Pro-LIfe Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. HARRIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this because we come to Washington to make tough decisions. That's what the country expects of us.

Mr. Speaker, I will offer the fact that one of the most difficult decisions we have to come to grips with is when do we begin to protect human life. The gentleman from Arizona was absolutely right. We have to answer the question: Does abortion take the life of a human child? If we all agree that it does, then we have to ask ourselves and come to an agreement on at what point do we begin to protect that life; at what point are we as a Nation going to say that human life is worthy of protection.

Now, as a physician, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you I am always puzzled by the question because, scientifically, everyone who has taken a genetics course knows that, from the moment of conception, it is a unique human life. The one-cell embryo is a unique human life, different from every other one in the world--ever. Every cell in each and every one of our bodies has the exact DNA that we had when we were one cell big. The only difference is the number of cells we had. One would argue, certainly, as the illustration here shows, that this is not a one-celled fetus, or baby--it's a human being that given time will grow, that will grow to be your size or my size. I'm 6-foot-4. I'm a little bigger than normal. Some people are shorter than average, but we're all human beings, so size doesn't make the difference.

Again, from a scientific point of view, to me, it's clear: it is a human life from conception and should be protected. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I understand the country doesn't agree. Some people don't agree it should be protected. So the question is: At what point do you protect it?

A lot of people would say at this point it probably is worth protecting that human life. Certainly, the jury in Pennsylvania said that you couldn't kill that baby right after it was born. Strangely enough, Federal law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, says that it can be legal to kill that child 5 minutes before that birth. I think most Americans find that repulsive--that with a baby at almost 9-months' gestation, in many States, it is legal to kill that child 5 minutes before birth, but in Pennsylvania it resulted in three murder sentences because it was 5 minutes after birth.

So what this bill says is let's come together, and let's agree on a time when human life is going to be protected. It's not going to be a perfect agreement. It's going to be arbitrary because, again, that human life started when it was one cell large. At conception, that human life started. We all agree that, Mr. Speaker, you and I are human life and worthy of protection, so the only question is: Where do we draw the line?

Again, the gentleman from Arizona suggested correctly that we need to draw that line. This bill attempts to draw the line. The Supreme Court attempted to draw a very clumsy drawing of the line in the Roe v. Wade decision because it said it is viability, but the problem is that viability, over the 30-plus years I've practiced medicine, has changed. It's a moving target.

Viability then was 25 weeks. Now it's 23 1/4 . It's a moving line. And what does viability mean? Viability means it can survive without the support of that mother.

That's a little arbitrary, Mr. Speaker. If that mother had an elderly mother or grandmother at home, perhaps disabled with Alzheimer's disease, totally dependent on that mother--now, it's not their mother, but it's the mother of a child, a fetus. That grownup could be totally dependent on that other human being, that other human adult; and yet that human adult doesn't have the option of saying, Well, since that individual is dependent upon me, I can make a life-and-death decision for that individual. No, that would be wrong. We'd all say that's wrong. So we're going to have to draw the line somewhere.

This bill says, Let's do it when we believe that baby begins to feel pain, that, in fact, a D&E procedure will be exceedingly painful. Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what happens in a D&E procedure. The fetus, the baby is literally torn apart. Literally. This is what happens with it.

So we're all going to have to agree that, first of all, this is certainly not pleasant to look at. The medical illustrations when I was studying, of course, which was around the time of Roe v. Wade, didn't have this kind of illustration; but abortion policy in this country in the past 30 years forces us to actually illustrate what it looks like. This is it.

So this bill says--again, in the context of the Gosnell trial showing all America that--and I think almost all America agrees that what happened in Pennsylvania, knowingly killing by snipping the spinal cord of an alive, awake baby right after an abortion procedure that resulted in a live birth is, in fact, murder. It's the taking of a human life subject to punishment.

But most people would say, How are we going to protect this child? I offer that this is a compromise that maybe we all can work around and say that if that child during that procedure feels pain, then it probably should be protected under our law.

The question again is not clear cut. There will be some disagreement among people when that pain can be felt. There's a lot of indication scientifically and chemically and with neurodevelopment that that child feels pain at 20 weeks. It's certainly a little more subject to discussion whether it's earlier.

I will tell you later shouldn't be subject to discussion because, Mr. Speaker, you know that if you do a procedure on a premature infant born and brought to the neonatal intensive care unit, you actually administer pain relievers when you do the procedure. So the medical community has already decided that by 23 weeks it already feels pain; and believe me, Mr. Speaker, it didn't magically occur with birth, the ability to feel pain.

Again, we can know by the development of the nervous system, by things we can see and measure. We believe that at 20 weeks that fetus, that baby, can feel pain and therefore deserves protection.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that's a compromise we all ought to be able to work with. Again, it is a compromise because, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that human life does begin at conception. The discussion here is not going to be when human life begins. It's when should this body, this Congress, this government protect the most innocent of human life.

I'm going to agree that I think it's very reasonable to say when this fetus, this baby, can feel the pain of that procedure, it ought to be protected in some ways. Is it the perfect way? Maybe not. But we ought to begin that discussion because right now, Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law allows a State to allow an abortion that kills a baby right up to the moment of birth, and that's just not right. We need to set some line in law.

Again, I'll agree with the gentleman from Arizona that it may not be a perfect line, but we all have to agree we need to draw it to begin thinking about it; and I would suggest this is a reasonable one. When are we no longer going to subject that baby to the pain of a procedure and begin to protect that baby's life?

I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey again. He's brought the issue before this body. If we believe that this is just some abstract thought about when we protect human life, as I've spoken about on the floor and the gentleman from New Jersey has--Mr. Speaker, I suggest if you want some very interesting reading tonight, go home and Google the Journal of Medical Ethics and look for the article published last November where academics from Australia and Italy wrote an article suggesting that it should be all right to kill a human baby up to some certain amount of time after birth if that human baby is inconvenient to the mother and the family to which it belongs.

I would offer, Mr. Speaker, I hope that never

happens in this country, that that suggestion never takes root here. I think we would find that horrendous. But it does bring up the question that if we find it so horrendous 1 minute after birth, shouldn't it be horrendous 1 minute before birth? And if it's 1 minute before birth, how about 1 week? How about 1 month? How about 2 months? We can go all the way back. Should it be when the heartbeat appears at 7 weeks? At 7 weeks' gestation, the heartbeat appears. Even earlier. Should it be when the baby moves, when quickening is felt? That's the medical term: quickening.

This bill sets a reasonable point of discussion. Let's do it when we think a baby would feel the pain of that abortion.

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