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Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate my friend from Texas yielding.
Over the past 5 months, our Nation has seen unspeakable horrors bestowed upon the children of our country, from the massacre in Newtown--the 23 innocent, young first graders who lost their lives--to just recently in the Boston bombing, where many lost their lives, but specifically, a third grader, Richard Martin, lost his life.
Richard, a couple weeks before, had just made his First Communion. There is a picture of Richard in a sharp white suit with a proud, toothless smile. He lost his life in Boston. His little sister, Jane, who was by him was also hit by the bomb. She lost her leg. She was just starting to take Irish step dancing classes. She will now be in recovery for months and years from that bombing.
We have to look at what's happening in our country with regard to violence against children. As a country, we have to soul-search about violence against our children, and we have been soul-searching. Our families, our communities, we've been soul-searching in this institution about that very violence. We've had a conversation about: How do we protect our children? How do we keep them from this violence and scourge that is spreading across our country? But we soul-search.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, dozens--if not hundreds--of babies have had their lives taken from them, where they've been murdered, left to lay in cardboard boxes, left in toilets trying to swim for air, only to have the backs of their necks snipped, basically decapitated. That kind of horror is being bestowed on children in America, and yet where is the media? Where are the protests? Where are the congressional hearings?
Listen, where are the parents on Air Force One flying to the White House having a meeting with the President? Where are the high-powered meetings with the Senators across the aisle? They're not happening.
I don't have the picture for you today, but many have seen it, a picture of the courtroom where the Kermit Gosnell trial is going on. There's a section reserved for the media--the media that loves great stories, loves fanfare. There's a section reserved for the media at this trial and there's nobody there. There's been a blackout. The media has refused to cover this story.
How about a poor, immigrant mother who can't speak English, who looks to her local community organization in Philadelphia, who gets a recommendation for an abortion to go to the nice-sounding Women's Medical Society clinic, a clinic that is well known for its filth and well known for its health violations. Poor minority immigrant goes to this clinic for an abortion, and she loses her life.
So I think we have to ask: Where is NARAL? Where is NOW? Where is Mrs. Barbara Boxer, standing up for poor minority women who are losing their lives in Philadelphia at the hands of an abortion provider? Where are they? The silence is deafening. Can't hear them.
There's no voice given to that poor minority immigrant. There is no voice given to these little babies who are so vulnerable at the start of their lives and they're voiceless. But no one--even those who say they stand up for women and babies, they're unwilling to stand up at this time.
However, if you are a white, privileged law student from this town, the doors swing wide open and the media wants to cover your story. They want to cover your point of view. But when we're talking about an abortion clinic that provides late-term, partial-birth abortions where babies are born alive, there is no outrage; there is no story.
Where is the NAACP for these minority babies? Where is La Raza? Where is the Black Congressional Caucus? Where is Maxine Waters? Where is the leader of the Democrat Party? Where are they, lending their voice to these atrocities, this murder?
You know, I'm a father of six. I've been there for the birth of all my babies. I know we have a lot of parents in this institution and across the aisle. Listen, newborn babies coming out, they are voiceless; they're defenseless; they rely on us for everything.
Here's a picture of my sixth baby, MariaVictoria, Mighty V, just born. The pictures of the babies that died in Philadelphia are bigger than this; they're more developed than this. And yet no one wants to stand up and shed light on these atrocities and these unspeakable horrors, the dehumanization, the desensitization of what happened in Philadelphia.
I think we have to ask ourselves why. Why aren't my good friends on the other side of the aisle, who have families, who have had children, who care about minorities and the poor and care about children--I know it because I hear them--where are they? Why won't they join us to expose this? Is it that they care more about the abortion clinics than poor defenseless babies that are born alive and aren't provided care, aren't provided love, but are abandoned and left to die? I can't believe that's true. Is it that they agree more with partial-birth abortions that are botched and babies are born alive and they're not willing to provide aid? I cannot believe that; not offering lifesaving treatment for the most vulnerable among us.
I think we have to look around in our communities, in our country, we have to look at this very institution, and we have to be better than this. We are better than this.
We might disagree on abortion. I'm a pro-life guy. I know we have a lot of people who are pro-abortion in this institution. I can accept those distinctions. But how can anybody come forward who even supports abortion and say, I'm not going to defend a baby that's born alive? What kind of position is that? Or that you won't lend your voice to this cause? You can come out and say, I support abortion, but I don't support this.
This is wrong. We're better, as Americans, than that. We're better Congressmen and -women than that. We have bigger hearts than that. This is unacceptable in our country.
We're going to have the abortion debate for a while, and that's okay, but we have to draw the line somewhere. When do we step forward and say we are going to defend the most defenseless and the most voiceless among us? When does that start?
I think in this institution most of us have agreed that that starts at birth--at least. I think it starts at conception, but everyone has agreed it starts at birth. So why, when we have this atrocity, this death of our children in Philadelphia with Dr. Gosnell, haven't people loaned their voices to these children? They deserve better than that.
So I think it's incumbent upon this institution, our communities, our country, and the media to make sure that we provide a voice, we provide a platform for those babies because we care more about those lives than we care about the abortion industry, and we care more about those babies than we care about exposing the horrors and atrocities of partial-birth abortion. We're better than that.
I'm going to tell you this: though we may disagree on some issues, we do agree on protecting these little ones as they come into the world. I'm going to continue that fight.
I know the gentleman from Texas is passionate on this topic and has a lot of things to talk about today, but I appreciate him yielding a few minutes for me to chat.
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