[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 206 (Tuesday, November 30, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8812-S8826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Honoring Deputy Frank Ramirez, Jr.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Madam President, I rise today, along with my friend and
colleague from Arkansas Senator Cotton, to honor Independence County
Deputy Sheriff Frank Ramirez, Jr.
Deputy Ramirez called Batesville, AR, home and was proud to help
protect his community. Sadly, that service was required, and this
requirement was making the ultimate sacrifice when he died in the line
of duty on Thursday, November 18, in an early morning crash that
occurred while he was responding to a call.
He leaves behind a wife and two children, among many other loving
family members, as well as his brothers and his sisters in law
enforcement who admired him deeply and felt honored to serve alongside
him.
Frank Ramirez, Jr., graduated from Batesville High School and was
formerly an officer with the Batesville Police Department before
joining the
[[Page S8813]]
Independence County Sheriff's Department as a patrol deputy.
He had a passion for serving and protecting, and he followed through
on that desire by becoming a law enforcement officer, sworn to uphold
the law and safeguard the vulnerable.
Those who knew him, both in uniform and out, consistently described
him as a good man. Even for someone so young, there is no better
compliment to be paid than that. It is a testament to the way he lived
his life--doing the right thing, meeting his obligations, and showing
genuine care and compassion for others.
Although his passing did not come at the hands of a suspect, it
stings just the same. It should remind us of the harrowing, uncertain
fate that awaits every man or woman who wears a badge.
These citizen servants are not guaranteed comfort or safety or the
opportunity to see the next day when they clock in, but they choose to
shoulder the risk, put on their uniform, and step out the door,
reporting for duty to protect and serve and do good in ways that are
just as often unseen as seen.
While danger comes in different forms throughout a shift or career,
it nevertheless always lurks nearby. No assignment is ever completely
without hazards or without jeopardy. Yet our police, sheriffs, and
troopers do the job anyway because they have been called to and because
they understand the need is great, even if the odds are long or the
numbers are too few.
That is what sets Deputy Ramirez and his colleagues apart. They run
toward danger and uncertainty when the rest of us flee. We must always
remember and honor these fallen heroes and pray the character they
embody carries on to new generations.
But today, we are here to reflect on the life and sacrifice of one,
Deputy Frank Ramirez, Jr., a noble, brave, public servant, a devoted
husband and father, a protector of this community, and as so many have
already remembered, a good man.
On behalf of all Arkansans, we are grateful for his dedication and
his sacrifice. Our prayers are with his loved ones and the brothers and
sisters in blue left to go on without him after his End of Watch.
The thin blue line is without one more courageous officer today, but
Deputy Ramirez's legacy will help instill even greater pride and
passion among its ranks because of the life he lived and gave for the
benefit of so many others.
May he rest in peace, and may God comfort all who mourn him.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I sadly join my colleague and friend
Senator Boozman to honor the life and service of Frank Ramirez.
Every time that a police officer kisses his or her family goodbye
before their shift, every time they strap a side arm on or put on their
badge, they know that it may be the last time they see their loved
ones. These heroes accept that danger because the love of their
families, neighborhoods, and communities is greater than any fear they
may face on the job.
Our men and women in blue don't just talk about doing good, they
actually do it each and every day. Sadly, far too many of them have had
to make the ultimate sacrifice in the course of their service.
One such hero was Arkansas Sheriff's Deputy Frank Ramirez. A week
before Thanksgiving, Deputy Ramirez was working after midnight when a
call went out there was an accident. He answered the call and quickly
drove toward the scene. But it was raining hard that evening. Roadways
were slick. And as Deputy Ramirez rounded a left turn on Highway 14, he
lost control of his car, ran into a culvert, and was sadly killed in
the resulting crash.
This heartbreaking tragedy has brought countless Arkansans to their
knees in prayer. Deputy Ramirez was serving his community when he died.
There are few causes more noble, and we recognize his supreme sacrifice
and promise to remember him.
Deputy Ramirez was a husband of 5 years and a father of two young
children, a son and a daughter. He is also survived by both his parents
and several loving brothers and sisters.
My prayers, Senator Boozman's prayers, and the prayers of all
Arkansans go out to his family. They, too, have paid an unbelievable
price in the service of our State, our communities, and our safety.
Deputy Ramirez was only 29 years old. He served in the Batesville
Police Department and the Independence County Sheriff's Office. He was
in law enforcement for nearly 2\1/2\ years. In that short time and at
his young age, Deputy Ramirez sacrificed more for his communities than
many police veterans who have been on the force for much longer. I join
them in saluting his service and honoring his sacrifice.
May God bless Frank Ramirez, may God bless his family, and may God
bless all the brave men and women in law enforcement in Arkansas and
around our Nation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Tribute to Lieutenant Colonel John Meyer
Mr. HAWLEY. Madame President, LTC John Meyer joined my office as our
defense fellow this past January. It is hard to overestimate in the
months since just how much he has contributed.
