[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1260]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          DEFENDING THE UNBORN

  (Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, last month Washington, D.C. was 
home to the March for Life, and thousands of Americans came from all 
across the country to attend it. The State of Louisiana was 
disproportionately represented with hundreds of folks from our State, 
Louisiana being one of the most pro-life States in the Nation, one of 
the highest percentages of churchgoers, and one of the highest 
percentages of believers in America.
  The term ``sanctity of life'' gets thrown around a lot when we start 
talking about pro-life versus pro-choice in political debate, but it is 
more than a slogan. Its relevance transcends the issue of life in our 
country.
  Human dignity is the foundational principle of freedom and human 
flourishing. A substantive application of the sanctity of life should 
inform all our efforts in this Chamber, on both sides of the aisle.
  I am pro-life because I believe that all human beings, at every stage 
of life, every state of consciousness or self-awareness are of equal 
and immeasurable worth and dignity.
  I applaud and join the efforts of my colleagues to defend the unborn, 
those who can't defend themselves, but I also call upon both political 
parties to respect and value the dignity of human existence at all 
stages of life, from the womb all the way to life's natural conclusion. 
I believe we all have an obligation to the fundamental principle of 
human dignity.
  As we consider important issues like criminal justice reform, the War 
on Poverty--policies designed to help people improve their quality of 
life--let us engage in political debates with this in mind.

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