or whatever, and eventually, she just ended up not having the 
abortion. Of course, this beautiful lady was eventually born, and now 
she has grown up to be an adult, and is very productive and very 
beautiful and herself has children. Of course, if you asked her, Well, 
what do you think about your mother's attempt to have an abortion of 
you while you were still in the womb? She would say--speaking, I think, 
for millions of unborn today and unborn in the past--Let me live. Give 
me an opportunity--I, the innocent unborn--to live. Give me a chance to 
live in society.

                              {time}  1440

  I met another beautiful lady at this meeting. Her mother, while still 
pregnant with her, late term, actually attempted to have a saline 
abortion. It was a botched abortion. It didn't work. By that I mean she 
was born alive and remained alive. And, fortunately for her, the health 
care workers decided to go ahead and revive and resuscitate her. And, 
of course, we know that saline abortions, if you have a child that 
survives, it scalds the skin. It creates injury to that baby. But she 
was treated, and she grew up to be a beautiful woman who married and 
who had children. If you asked her today, she would tell you she speaks 
for the millions of the unborn, both in the past and those who are 
killed in the womb today: Yes, let me live. Give me a chance to live.
  Well, what about the question of infanticide? That's really what 
we're talking about in the Gosnell case. These babies, for whatever 
reason, he certainly wasn't a good enough doctor to accomplish the 
abortion while the babies were still in the womb, and then has to go on 
and do something I think most Americans would consider murder, and that 
is infanticide. In most places, perhaps all places in America today, 
infanticide is murder.
  But the question is: Do you realize there are two bioethicists in 
Australia who have recently proposed a concept called ``post-delivery 
abortion?'' Of course, we know that to be infanticide. Once the baby is 
born, if you kill the baby, that's infanticide. But they want to do a 
little wordsmithing and call it something else--post-delivery abortion. 
What they mean is this: if the baby is born and there's something about 
the baby that you're dissatisfied with, maybe it has an abnormality of 
some sort, maybe it's going to cost some money for a heart deformity or 
a facial deformity, maybe it's born with a genetic defect, that you 
should have, as a mother, the option of killing that baby even outside 
of the womb. There has even been a hint that perhaps taking a baby's 
life, even up to the age of conscious life, which can be, I don't know, 
a year or even more, would be still incongruent with the concept of 
post-delivery abortion.
  So you see, Mr. Speaker, this is a slippery slope. Once you get past 
the fact that life begins at conception, and of course with today's 
technology, infants born as early as age 22 weeks, certainly 24 weeks, 
often survive at a time when they couldn't in the past. This has become 
an extremely slippery slope to the point where there are many out there 
who would actually turn their backs on life even after the point of 
delivery.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, what about the lives of the women themselves? I'm 
a physician, and I've seen women after they've had an abortion. I can 
even think of a couple of cases in my practice when of course I would 
never send a lady for an abortion, but I was forced to treat a lady 
after an abortion because she was treated by an itinerant physician who 
comes into town, does a bunch of abortions, leaves town, and says if 
you have any complications, go see your family doctor. Well, of course, 
that is sickening for me. That means I am involuntarily participating, 
at least tacitly, in treating a lady who has had complications from an 
abortion.
  This really goes to show you to the point with Dr. Gosnell just how 
unfeeling and inhumane the whole consideration is.
  But what drives people to do this? Well, we know if you look at 
studies, it's about money. It's all about money, Mr. Speaker. They make 
millions of dollars. I think in the case of Dr. Gosnell, he became a 
multimillionaire because of all of the many abortions he provided over 
the years.
  But, again, back to the women. What happens to the women who have 
abortions? Well, these are some things that we know. Once a woman has 
an abortion, her chance of having a future miscarriage goes up. And so 
now we're talking about miscarriages, stillborn, and the issue of 
infertility. Rate of suicides, they're higher in women who have had 
abortions. What about the rate of other complications, rates of 
depression and other things? We know they're all higher. The outcomes 
in the future lives of young women, and even not-so-young women who 
undergo abortions, Mr. Speaker, are really not very positive. So why 
would we encourage this? And certainly we know that a woman who gets an 
abortion a first time is far more likely to get a second and a third 
abortion, and oftentimes it really becomes a form of birth control.
  So, in summary, Mr. Speaker, I stand up with my colleagues today to 
speak out against the fact that not only are we seeing abortion 
continue, the taking of innocent life through this Nation, but even the 
mere consideration of ending the life of an infant after birth, either 
because of a botched abortion or even deliberately just because there 
is some dissatisfaction with the outcome. I think is really horrible 
and something we should be ashamed of. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, if we 
can give consideration and humane treatment to animals, should we not 
do this for our own as well?
  So, again, I rise in support of my colleagues on this very important 
issue. I do think that if we can't do it on a Federal level, we need to 
move forward in our States, such as my own State of Louisiana, where we 
have developed certain requirements, elevated requirements of 
accountability for doctors who provide abortions so that they can't 
just fly in and fly out and leave a mess. They have to have certain 
credentials and maintain hospital privileges perhaps; create 
limitations after so many weeks can an abortion actually be done. Let's 
do away with late-term abortions, again, an abominable act. We know 
through studies that the