Time and again, John has drawn on his rich background and his
experiences in the Middle East, the Pacific, and with some of the
Army's most elite units to inform our work on defense and national
security.
More than that, he has consistently stepped up, even when he didn't
have to, to help those in need--from veterans and servicemembers at
home in Missouri to those affected by the bombing in Kabul over the
summer.
For all of these reasons and more, it has been a real privilege to
have John as a part of our team this year. We are going to miss him
when he goes all too soon here, but I am confident he will continue to
serve our Nation with the utmost distinction wherever his career takes
him.
I want to take this opportunity, in light of all of that, to request
floor privileges for John as a small gesture of my gratitude for his
service to my office, to Missouri, and to our Nation.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
H.R. 4350
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, 60 years ago, President Dwight David
Eisenhower warned Americans about the unwarranted influence of the
military-industrial complex. He told us of the relentless defense
interests that would use their lobbying muscle to keep money flowing
into the coffers of the Pentagon. While our adversaries and competitors
have changed in the past six decades, the military-industrial complex's
revolving door is as well greased as Ike warned our country.
Today, Congress is set to vote to increase the already-bloated
defense budget in the same year that we ended our longest war--the
latest proof that the military-industrial complex is alive and well and
banking on a pay raise, all while Americans struggle to afford
groceries and gasoline.
Here is the simple truth about the defense budget we are debating
this week: We plan to spend $768 billion to fuel the military-
industrial complex even in our moment of relative peace. Yet many in
this Chamber are relentlessly attacking the Build Back Better act
despite this spending bill being four times its size in new spending.
What we are hearing in this Chamber this week are Cold War echoes--
words that sound like talk of the bomber and the missile gap with the
former Soviet Union that drove an arms race that brought us to the
brink of annihilation.
Our top military general recently called China's most recent
hypersonic test a ``Sputnik moment.'' That is our top military general.
But how in the world can it be a ``Sputnik moment'' if we are set to
spend more on defense than the next 11 countries combined, many of
which are U.S. allies and partners? There is no technological or
military gap that we need to close. We have the strongest military in
the world.
Our rivals, our adversaries are not 10 feet tall. We are the country
that is 10
[[Page S8814]]
feet tall, and they are looking up at us militarily. We should just
understand this, as people bad-mouth our military. It is not accurate.
They are afraid of us. We are technologically superior to them, whoever
they may be.
But wait. As if we weren't spending enough, Congress has tossed in an
additional $25 billion that was not even requested by the Pentagon in
this year's budget. You heard that right--an additional $25 billion.
How many kids could go to pre-K for that? How many seniors could get
dental or vision coverage? How many public housing units could we build
with that, with the money that has not even been requested by the
Pentagon?
We should not accept the logic that says we can afford to build a
$100 billion intercontinental ballistic missile that will never be used
but we cannot possibly afford paid family leave that Americans
desperately need.
Universal prekindergarten is too expensive, but padding the wallets
of defense firm executives with taxpayer dollars is money well spent.
That is insane. That is immoral.
We should not have to fight tooth and nail to meet our commitment to
replenish the Green Climate Fund to help save the planet while being
told to accept the need for new weapons systems that could lead to
global annihilation.
It is time we stop thinking of national security solely in terms of
our inventory of bombers and missiles and submarines. Trillions in
defense spending did nothing to spare Americans from the greatest
security threat in generations: COVID-19. We have to stop pretending
that there are military solutions to the national security challenges
that we face. The defense a family needs right now is protection from
eviction, hunger, electricity shut off, and pollution.
Being strong on defense means learning critical lessons from the two-
decade-long war in Afghanistan. Being strong on defense means that we
do not shy away from telling the military-industrial complex and its
army of lobbyists that we do not need to outspend our adversaries into
oblivion.
Nowhere has the gold-plated defense industry been harder at work than
in gilding the whopping $1.5 trillion we are projected to spend through
2046 on upgrading our nuclear weapons enterprise. Say that again--$1.5
trillion on more nuclear weapons. There is one thing this country and
this world does not need, and that is more nuclear weapons.
We know that fear and distrust of an adversary's intentions empower
voices in the defense bureaucracy to sell new capabilities that spur
the other side to justify weapon systems of their own. But we must
avoid a rerun of the Cold War, where worst-case military planning leads
to thousands of missiles pointed at Washington, Moscow, and Beijing,
once again casting a terrible shadow over humanity.
That is why I introduced amendments to the NDAA that would trim $75
billion off the nuclear weapons enterprise, commit to robust diplomacy
with Russia and China, and prevent the President--any President,
Democratic or Republican--from firing the first shot, the first nuclear
weapon in a nuclear war. The United States should never be first to
launch a nuclear weapon against another country--ever. That should just
be our policy. We will not be the first to use nuclear weapons when we
have not been attacked with nuclear weapons. That is immoral. That is
wrong. It must be the policy of our country that we will not do that.
