No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PENCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally wrong. But I also believe it's morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use it to fund a procedure that they find morally offensive. Fortunately, for over 30 years, a patchwork of policies has regulated Federal funding and denied Federal funding for abortion in America.

But today, thanks to the yeoman's work of Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey and Congressman Dan Lipinski, we're bringing forward a bipartisan measure that will send a clear and strong and codified message that the American people don't want to allow public funding of abortion at the Federal level. I strongly support it.

The man who first brought this idea before the Congress was the late Henry Hyde. I had the privilege of serving with him. His eloquence cannot be matched, but it can be repeated. Henry said, ``I believe nothing in this world of wonders is more beautiful than the innocence of a child, that little, almost-born infant struggling to live as a member of the human family; and abortion is a lethal assault against the very idea of human rights and destroys, along with a defenseless little baby, the moral foundation of our democracy.''

Today, we say ``yes'' to life but we also say ``yes'' to respecting the moral sensibilities of millions of Americans who, wherever they stand on this divisive social question, stand broadly for the principle that no taxpayer dollars should be used to subsidize abortion at home or abroad. H.R. 3 is that legislation. I urge my colleagues to support it.

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