The following are excerpts of remarks by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, during today’s debate on the House Floor on HR 6918—the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act:

            “At a New Jersey pregnancy resource center dinner, two women—through tears of joy—expressed their deep and abiding gratitude for the incredible love, respect, and care that persuaded them to reverse their decision to abort their babies.

            They spoke of how desperate—even hopeless—they felt.

            They spoke of the pressure they felt to abort.

            Until they met the director of the pregnancy resource center who reached out to both of them in a gentle and nonjudgmental way.

            They chose life—and thanked God, the director, and the pregnancy resource center for helping them avert the loss of their baby’s lives.

            Then, two teenaged girls took to the podium and spoke about their lives—school, sports, friends—and their reverence for the sanctity of all human life.

            Near the end of their remarks, they turned towards the director of the Center and thanked her for being there for their moms through those difficult times and said if you weren’t there for them, “we’d be dead.”

            There are more than 2,700 pregnancy resource centers throughout the United States—each and every one of them an oasis of love, compassion, empathy, respect, and care for both mothers and their precious children.

            Americans agree. The new Marist national poll released yesterday (January 17^th) found that 83 percent of all Americans including 75 percent of Democrats support—I say again support—pregnancy resource centers.

            They—like all of us in this great human rights movement—stand with every woman and for every child.

            We reject the violence of abortion—dismemberment, child beheadings, and abortion pills that literally starve the baby to death.

            Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach’s legislation prohibits President Biden’s new policy proposal that discriminates against pregnancy resource centers. 

            The bill—H.R 6918, Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act—ensures that pregnancy resource centers cannot be excluded or restricted from receiving TANF funding as proposed in a rule by the President.

            The Biden Administration and some governors and lawmakers continue to smear and misrepresent the noble work of pregnancy resource centers.

            We can’t allow that to happen.

            The pro-abortion culture of denial—a modern-day flat earth society—denies, devalues, and disrespects unborn baby girls and boys and trivializes the harm suffered by women.

            The United States—and the world—must more fully recognize the breathtaking miracle of the newly created life of an unborn child and that women deserve better than abortion.”

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