U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) addressed thousands of Americans assembled today in Washington to rally for the culture of life marking the 41st year since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling:                                                                                                          

       Thank you for joining this extraordinary March—a magnificent celebration of God’s gift of life and a recommitment to defending and protecting women and children from the violence of abortion.

       Despite the fact that President Obama is using stealth, deception and the coercive power of the state to promote abortion violence—including new massive public funding in Obamacare for insurance plans that include abortion on demand—the pro-life movement is alive and well and making serious, significant and sustained progress.

     In the last three years alone, a record 200 pro-life laws have been enacted in the states.  Thank you state lawmakers and pro-life governors!

    Although the U.S. Senate Democratic leadership refuses to allow votes on pro-life legislation, a majority of House Members backed two bills by Congressman Trent Franks:  one to end discrimination against baby girls killed by sex selection abortion—the real war on women—and another bill to protect pain-capable unborn children from excruciating agony and suffering.

    And since the murder conviction last year of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, Americans are beginning to recognize an ugly reality:  there are Gosnells all over America—predators, child abusers and exploiters of women, making money on the pain of others.

      Some abortionists may have cleaner sheets and better sanitized instruments than Gosnell, but what they do—what Gosnell did for over 40 years—is the same. 

      Abortionists are victim-makers and since 1973, more than 56 million children have been brutally slain—a death toll that equates to the entire population of England. On the other hand, the compassionate people in the pro-life movement have for over forty years,  welcomed, embraced, loved and deeply cherished both mothers at risk and the co-victims of every abortion—post- abortive women.

    The passage of time hasn’t changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights, and that women and children deserve better, and that the demands of justice, generosity, and compassion require that the right to life be guaranteed to everyone.
Rather than dull our consciences to the unmitigated violence of abortion, the passage of time has only enabled us to see and, frankly, better understand the innate cruelty of abortion and its horrific legacy–victims–while making us more determined than ever to protect the weakest and the most vulnerable.

    In the run up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009 that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.”

    In an eleventh hour ploy to garner the votes of a remnant of pro-life congressional democrats absolutely needed for passage in the House, President Obama issued an executive order now infamous that said that Obamacare “maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.”

At its core, the Hyde Amendment has two parts.  It not only prohibits funding for most abortions but bans funding for insurance plans that include elective abortion.

     Under Obamacare, billions of dollars in the form of tax credits are today buying abortion-subsidizing health insurance plans in exchanges throughout the country.  For example, of the 112 health insurance plans available to members of Congress and staff, most, that is, 103 plans pay for abortion on demand.

    Like the President’s promise that you can keep your insurance plan if you like it, the massive public funding for abortion in Obamacare insurance plans breaks another solemn presidential promise.

To rid Obamacare of its massive expansion of public funding for abortion insurance plans—and to make existing policies like the Hyde Amendment permanent--ask your senators and member of the House to support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act co-sponsored by 165 House Members and a quarter of the Senate.

    Finally, by the grace of God—and because of you, your prayers and hard work—we are winning.  And to the youth especially, never quit or grow discouraged, your generation will end abortion.