[[Page 5075]]

unborn feel pain at least as early as 20 weeks gestation, and maybe 
earlier.
  Certain States, such as Arkansas, recently passed laws against late-
term abortions. And, again, in my home State of Louisiana, we have a 
cooling-off period where you have to think about this. Think one more 
time, just think for 24 hours, maybe even pray about it: Is this 
something I really want to go forward with, end the life of my progeny? 
And certainly the requirement of an ultrasound, at least a requirement 
of the option of seeing your baby before you terminate its poor life.
  Once again, I thank my colleagues. It is certainly a privilege and an 
honor to speak on what is, I think, one of the most important issues 
that we have in America.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank you, Dr. Fleming, so much for your 
leadership and for that very concise statement. And now I would like to 
yield to my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for arranging today's 
Special Order. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey also for his 
leadership on this very important issue, not just today, not just 
yesterday, but over years, year after year after year, coming to this 
floor, speaking around our State, speaking around the Nation as well, 
speaking for those who do not have a voice, speaking for the weak, the 
unborn. We thank you for your leadership in this area. We recognize 
that you have done a profound thing for this Nation, and we thank you 
for that.
  I, too, come from New Jersey; and tonight I would like to speak 
briefly, and I will reference a woman who lived in New Jersey, who 
lived in Bergen County, who actually lived in Tenafly, up in my neck of 
the woods. And maybe some of you have heard her name before, and you 
would if you've walked about this Capitol, because she is commemorated 
in a sculpture located in the rotunda of this building, and I'm talking 
about Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was a suffragette. She was a women's 
rights activist. She was someone who fought long and hard to ensure the 
equality of women before the law in this country. And also she fought 
for the important issue of the sanctity of life. Way back over 100 
years ago in 1873, she wrote a letter to Julia Ward Howe, a prominent 
abolitionist and also a suffragette, and in it she wrote the following:

       When we consider that women are treated as property, it is 
     degrading to women that we should treat our own children as 
     property to be disposed of as we see fit.

