Richard K. Armey: “Mr. Speaker, when I scheduled this bill for the floor, I knew that it was going to be a difficult debate. I understood…”

“Mr. Speaker, when I scheduled this bill for the floor, I knew that it was going to be a difficult debate. I understood there would be angry words. I knew there would be finger pointing and accusation. It is not a pleasant debate, Mr. Speaker, because today we are debating a very, very cruel and ugly subject. We are debating whether or not this Nation will tolerate a procedure that takes a baby, forces that baby from the womb, tears the baby's head open, and sucks out its brains. We are debating whether or not this Nation will tolerate such cruelty, whether there are other procedures or not. Let us keep the focus on this horrible, frightening, cruel, beastly behavior. We have all experienced childbirth. We have all been through it in our own lives, and we have seen our children go through it in their lives, whether it was me with my little baby or my son with his little baby, that exciting moment when we reach over and when we touch our wife's stomach and we feel that movement, when she tells us about the movements that are there; there is a live baby in that womb. When we put our ear down to hear the heartbeat, when we see the sonogram and we see the little arms, the little legs and the little features, and finally in that magic moment find out if our baby is a boy or a girl, that is a live baby in that womb. It has feelings.”