Joe Pitts: “today we will pass legislation to prevent innocent children from being executed along with their guilty parents; or, as…”

“today we will pass legislation to prevent innocent children from being executed along with their guilty parents; or, as one of the interns in my office so aptly put it, this bill is to ensure that a convicted killer cannot decide to kill again, this time the innocent child in her womb. Now, opponents of this legislation have said that it is unnecessary. After all, when has a pregnant woman ever been executed, they ask? I agree with them that this bill should be completely unnecessary. Although a pregnant woman was once sentenced to death, according to the father of Planned Parenthood, Alan Guttmacher, the authorities had the good sense to postpone her execution until after she had given birth. In fact, the innocent child principle has been the law of the land for more than a century. It was under a liberal Democratic Congress in 1994 that we reaffirmed this common law principle. So why do we need to pass this bill? Well, it seems that there are those who think it is time to retreat from this long-standing policy. Some think, not many, but some very important people think that it is okay to execute pregnant women as long as they consent. But what about the innocent child in utero who has committed no crime? The baby has no choice in the matter, says one of our leaders. People on death row are there because they willfully have taken another life; and some, several lives.…”