                              {time}  1450

  So she classified abortion as a form of infanticide.
  Today, Mrs. Stanton, I believe, would be horrified. I believe she 
would be disgusted, as my colleagues are as well, with what millions of 
Americans are watching going on in Philadelphia right now.
  Kermit Gosnell is on trial in a city that gave birth to America, in a 
city that gave birth to the Declaration of Independence, a city that 
gave birth to the idea, the promise of life and liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness. He's there on trial for the callous murder of eight 
Americans, one woman, she who died from a botched abortion, and seven 
innocent, defenseless children who were born alive and healthy but then 
were killed by the abortionist.
  These are only the murders that Gosnell is being charged with. His 
clinic, it is recorded, has carried out literally hundreds, thousands 
of abortions over the years using the doctor's own gruesome techniques 
on children, who were often over the Pennsylvania legal limit of 24 
weeks.
  Now, as was pointed out, news reports on the trial are nonexistent. 
Reports of testimony in the grand jury are basically nonexistent in the 
media. But if you dig down and you get a copy of the grand jury's 
report, you see what we're talking about and how gruesome it is.
  According to the grand jury's report, ``Gosnell had a simple 
solution''--this is from the grand jury's report. ``Gosnell had a 
simple solution for unwanted babies; he killed them.'' He didn't call 
it that. He called it, ensuring fetal demise. He called it, then, 
``snipping.'' Over the years there were literally hundreds of 
snippings. This we find from the grand jury's report.
  Snipping? This is not a medical procedure. This is murder, and we 
should call it for what it is.
  Where, then, is the protection of life? Where, then, is the 
protection of liberty? Where is the protection of the pursuit of 
happiness?
  Where is the outrage at what is going on there? Where is the outrage 
that nothing of this is being reported in any of the major newspapers 
across this country, on any of the major radio stations, on any of the 
major TV or cable channels across this country?
  You have to dig, as I did, to find it in the back pages. The media 
and the pro-abortion movement are more concerned about things like Rush 
Limbaugh's comments on contraception, or ensuring that girls under 18, 
kids, have easy access to the morning after pill than they are with 
this trial, the gruesome acts in the trial, they allege, of Dr. 
Gosnell, or for the 1.2 million unborn Americans who die in America 
every year.
  So, Mr. Speaker I join the rest of my colleagues tonight in 
expressing my disgust with this case and the failure also, the disgust 
also with the media to cover these actions.
  Every child is precious. Every child is a gift. We must continue, 
then, this fight to protect this most fundamental right for the unborn, 
and each of us, the right to life. And we must also make sure that when 
it is destroyed, that it is exposed.
  Again, with that, I conclude, and I thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey for his actions tonight.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank Mr. Garrett for his 
eloquence, but also for his faithfulness in defending the powerless and 
the people who need voices, unborn children and their mothers, all 
those who are similarly situated, the vulnerable and the weak. He is 
always there, and I want to thank you so much, Scott.
  I'd like to now yield to the chairman of the Health Subcommittee for 
the Energy and Commerce Committee for the House of Representatives, Joe 
Pitts, and note that Congressman Pitts, Chairman Pitts, is the author 
of the Abortion Control Act of 1989, the legislation that established, 
within the framework of Roe v. Wade, a very aggressive attempt to 
protect, to the maximum extent possible, pursuant to that onerous 
decision by the Supreme Court, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court, 
to do investigations of clinics and to just hold to a higher standard 
so that, to the greatest extent possible, life would be protected.
  Congressman Pitts has been leading the charge on life for his entire 
career, both in the State legislature and in the U.S. House of 
Representatives, so it is a distinct honor to yield to my good friend.
  Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Congressman Smith, for your leadership on this 
issue here in Congress, very, very wonderful, inspiring leadership to 
all of us who've been engaged in this, on this issue for years in State 
legislatures like Pennsylvania and across the other parts of the 
country.
  But U.S. Route 30 runs through the heart of my district, in Lancaster 
County and Chester County, in Pennsylvania. You follow that road all 
the way into Philadelphia, you'll pass a nondescript, triangle-shaped 
brick building at 38th Street. And for years, Dr. Kermit Gosnell 
operated a factory of death in this location, just across the street 
from a church.
  This week, Gosnell is on trial for multiple homicides that 
demonstrate just how thin the line between abortion and murder is in 
this country.
  Dr. Kermit Gosnell spent years taking advantage of vulnerable women, 
offering illegal and dangerous abortions in exchange for cash. He also 
operated a pill mill, selling prescription drugs to anyone in the 
neighborhood with enough cash.
  He sold death to the poor, and he lived handsomely for years. State 
authorities never darkened the door of what he called a ``clinic'' 
until a mother died of an overdose during one of Gosnell's procedures.

