Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there are a lot of important things the Senate is taking up right now. Obviously, there is the issue of immigration, the budget, and disaster relief. There are a lot of pertinent issues that need to be resolved. One of those things that was in the middle of the conversation came up today. It is part of a conversation that, quite frankly, doesn't come up often in this body, but this seemed like a reasonable piece to be able to come up. It came up to the Senate to open debate on it, and it failed to get the 60 votes to support the beginning of what should be an easy conversation on a hard issue--this issue about children and life. In 1973, when Roe v. Wade passed, the Supreme Court at that time determined that for children that were viable--and that is the definition they left out there--there is a governmental interest in being able to engage with those children. Well, viability in 1973 was very different than what it is now, decades later. In 1973 viable was a much older child. Now that we know a lot more, a lot more children survive. Children who are born at 22 weeks of gestation have between a 50-percent to 60-percent chance of survival now. That was not true in 1973. The rest of the world has caught up with this technology, and their governments have acknowledged of this issue that a child who has 10 fingers and 10 toes and a beating heart--they suck their thumb in the womb, they yawn, they stretch, they move--is a child.…”