Abortion

Floor Speech

ABORTION -- (House of Representatives - January 21, 2009)

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Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate your efforts today on putting together this Special Order. Tomorrow, we are going to have tens of thousands of Americans here. They are coming here to support the rights of those who can't speak for themselves, the right of the unborn. I know in my hometown of Bowling Green, at Bowling Green State University, I know that at least 40 college students will be coming down tomorrow to be out there on that Mall.

It's great that we had so many people here yesterday, but we also have young people coming out to talk about and support those who can't speak for themselves.

As already has been mentioned by other of the Members today, talking about their views on the Freedom of Choice Act and what that will do in this country, it will be a travesty. The world judges us by what we do, and they will judge us harshly when they see what we do if this bill would ever become law.

I have always been pro-life. When I was in the Ohio Legislature, I had the privilege of chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Criminal Justice Committee. Probably one of the toughest days that we ever had was when we had the partial birth abortion ban bill up. And when you sit on a committee that hears about all the gruesome crimes that are committed against the living, and I'd always have some of my constituents say to me, after they sat through some of our hearings after a long day, they would say, "Latta, how do you sit through that stuff day after day after day?'' I'd say, "It's my job.''

But then when we had the partial birth abortion bill come before our committee, it was kind of also very unique to sit there in that committee room and look out across that audience and looking down across the committee to the folks sitting in their chairs. There was a lot of squirming going on that day because of the testimony of the doctor that testified that day to explain exactly what partial birth abortion was.

It was one of those days that I had the initiative at times as the Chair that I can actually tell that we are not going to have anyone under the age of 18 in the hearing room because of what it might do to affect some of the kids that might be there.

But when we heard the testimony that day, I can look down on both sides, left and right, and see from my members on that committee that they had heard enough. And they wanted to vote. It was a bill that we were able to bring to the floor quickly. We got that bill passed in Ohio to ban that horrible, horrible procedure, as discussed a little bit earlier.

We do things in this country that, when you see what we try to do to save the living, it's time that we do what we can to save those who cannot speak for themselves.

According to the National Right to Life, since 1973, there have been 49,551,703 abortions performed in this country. In the State of Ohio, from the Department of Health, we have records showing that 32,936 abortions were performed in Ohio alone in 1 year.

And I will close on this, because we have to think about this. We have all these troubles and travesties that are coming before our country today. We have to ask ourselves, of those 49,551,703 lives, who among those

could have found the cure for cancer? Who among those could be out there that found that energy cure that we have to have for this country? And, who in that number could have been the next President of the United States?

So I am very, very glad to be here to support those who cannot speak for themselves and stand before you and say that it's time for this country to remember those who cannot speak and defend themselves.

I yield back. Thank you.

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