If it is true what Ronald Reagan said--that a ``nuclear war cannot be
won and must never be fought''--then surely we should agree to shelve
Donald Trump's new sea-based warfighting nuclear weapons.
We could play Russian roulette with our future or we can adopt a
saner nuclear policy, one that says we do not need the rubble to bounce
over and over and over again to deter our adversaries and reassure our
allies; one, through the President's Nuclear Posture Review, that
rejects the military-industrial complex efforts to make the world safe
for nuclear weapons rather than from nuclear weapons.
In 2020, the amount of money that one of the five biggest defense
contractors received from the Pentagon--$75 billion--was nearly double
the entire development and diplomacy accounts at the State Department
and the U.S. Agency for Development.
As President Biden noted in Glasgow at the international climate
summit earlier this month, we have an obligation to help the developing
world leapfrog the fossil fuel economy to reach a green economy. Lower
and middle-income countries deserve to develop and seek a higher
standard of living, but we know that they can't use the dirty fuels
that powered our growth if we hope to keep global warming at 1.5
degrees Celsius. My climate amendment will help those countries least
to blame for the climate crisis to adapt to the impacts that they are
already overwhelmingly and disproportionately experiencing.
The first of its kind National Intelligence Estimate, released in
October, warned us that the intensity of wildfires and the force of
hurricane winds and unrelenting droughts are a mere preview of the
extreme weather events to come. The Pentagon's own report warns us of
the cascading security impacts if we fail to answer the national
security challenge of our generation: Governments that are unable to
meet the basic needs of their people risk collapse. Driven by the
climate crisis, water, food, and resource scarcity will lead millions
to flood across borders as stateless climate refugees. That will lead
to destabilization of countries. That will lead to national security
crises in country after country as a result of the climate crisis.
We have to just deal with the reality that the CO2 is
still red, white, and blue that is up there. We are the leader
historically, and the rest of the world wants us to be the leader
historically right now in dealing with that crisis.
My climate amendment says that we can avoid that grim future. We can
redirect a mere 1 percent from the Pentagon topline towards global
climate accounts to fight the climate crisis. We can come to grips with
the fact that the greatest adversary we face is not a foreign army,
navy, or air force; it is the transnational threats of the climate
crisis, of pandemics, and of nuclear weapons.
We are not in a new Cold War. We are in a war for our common
survival.
Yesterday, in an act of political gamesmanship, Senate Republicans
joined me to vote against moving forward with this abominable $768
billion Defense bill. While I wish we could stop here and reassess the
waste of three-quarters of a trillion dollars spent on defense, this
was, sadly, just a Republican ploy to add even more pork onto this
already fatty legislation.
Now, I urge my colleagues to support Senator Sanders' and my
amendment to return the defense budget to the level requested by the
President--a level of spending which is greater than we spent during
the Korean war, the Vietnam war, and at the height of the Cold War.
Additionally, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment--co-
sponsored by Senators Warren, Padilla, Booker, Merkley, and Sanders--to
make a 1-percent cut to the Defense authorization to increase our
support for global climate accounts.
If we do not adopt these changes, I cannot, in good conscience,
support that budget. It is time we stop funding the military industrial
complex, whose profit is based in conflict and annihilation. That is
not an investment in our future; it is an invitation to destruction.
The bottom line is we are either going to live together or we are
going to die together; we are either going to know each other or we are
going to exterminate each other.
This is a period where we should be talking to our rivals. We should
be negotiating with our rivals. We should be trying to reduce the
nuclear arsenals. We should be trying to reduce the tension; reduce the
paranoia; reduce the threat that, by accident, we can actually fight a
nuclear war.
That is what we should be debating here and not just putting all of
the additional new weapons systems that have been on the blueprints of
the defense industry for a generation into this budget. That takes us
in the wrong direction, towards less safety, more risk.
The correct vote here is to deal with the reality that we have too
many nuclear weapons already and we haven't sufficiently dealt with the
threat which the climate crisis is going to
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pose as a national security risk to our country and the rest of the
planet.
Madam President, with that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Madam President, our Nation exists today in a time of
relative peace, with limited and manageable active hostilities
threatening U.S. national security.
On the horizon, the United States faces a militarily ambitious and
formidable but not yet insurmountable opponent in China and in its
quest for regional dominance in the Pacific.
Yet in the face of this new age of great power competition, U.S.
grand strategy continues to operate with outdated goals and across all
regions of the globe, lacking prioritization and desperately needing
scale.
After the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the corresponding
diplomatic, military, and humanitarian disaster, one would think the
instinct would be to jettison decades of military-industrial
groupthink.
One would think the American people, and certainly our men and women
in uniform, deserve a thorough, exhaustive review of what is working
and the huge swaths of what is failing in our military and defense
strategy, infrastructure, and planning.
One would think that Congress would reclaim powers assigned to it by
the Constitution to make serious reforms to protect the security and
prosperity of the United States.
