Chris Smith: “I implore you to more fully appreciate and to take a look at what the consequences will be if it is enacted in its…”

“I implore you to more fully appreciate and to take a look at what the consequences will be if it is enacted in its current form. I truly believe that the harsh, mean-spirited punishments prescribed by the bill for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, the staple of the human rights and civil rights movements, parallel those sweeping, draconian edicts used to bludgeon dissent in dictatorships. Just getting in the way, I say to my colleagues, and get this, just attempting to get in the way at an abortion clinic will result, first, in 1-, and then, second, if you do it again, a 3-year jail term, massive fines up to a quarter of a million dollars per offense and punitive damages by the party that feels it has been offended. This kind of abuse of police power, Mr. Speaker, will surely bring smiles to the faces of people like Li Pong and Fidel Castro and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. This is their kind of bill.”