March for Life

Floor Speech

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Mr. FORTENBERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Smith, not only for his tireless leadership, but his compassionate, passionate voice on behalf of women, saying loudly and clearly, consistently, over the time he has been in Congress, that women deserve better.

Madam Speaker, we live in an age of contradiction. We say that we want peace. We say that we want joy. We say that we want happiness, that we ought to be living in a good and authentic, committed community, and that we ought to uphold the noble ideal of human dignity. But we have to ask some difficult questions. We have to ask why.

Why, in this age of material plenty, is life expectancy in America declining?

Why, in this age of vast and accelerating scientific discovery and technological innovation, is the world still screaming for meaning? Why?

Could it be that we have to be brave enough, that we have to be bold enough, to look and confront our own contradictions?

We say we want community, but do we really care?

We say we want justice, but with certain exceptions.

We say we want liberty for all but, really, only for our own perspective.

Madam Speaker, the reality is, life is hard. Life can be brutal. Life can sometimes be very unfair.

The reality is we have to face this together.

This is why the demands of community, the demands of justice, the demands of compassion, the demands of liberty say to the woman, no matter how hard the circumstances, what a gift you are and what a gift the unborn life is within you. What a gift. What a gift.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Fortenberry for those very eloquent comments. To our colleagues and to those watching this at home, I think he really has touched a chord.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Madam Speaker, Mr. Chabot is the prime author of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, a hideous method of abortion where the baby is half born and then is snuffed out when his or her brains are literally drawn from the baby's brain area. I thank the gentleman for authoring that legislation.

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