The following are excerpts from the speech delivered by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) today at the March for Life on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.:

    "When Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier this month that this would be a Congress that remembers the children, I couldn’t help but think that she was forgetting someone—millions of unborn children.

    At swearing-in, when Speaker Pelosi invited the accompanying Congressional kids to join her at the rostrum I smiled and thought what a nice gesture and photo-op. And then I thought again of the forgotten girls and boys—at last count more than 49 million of them—brutally killed by what she and others euphemistically call “choice.”

    Let’s be honest. There is no welcome mat for unborn children anywhere to be found in the new congressional leadership. No word or deeds of comfort for the babies at risk. No compassion for those who are about to die.

    On the one hand, the Speaker is right, when she says Congress should remember the children and strive to enhance the welfare and well being of our young. To be sure, born children need strong and stable families, better access to health care, educational opportunities, a clean environment to grow up in and freedom from abuse.

    No one is more precious than our children.

    But it is equally valid and true that unborn children have inherent worth, value and dignity. They are children too. 

    So when you meet with your senators and member of congress today, remind them that Congress has a compelling duty to protect unborn children and their mothers from the insidious violence of abortion.

    Tell them that abortion is a grave violation of human rights and that there is absolutely nothing benign, just or compassionate about dismembering or chemically poisoning a baby.

    Tell them that the human right to live isn’t just for the planned, the privileged and the perfect.

    Tell them that abortion exploits women and that women deserve better than abortion.

    And pray for our government even when we don’t listen, even when Congress continues to enable, promote and defend the nefarious trade of the abortionist. 

    Because I believe, like you, that it is only by prayer and fasting coupled with hard work that America’s dark night of child slaughter will come to an end.”