Chris Smith: “I want to first thank the distinguished gentlewoman, my good friend Diane Black, for her extraordinary leadership. I…”

“I want to first thank the distinguished gentlewoman, my good friend Diane Black, for her extraordinary leadership. I also want to say to my colleagues--and I hope this really is accepted for the profound change that it underscores--the Hyde amendment has saved 2 million lives; 2 million survivors who would have died had Medicaid funding for abortion not been available. This is over the course of 40 years, but 2 million lives, some of whom are 39, 38. It is about 60,000 children every year. And if you look at where this comes from, much of the mega-analysis comes from a peer review done by the Guttmacher Institute in 2009. They have found that there is a 25 percent reduction in Medicaid abortions when Medicaid money is not available to effectuate the dismemberment and the chemical poisoning of an unborn child. Defense of the unborn child is a human rights issue of our time, Madam Speaker. We talk about the unborn child, we degrade them, we treat them as if they are tumors or warts to be excised rather than children growing, developing, and maturing. Ultrasound imaging, as we all know, has shattered the myth that somehow an unborn child is anything but human and alive. And I hope that the science, which is very readily available, catches up with the policy. This makes Hyde and all of the other amendments permanent. We know that every year we have an annual battle over several of those amendments.…”