One would think we would reform our procurement process and trim the
bloated, perversely incentivized military-industrial complex.
One would think we would prioritize resources toward the largest and
most imminently looming threats to U.S. national security.
One would think we would burden share with our allies where our
security interests align.
One would think we, here in the U.S. Senate, would take specific
steps to make sure that failures like the withdrawal from Afghanistan
don't happen again, whether in the Middle East or in any other emerging
theater of conflict.
Unfortunately, this year's National Defense Authorization Act fails
to put the interests of U.S. citizens first. This is not the
introspective or retrospective bill that the American people should be
able to expect and largely continues the failed--the failed--policies
of many decades past. The American people and the brave men and women
of our military deserve better.
We are, thank heavens, in a time of peace, with limited active
hostilities. Despite that, we remain intimately entangled in the
affairs of too many nations abroad. Our troops and equipment scatter
every region of the globe. We spend billions of dollars supporting,
supplying, and training allies who, in many cases, contribute little to
their own self-defense, let alone ours.
We face an ambitious opponent in China, as it seeks military
dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. There is no question that while
Xi Jinping remains in power, the PLA and the PRC will not shy away from
bold moves and the quest for regional hegemony. But the U.S. strategy
should not presume unrestrained, offensive intervention; rather,
targeted and scaled deterrence should frame the mission set across all
U.S. forces postured in the region. Further, the United States should
accordingly rescale resources in the war zones of yesteryear to
appropriately prioritize protecting the U.S. homeland and military
personnel from tomorrow's threats.
Congress is responsible for raising and supporting armies, of making
war, and of ratifying treaties. This bill neglects those
responsibilities.
Regarding Afghanistan, the NDAA includes funding and new authorities
for the nonexistent Afghan security forces, along with reimbursements
to coalition partners for supporting U.S. operations and a sense of the
Senate on future U.S. counterterrorism posture postwithdrawal, with
little eye toward reforming or removing outdated and overbroad
authorizations for the use of military force.
Perpetuating funding and authority to support a nonexisting defense
force is as much bad foreign policy as it is bad fiscal responsibility.
We must do better. The American people expect and deserve for us to do
better.
Additionally, this NDAA fundamentally changes the purpose and the
scope of the military draft. The new purpose is greatly expanded to
``ensure a requisite number of personnel with the necessary
capabilities to meet the diverse mobilization needs of the Department
of Defense during a national emergency.''
Instead of being a seldom-used tool only for the most extreme cases
of compelling national defense, the draft could be morphed into
compulsory national service in the face of any emergency.
Even more troubling is the mandatory registration of women for the
draft. Look, all are immensely grateful for the incredible contribution
women make to our Armed Forces, but that participation should never be
forced. This bill paves that dangerous road without due consideration
given to its impact on young families and single parents.
Further, the policy provides no guarantee that women would not be
sent directly to the frontlines of combat, alongside and simultaneously
with able-bodied men.
While I am opposed to all of the NDAA's changes to the draft, at the
very least, this body should consider a reasonable amendment, a few
reasonable amendments on this front, including one of mine that would
prohibit the disturbing scenario of mothers and fathers being
conscripted simultaneously out of the same family, leaving their
children stranded without either parent. It also provides a similar
exemption for single parents.
I hope this body will consider and pass this amendment in the near
future. I also hope that the body will make that unnecessary by, first,
passing an amendment striking that provision altogether. We don't need
to be expanding the draft, and we shouldn't be making the draft
applicable to women.
This bill further reduces our military end strength by over 7,000
servicemembers. Troublingly, the biggest cuts come from the Marine
Corps and the Air Force. And in the face of an aggressive China, the
Navy also faces reduction in Active Forces when it arguably should be
the first contender for an increase in end strength, not a cut.
As we pivot toward the Indo-Pacific, our naval and our air
superiority are both vital. We need them. Our withdrawal from the
Middle East should reduce the level of Active-Duty Army personnel
deployed overseas, and yet the Army faced a less than 1-percent
reduction in that specific category.
This bill places us on a dangerous footing regarding future mutual
defense commitments. This bill would provide a vague, near-
authorization for the use of military force to defend Taiwan against an
invasion from China. The question of war deserves here, as always, its
own debate by Congress, rather than a haphazard statement of policy
that may be abused by the executive branch in order to bring us into a
new conflict, into a new conflict without the people's duly elected
representatives whose job it is to decide whether we go to war to make
that decision under the light of day and with full debate that the
American people can witness.
Like NDAAs of old, this bill appropriates more funds to procurement
than anywhere else, with no reforms to the bureaucratic barriers that
make procurement so costly and so inefficient.
Finally, this NDAA does not sufficiently bolster our defensive
position in this hemisphere. The goals outlined by this bill are vague
and equate to an abdication of Congress's responsibility to give the
Defense Department instructions for a strategic approach to the Western
Hemisphere.
