The 47th Annual March for Life

Floor Speech

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Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chris Smith for his leadership and his commitment to advancing pro-life legislation for literally decades now. He has been a leader for many of us, and we have watched and followed in his footsteps in many ways.

A previous speaker, Andy Harris, mentioned that his birthday is next week, and I share something with him because my birthday happens to be next week as well. Not only is it next week, but it is on January 22, which is the very day that the horrific Roe v. Wade decision was issued.

For decades now, I literally, on my birthday, with all of the joy that you have with your family or with friends and colleagues in celebrating your birthday, I can't help but think of those millions and millions of little, innocent, unborn babies that were not born, that have never experienced life because of a tragic decision that was made that they had no part in making, but their life was ended before they were able to share the blessing that life is.

That is why we need to overturn that horrific Roe v. Wade decision. Many of us have been working for years and years now to do that, or to do everything we can up to that point until, ultimately, the court makes that decision.

We have a responsibility, I believe, to protect the most vulnerable among us, and that is innocent, unborn babies. It was one of the principal reasons that I wanted to come to Congress. It was one of the principal reasons that I wanted to be on the Judiciary Committee.

I was blessed to be chosen by one of the legends in the pro-life community, probably the father of the pro-life movement here in the House, and that was the late Henry Hyde who chaired the Judiciary Committee.

Next to Henry, Chris Smith certainly is the leader since Henry. But as the gentleman mentioned, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, it took me a number of years and I was able to work my way up to the chair of that committee and did successfully pass the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act which saved babies that they were literally finding in soiled utility closets.

We had nurses who had formerly worked in abortion clinics and they came and told terrible stories of what had happened. That is now no longer the law, but we need to go beyond that.

After that, we went on to pass probably what is the most significant pro-life legislation since Roe v. Wade and that is the ban on partial- birth abortion, which I offered along with many other Members.

We fought for 8 years--Steve King and so many other folks--and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

I remember when that decision came down. I was in the Judiciary Committee when we all heard about it and we were so excited. We don't know exactly how many babies--we think tens of thousands every year-- that that has saved, but we are still losing so many other innocent, unborn lives here in this Nation. There have been 61 million since Roe v. Wade that we know of.

I want to thank all of my colleagues who are here this evening and spending their time to do something, I think, which is probably one of the most worthy things we can do with our time here in the House, and that is to try to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

I thank everyone that is here.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

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