[[Page 5076]]

  He used clinical terminology to pave over the fact that in many cases 
he was killing a child who had already been born. While he is charged 
with seven counts of murdering an infant and a single count of 
murdering a mother, we don't really know how many children died after 
they were born.
  Just as he was careless with the lives of children, he was careless 
with the lives of mothers, and he treated them in terrible conditions, 
often sending them out of the clinic injured and still under the 
influence of anesthesia.
  We should always remember that abortion is the most violent form of 
death known to humankind. And there are always two victims in every 
abortion. One is the child, the unborn child. The other is the mother. 
One is dead, one is wounded.
  An abortion is violence against the unborn. It's also violence 
against women.
  But the facts of this case raise the disturbing question of just how 
close legal abortion practices come to outright murder. Gosnell knew 
that there was little real medical difference between killing the child 
in-utero and killing them outside of the mother.
  Like standard, legal abortion practice, he would use chemicals to 
first poison the unborn child. And if he had waited until death to 
remove their bodies, he would be within the law. Because he took the 
children out of the mothers while they were still alive, he is guilty 
of murder.
  Gosnell only took a leap that certain intellectuals and so-called 
medical ethicists have been talking about for decades. Just last year, 
two researchers published a paper in the prestigious Journal of Medical 
Ethics entitled ``After Birth Abortion.'' Their assertion was that a 
fetus doesn't become a child until they are wanted.
  Let us never say that these are unwanted children, not while there 
are tens of thousands of married couples waiting to adopt, couples who 
wait months or years to bring home a baby boy or a girl. Many Americans 
even travel far abroad in order to adopt. In many cases, they go all 
the way to China or Ethiopia.
  Gosnell's victims, and the millions of other lives lost to abortion 
are, by no means, unwanted.
  The case of Dr. Gosnell is gruesome. The place that he ran was a 
gruesome factory and disturbing, but only because it strips away the 
clinical nature of most abortions.

