[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11706-11707]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                ABORTION

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I wish to take just a moment to speak 
about a subject that is very difficult for me to speak about and, quite 
frankly, difficult for a lot of Americans to speak about and hear 
about. It connects to all of us in extremely personal ways. Let me set 
some context.
  Not long ago, a group of animal rights activists gathered around a 
research facility that was using animals for their testing. The 
activists gathered around the facility, chanted, and had signs they 
held up that said ``It is not science, it is violence'' and other signs 
that said ``Animal lives are their right; we have just begun to fight'' 
as they protested to protect the lives of the animals that were being 
used for research in that facility.
  I understand their frustration, but let me put it in the context of 
some things that came out this week. We have learned that this week an 
organization called Planned Parenthood is using children who were 
aborted and sending the bodies of those aborted children to research 
facilities--sometimes for sale, different body parts--to be used in 
research. These are not mice. These are not lab rats. These are 
children--children who have gone through the process of a horrific 
abortion.
  This morning, in an appropriations hearing the Presiding Officer and 
I both were in, we had an extensive conversation about the rights of 
orca

[[Page 11707]]

whales. This protracted conversation went on and on--many people also 
were connected to this--about the rights of orca whales and about their 
care. Then we had a protracted conversation about horse slaughter and 
how horses would be humanely put down. But in the middle of all that 
conversation that happened today, there were children still being 
aborted with an instrument reaching into a mother and tearing apart a 
child but carefully protecting certain organs because those organs 
would be valuable to sell.
  Now the challenge we have on this as a nation is the argument that 
that baby is not really a baby, that it is just a fetus, it is tissue. 
``That is not a human baby'' is what everyone is told. ``That is just 
tissue, and it is up to the mom to determine what happens to that 
tissue.'' And then on the flip side of it, moments later, they take 
that tissue and then sell it because it is human organs that are needed 
for research. You can't say in one moment that it is not a human and 
then sell it in the next moment as a human organ and now suddenly say 
it is. It was a human all the way through. There was never a time that 
wasn't a child. There was never a time that wasn't a human.
  It seems the ultimate irony to me that we spend time talking about 
the humane treatment of animals being put down, such as in horse 
slaughter, and we completely miss children being ripped apart in the 
womb and their body parts being sold.
  Here is how it happens. A mom comes into a facility, gives consent to 
have an abortion, makes that request. After that request is made, to 
some moms--and we don't know exactly how they choose which moms--to 
some moms they then ask consent for their child, after it is aborted, 
to be used for research purposes.
  From the video that was put out this week, they said that was 
actually comforting to some moms, that as they know how traumatic the 
abortion is, at least some good would come out of it, that those body 
parts would then be used for research to hopefully save other 
children--which again comes back to the ultimate irony that we 
literally tear one child apart in an abortion with the assumption that 
hopefully that would actually help some other child in the future, 
missing out on the significance of the child who is right there who 
could be helped by protecting their life.
  Then the doctor in this particular video gives the details of how 
once they get that consent from the mom, they would be careful to reach 
in and actually crush the head of the child to kill the child in the 
womb so they could preserve the rest of the organs because the kidney 
has value, because the liver has value, because the lungs have value, 
and because the muscles in the legs have value.
  I would tell you that child has value and that every single adult who 
can hear me right now was once 20 weeks old in the womb. We can look at 
each other and understand that the difference between that child in the 
womb and any of us now is time. That is a human being we are talking 
about, and it doesn't bring me comfort to know that one child is torn 
apart so that maybe they can do research on the child's organs so that 
at some future moment, it may help a different child.
  Not every woman is being asked if her aborted child can be used for 
research, and we really don't know the why. Maybe they are looking for 
particularly healthy moms. Maybe they are looking for very mature, 
healthy babies. Maybe it is a situation where a particular mom couldn't 
afford to have the abortion procedure, and so they swap off and say: If 
you can't afford the abortion procedure, maybe we can cover the costs 
by then possibly selling some of these organs. We don't know.
  But I think maybe the question needs to be asked why this Congress 
would spend time today debating horse slaughter and debating orca 
whales, and yet we have become so numb to children that the other 
debate doesn't seem to come up.
  Maybe we need to start again as a nation asking a basic question: Is 
that a child? In our Declaration, we said every person, we believe, is 
endowed by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. 
Maybe we need to ask again as a nation, do we really believe that?
  Let's start with some basic things. How about a child of 20 weeks who 
we know scientifically can feel pain cannot have their limbs ripped 
apart in an abortion. There are only seven countries in the world that 
allow that. We are in a prime group--like North Korea and China--of 
nations which still allow abortions that late. We should ask that 
question again: Is that really who we are as America?
  Maybe we need to ask the question again to Planned Parenthood, to 
which we give half a billion dollars in funding. Maybe this is not a 
good idea. Other organizations that serve people all over the country 
raise their funds separately and don't do it with Federal funds. Maybe 
that is a legitimate question we need to ask.
  We have hard questions to deal with as a nation--budget, regulations, 
the future direction we are going. Why don't we add to the list? Do we 
really care about children or not? And on a day that we passed an 
education bill, before we pat ourselves on the back saying how much we 
care about children, let's make sure we are dealing with a compassion 
for children at every age, not just at certain ages. Have we really 
become this numb? And how do we turn it around?
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, are we in a quorum call?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is not in a quorum call.

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