U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) spoke at the 2015 March for Life in Washington, D.C., attended by hundreds of thousands of Americans from across the country. He gave the following remarks:
You and I are here today because we have a compelling duty to protect the weakest and most vulnerable from the violence of abortion.
You and I are part of the most important human rights cause on earth. The right to life is the first right.
You and I are working, praying even fasting for that day when every life is cherished as a gift; every life loved despite one’s disability, race, sex, color, religion or condition of dependency; every life welcomed no matter the inconvenience.
A prenatal diagnosis of disability should mean empathy and concern for the child not exclusion or a death sentence. Every life is a gift.
It is very encouraging to observe how many young people are stepping up to protect and lead. Your presence here today is further evidence of this megatrend. You are the pro-life generation—the next “greatest generation”—who will by your compassion, faith and determination, transform America to a culture of life.
And we are here to honor and especially thank the courageous women who are “silent no more”, women who have blazed a hope-filled path for post abortive women to find healing, reconciliation and inner peace.
Women deserve better than the false solution of dismembering or chemically poisoning unborn children. Abortion profoundly wounds women, families, fathers and any society that permits it.
Of course the way forward is fraught with obstacles that must be overcome. If the past is prologue, the history of the pro-life movement shows that we never quit.
Mr. Obama—the abortion president—conveyed to the nation his solemn word that Obamacare would not subsidize elective abortion. He even said that it would comport with the Hyde amendment. Turns out that neither of those promises were kept.
A few months ago, the General Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed that over a thousand publically funded health insurance plans on the Obamacare exchanges pay for abortion on demand.
Today the House will pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act—to end taxpayer complicity and funding of abortion.
By some estimates, including by pro-abortion advocates, the Hyde Amendment has saved over a million children because 1 in 4 women who would have procured an abortion don’t go through with it if public funding isn’t available.
HR 7 will help save lives.
Attacks on conscience rights have accelerated both here and globally. The latest outrage: California forcing just about everyone including churches and other faith-based entities to subsidize abortion in their insurance plans effective August 22 of last year.
Passage of the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act would significantly enhance conscience rights for both individuals and organizations by providing a private right to sue rather than relying on the Obama Administration to enforce current conscience laws.
And soon, and very soon, the House will debate the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to legally protect most babies at 20 weeks post fertilization age.
It is shocking but true, but America’s abortion policy is among the most extreme in the world and is one of only 7 countries that permit elective abortion after 20 weeks.
This historic legislation recognizes the fact that unborn babies at 20 weeks feel pain and suffer as the abortionist dismembers or otherwise kills the child.
According to the November 2014 Quinnipiac poll, 60% of voters support laws to protect pain capable unborn children.
As was the case in the successful struggle to end partial birth abortion, this commonsense legislation faces serious opposition from the president, pro-abortion lawmakers and others.
We will persist. And we will prevail because every human life is a very special gift.