                              {time}  1500

  His carelessness exposed what the fetus actually was--a human that he 
cruelly murdered. And yet the press will ignore, will remain silent on 
what is happening in this very important trial in Philadelphia. We 
ignore the tiniest human life at great peril because, as Gosnell 
demonstrates, flippancy for life creeps from the infant to the adult. 
We must protect all life, no matter how small or at what stage.
  And so I commend Congressman Smith and my other colleagues who have 
come to speak today about this important policy issue. It's about 
people, it's about children, it's about women.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank Chairman Pitts for his very 
eloquent statement. Even the grand jury report noted that if Mr. Pitts' 
law had been followed faithfully, the whole Gosnell destruction of not 
only women's lives but the death and murder of one woman and the 
killing of these children might not have occurred.
  I'd like to yield to Dr. Andy Harris, a Johns Hopkins physician and 
also a Member of the U.S. House from Maryland.
  Dr. Harris.
  Mr. HARRIS. Thank you very much. I would like to thank the gentleman 
from New Jersey for bringing this subject to the attention of the 
American people because this is a subject that's not going away.
  What we're talking about today, of course, is a trial going on in 
Pennsylvania, little heard about in the press, but one that's very 
significant. Because when it's coupled with what the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania and the gentleman from Louisiana spoke about, the 
overarching medical ethics question, it's something that we have to 
come to deal with. Because, Mr. Speaker, it is true that apparently in 
Dr. Gosnell's mind there was little difference between a late-term 
abortion and killing a baby after birth. And make no mistake about it, 
these children were killed. Because the trial right now is for seven 
cases of murder on those newborns. Interestingly, it was only 
discovered because of the death of the mother. And to show how 
flippantly many States have dealt with the issue of regulating clinics 
like that, we would never have known unless this mother died.
  In my home State of Maryland, two deaths have recently occurred; and 
only as a result of those deaths has the Department of Health and 
Mental Hygiene decided that, yes, maybe we actually should regulate 
clinics where this kind of surgery is done. And, in fact, they have 
closed four of those clinics until they can bring them up to standards 
that we would consider modern medical practice.
  But let's pay attention--because my specialty is anesthesiology--to 
what was going on in that clinic in Pennsylvania. Dr. Gosnell hired a 
surgical technician. This is someone he hired to clean instruments. He 
had that person administer anesthesia to those poor women going to that 
clinic thinking they were going to get good medical care. This is 
someone whose training was in how to clean a metal instrument and now 
administering life-threatening drugs. And, Mr. Speaker, we know they're 
life threatening because the misuse of those drugs resulted in that 
woman's death. In fact, three drugs administered--Demerol, a powerful 
narcotic; Valium, a powerful sedative; and promethazine, another 
sedative--administered by someone whose training was to clean medical 
instruments. And that is what's considered acceptable practice in many 
States in the country because many States choose not to regulate 
clinics where these abortion procedures are done.
  But let's make no mistake about it. It wasn't just the killing of the 
mother that's at issue here. It's the grotesque procedure that was done 
in that clinic by the doctor and the people he trained to end the lives 
of those babies who were born alive. We might think this is a terrible 
thing. In fact, that grand jury thought it was a terrible thing. They, 
in fact, indicted on seven counts of murder. They called it ``murder.''
  But the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from Louisiana 
bring up an article published just last year in the Journal of Medical 
Ethics by professors from Italy and Australia. These are fairly 
civilized countries. The title of the article is fascinating. If the 
gentleman doesn't mind, I'm going to go through some of this because 
America has to understand what this moral discussion going on worldwide 
is. I will tell you I'm shocked because 10 years ago--I'm shocked now 
that this article is published, and 10 years ago, it wouldn't even be 
thinkable. The title is, ``After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby 
Live?'' And it's about committing what this author calls after-birth 
abortion, which is currently called euthanasia or murder, or 
infanticide in our current speech. But these authors propose a new 
term: after-birth abortion. We're going to make this sound better 
because we know abortion is legal so we're just going to call this 
after-birth abortion. What it is is justification for killing a child 
after birth when no abortion was intended.
  Mr. Speaker, this is just the next step to what Dr. Gosnell did. Dr. 
Gosnell killed a child after an abortion was intended. We think that's 
bad. A grand jury thought it was bad. There's seven indictments for 
murder in Pennsylvania. These medical ethicists propose that even if it 
wasn't an intentional abortion, that mother went and had her baby and 
decided that her daughter just wasn't going to fit in with the family, 
literally, and that it was okay to kill that baby. And if you don't 
believe me, ladies and gentlemen, just go and Google it. Read the 
article yourself. It's chilling.
  Some people say, Well, maybe the child is born disabled or born with 
some terrible illness or something

[[Page 5077]]

that's very painful and maybe we're just doing a good thing for the 
child. But the authors say these include cases where the newborn is not 
disabled. And I'm going to read from these word-for-word because I want 
to get this right and, Mr. Speaker, I want America to understand what's 
at stake here.
  They make the argument that the fact that a fetus or a newborn has 
the potential to become a person who will have an acceptable life is no 
reason for prohibiting an abortion, or in this case, killing that child 
after birth. They argue that--and I'm going to quote:

       When circumstances occur after birth such that they would 
     have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion 
     should be permissible.

  Mr. Speaker, let me remind you that in the United States, sex-
selection abortion is legal in many States, in China. And if we don't 
think this is a slippery slope, remember what's happened in China over 
the past decade. They've decided under their one-child policy that if 
you have a live birth of a second child, it's legal to kill that child 
for the sole purpose of it being a second child. And, Mr. Speaker, as 
we know, occasionally the girls were killed, if they were the first 
child, knowing that you can only have one child and the family wanted a 
boy. So in China it's gone past sex-selection abortion to sex-selection 
infanticide. But that's exactly what this article speaks about.
  This article, again, was written by professors from Italy and 
Australia, published in a prestigious journal that ethically justifies 
killing a child after birth because, well, Mr. Speaker, for any reason. 
Because they argue that child has no right to grow up. And if you don't 
believe me, they go on to say that this is not an actual person. It's a 
potential person. It's not an actual person.
  So they say if a potential person like a fetus or a newborn does not 
become an actual person because you don't allow it to grow up like you 
or I, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be 
harmed--I'm not sure I understand that--which means there is no harm at 
all. So killing the fetus or the child, there's no harm at all.
  But they go on to say this, which is amazing and this is why people 
have to understand how foreign a thought this is to many of us, ``So if 
you ask one of us if we would have been harmed had our parents decided 
to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is no.''

