On the recordOctober 13, 2011
I appreciate the leadership of my friend from Pennsylvania, who has been stalwart on this issue. Really, what we're seeing, folks, is a sleight of hand. They want to talk about jobs, and they want to talk about Big Oil because they don't want to talk about the preciousness of life and how this procedure takes the life of an innocent. It has been labeled an ``extreme'' bill when, actually, this is a reasonable step that codifies what this President says is his own position. I have a brother-in-law who is a doctor down in Cincinnati. A little earlier today, I called him to talk to him about what he went through in his training and what he had to deal with as to this particular issue. When I described to him what we were trying to do about allowing him and any other med student and any other person who is going through that to conscientiously object from putting forward a procedure that they don't agree with, he said, Of course, that makes sense. When I started talking to him about some of the rhetoric and about some of the demagoguery that's surrounding this, he sarcastically said, Boy, that doesn't sound political, does it? That's exactly what it is. The American people who are watching this right now need to understand that this is about life and protecting that life and making sure that our health care providers have the ability to say ``no'' to a procedure that they don't want to do.