It provides blank check authority for the Department of Defense to
support programs and activities for purposes including institution-
building to countercorruption and to serve humanitarian infrastructure
needs. This attempt at nation-building is misguided, and it will not be
helpful to us in our efforts to deter China.
Thankfully, there are a few positives in this bill for U.S. national
defense and for the security of the people of Utah.
This bill continues to support the development of fifth-generation
air power capabilities in the F-35 Program, continuing a critical
investment in our air defense--something that is also becoming even
more important.
This bill also fully funds the modernization of our ground-based
nuclear
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deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland for generations to come. This
important work will largely be done by the people of Utah and our
dedicated servicemembers at Hill Air Force Base.
The House version of the NDAA also includes my Military Spouse
Licensing Relief Act. It is important to note here that one in four
military spouses currently face unemployment or are actively seeking
work largely because of frequent moves due to their spouse's military
orders, which keep them moving from place to place on a pretty routine
basis. This provision in the House version of the bill would also allow
spouses of our military servicemembers to work in their chosen
profession, wherever military orders may take them in the United
States, without having to navigate the complicated requirements of
State occupational licensing.
My State, the State of Utah, led the way with this commonsense type
of reform that makes life and achieving prosperity easier for those
families who serve our Nation. It should become law. We need it. Our
military families need it. Our military and the American people
generally would be much better off with it.
We could have done more. This National Defense Authorization Act
could be a pivot point where we reexamine our defensive stance in the
world and reclaim our constitutional arrangement here at home.
This NDAA could have been a turning point in which we in Congress
reasserted our authority over war-making powers. My National Security
Powers Act that I have introduced with Senator Murphy and Senator
Sanders would clarify and update and modernize the War Powers
Resolution.
The bill would also restore congressional authority over arms
exports. It would additionally require congressional approval of
emergency declarations and prevent the President from misusing
emergency powers.
The National Security Powers Act would rein in Presidential abuses of
the war power and make our Nation safer and more aligned with the
Constitution. It is bipartisan. It is exactly the type of reform that
belongs in the NDAA.
We must also make reforms to our emergency war spending. Though
President Biden thankfully didn't request, and Congress didn't provide,
the OCO slush fund in this bill, there is much that needs to be done to
restore Congress's power of the purse in the defense environment
specifically.
The Cost of War Project estimates that post-9/11 war spending totals
$8 trillion from 2001 to 2022. Of the $8 trillion, OCO and interest on
OCO funds accounts for $3.3 trillion. That is real money, and a lot of
it.
My Restraining Emergency War Spending Act would define emergency war
funding and require the Department of Defense and Congress to limit
spending set aside for emergencies to the purpose for which it was
authorized.
We also need to return accountability to our defense alliances by
requiring wealthy and capable Nations to contribute their fair share of
their defense. In the NATO alliance alone, only 11 of the 13 NATO
member countries meet the 2 percent defense spending requirement.
This means that 63 percent of the alliance shown here in red consists
of countries that don't foot their share of the bill. They are not
holding up their end of the agreement.
So my Allied Burden Sharing Report Act would help us know just how
much or just how little our allies are contributing. Now, this report
used to be published annually. It should be still. This NDAA would have
been an ideal venue in which to legislate the return of that report.
We also must use these legislative opportunities to prepare the
Department of Defense for future defense focused on the technology, the
reforms, and the regions of the future.
Our defensive position regarding China and in the Indo-Pacific should
focus on deterrence. Spreading our forces and our expensive equipment
to the ports and the shores of allies in the region is ineffective and
could prove more of a vulnerability than an advantage against Chinese
strike capabilities. A deterrent posture would combine defensive
strategy and operations to fend off possible attacks from a position of
strength and limit risk to U.S. personnel and assets.
Further, we must prioritize recruitment and retention for the future
fight. We need to provide a suitable and welcoming environment for
those in uniform and for their families. We need to end the President's
sweeping vaccine mandate and give our servicemembers the respect they
deserve.
After a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of our
Nation's longest war, this NDAA could have been--should have been--an
opportunity to debate, rethink, and reform our Nation's defenses.
The National Defense Authorization Act--U.S. defense and security
broadly--is one of the few items this body regularly considers that is
explicitly, unambiguously within the enumerated powers of Congress.
Consequently, it is something that deserves due consideration and
significant debate on the floor in order for Members to be able to
raise issues like those that I have described today.
Yesterday, this body attempted to close debate on this bill without
consideration of a single amendment--not a single one.
While this bill does make key progress in limited areas, it does not
get to the heart of many of our national defense problems. It does not
restore Congress's role in our national defense. It does not provide a
holistic strategy to defend the United States and the people of Utah--
or the people of any other State.
This bill and the floor process yet remain missed opportunities, and
I am going to continue to fight for both necessary policy reforms and
for an open process generally on the floor. Anything less, particularly
in this critical area, amounts to an abdication of the duties of this
body to the detriment of the citizens we serve. We can and we must do
better.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Oklahoma.
