Roe V. Wade

Floor Speech

ROE V. WADE -- (House of Representatives - January 22, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding. I also want to thank him for his extraordinary and compassionate and principled and eloquent advocacy of life. The people of Arizona who cherish life are extraordinarily well served by Mr. Franks.

I come to this well having enjoyed a day, Mr. Speaker, on the National Mall, where over 100,000 Americans by some estimates gathered in the bitter cold 35 years after a Supreme Court decision, and they gathered for one reason and one reason only, because those Americans cherish the sanctity of life and are unwilling to go quietly into that good night, which is an America that walks away from a belief that every life is sacred.

100,000 people. Not at the podium. Not with the television cameras on them, as some of us were. Not with the accolades of people in a movement who will write on the Internet or write editorials how they approve of our stand. But in the obscurity of a throng of tens of thousands, Americans came. In the dead of winter. It was extraordinary, Mr. Speaker, I must say, and it gives me great hope about this movement.

The sanctity of life is the central axiom of Western civilization. It is, I believe, our commitment to the unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness that split the atom of the American experiment and has created the freest and most prosperous and most powerful nation in the history of the world. It is because we embrace that ethic that we are endowed by our Creator with the unalienable right to life. And there, 35 years after Roe v. Wade, 100,000 Americans are still standing in the cold for that principle.

I rise tonight very humbled to hear the eloquence of my colleagues, but filled with hope after a hurried day in this movement, because I have seen the faces of the foot soldiers of the right to life. I have stood among a throng of young Americans, particularly young women under the age of 30, who are choosing life as never before. In the last 20 years, abortion has declined by more than 20 percent.

I believe, as you could see in those relationships today on the National Mall, it's not just because of political debate, but it's because of moral persuasion. In the last 35 years, I believe in the quiet counsels between mothers and daughters, between grandmothers and granddaughters, the truth about abortion is being told.

Life is winning in America.

I rise tonight simply, Mr. Speaker, to speak a little out of turn, and not just to your chair, but maybe to those that are looking in tonight and to say thank you for standing for life. Your efforts on behalf of the unborn are not in vain, and I do believe in our lifetime, if we will exercise the faith and perseverance and compassion and civility that was in evidence on the National Mall today, we will see Roe v. Wade collapse like the Berlin Wall. It will collapse finally and at last on that day when people on both sides of the debate don't want it there anymore.

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