Right to Life

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, as a father and a grandfather, I know the love that a family feels for their children, and it doesn't begin on the day they are born. It starts when you first learn that the prayers have been answered and that a new life is being brought into the world.

As we talk today on this particular subject, a lot of people don't realize that there have been many things that have occurred in my life and my family's life that make this a very personal issue.

Thirty-eight years ago, my wife was a junior in high school. I had just left for Marine Corps boot camp. We weren't married. She discovered that we were going to have our first child.

She had five teachers who thought that it would be a good idea, because she was such a great student, to not ruin her life by having a child. Those five teachers encouraged her to go and receive an abortion. I thank God that she understood the importance of life. That child, who would have been aborted, now serves in the United States Marine Corps and is a major and will probably be a light colonel before long.

He also has a law practice in our hometown. He has raised four children. He is an outstanding citizen. He serves on the county board. He is a respected member of society. He is even studying to go into the ministry. I am so glad of the choice that she made. Her life wasn't ruined. She might jokingly say: Well, I have still been with you for 38 years.

But she went on and she used her time when we were in Twentynine Palms, California, in the Marine Corps, she actually took credit hours and sent that back to our home high school where she graduated in the top 10 of her class. As a mother, and as a youth minister, and as a business owner, she has shown others by example.

Really, as we move forward and we talk about this debate, there are other concerns that I have, and that is that we in this body and in this Nation need to realize that there are certain questions that come up; such as, When does life begin?

Let me fast forward in our lives. Our oldest daughter, on July 26, 2002, discovered that her twins were in trouble in the womb. Well, actually it was before that. We took her to a hospital in St. Louis. It was just after my son's wedding, and she and her husband, who had an older child at the time, they discovered that these two twins had what was known as a joint communication, and they were trying desperately to get those babies from 25 weeks to 26 weeks.

But on July 26, we lost Hallie in the womb, which then drove my daughter Kasey into labor, and then we held Ellianna for 1 hour and 35 minutes as she passed. Now, we have had legislation that quite often says at that point, that abortion should go ahead and occur. Well, I have seen what a child looks like at 24 and 25 weeks, and that is not the time that we need to say that that is not a life. I do believe that life begins at conception.

It is my sincere belief that America is only as strong as the willingness to protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us. My family participates in those opportunities to help young women who maybe have an unwanted pregnancy, also to help people who have chosen not to choose life, and also ministers to those who have lost children. My daughter is in that ministry as well through a group called Tender Mercies Foundation of Southern Illinois.

But that is why I fought in Congress to eliminate taxpayer funding of abortions, and to preserve pro-life healthcare providers the right of conscience.

Tomorrow, we are once again going to have the March for Life, which is a pro-life movement that is growing stronger all the time, as it should, as science is proving when life begins. I hope that you listen and I hope that you get involved, and I hope that you understand that there is a need.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Congressman Chip Roy.

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Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Waltz).

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Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for coming to speak.

Madam Speaker, tomorrow, we are going to welcome to this city once again the people who believe in the sanctity of life. They will walk down Pennsylvania Avenue from The Mall and they will be well-behaved. They will be kind. But they will be rising up and letting the people of this United States know that we are concerned about the children in the womb that can't speak for themselves.

Madam Speaker, over the years of my time in elected office, I have been asked by many people from both parties: Well, what do you know? You are not a woman, and it is a woman's choice. Well, I am telling you that I hope that no women that I know--and I wish that would never be the case--that they would be in a situation where they are so scared of an unwanted pregnancy that they think that it would hurt their lives.

But my wife, my 2 daughters, my 7 granddaughters--and my hope is that with my 11 grandchildren, I have many, many more great-grandchildren-- that they will grow up in a United States that understands the importance of life at its conception, that science, which I believe is now beginning to show what we have known all along, as one speaker spoke earlier, that when that cell is formed and it starts coming together, and then in just a few short hours or a few short days, a heartbeat starts, and then in a few weeks we understand that that baby grows to the point that they can feel pain.

Each one of these items are things that are brought up in legislation of why it is that we need to explain and understand and put into law what truly is life and where life begins.

I don't blame the courts. I blame this body over the years. I believe God has the opportunity to say when life begins. But I think science has taught us certain clear factors about what life is and when life begins. My hope is that the American people will not only think about this tomorrow during that march, but they will think about it every day of the year; that they will think about all of the great wisdom that we may have lost in the abortions that have been committed over the last 45 years.

Madam Speaker, I want to say a special thank you to everyone that spoke here today and to the people I represent in Illinois' 12th Congressional District. I want the people to know and remember what tomorrow is about, and how important these young lives are, and why it is important for us to do our job as laid out in the Constitution, which is allowing life to be protected.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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