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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, one of the aims of American foreign aid is to assist countries in times of need. This spirit exemplifies a trait Americans and Utahns rightfully value, that of giving to those in need.

Yet, for many years, our foreign aid dollars in support of abortion have been used to impose violent cultural imperialism. Instead of helping to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the lives of women and children abroad, our taxpayer dollars have been used to harm women's lives and to end the lives of their unborn children, especially baby girls. In some of these countries, girls are disproportionately aborted precisely because they are female. U.S. aid is used not to affirm the equal dignity of women but to violently deny it.

In some of these countries, abortion is forced on women who don't even want abortions, women in countries like Vietnam and Peru, for instance, who were forced to endure the coercive abortion and sterilization campaigns of the 1990s, just to name a couple of examples.

What kind of aid does violence to women and girls? What kind of help is it to impose U.S. abortion extremism on countries that culturally and democratically reject it or contribute to international organizations that allow regimes to use abortion as a tool of oppression? What kind of progress is it to encourage sex-selective abortion and the denigration of human dignity for both the baby and the mother?

U.S. advocacy abroad for the taking of innocent, unborn life is not pro-woman, it is not pro-child, and it is not pro-healthcare. It is pro-sexism. It is pro-violence. And we must end it.

According to recent polling, the American people overwhelmingly agree. Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions, and more than 75 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries.

Thankfully, President Ronald Reagan took steps to reverse this support, starting in 1984, instituting the Mexico City policy to prohibit foreign aid from going to organizations that provide or promote abortions or that advocate to change abortion laws in a foreign country. Since then, the policy has, unfortunately, been rescinded and reinstated again and again, repeating this cycle between changing administrations.

Another policy that used to have lasting support is the Hyde amendment. This legal provision prohibited the use of Federal funds to pay for abortion with a set of exceptions. Recently, Democrats have abandoned this bipartisan position and have placed the Hyde amendment under threat. It, too, could become a back-and-forth, ping pong policy, depending on who holds majorities within the two Houses of Congress.

The lives of babies and the dignity of women and girls are not political footballs. Women and unborn children everywhere have immeasurable dignity and eternal worth regardless of where they are from, and they are entitled to the right to life and protection from harm regardless of who happens to be in office from one moment to the next.

The Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act affirms this truth. This bill would permanently stop the use of our foreign aid money from funding or promoting abortions overseas.

In our laws and through our lives, we must uphold the dignity of each and every human person regardless of race, regardless of sex, and regardless of appearance, abilities, or age. The measure before us today does just that, and I urge my colleagues to support it. The lives of millions of women and children, born and unborn, depend on it.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 137 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I have tremendous respect for my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut. He and I both acknowledge that the policy we are arguing--the nature of the policy is one in which we have seen something of a tug-of-war, a ping pong match over the years.

The Republican legislation will put in place or restore the so-called Mexico City policy, prohibiting U.S. foreign aid from going to organizations that perform or advocate for abortion overseas. It is backed by an estimated 75 percent of Americans who don't believe that we should be using U.S. taxpayer dollars especially to further the cause of conducting or advocating for abortions overseas.

He and I both agree that President Biden has rescinded that. I think where we disagree can be highlighted and traced back to the fact that we call it by different names. He refers to this as the gag rule, a gag rule. Now, normally when we think of a gag rule, we think of something that tells someone who is otherwise free to speak that they may not speak. It is, in fact, what happens when we don't allow people to live. It is what happens to all these baby girls who are never allowed to be born precisely because they are female. And make no mistake, when we fund abortions overseas, that is what is happening. It happens a lot in countries that receive our aid in the absence of the Mexico City policy. Some of that goes to these organizations that perform abortions.

In many of these countries, sex-selective abortions are not only tolerated culturally, they are commonplace. They are excessive. As a result, these baby girls never get to be born. They never get to become women. They never get to speak in the first place. That is a form of gagging. That is not OK.

Regardless of how you feel about abortion, regardless of whether you think that is a baby, a human life, or whether you think it is something else--I am not sure what else it could be. When someone becomes pregnant, we know that is the potential of what will one day be a human being. Absent a death--whether a natural death or a death brought about by someone's actions or by the operation of a disease or medical condition or surgical intervention in the case of abortion--it is a person. We shouldn't lose sight of that.

I have difficulty accepting the premise that the only solution to this is continuing to fund organizations that perform or advocate for abortions overseas. I reject the premise that anything we do in this area to withhold those funds will necessarily result in more abortions.

As far as the suggestion that organizations could receive these funds and still perform abortions and that not translate into U.S. dollars being used to perform abortions, I reject that premise as well for the same reason that I reject the premise that Planned Parenthood isn't using taxpayer dollars to perform abortions. It is. It is spent differently. It is a matter of accounting, but it sustains and supports an organization that itself advocates for and performs many abortions. These are, in fact, human lives, and the American people are, in fact, very uncomfortable with the idea that we are funding abortions with their taxpayer dollars, and we are doing it overseas. We shouldn't do that. This shouldn't be controversial. I look forward to the day when it is not.

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