Senate Debate on Empathy
=====================================
2008-01-22 - Christopher Smith
Text From the Congressional Record
[R-NJ]
Smith,
Christopher [R-NJ]
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today, 35 years after the infamous
Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, we
mourn the estimated 50 million innocent girls and boys whose lives were cut off
by abortion, a staggering loss of children's lives, equal to six times the total
number of all people, young and old, living in my home State of New Jersey.
Someday, Mr. Speaker, future generations of Americans will look back on us and
wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and
endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could
have instead so aggressively promoted death to children and the exploitation of
women by abortion. They will note with keen sadness that some of our most
prominent politicians and media icons often spoke of human and civil rights,
while precluding virtually all
protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today: unborn children.
On Sunday, Senator Barak Obama criticized Americans for both our moral deficit
and what he called our ``empathy
deficit'' and called upon us to be our brothers' and sisters' keepers.
[Time: 19:45]
Can Senator Obama not see, appreciate or understand that the abortion culture
that he and others so assiduously promote lacks all
empathy for
unborn children, be they black, white, Latino or Asian, and is at best
profoundly misguided when it comes to their mothers? Why does dismembering a
child with sharp knives, pulverizing a child with powerful suction devices more
powerful than 20 to 30 times the average cleaning machine, vacuum machine, or
chemically poisoning a baby with any number
of toxic chemicals fail to elicit so much as a scintilla of
empathy, moral
outrage, mercy or compassion by America's liberal elite?
Abortion destroys the very life of our ``brothers and sisters,'' and the
proabortion movement is the quintessential example of an ``empathy
deficit.''
Mr. Speaker, we need to be blunt. Abortion is violence against children. It is
extreme child abuse. To strip away the euphemism, it is cruelty to children.
Sadly, abortion is not only legal until birth, but the daily perpetrators of
this terrible injustice are massively subsidized by liberal politicians who
enrich the abortion industry with taxpayer funds.
In 2008, the largest abortion provider in the Nation, Planned Parenthood,
continued to receive huge amounts of taxpayer funds. Some time ago on the floor,
Mr. Speaker, I asked Americans, I asked my colleagues, and suggested it was time
to take a second look at Planned Parenthood, ``Child Abuse, Incorporated.''
Every year they abort over 265,000 children in their clinics, a huge and
staggering, stunning number of child deaths. And yet they get massive amounts of
Federal funds and local funds.
Mr. Speaker, there are at least two victims in every abortion. It is time to
recognize and accept the inconvenient truth that abortion exploits women.
Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, has had two
abortions. Today she has joined the growing coalition of women who deeply regret
their abortions and are part of a group called Silent No More. Out of deep
personal pain and compassion for others, they challenge us to respect, protect
and tangibly love both 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. And
to society at large, these brave
women compel us to rethink and reassess the chief sophistry of the abortion
culture. Reflecting on their famous uncle's speech, the ``I Have a Dream''
speech, Dr. Alveda King asks us, ``How can the `Dream' survive if we murder the
children?''
Finally, 35 years after Roe, the pro-life ranks today have swelled with abortion
survivors, women who tell their stories with great bravery and candor. I
remember hearing a woman right outside of the Supreme Court who, while she was
actually getting the abortion, said to the doctor, she was only partially
sedated, said, ``It is trying to move.'' She said she wanted to get up off of
that table and run out the door, and the nurses practically screamed at her and
said, ``It is too late. The abortion
is already underway.'' So many others who have actually seen the child after
being aborted, very often they whisk the baby away so that there is no contact
made, who then tell the story of the nightmares. Again, the Silent No More
campaign helps these women reconnect and find reconciliation and hope for their
shattered lives. [Page: H379]
Today, at the March for Life, the ranks of the pro-life movement was filled with
young people. I have gone to that march each year for 35 years. I have never
seen more young people speaking out passionately, all ethnicities represented,
young boys and young girls, teenagers and young adults, who say we are going to
be, and are, the pro-life generation. And they have certainly reason to react
that way. Every third member of their generation has died from abortion.
Mr. Speaker, finally, I hope this Congress takes a long and hard second look at
the glib euphemisms that are used to promote abortion, the marketing strategies,
the polls that have driven this terrible issue forward, and strip it all away.
Look at the deed itself: chemical poisoning, dismemberment, partial-birth
abortion awakened at least some Members to the cruelty of abortion. Connect the
dots. Every method is an act of violence. And again, there are two victims in
every abortion, mother and
child.
I truly believe that united in prayer, united in fasting, and with a lot of hard
work, just like the abolitionists of old, who said that you cannot discount the
humanity of people because of the color of their skin, well, the dependency or
the immaturity of a child also should not become a disqualifier. America's dark
night of child slaughter will some day, and some day soon, Mr. Speaker, come to
an end.
I yield back to Mr. Franks and thank him for his extraordinary leadership on
this human rights issue.