[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6582-6583]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PROTECTING THE UNBORN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Franks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, for the sake of all those who 
founded this Nation and dreamed of what America could someday be and 
for the sake of all those since then who have died in darkness so 
America could walk in the light of freedom, it is so very important for 
those of us who are privileged to be Members of this Congress to pause 
from time to time and remind ourselves of why we are really all here.
  Thomas Jefferson, whose words marked the beginning of this Nation 
said:

       The care of human life and its happiness and not its 
     destruction is the chief and only object of good government.

  The phrase in the Fifth Amendment capsulizes our entire Constitution. 
It says:

       No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or 
     property without due process of law.

  The 14th Amendment says:

       No State shall . . . deny to any person within its 
     jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

  Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of all Americans and their 
constitutional rights, especially those who cannot protect themselves, 
is why we are all here; yet today, Mr. Speaker, a great shadow looms 
over America because more than 18,000 very late-term abortions are 
occurring in America every year, placing the mothers at exponentially 
greater risk and subjecting their pain-capable unborn babies to torture 
and death without anesthesia or Federal protection of any kind in the 
land of the free and the home of the brave, and it is the greatest 
human rights atrocity in the United States today.
  Almost every other civilized nation on this Earth, Mr. Speaker, 
protects pain-capable unborn babies at this age, and every credible 
poll of the American people shows that they are overwhelmingly in favor 
of protecting them; yet we have given these little babies less legal 
protection from unnecessary cruelty than the protection we have given 
farm animals under the Federal Humane Slaughter Act.
  Mr. Speaker, it seems we are never quite so eloquent as when we decry 
the crimes of past generations; yet we often become staggeringly blind 
when it comes to facing and rejecting the worst of atrocities in our 
own time. It is a heartbreaking thought.
  I would submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the winds of change are 
indeed now beginning to blow and that the tide of blindness and blood 
is finally turning in America because today--today--we are poised to 
pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in this Chamber.
  Mr. Speaker, no matter how it is shouted down or what distortions, 
deceptive what-ifs, distractions, diversions, gotchas, twisting of 
words, changing the subject, or blatant falsehoods the abortion 
industry hurls at this bill and its supporters, this bill is a deeply 
sincere effort, beginning at their sixth month of pregnancy, to protect 
both mothers and their little, pain-capable unborn babies from the 
atrocity of late-term abortion on demand. Ultimately, it is one all 
humane

[[Page 6583]]

Americans can support if they truly understand it for themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a vote all of us will remember the rest of our 
lives, and it will be considered in the annals of history and, I 
believe, in the councils of eternity itself. It shouldn't be such a 
hard vote.
  Protecting little, pain-capable unborn children and their mothers is 
not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue; it is a test of our basic 
humanity and who we are as a human family.
  It is time to open our eyes and allow our consciences to catch up 
with our technology. It is time for the Members of the United States 
Congress to open our eyes and our souls, to remember that protecting 
those who cannot protect themselves is why we are all here.
  It is time for all Americans, Mr. Speaker, to open our eyes and our 
hearts to the humanity of these little, pain-capable unborn children of 
God and the inhumanity of what is being done to them.

                          ____________________