Asa Hutchinson: “during this debate we have heard a great deal about exceptions, about medical judgment and about statistics. I believe…”

“during this debate we have heard a great deal about exceptions, about medical judgment and about statistics. I believe this debate goes much deeper. This debate searches out the soul of our culture. It is ultimately a question of how we are willing to define ourselves as a civilization. We must ask ourselves, are we so self-indulgent in our Nation that all notions of right and wrong can be summarily reduced to a matter of choice? Is there no point at which we can agree that the sanctity of human life takes precedence over the lure of choice? A recent editorial writer in Arkansas defined the true debate that we face today. He said partial-birth abortion has long since ceased to be a medical question. It is a political question. It is about competing values. It is about whether we should be able to destroy human life in order to shape ours in a way that we would prefer. It is about what we hold sacred in our Nation. It is about our culture. Mr. Speaker, let us reaffirm America as a culture of hope, a culture of life.”