Chris Smith: “I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank Ann Wagner for her tremendous leadership and courage in authoring this…”

“I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank Ann Wagner for her tremendous leadership and courage in authoring this important bill. Madam Speaker, in a Florida abortion clinic, Sycloria Williams delivered a perfectly healthy, live baby girl at 23 weeks. The clinic owner took the baby, who was gasping for air, cut her umbilical cord, threw her into a biohazard bag, and put the bag into the trash like so much garbage. Heartbroken, Ms. Williams later had a funeral for her baby girl she named Shanice. Madam Speaker, why are these live births so little known? We are talking about, in most cases, perfectly healthy babies who are killed but they survive. The Philadelphia Inquirer did a cover story years ago called ``The Dreaded Complication.'' In it, the abortionists were complaining that so many children were surviving late-term abortions and they didn't know what to do. The partial-birth abortion ban, where the baby's brains are sucked out--we did the ban, but the actual procedure--was, in part, in response to that. They wanted to ensure that the baby was dead. In that article, Dr. Willard Cates, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's abortion surveillance unit, said: Live births are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. It is like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit. What is there to gain?…”