Abortion
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., the Supreme
Court of the United States will hear oral arguments on a case out of
Mississippi commonly known now as the Dobbs case.
That case is all about a Mississippi law, where Mississippi passed a
law saying, at 15 weeks, a child in development in the womb can be
protected after that time period.
That strikes right at the heart of Roe v. Wade, where, in the
arbitrary ruling from the Supreme Court in 1973, they made up a new
rule saying when a child is viable--not something that is in law at any
spot. It created that out of whole cloth.
Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court will reopen that conversation
about viability. It is an important discussion for us to be able to
have as a nation, and it is vital that we talk about it here as well.
As it is being discussed across the street at the Supreme Court, there
are issues that we should discuss as well.
So, for the next few moments, there are multiple different Senators
who are going to speak on this one issue: When is a child a child, and
when should States have the rights to protect their own citizens'
lives?
The Supreme Court has made that murky and has the option tomorrow to
be able to make that clear. This conversation, though, will circle
around what should that legal standard be and how should we protect the
lives of every citizen, no matter how small they are.
There will be multiple Senators who will be speaking on this, the
first of which will be Senator Steve Daines, who leads the Pro-Life
Caucus in the U.S. Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I rise today ahead of one of the most
important moments in our decades-long battle to protect life.
When our Founding Fathers laid out the Declaration of Independence,
they talked about life, they talked about liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. They called them certain unalienable rights endowed by our
Creator. The reality is you can't have liberty and the pursuit of
happiness without first having that unalienable right given by God, and
that is the right to life.
Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the
Mississippi late-term abortion case Dobbs
[[Page S8817]]
v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
This puts our Nation at the crossroads of history. Our Nation has a
moment to finally modernize our laws. We have got the aptitude to catch
up with the great advancements seen in science, in technology, and
medicine that indisputably show the humanity of unborn children.
We have the opportunity to end an extreme judicially imposed abortion
regime that is aligned with nations such as China and North Korea. The
United States is just one of seven nations that allows late-term
abortions.
We have the opportunity to write a new chapter of American history
where the people's elected representatives get to decide abortion
policy in this country.
The Supreme Court of the United States has the chance to right a
historic injustice and finally overturn Roe v. Wade. Our Court's nine
Justices have the opportunity to reconsider a wrongly decided case.
And, by the way, that wrongly decided case that became case law, it
was nine men in black robes that really have overruled the will of the
people. It wasn't a State legislature. It wasn't the U.S. House. It
wasn't the U.S. Senate. It was nine men in black robes in 1973 that has
since resulted in the death of over 62 million innocent babies--62
million.
They have the opportunity to reverse this horrific decision that
imposed abortion on demand until the moment of birth across the United
States. They have the opportunity to recognize that Roe was based on
flawed and outdated science and that the right to abortion, which Roe
invented, has no support in the text, the history, or the structure of
the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has an opportunity to restore the Constitution and
defend our most fundamental right, and that is a right to life.
Now, let's go back to 1973, when Roe was decided. Many things were
different than they are today. Why? Well, one reason is because science
and technology--and certainly fashions--have advanced greatly.
Our phones in the 1970s went from large brick-like devices with
antennas--in fact, the first cell phone call was placed in 1973, the
very year that Roe v. Wade was decided. They were called bricks. They
were about 2\1/2\ pounds. Compare that to these thin, touchscreen
smartphones that we fit in our pockets today that are less than 6
ounces in weight.
In the 1970s, computers were the size of an entire desk, and now we
have laptops that can be as thin as literally a child's story that I
read to my grandchildren over the Thanksgiving holidays.
Now, when we drove in the seventies, compare that to what we drive
today. I am thankful that has changed.
And in the seventies, if you were a woman at the doctor getting an
ultrasound at 15 weeks of pregnancy, you would have seen something like
this. That is hard to recognize, but that was the technology that some
ultrasounds had--the best--back in the seventies.
But, today, an ultrasound of a baby at 15 weeks, when they are using
the latest 4D technology, looks like this. You literally can see this
little one here at 15 weeks sticking her tongue out--15 weeks.
A baby this size is who Mississippi's historic, lifesaving law would
protect from the brutal violence of a late-term abortion. That is a 15-
week baby. If you don't believe me, take out your smartphone, google
``15-week baby,'' and click on--images.--
Roe and Casey made it illegal for States like Mississippi to enforce
laws that protect babies like this one on the grounds that this baby
could not survive outside the womb. It was a point called viability.
Roe and Casey's viability line is arbitrary. It is unscientific. It
is morally repugnant because, in 1973, babies could survive outside of
the womb at 28 weeks of pregnancy. Today, babies are surviving outside
the womb as early as 21 weeks but not yet as early as 15 weeks.
It is barbaric to deny lifesaving protections to a helpless, pre-born
child like this one simply because she cannot survive outside the womb.
