Chris Smith: “I thank my good friend and colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, pain, we all dread it. We avoid it. We even fear it.…”

“I thank my good friend and colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, pain, we all dread it. We avoid it. We even fear it. And we all go to extraordinary lengths to mitigate its severity and its duration. Madam Speaker, today, there are Kermit Gosnells all over America inflicting not only violence, cruelty, and death on very young children, but excruciating pain as well. Many Americans, including some who self-identified as pro-choice-- were shocked and dismayed by the Gosnell expose' and trial. Perhaps the decades-long culture of denial and deceptive marketing has made it difficult to see and understand a disturbing reality. Even after 40 years of abortion on demand and over 55 million dead babies and millions of wounded moms, many--until Gosnell--somehow construed abortion as victimless and painless. That has changed. The brutality of severing the spines of defenseless babies-- euphemistically called ``snipping'' by Gosnell--has finally peeled away the benign facade of a billion-dollar abortion industry. I note parenthetically, and it may come as a shock to many, but according to the Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund, the U.S. is among only four nations in the world that allows for abortions for any reason after viability, and one of only nine nations that allows abortions after 14 weeks. We're in some pretty bad company, Madam Speaker, because that includes China and North Korea. We are far outside the global mainstream.…”