Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3072
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, an abortion is always tragic, as it involves the taking of an innocent human life, one that has yet to draw its first breath or commit its first sin. In the case of a chemical abortion, it sometimes takes two lives: that of the baby and that of the mother.
Advocates for this procedure will say that it is simple, it is easy, it is convenient, and it is safe. They claim that it is a good and valuable form of ``healthcare'' for women, but nothing could be further from the truth. The grim and gruesome reality is that this barbaric practice wreaks havoc on women's bodies and destroys the tiny bodies growing within them.
So just how does this procedure work? The details are not pleasant. First, the mother is given a pill that blocks progesterone. This, of course, is a hormone that is necessary for pregnancy, and it breaks down the lining of her uterus. Without progesterone, you see, the baby, whose heart is already beating, is starved to death and dies in her mother's womb.
Then, 24 to 48 hours later, the mother is given a second pill, one that empties her uterus by causing severe contractions and bleeding, mimicking early miscarriage. It can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks.
Planned Parenthood will try to gloss over the truth here, as elsewhere, claiming that a hot shower and some ibuprofen are enough for a quick recovery to get the mother back on her feet, but, on average, the miscarriage lasts between 9 and 16 days and can last for as long as 30 days. Thirty days--that is a long time.
Most of the time these abortions are done at home. The mother is left to suffer alone, without care or medical attention, without supervision from a doctor or a nurse, and often without any followup whatsoever until 7 to 14 days later, if ever, keeping in mind that many of them don't get any followup care at all.
The result? Well, women have suffered tragic, gruesome, and horrific experiences using the abortion pill. It has caused nearly 4,200 adverse medical events, including more than 1,000 hospitalizations and nearly 600 instances of blood loss requiring transfusions.
Some women have even died. The FDA has reported 24 maternal deaths from the abortion pill just since its approval in 2000, and those are just the officially reported ones that we know of that have happened with the regulations we currently have in place. Based on the assumption that those regulations are in place, that is still a really high rate at which they die.
Some women need corrective surgery after taking the abortion pill and others require lifesaving procedures. And, somehow, we call this healthcare. This is not like popping a Tylenol. This two-step abortion cocktail poses severe risks to women, not even to mention their unborn babies.
In fact, abortion pills are one of only a few medications that require what is known as a risk evaluation and management strategy, a drug safety program that the FDA requires for medications with serious risks. Yet some are pushing to further expand access to these drugs and even further loosen the regulations around them.
Some activists are even pushing for access to the abortion pill by mail, meaning that the patient would never even have to be seen in person by any medical professional at all--not a medical clinic, not a doctor, not a nurse--nothing in person.
The standards of care surrounding this practice are already reckless, they are already harmful, and they are already causing misery, injury, suffering, and death. In fact, they are unacceptable standards of care for women and for babies. The last thing we should be doing is making them even worse, making them even more vulnerable than they already are.
So setting aside for a minute how you feel about other issues related to unborn human life in this area, let's just talk about this issue for a moment. Let's just talk about whether this issue is really one that we want to expand, where we increase the amount of misery, the amount of suffering, and the amount of carnage that would occur as a result of more people gaining access to this deeply flawed, very dangerous form of so-called healthcare.
That is why we ought to support the bill put forward by my friend and colleague Senator Hyde-Smith. The SAVE Moms and Babies Act would prohibit the FDA from approving new abortion drugs, from loosening any regulations that exist on already approved abortion drugs, and from dispensing abortion drugs remotely or through the mail.
The purpose of healthcare is to heal, to preserve, and to protect human life. A chemical abortion happens in the first trimester of life, up to about the tenth week of pregnancy, when an unborn baby already has a beating heart, when an unborn baby already has a growing brain, and when the growing baby already has 10 fingers and 10 toes.
She deserves a shot at life, at the beginning of life, at the front door, and she deserves to not have it taken away and, literally, flushed down the drain. Mothers deserve the utmost care, protection, and support as they nurture the human life inside of them, not medical harm and not medical neglect.
Our healthcare system should protect and care for them both, and our laws should uphold the immeasurable dignity and worth of both. This bill is a step in the right direction, and I implore all of my colleagues to support this legislation
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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, point of parliamentary inquiry: What was the statement that prompted the admonition under rule XIX?
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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion that we have had today between my colleague from Mississippi and my colleague from the State of Washington. I also appreciate the thoughtful insight that the Senator from Louisiana provided in his remarks.
I feel it necessary to address a couple of issues that were raised by my friend and distinguished colleague from the State of Washington. There are differences that Members have--differences of opinion--when it comes to a wide variety of issues.
When it comes to abortion, people have different approaches they take. I know my own view, and I know the views taken by many of my Democratic colleagues. But it is important to point out here what we are talking about and what we are not talking about.
One of the first arguments that we heard today from the Senator from Washington related to Roe v. Wade. And as long as we are on the topic of imputing to another person improper motives or motives not apparent on the face of a piece of legislation, if one is going to impute to the Senator from Mississippi the intention of undoing a Supreme Court precedent, I would like to point out that is manifestly not within the scope of this legislation, nor is it the place of any Senator to purport to know the subjective motivation behind Senator Hyde-Smith's legislation here.