The reality is, even a full-term, 40-week-old baby needs nurturing,
care, and medical assistance to survive outside the womb. A full-term
baby delivered at 40 or 41 weeks still requires the nurturing and the
care of the parent to survive outside the womb. They have got to be
fed. They have got to be kept warm. They have got to be taken care of.
They can't do it on their own.
Martin Luther King once said: ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere.''
This is also true in the case of the Supreme Court's prior unjust
decisions on abortion. In fact, the logic of Roe and Casey's viability
test undermines the moral coherence of civil rights protections for
everyone who is unable to survive without assistance from others. That
includes infants, young children, the elderly, and persons with
disabilities.
A pre-born child is not a ``potential life,'' as Roe so wrongly
concluded. This precious child and all children inside the womb, at any
stage of development, are whole. They are distinct. They are living
human beings. They are fully human and fully living. They are
beautifully living children made in the image of God, who should be
protected by the law.
Now, we have come a long way since 1973. Our laws must now do the
same. As you just saw, at the time that Roe v. Wade was decided, it was
very hard to clearly see a baby in the womb. But because of science and
technology today, it is impossible to ignore the humanity of this
growing baby.
If I took this image and we had the American people say, ``What is
that?'' they would say, ``That is a baby.''
At 15 weeks, a baby has arms and legs, can hiccup, can yawn. The
heart is fully developed. At 15 weeks, the heart has already beaten 15
million times. That baby has distinct facial expressions. It can hear
the voice of the mother and respond. It can taste, suck a thumb, and,
as you can see in that other image I had, even stick out her tongue.
I am a father of four and grandfather of two. We have another
grandchild coming any day. Our daughter's due date is December 3. It is
Friday. My wife and I, who have been married now 35 years, have our
favorite way of tracking our grandbaby's growth. This didn't happen in
1973, but today we have apps on our phones. I have been using an app
called Sprout. There are several out there. I downloaded it. I can see
how my little grandson is doing in each week of the pregnancy. It is
remarkable--remarkable. We have been following this little baby now
since week 8. We are at week 40 here this weekend. This cutting-edge
technology is at the tip of our fingers--something we couldn't imagine
50 years ago. We have that at the tip of our fingers. Our laws must
catch up with the advancement of science and technology.
It is very important that we are clear about what overturning Roe
would mean for our country because there is a lot of misinformation out
there. Let me state this as clearly as I can. Overturning Roe will
not--let me say that again--will not ban abortion nationwide, as many
on the left like to claim in an attempt to mislead Americans. That is
absolutely false. It will not ban abortions nationwide. Instead, it
returns the power to the States. It returns the power to Federal
lawmakers, allowing them to protect the most vulnerable and act on
behalf of the people they are elected to represent, because today under
Roe, State lawmakers are robbed of their ability to represent the
values of their constituents. Yet, because of Roe, the will of the
people of Mississippi to protect life is obstructed.
According to a recent Marist poll, 80 percent of Americans are
opposed to abortions after the first 3 months--that is 12 weeks--of
pregnancy. That is an overwhelming majority of the American people, but
because of Roe, their voices are being silenced.
It is time for the Supreme Court to allow the States and Federal
lawmakers--those of us who are elected, who are held directly
accountable by the people--to protect the most vulnerable among us. It
is time that we, as the United States of America, a nation that is
supposed to be a leader in the world on human rights, recognize that
innocent babies in the womb deserve equal protection under our laws.
I am sure many of my colleagues and most Americans would agree that
nations like communist China and North
[[Page S8818]]
Korea egregiously violate human rights. Yet when it comes to abortion,
sadly, America stands with them. There are just seven countries, and we
are on that list. The United States is a global outlier on abortion. We
are just one of seven nations that allow abortions on demand past the
point where a baby feels pain, all the way up, in fact, until the
moment of birth. Standing with North Korea and China on abortion is
horrifying. It is a disgraceful place for the greatest country in the
world to be. We must do better.
I want to thank Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, her entire
team, and the Mississippi Legislature for their unwavering support of
life. We stand with you. Millions of Americans stand with you, young
and old. They are praying for this momentous moment that will be
occurring before our Court tomorrow.
As we stand here today, we are mere hours away from a pivotal point
in our Nation's history. I pray that we remember tomorrow as the
turning point that closes a really dark chapter of our Nation's history
and heralds the dawn of truly a new day in America for those who have
no voice to finally have a voice; one that honors the human dignity,
the God-given potential of all life; one that positions the United
States as a leader in the world, that stands up and puts an end to the
horrific violence of abortion, especially painful late-term abortions.
I pray that we see the Supreme Court of the United States correct a
historic injustice, that they would uphold Mississippi's 15-week
abortion law and send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history.
For the pro-life movement, overturning Roe is not the end but just
the beginning.
As I stated earlier, this does not ban abortions nationwide. What it
does is it will return the decisionmaking back to the States.
