Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, on January 7, 18-year-old Ashley Lyons and her unborn son, Landon, were murdered in Scott County, Kentucky.…”

“Mr. Speaker, on January 7, 18-year-old Ashley Lyons and her unborn son, Landon, were murdered in Scott County, Kentucky. Current Kentucky law regards this crime as having only a single victim. But Carol Lyons, Ashley's mother and Landon's grandmother, said, ``Nobody can tell me that there were not two victims. I placed Landon in his mother's arms, wrapped in a baby blanket that I had sewn for him, just before I kissed my daughter good-bye for the last time and closed the casket.'' We are here today to tell Carol Lyons she is right. There were two victims that day. The Kentucky legislature has recently acted to recognize Landon as a victim under Kentucky law, and Kentucky's Governor is going to sign that legislation. But today, Congress has yet to pass legislation recognizing unborn victims of violence under Federal law. The House has done so twice by large margins, but the Senate has failed to act. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act provides that if an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of crimes of violence already defined under Federal law, prosecutors can bring two charges, one on behalf of the mother and the second on behalf of the unborn victim.”