Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Madam President, the whole point of American foreign aid is to assist countries in times of need and in support of a common interest between us and them. Yet, for many years, our foreign aid dollars have been used to impose violent, cultural imperialism by promoting and providing for the practice of abortion.

Tragically, instead of helping to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the lives of women and children abroad, our taxpayer dollars have been used to harm women's lives and to end the lives of their unborn children, especially baby girls.

In some of these countries, girls are disproportionately aborted, precisely because they are female. U.S. aid is used not to affirm the equal dignity of girls and women but to violently deny it. And in some of these countries, abortion has been forced on women who don't even want abortions--women in countries like Vietnam or Peru, for instance, who were forced to endure the coercive abortion and sterilization campaigns of the 1990s, just to name a few examples.

What kind of aid does violence to women and girls? What kind of help is it to impose U.S. abortion extremism on countries that culturally and democratically reject it or contribute to international organizations that allow regimes to use abortion as a tool of oppression? And what kind of progress is it to encourage sex-selective abortion and the denigration of human dignity for both the baby and the mother?

This cultural imperialism is not pro-woman. It is not pro-child. And it is not pro-healthcare. It is pro-sexism and pro-violence, and we must end it.

According to the latest Marist poll, the American people overwhelmingly agree. Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions, and more than 75 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries--75 percent.

Now, thankfully, President Ronald Reagan first took steps to reverse this kind of support in 1984, instituting what became known as the Mexico City policy to prohibit foreign aid from going to organizations that provide for or promote abortions or that advocate to change abortion laws within a foreign country.

Since then, the policy has, unfortunately, been rescinded and reinstated again and again between changing administrations. Between Republicans and Democrats, it has been moved as a sort of political football.

But the lives of babies and the dignity of women--these are not political footballs. Women and children everywhere have immeasurable, innate, inherent dignity and worth, regardless of where they are from, and they ought to be entitled to the right to life and protection from harm, regardless of who happens to be in office at any given moment.

The Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act affirms this very truth. This bill would permanently stop the use of our foreign aid money from funding or promoting abortions overseas.

I also defend the women and babies everywhere and value the women and babies everywhere by supporting two other measures introduced by my friends Senator Inhofe and Senator Blackburn. Senator Inhofe's bill, the Protecting Individuals with Down Syndrome Act, would affirm that disability does not determine or demean the dignity and worth of a human life. And Senator Blackburn's bill would ensure that taxpayer funds under the Title X Family Planning Program do not go to any facility that performs or provides referrals for abortions.

In our laws and throughout our lives, we ought to uphold the dignity of each and every human person, regardless of the race, sex, appearance, abilities, or age of the person in question. The measures before us today do just that, and we should support them.

And now I would like to yield time to my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Montana.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Madam President, 75 percent of Americans, regardless of how they feel on other issues--I understand my colleagues take different positions on issues related to the sanctity of human life. I understand that. As much as I disagree with them, I respect that it is their right to hold that opinion.

This bill is about something much narrower, something upon which Americans--75 percent of them--overwhelmingly agree, and that is that we shouldn't be using U.S. foreign aid money to fund or promote abortions overseas.

If we can't accept that, it is terribly disappointing and would be news to most Americans.

Thank you, Madam President.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source