On the recordSeptember 21, 2015
I rise today in strong support of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This bill recognizes an indisputable fact and it stands for an indispensable principle. The fact is that each of us was a living human being before birth. The principle is that each human being has inherent dignity and worth. The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade degraded the Constitution, and the regime of virtually unrestricted abortion that it spawned continues to degrade our culture. It degraded the Constitution by reducing it to little more than a prop and using it as a cover for imposing the opinions of individual Justices. This decision is perhaps the best example of what Justice Benjamin Curtis warned about in his dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. He wrote that when the opinions of individuals control the Constitution's meaning, ``we have a government which is merely . . . an exponent of the individual political opinions of the members of [the Supreme] Court.'' That is exactly what Roe v. Wade is. In addition to degrading the Constitution, the abortion regime spawned by Roe and maintained by its progeny continues to degrade our culture. This effect is inevitable because that regime is built on the dark proposition that humanity itself has no inherent worth that demands respect and that individual members of the human family can be killed for any reason at any time before birth. It was not always like this. Just 25 years before Roe v.…
