From the Congressional Record, 1-19-11 - Page H338
Acceptable Bigotry - Prejudice Against the Child in the Womb
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Mr. Speaker, earlier today, an abortionist in Philadelphia, Dr.
Kermit Gosnell, was arrested and charged in the death of a mother
and seven babies who were born alive but then killed by severing
their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.
According to the CBS TV affiliate in Philadelphia, the district
attorney said that in 1 year alone, Dr. Gosnell made approximately
$1.8 million performing abortions.
The abortion industry, Mr. Speaker, is a multibillion dollar
business. Planned Parenthood boasts that in 2008 alone, their
abortionists killed over 324,000 babies, while raking in
approximately $1 billion in fees and local, State, and Federal
Government subsidies. The ugly truth is that abortionists often get
filthy rich not by healing or nurturing or curing, but by
dismembering and decapitating the fragile bodies of unborn children,
by starving the child in the womb with lethal agents like RU486 or
by other means of chemical poisoning. The ugly truth is that women
are victimized by abortion, wounded and hurt physically,
psychologically, and emotionally. Women deserve better than
abortion.
The only thing the multibillion dollar abortion industry has
produced in America and worldwide is victims, wounded women and over
52 million dead babies in the United States alone since 1973, more
than six times the entire population of my home State of New Jersey.
The multibillion dollar abortion industry systematically dehumanizes
the weakest and most vulnerable among us with catchy slogans, slick
advertising, clever marketing, and very aggressive lobbying,
particularly here.
They have made the unacceptable--to be prejudiced and bigoted
against a child in the womb--acceptable to some. This acceptable
bigotry has been promoted for decades, despite breathtaking advances
in fetal medicine, including microsurgery, underscoring the fact
that an unborn child is a patient in need of care, diagnosis and
care, just like anyone else, and despite the amazing window to the
womb, ultrasound imaging.
In 1976, Dr. Willard Cates and David Grimes, then with the Centers
for Disease Control in Atlanta, presented a paper to a Planned
Parenthood meeting entitled, and I quote this directly, ``Abortion
as a Treatment for Unintended Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually
Transmitted Disease.'' These two abortion doctors reduced the child
in the womb to a disease, to a parasite, to something that had to be
vanquished. As far as I know, no one at Planned Parenthood objected
to this dehumanizing language and obvious bigotry towards children.
Mr. Speaker, the evidence of significant harm to women who abort
increases each and every year. Abortion hurts women's health and
puts future children subsequently born to women who abort at
significant risk. At least 102 studies show significant
psychological harm, major depression, and elevated suicide risk in
women who abort. The Times of London reported that senior
psychiatrists ``say that new evidence has uncovered a clear link
between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous
history of psychological problems.'' They found that ``women who
have had abortions have twice the level of psychological problems
and three times the level of depression as women who have given
birth or who have never been pregnant.''
In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that almost 80
percent of the 15- to 18-year-olds who had abortions displayed
symptoms of major depression as compared to 31 percent of their
peers. The study also found that 27 percent of the 21- to
25-year-olds who had abortions had suicidal idealizations compared
to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion.
Abortion isn't safe for subsequent children born to women who have
had an abortion. And this fact is so underappreciated in the United
States, and really around the world. At least 113 studies show a
significant association between abortion and subsequent premature
births. One study by researchers Shah and Zoe showed a 36 percent
increased risk for preterm births after one abortion, and a
staggering 93 percent increased risk after two. Same goes for low
birth weight, similar percentages.
So what does this mean for the children? Preterm birth is the
leading cause of infant mortality in the industrialized world after
congenital anomalies. Preterm infants have a greater risk of
suffering chronic lung disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy,
cognitive impairments, and behavioral problems. Low birth weight is
similarly associated with neonatal mortality and morbidity. Abortion
causes great harm to children, to mothers.
Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, who we
honored just this past Monday, has joined the growing coalition of
women who deeply regret their abortions, and are, as they call
themselves, Silent No More. Out of deep personal pain and compassion
for others, Dr. King, who has had two abortions herself, and the
other women of Silent No More challenge us to respect, protect, and
tangibly love both the mother and the child. The women of Silent No
More give post-abortive women a safe place to grieve and a road map
to reconciliation.
This week, with the full and unequivocal support of Speaker Boehner
and Majority Leader Cantor, more than 125 Members and I will
introduce the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a
government-wide prohibition on taxpayer subsidization for abortion
and conscience protections with durable remedies.
Abortion is not health care. We know that. And polls show that
taxpayers strongly oppose publicly funded abortion, 67 percent,
according to a recent university poll. Our new bill is designed to
permanently end any U.S. Government financial support for abortion,
whether it be direct funding, or by tax credits, or by any other
subsidy.
Regarding conscience rights, last year Cathy DeCarlo, a nurse at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, was compelled, despite her strong
moral and religious objections, to assist in a grisly D&E abortion,
which has been described by the U.S. Supreme Court as a procedure
where the doctors use forceps to literally tear apart the unborn
child. The child often feels pain. It's done later in pregnancy. D&E
is a gruesome act of child abuse.
Ms. DeCarlo sued, asserting her right to conscience had been
violated under existing Federal law, namely, the Church amendment.
Her case was dismissed, however, due to the lack of prescribed
remedies. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act protects
conscience rights of individuals and institutions, entities as we
call them, by empowering the courts with the authority to prevent
and redress actual or threatened violations of conscience.
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