                              {time}  1510

  What, Mr. Speaker? They're suggesting that if someone came up to me 
and said, would I have been harmed if my parents had decided to kill me 
when I was a newborn, my answer should be no? How many people do they 
really think you can go up to and ask, if your parents had killed you 
as a newborn, would you have been harmed? Do they really think people 
are ready to say, no, no harm, no foul; I wasn't a person, that's all 
right, that's totally ethical.
  They create an ethical framework completely consistent with abortion 
policy throughout most of the United States, and that is, that a late-
term, third-trimester fetus has no rights as a person, and only merely 
extend that logic to the period after birth. That's all they're doing.
  So although this may sound grotesque and shocking that they suggest 
that there is no moral problem with killing a newborn, it's merely an 
ethical, logical extension of the way we have been treating fetuses 
since 1973.
  It gets worse. Because the gentleman from Pennsylvania suggested, 
well, there are plenty of people who would adopt this child. They go on 
to say that it's actually better in many cases to kill the child than 
to put it up for adoption. This is stunning. The reason they say that 
is that we need to consider the interests of the mother, who might 
suffer psychological distress for giving her child up for adoption. 
They suggest there would be no psychological distress for that woman to 
have carried that child for 9 months, given birth to a normal baby, 
decided they don't want it, and agree to have someone kill it? It's 
stunning. It's striking.
  Let me tell you, and I'll close on this, because we're shocked by 
this. But let me tell you something, we can't argue with nature. We 
can't argue with what nature tells us. It answers the question: Why in 
the world is the younger generation more pro-life than my generation? 
It comes up in poll after poll after poll. How in the world can that 
be? We have an enlightened younger generation? Isn't it enlightened to 
think about this ethical framework? How can this be?
  Mr. Speaker, let me suggest how this can be. This is the first 
generation where two things hold true: They fully understand what makes 
a human a human because they learned genetics and chromosomes, and they 
know that every single person is unique from every other person ever, 
based on science.
  There's one other thing they know, Mr. Speaker. This is the first 
generation where they know that they could have been aborted legally. 
The first generation where they actually answer those ethicist 
questions: Would harm have been done to me if I would have been killed 
as a fetus? Their answer, resoundingly--because that's why the polling 
shows this--is they know the answer is yes. We are harming a human in 
the decision to take its life. That is true whether it is at 3 months, 
6 months, 8 months. Because they know that was them as an embryo and a 
fetus at 3 months, and that was them at 6 months, and that was them at 
9 months. And if they were in Philadelphia, in Dr. Gosnell's clinics, 
that would have been them 1 minute after birth or 5 minutes after 
birth. They know that under that construct of ethics by those 
professors in Italy and Australia, published in Journal of Medical 
Ethics, they're proposing that could have been them at 1 day, 1 week. 
Because those professors actually go on to say we can't really set what 
the deadline is for how long it's ethical. Mr. Speaker, that younger 
generation is smarter than my generation on this issue.
  I want to thank again the gentleman from New Jersey for bringing this 
issue up. This is something that is so troubling, we have to come to 
grips with this. We have to understand the slope we are on when we 
neglect to treat every human being as one worthy of protection.
  I thank the organizer of this Special Order.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Dr. Harris, thank you for that very 
insightful--and I would say brilliant--defense of not just the unborn, 
but the newly born, and your very logical argument as to how this is 
already being extended in what is euphemistically called after-birth 
abortion to those, like Dr. Gosnell's victims, who have been born and 
then are killed.
  I would point to my colleagues, before going to Mr. Stutzman, that 
one of the clinic individuals who was actually killing these children--
this came out in testimony at the trial--said that when he heard the 
child crying, it was like an alien.
  Children cry when they're being killed--and in this case, a very 
painful--as you pointed out, pain-capable children are at least 20 
weeks gestational age. Many of these kids were 23, 24, 25, even higher. 
As we've learned from the grand jury, as well as from these 
proceedings, some of these children were as old as 30 weeks gestational 
age--very, very large children, very mature children, but no different 
than the child who just a few weeks and even months before, same child, 
just a little more mature and, as you said, worthy of protection 
always.
  I'd like to yield to Mr. Stutzman.
  Mr. STUTZMAN. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding, and 
I appreciate his efforts to bring this particular matter to the 
attention of the American people.
  I also want to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris), who 
just spoke so eloquently and factually and knowledgeably about this 
particular issue as a doctor.
  My heart is torn, as I stand here on the floor of the U.S. House of 
Representatives as we're discussing a matter that's happened right here 
in our own country. I tell the gentleman from

