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Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for being the leader of this Special Order tonight. And I want to thank the gentlelady from Pennsylvania for her pro-life statement and for sharing her experience with us. We are all blessed by her statement, we are all blessed by her being here. She and I and the gentlelady from Ohio are regular attendees at our weekly prayer breakfast, and I can say that it is a blessing to have that opportunity. And it just would make us all so much happier if more people in her caucus felt the way that she does on this issue.

You know, over the past several months, the Obama administration has begun to erode the pro-life protections in place to keep taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions. We know and have known for a long time that the majority of the American people do not want to see taxpayer money used for abortions, but we even know now that the majority of the American people are opposed to abortions.

I think the Obama administration is going in absolutely the wrong direction on this issue, as it is on many other issues. But they began with the repeal of the Mexico City Policy, which restricted taxpayer money from funding groups providing abortions overseas. This is something that had been in effect for many, many years.

Now, what they want to do is bring taxpayer-funded abortions back to Washington, D.C., by changing the so-called Dornan amendment, which restricts publicly funded abortions in the District of Columbia.

The District of Columbia has one of the most troubling track records in the Nation when it comes to its abortion policies. Not only is the District of Columbia part of a notorious group that allows minors to receive abortions, only the District of Columbia and three States have such laws, but it also has one of the highest abortion rates in the country. It is no secret that the District of Columbia's lax abortion policies draw women to D.C. abortion clinics from other States. Repealing the Dornan amendment would mean allowing D.C. to use tax dollars to foot the bill for abortions for minors and potentially for minors from other States.

It is a real travesty when most of our children cannot get any kind of treatment from a physician. They can't get a shot. They can't get a preventative shot. They can't get any treatment.

They couldn't be sewn up in a hospital if they are hurt or at school without permission from their parents. However, the District of Columbia allows these minors to get an abortion, to kill a human life. And, again, polls have shown that a majority of Americans do not support taxpayer-funded abortion.

We must preserve the Dornan amendment and keep hardworking Americans' tax dollars from paying for abortions, a practice that violates the conscience of millions of pro-life Americans.

We also know that taxpayer-funded abortions increase the number of abortions done because the research has been done on that.

But I, again, applaud my colleague from Ohio for leading this Special Order tonight. And I want to say that I share Congresswoman Dahlkemper's philosophy, that I support life from conception to natural death, and I think that a society that devalues the unborn will soon devalue those who are born, and I do not want to see our country going down that slippery slope because it would not be good for us.

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Ms. FOXX. I wonder if the gentlewoman would yield.

I appreciate very much what you and our other colleagues have pointed out
tonight in terms of the inconsistencies in the President's position. I also want to thank you for having pointed out the joy of having children. And I want to bring up one more example of what I think is an inconsistency on the part of the President.

He has nominated Dawn Johnsen to head up the Office of Legal Council, and she is among the most controversial of his nominees. She formerly worked for NARAL and the ACLU's Reproduction Freedom Product.

She has compared pregnancy to involuntary servitude, describing pregnant women as ``losers in the contraceptive lottery,'' and she even criticized then-Senator Clinton for claiming a need to keep abortions, traumatic experiences, rare.

She, as I said, has said that she believes that being pregnant or banning abortion undermines the 13th Amendment, which bans slavery. And she says ``that there is no `father' and no `child'--just a fetus.'' Any move by the courts to force a woman to have a child amounted to ``involuntary servitude.'' She goes on and on and on to talk about how horrible it is to bear a child.

And I think it is a very sad, sad situation that the President has nominated a woman who has these kinds of beliefs to head up an extremely important position in the administration, the Office of Legal Council. And I wanted to point that out as another inconsistency in the positions that he's taken.

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