Protect Life Act

Floor Speech

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding and especially for his leadership in bringing the Protect Life Act to the floor of the House of Representatives.

When we look at a time right now when our country is going broke, it's offensive to most Americans that taxpayer money can still be used to subsidize abortion in this country. We had this debate during the President's health care law. We've tried to put real language that would protect that from happening. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get that protection. For those of us that want to repeal the President's health care law completely, we've already passed that bill and sent it to the Senate and they've taken no action.

But we're here today to address specifically this problem and say there should be no taxpayer money that is allowed to be used to subsidize abortion. And if you look in the bill, there are employers out there who are providing good health care to their employees today; yet under the law that the President passed and signed into law, Federal officials can tell those private employers that they have to provide abortion services in their policy, and so they'll just drop the policy. This prevents that from happening as well. It gives conscience protections so that if there's a medical professional that doesn't want to participate in abortion, they don't have to.

These are all commonsense proposals that should pass and have bipartisan support, and they should also pass the Senate.

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