I am not going to purport to know the reason why she said that. I just want to point out, that is not the point of this bill. This bill has nothing do with Roe v. Wade. You can feel however you want about Roe v. Wade. This isn't it. I know that is a convenient excuse to not have to deal with something--something real, something that has to do with the lives and the health and the well-being of women, to say nothing about the unborn human lives within them.
From those who would invoke science in opposing this bill, I would ask, on what planet does science back the idea we should remove the REMS restrictions from this supposed so-called form of healthcare--a form of healthcare that, as I mentioned a few moments ago, has resulted in thousands upon thousands of complications in the two decades it has been on the market? On what planet can one contend that one can't support this legislation without being opposed to science?
Back to the Roe v. Wade question. If every single time someone gets up to try to present legislation--legislation that as far as I can tell, the Senator from Washington wasn't claiming was outside of our legislative purview as Federal lawmakers--if every single time someone gets up to try to raise legitimate questions of public policy regarding the health, safety, and welfare of the American people, of the American patient, of American women subjected to very serious side effects from a piece of legislation--if no one can present legislation without being accused of trying to undo a 1973 court decision, which is, on its face, not even at issue in this legislation, then we are going to have a hard time carefully considering these things.
Last I checked, it is our job to decide questions of public policy-- questions that are squarely within our Federal jurisdiction. One could argue, I suppose, about whether it was a good idea to put exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of pharmaceuticals in this country under the FDA. One could make that argument.
I don't understand the Senator from Washington to be making a federalism argument. If she wants to have that conversation, I would love to have that with her. That would be fantastic. In fact, I would love to raise federalism concerns anytime we are discussing anything because it is far too seldom invoked here.
But that is not what this is about. What that argument was about was instead that the Senator from Mississippi supposedly is trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. And it couldn't possibly be the fact that she is there genuinely concerned about the thousands upon thousands of injuries that have been sustained as a result of this barbaric form of so-called medical treatment. It can't possibly be that.
If that is the case, if those who were so determined to make everything about Roe v. Wade--if they are right and if they were to have their way, then I guess we can't discuss anything even related to women's health that affects pregnancy.
Surely, that is not the argument. That can't be the argument. I don't think anyone, regardless of how they feel about Roe V. Wade, regardless of how they feel about government's role in abortion or not, if what we are talking about is the fact that we ought not loosen certain restrictions so as to allow people to gain access to an abortion cocktail that is dangerous under many circumstances, especially when it is administered without any kind of direct medical supervision or attention, if that is where we are, that is not good. That is messed up. Something is terribly wrong if we can't have a conversation about women's health without being accused of wanting to undo an entire line of precedent dating back to 1973.
Look, guilty as charged. I have my own views about that line of precedent. Those views are no secret. Those views are well-founded as a matter of science. They are well-founded as a matter of hundreds of years of American constitutional law, of common law, but I understand they are not the only views.
You cannot simply walk in here and say that because this addresses a type of abortion procedure, because Roe v. Wade reached the conclusion that it did, anyone who proposes a piece of legislation like the one proposed by Senator Hyde-Smith today necessarily has as its object-- that her subjective motivation behind filing that legislation is the undoing of Roe v. Wade, and because that is her supposed subjective motivation, we can't even have the conversation about what this does for women's health--to say: Let's draw the line, and let's not remove the REMS restrictions. Let's not let people order these through the mail and be administered these dangerous drugs without direct medical supervision.
The next line of reasoning used by the Senator, my friend and distinguished colleague from the State of Washington, is that we are in the middle of a global pandemic. Yes, we are, but last I checked, that doesn't prevent or preclude us from discussing and addressing other things, from the funding of the government to Presidential nominees whom we confirm or don't confirm. That doesn't preclude us or excuse us from considering other pieces of legislation. I am struggling to understand how the existence of a global pandemic means that we can't even address another type of epidemic--one brought about potentially as a result of the abusive prescription and reckless misuse of abortion-inducing drug cocktails. This is beyond my ability to understand.
It is also beyond my ability to understand how a simple requirement that before one of these drugs is administered, the patient should have at her disposal a medical examination and some kind of medical attention. Nothing about Roe v. Wade says that you can't have laws restricting the manner in which abortions are performed. Nothing about Roe v. Wade says that a State or Congress itself may not require that abortions be performed by healthcare professionals under the supervision of a board certified medical doctor. Nothing about Roe v. Wade carries any implication for this. This legislation simply says: Let's make sure that medications like this are not used to harm American women.
I have other colleagues wishing to discuss this topic and other topics. Let me say this: Human life matters. Every human life means something. You can't snuff it out and pretend it doesn't exist, because it does. Every life matters to God. It matters in the universe. Whether you believe in God or not, life matters. You can't pretend it doesn't exist. Every life is unrepeatable, irreplaceable. We should vow to protect it.
For those who aren't interested in protecting unborn human life, let's at least focus on protecting the human lives that we all agree exist. That is what this legislation is about. Shame on us if we can't even do that.
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