On the recordJanuary 23, 2012
And I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his leadership in this issue. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you this evening as we commemorate the 39th anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. And as we stand here and we reflect as a Nation the loss of millions and millions of unborn lives and the destruction and the damage that is done to the woman--there are two victims in an abortion, both the mother and the unborn--I think there is reason for us to be hopeful. This day we witnessed hundreds of thousands of Americans marching on the Capitol in support of life; and of those hundreds of thousands, so many of them were young people, high school students and college students standing up for life, doing the right thing. So I am hopeful we are changing the hearts and minds of the American people. The youth of today are willing to stand up for what's right, and they understand the words of the Declaration of Independence, that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable Rights, among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the most basic right is the right to life. So we celebrate those youth who have the courage to stand up on behalf of life, and we pray for the change of the hearts and minds of the American people to understand that every life, regardless of how that life was conceived, is valuable; it has intrinsic value, and we must protect that life.