[[Page 5078]]

New Jersey that I was just meeting with a doctor in my office within 
the last couple of hours who worked in one of the neonatal clinics in 
northeastern Indiana. The work and the technology, the ability and the 
effort that doctors in a neonatal facility go through to save the life 
of a baby that is wanted is amazing and is heart-touching. And to then 
come to this particular matter and to hear the details of this tragic 
location in Philadelphia that was performing abortions like this is 
just heart-wrenching.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just share with this body that certain places 
are permanent reminders that evil men will do evil things, whether it's 
in Auschwitz's ovens, Cambodia's killing fields, and now a run-down 
brick building on the corner of 38th and Lancaster in west 
Philadelphia.
  In that building--crawling with animals, reeking with urine, and 
filled with blood-stained furniture--Kermit Gosnell was running a 
slaughterhouse. On a regular basis, he used a pair of scissors to sever 
the spinal cords of helpless babies who were born alive during illegal, 
late-term abortions.
  The loss of these lives should scar the conscience of civilized 
people everywhere. This is not a discussion about abstract concepts 
like choice. We are talking about brutal deaths of newborn children.
  Mr. Speaker, Kermit Gosnell is a predator who must be publicly 
exposed and openly denounced. That's why I come to the floor, to bring 
attention to this case, that the American people are informed of it, 
aware of it, and realizing the acts that are happening within our own 
country.
  I have no doubt that in this life or the next he will be held 
accountable for his crimes. However, right here and right now we ought 
to take a serious look at our culture's careless disregard of this 
story in particular, and innocent life in general.
  How is it that in our age of constant news not a single major news 
outlet has devoted serious attention to the atrocities that weren't 
committed halfway around the world but in west Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania?

                              {time}  1520

  Has our national conscience been irreversibly seared by the deaths of 
more than 1.2 million unborn children every year in this country. I 
believe this is something that the media should be talking about. They 
talk about so many other issues that affect our country, and rightly 
so. But I believe this is one of those that should be discussed and 
reported on by the media.
  I've only seen a brief report on this within the last week. Mr. 
Speaker, I am confident that one day the era of abortion on demand will 
close and we will restore a lasting respect for life. However, until 
that day comes, each of us must take up the cause of those who cannot 
speak for themselves.
  I thank Congressman Smith for his unwavering commitment and his 
leadership and his efforts to protect life, and especially to bring 
this particular matter to the attention of the American people, so that 
we as a country will stand up and do the right thing for those who 
cannot speak for themselves.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Indiana for that very extraordinary and eloquent speech, bringing to 
the American people an inconvenient truth that needs to be exposed, and 
for, again, reminding us all that the major news media--NBC, CBS, ABC--
have all had a blackout, there's been a coverup. If this was any other 
trial of a horrific bloodletting, a house of horrors, it would be front 
page, it would be the lead story, maybe second or third on some nights 
on the major networks.
  The Philadelphia Inquirer, to its credit, a newspaper that is not 
pro-life editorially, and I know that because I've talked to them over 
the many years, they, nevertheless, have deployed reporters who have 
done a very, very good job in covering this trial. But that's pretty 
much where it ends. And, again, the major networks ought to be there.
  I would point out that the reason why this clinic in this house of 
horrors was allowed to do much of what it has done is because of the 
chilling effect that the proabortion side has had on inspections of 
clinics where children are routinely slaughtered.
  The grand jury itself said: ``The politics in question were not 
antiabortion, but proabortion. With the change of administrations from 
Governor Casey,'' a Democrat pro-lifer, ``to Governor Tom Ridge,'' a 
proabortion Republican, ``officials concluded that inspections would be 
putting a barrier up to women seeking abortions. Better to leave the 
clinics to do as they please,'' went on the grand jury report, ``even 
though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would 
pay.'' That is found on page 9.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus) for as much time as he may consume.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you.
  ``Troubling'' is the word for what we see happening in Philadelphia. 
I think if you look at what this trial is about, about 20 years ago we 
had a decision from our Supreme Court that basically said:

