Chris Smith: “Someday, future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why a society that prided itself on the…”

“Someday, future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why a society that prided itself on the commitment to human rights precluded virtually all protections to the weakest and most vulnerable--unborn children. I believe they will demand to know why dismembering a child with razor-sharp knives, pulverizing an infant with powerful suction devices, or chemically poisoning a baby with any number of toxic chemicals failed to elicit empathy for victim babies. The bill before us today reverses several modest but important pro- life policies, including the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, which is a reiteration and expansion of President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy. Announced by Ronald Reagan at the UN conference on population growth in Mexico City in 1984, hence, its name, the policy was and is designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is not funneled to foreign NGOs that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning. After Reagan announced that policy, Mr. Speaker, I offered the first amendment in 1985 to protect that policy, and we won. We lost in the Senate, but since it was an executive order, the policy did survive. And I have done it many, many times since. The policy established pro-life safeguards, benign, humane conditions, on the $8.8 billion in annual global health assistance. For years, Mr.…”