March For Life
Floor Speech
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Mr. CAO. Thank you very much for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, as America embarks on its 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands will participate in the March for Life in our Nation's Capitol. But, fundamentally, this year's anniversary of Roe v. Wade should have deeper meaning than previous years. Amid the current debate on health care reform, the abortion issue has once again risen to paramount importance. Unfortunately, the current bill has made an unsuccessful attempt to address affordable health care by ignoring the controversial issue of abortion.
Abortion is an inhumane perversion in our society. As I have stated previously, it is a distorted emphasis on rights, to the disregard of individual responsibilities. When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress last September, he said, ``under our plan, no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and Federal conscience laws will remain in place.''
Why then is the current health reform under the Senate plan being touted as the right plan for America? The health care legislation passed by our friends in the Senate does not reflect the longstanding Federal policies that ban abortion funding, and I will absolutely not support it as it is written.
The fundamental right to life in this country was reinforced and more succinctly elaborated in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These 10 amendments, more commonly known as the Bill of Rights, have served as the heart and soul of our legal tradition and the foundation upon which we have built the most powerful democracy in the history of the world. Yet the balance between rights and responsibilities have served as a basis for an ethical context, but now it is skewed.
Our society has distorted this view of individual rights versus responsibility so that good somehow gets distorted with evil. We have misrepresented the rights to individual freedom, and now we basically have no regard for human life. The result is a social policy devoid of moral coherency. To protect individual rights, we have distorted the continuity of human development to portray the human fetus as something less than human and, therefore, can be disposed of. And there are those who diminish the words of pro-life advocates and aim to demean their passion for life by citing a woman's right to choose or a woman's right to protect her health. But I say that this is a distorted view of protecting a woman that is actually endangering the woman.
An abortion causes mayhem to the psychology of the mother and the future life of the entire family. Her emotional health is never the same, and though anesthesia may provide some physical relief, there is no anesthesia for her mental and spiritual health.
A study in New Zealand, where abortion is legal, showed negative effects in women who had abortions. Researchers for the Christchurch Health and Development Study conducted a 25-year study on the long-term effects of abortion on the mental health of young women between the ages of 15 and 25. These scientists reported to the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry that those having an abortion have elevated rates of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and drug-use disorders.
Another study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo in Norway compared 40 women who had had miscarriages with women who chose to have an abortion. Although miscarriage was associated with more mental distress in the 6 months after the loss of the baby, abortion had much longer lasting negative effects. The proportion of women having had a miscarriage who were suffering distress decreased during the study period to 22.5 percent at 6 months and to just 2.6 percent at 2 years and 5 years respectively. But among the abortion group, 25.7 percent were still experiencing distress after 6 months and 20 percent after 5 years. The researchers also said that women who had an abortion had to make an effort to avoid thinking about the event.
Mr. Speaker, I just came back from Southeast Asia on a CODEL to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan. While I was in Cambodia, I had the opportunity to visit the killing fields in Cambodia. And while visiting the killing fields, they showed us a tree where the followers of Pol Pot would hang and would slam innocent little children on the trees. The Pol Pot regime killed approximately 1.6 million of its people between 1976 and, if I remember correctly, 1980, and the world screamed in outrage at the deaths of 1.6 million people. The Holocaust killed 6 million, and we continue to scream in outrage at the 6 million Jews who were killed during World War II by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust.
From 1973 to the present, in the United States alone we have murdered over 40 million children. Just imagine that: If we scream in outrage at the innocent children that were slammed and hung on the tree in the killing fields, yet, after 40 million children killed in this country, we still hold a policy that allows for the legal killing of innocent children. If that is not a skewed sense of ethics, I don't know what is.
I agree that America needs responsible health care reform, and I agree that we all have the right to exercise the freedom of individual liberties but not at the expense of our children and the future of our families. The majority of the American people, including those in my home State of Louisiana, stand firmly on the side of life, and they will not support any measure that seeks to fund abortion with their hard-earned income.
Again, as we arrive at the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I ask America to reflect deeply on the value of all life, born and unborn, and that we not consider any piece of health care legislation unless it includes sufficient language to prohibit this inhumane act.
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