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Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. I appreciate him yielding. I just want to make sure that we recognize his leadership on this issue for such a long time. When I first came to the House, Henry Hyde was still here, and he was known as the father of the pro-life movement, at least in Congress, and Mr. Smith has taken that mantle from him, because he clearly is the leader amongst all of us here that have been trying to protect innocent unborn lives for many years now, so I thank the gentleman for that. He does a great job for the people of his district, but particularly on the pro-life issue on a national basis, so I thank him for that.
Madam Speaker, our colleague, Mr. Fortenberry, just mentioned he wanted to thank Mr. Smith also for always advocating on behalf of women, which he does.
I just wanted to make the point clearly that when there is an abortion, there are two victims, obviously the unborn child's life who is snuffed out before they really have an opportunity to come and experience life as we all do--they are alive, but they aren't necessarily conscious, obviously, and so miss out on 60, 70, 80, 90, maybe, plus years of life--but the mother is also a victim.
I have had many women who have had abortions, and ultimately later on, because of so much trauma they have had over their lives in dealing with it psychologically, have become strongly pro-life themselves, and I have met them at many, many different pro-life events.
Madam Speaker, I also want to thank all those students and teachers and parents and clergy who will be once again here this year marching for the cause of life.
This happens every year. It doesn't get a lot of attention by the media, unfortunately. Oftentimes there will be a dozen or a couple of dozen protesters, and they will have equal coverage to the 100,000 or more pro-life folks that will be here. It is a disgrace that that happens, but I have seen it literally over the years happen.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, Brad Wenstrup. He and I together will be joining with those pro-life folks tomorrow, and we will have at least 1,000 or so from our area. Our folks will be coming from Cincinnati and from Hamilton and Warren Counties back in Ohio. I want to thank them for coming.
As Mr. Smith mentioned, I was involved and have been involved in my 23 years here in Congress. In fact, I wanted to get on the Judiciary Committee because I knew that was the committee where a lot of pro-life legislation originates.
So working my way up on that committee, I chaired the Constitution Subcommittee and introduced two pieces of pro-life legislation that became law. One was the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
We had people who have worked in abortion mills who would come in, and they would say they saw instances where a baby would be unexpectedly born alive, a later-term abortion, and they were found in a sink, in a closet, in a soiled utility area and weren't getting any kind of what we would basically give as humane treatment to animals. Human beings at an early stage of life were just being left there.
Now, as a result of that bill, which President Bush signed into law, they have to at least get dignity. They don't have to take extraordinary measures to keep them alive, but they at least have some human dignity.
Then following up from that was the bill that we mentioned, the ban on partial-birth abortion, a particularly gruesome form of abortion, which is now banned. We think 30,000 or so a year doesn't happen. That is the good news.
The bad news is all abortions are pretty horrific, whether they use some salt solution or whether they are literally dismembered and pulled out piece by piece. They are all horrible, whatever stage they are, because they are snuffing out that life.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank some of my colleagues for promoting additional legislation, for example, the Pain-Capable, which essentially says that if the baby can experience pain, which we think is around 20 weeks, that you can't go beyond that; most of us say not at earlier stages as well, but at least by that stage; or when there is a heartbeat, that we should also, if you detect a heartbeat, protect that child. And we ought to protect all these children.
I will just conclude with this. Roe v. Wade happened on January 22, 1973. That was the date that decision came out. January 22 is always kind of a special date, and that is when people are coming up for that date. That is the day I was born. My birthday is January 22. That was my 20th birthday in 1973, because I was born in 1953, but every day when my birthday comes around, I always think of all of those millions of children, we think about 61 million now, whose mothers made a different decision, and so they have not experienced the life that we all have been given the opportunity to experience.
So let's do everything we can to protect those innocent unborn lives.
Madam Speaker, I again thank Congressman Smith very much for his hard work in this area, and all the other Members involved.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).
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