Women's Health Protection Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Democrats' abortion on demand until birth bill.

The other night we were having a hearing in Energy and Commerce. It was on a similar--a different bill, but a similar topic. And a lot of the rhetoric coming from the other side and, specifically, I remember is that the baby is nothing more than a uterus or an ovary. It was just kind of all of the same thing.

And it reminded me back when I was--when we had our first child, our now 28-year old, mother of our grandchild, when she was 12 weeks we had to have a sonogram because we thought there might be some issues. And she was about the size of the end of my thumb. And when we got the 28- year-old technology, she was sucking her thumb. The lady said, oh, look, he or she is sucking her thumb. Now we know it was a her; we didn't know at the time.

It is a distinct individual. Now, I will accede that it 100 percent depends on its mother for life, but it is distinct and separate from its mom. Her heart was beating.

Moving forward, let me just talk about how extreme this bill is. It allows abortion at any time if the unborn child was diagnosed with anything such as Down syndrome. It allows abortion at any time solely based on the baby's biological sex. It allows abortion to occur at any time point, including when a baby can feel pain, as well as when a heartbeat can be detected.

So this is an extreme bill before us today. And before we vote on this, I would like to let my colleagues know that a majority of Americans do not support abortions with no limits. In fact, 80 percent of Americans say abortion should be illegal in the third trimester.

This does not prevent States from making abortions legal in the third trimester.

I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. It is a separate and distinct life.

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