Chris Smith: “I thank the gentleman very much for his amendment and for yielding. Mr. Chair, in 2009, Nurse Cathy DeCarlo was ordered…”

“I thank the gentleman very much for his amendment and for yielding. Mr. Chair, in 2009, Nurse Cathy DeCarlo was ordered at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, to assist in the abortion of a 22-week-old unborn child. Under threat of being fired, she said the hospital ordered her to assist in the ``bloody dismemberment of a baby,'' her words, ``and accounting for the body parts afterward,'' which must be done during these abortions. She said this coercion caused her intense emotional pain and she has had ``nightmares about babies crying in the dark . . .'' ever since. She appealed to the HHS Office for Civil Rights, but her pleas to enforce her civil rights fell on deaf ears. No one, Mr. Chair, should ever be pressured or threatened or coerced to perform or facilitate in the killing of a baby. Abortion is not healthcare. HHS recently promulgated an essential new regulation to enforce 25 congressionally-enacted conscience laws and provisions to protect individuals, healthcare entities, and providers from discrimination. H.R. 2740 stops this regulation by not allowing funds to be used to implement it. Let me point out that HHS points out that the rule will robustly enforce investigations, supervising compliance, making enforcement referrals when necessary to Justice, and remediate the effects of discrimination in coordination with other funding components in HHS, which may include withholding Federal funds as appropriate. We need to be serious about conscience rights.…”