A cry for survival and justice for unborn baby girls and boys
Unborn children need the President of the United States to be their friend and advocate—not another powerful adversary.
Congressman Chris Smith's remarks to the virtual March for Life rally
Posted by More MonmouthMusings on Friday, January 29, 2021
By Rep Chris Smith
Excerpts from Smith’s remarks at the March for Life rally, January 29, 2021
Just like today, both Presidents Clinton and Obama came into office with Democrat majorities in both houses and sweeping plans to eviscerate all pro-life laws and policies.
And there were significant pro-life setbacks—but pro-lifers absolutely refused to quit or go away.
Today, we again face enormous challenges and recommit to persevere through prayer, fasting and good works—and respect, including for those with whom we fundamentally disagree— even when it’s not reciprocated.
President Biden, in your inauguration speech, you claimed that “the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer”.
You spoke of “a cry for survival from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate …”
Mr. President, the dream of “justice for all” cannot be achieved if a whole segment of society is legally ignored and discriminated against because of where they live—in their mothers’ wombs—and how small and defenseless they are.
We know you understand this. You get it—or at least you once did.
Years ago your wrote to constituents explaining your support for a law against funding for abortion and said it would “protect both the woman and her unborn child…” You also said: “I have consistently—on no fewer than 50 occasions—voted against federal funding of abortions…those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.”
According to public opinion polls most Americans—60% according to the Marist poll— agree that taxpayers should not be compelled to fund abortion.
Lives, as you surely know, have been saved by the Hyde Amendment, a domestic policy ban on funding for abortion you once supported. More than twenty peer reviewed studies show that more than two million people are alive today in the United States because of Hyde—with about 60,000 children spared death by abortion every year.
Over two million people who would have been aborted instead survived because public funds were unavailable to effectuate their violent demise and their mothers instead benefitted from prenatal healthcare and support.
The science of human development has not changed—and, thanks to ultrasound, unborn babies are now more visible than ever before.
Mr. President, growing numbers of Americans are shocked to learn that the methods of abortion include dismemberment of a child’s fragile body including decapitation and that drugs like RU 486 starve the baby to death before he or she is forcibly expelled from the womb.
The multibillion-dollar abortion industry cleverly markets the sophistry of choice while going to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize and cover-up the battered baby-victim.
Abortion violence, Mr. President, must be replaced with compassion and empathy for women and for defenseless unborn babies in the United States and around the world. We must love them both.
More than 62 million babies have been killed by abortion in the US since Roe—a loss of children’s lives that equates with the entire population of Italy.
Someday future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why a society that prided itself on human rights and empathy could have effectuated and enabled the loss of so many defenseless babies.
Mr. President, reversing the Protection Life in Global Health Assistance (Mexico City Policy) forces U.S. taxpayers to fund organizations that promote, lobby for or perform abortion on demand in foreign countries.
Yet, Americans overwhelmingly oppose using U.S. foreign aid to subsidize abortion.
The Marist Poll last year found that “More than three in four Americans—76%–oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries.”
By reason of their age, dependency, immaturity, inconvenience, or unwantedness, unborn children have been denied justice and legally rendered persona non grata.
Yet, their cries for survival couldn’t be any more desperate. These children need the President of the United States to be their friend and advocate—not another powerful adversary.
If your words that the “the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer” are to have true meaning, the lives of unborn children must be included, and their precious lives must be protected.
Justice demands it.
(Rep. Chris Smith is a 21 term Republican congressman from New Jersey)