       At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own 
     concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the 
     mystery of the human life.

  I suggest that at the heart of Dr. Gosnell's trial is this 
understanding on the part of Dr. Gosnell that he had the liberty to 
define his own concept of existence and of meaning and of the universe. 
But that's to be juxtaposed with what our Founders described as self-
evident truths, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain 
unalienable rights, that among them are the right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness.
  That concept was enshrined in our Constitution, where our Fifth 
Amendment provides that no person is to be deprived of life without due 
process of law; and, again, our 14th Amendment adds that no State shall 
deprive a person of life without due process of law.
  As we watch this trial unfold in Philadelphia and continue to hear 
the daily testimony of what's happening, I think it's appropriate that 
we reflect on those words of the Founders and how far we've come from 
those days.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my friend for coming from his markup 
to be with us here today.
  There was a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer--again, just tell the 
truth, just tell the story about what's happening in the trial--and 
they report that this week an ex-employee of Gosnell talked about how 
she perceived the brutal snipping of the spines of newborns still alive 
after abortion.
  ``Did you know it was murder?'' Assistant District Attorney Joanne 
Pescatore asked ex-clinic worker Lynda Williams, referring to the 
clinic's practice of snipping the spines of babies born alive during 
abortion procedures.
  ``No, I didn't,'' said Williams, 44.
  She goes on to say that one of her duties was to retrieve fetuses 
from women who would sometimes spontaneously abort in the waiting room 
after getting large doses of drugs. ``One day,'' she testified, ``a 
women expelled a second trimester fetus and it was moving.'' Williams 
said she took a pair of scissors and snipped the spine as Gosnell 
showed her. ``I did it once,'' she said, ``and I didn't do it again 
because it gave me the creeps.''
  Mr. Speaker, let me conclude. Dr. Andy Harris a few moments ago 
talked about the bioethicists who had made statements that after-birth 
abortion is justified because the newborn, or children who have been 
out of the womb for even weeks, have the same moral stature--and that 
is none--as an unborn child. Those two bioethicists say the devaluation 
of newborn babies is inextricably linked to the devaluation of the 
unborn. They said: ``We propose that this practice of after-birth 
abortion be called that, 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 all about. So 
the choice to kill extended to the point of snipping the spines of 
children who

[[Page 5079]]

were born and struggling and gasping for breath and for some kind of 
outreach of hands that would save that child, but it wasn't there. That 
is now being prosecuted, as it ought to be, as murder.
  Our hope is that the blackout of this trial of Kermit Gosnell will 
end. It is ongoing. It's occurring today. It's occurring every day. I 
don't know how long it will take. But to NBC, CBS, and ABC and to the 
major news media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others, 
just tell the story. Keep your editorials on the editorial page--you 
are absolutely entitled to that--but don't let that creep onto and 
bleed onto the other pages. Just tell the story. And the indifference, 
again, and the lack of coverage suggests a coverup.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________