No matter how the Court rules, we will continue to fight on the State
and Federal level to pass laws to end the violence of abortion. We will
not rest until the day that every life is protected under laws from
conception until natural death.
I want to thank my colleagues for being here today to talk about the
importance of the Dobbs case. I want to thank my friend Senator
Lankford for helping me with this fight for life. I am grateful to the
two Senators from Mississippi, where this case originated, this law
originated. I am grateful for Senator Wicker, who is here today, and I
know he has some comments he wants to share as well.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. I congratulate my friend from Montana for his passionate
and analytical and, in my view, correct assessment of this issue.
I rise this afternoon in support and encouragement of the public
officials and the attorneys who will bring this case before the Supreme
Court in argument tomorrow. I rise, as does my colleague from
Mississippi, Senator Hyde-Smith, in appreciation for the State
legislature, where she and I both served before coming to Congress, and
in appreciation for the Governor and the legislature enacting the
Gestational Age Act, which is the subject of this Dobbs case which will
be argued tomorrow.
This is a serious issue. It is an issue that will determine whether
millions of American children have an opportunity to be born and to
enjoy the good life in this, the greatest system of representative
government that the world has ever seen. It is a serious issue.
I am happy today. I am encouraged and hopeful today. One of the
reasons that I am so encouraged is that the American people steadily
over the decades have been moving in the direction of protecting life.
This has not always been the case. As my friend from Montana so
accurately pointed out, we just know so much more. Science knows so
much more today in 2021 than science knew and Americans knew and the
world knew back in 1973, so we see more and more people becoming pro-
life.
Since 1995, the share of Americans who identified themselves as pro-
life has jumped to 47 percent from 33 percent. You say: Well, that is
not that great. Of course, it leaves some folks undecided. But when you
sort it out and become more specific, two out of three Americans
support a ban on second trimester abortions. This is what the
Mississippi law does. This is the law that will be allowed to stay in
effect if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Mississippi based on the
argument tomorrow.
Four out of five Americans oppose late-term abortions.
My friend the distinguished Senator from Montana encouraged people
within the sound of his voice to take their smartphones out and type in
``15-week-old baby.'' I did that. I don't know if the rules quite
permit that yet on the floor, but I dare say it is not the first time
that has been done, so I did that. I clicked on ``15-week-old baby,''
and that very picture, along with other photographs, came up. As the
gentleman says, it is every much, every bit a human baby--no question
about it.
I am encouraged that the American people are moving in the direction
of life because they have seen these pictures, because they listen to
the science, and we know more than we did in 1973. The Supreme Court
knows more than it did in 1973.
After 15 weeks, an unborn baby has more than 90 percent of its body
parts that it will ever have. They have been formed, and almost every
organ is functional at the 15-week period. That is a baby. That is a
human, American baby. The child's heart is pumping 26 quarts of blood
per day at 15 weeks and has already beaten approximately 15.8 million
times by 15 weeks. That is a human. That is a baby. Babies at this
stage respond to touch and taste, and a dominant hand begins to emerge.
We know at that point--15 weeks--whether that baby is right-handed or
left-handed. And, of course, we know that baby can feel pain. That baby
deserves the constitutional rights that the gentleman from Montana
mentioned of life and the pursuit of happiness as an American.
I do want to congratulate our friends across the sea for actually
being ahead of us on this. We like to think that sometimes we know best
and we are ahead of the curve, but it happens that almost every
European country has legislation in place, rules in place, that are
very much like the Mississippi law that will be in question tomorrow in
the hearing.
Germany and Belgium have banned elective abortions after 14 weeks.
Now, this law in Mississippi has set that at 15 weeks, but Germany and
Belgium, 14 weeks. Denmark, Norway, France--a very ``live and let
live'' country if ever I heard of it--draws the line at 12 weeks--12
weeks. So when the Supreme Court hears this case tomorrow, they will
have an opportunity to decide to place the United States of America in
the broad mainstream of international thought on this.
There are so many reasons why I am happy today and encouraged today
that we have this opportunity to make a case based on the facts.
I will say this: My heart and my thanks go out to the millions of
Americans right this minute who are doing what some think is a quaint
thing--performing an act that many people are skeptical about at this
point. But I stand with those millions and millions of Americans who
are right at this moment praying for the Supreme Court, praying for
wisdom in these nine appointed and confirmed figures. They are praying
for the right words to be said by the attorneys, and they are praying
for the future of our great country.
This is our opportunity, and we have every reason to believe that we
are on the right side of history. I stand with the people who are
bringing this case, and I stand with the people of Mississippi and the
millions upon millions of Americans who are praying for the right
decision.
I yield to my good friend from across the river, the junior Senator
from Louisiana. I know that my friend from Mississippi is also waiting
to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we talk a lot in this Chamber, as well we
should, about the least among us, about how we can protect and lift up
the powers. And that is a good thing. I can't think of any person who
has less power than a potential human life, than an unborn baby. Now,
Roe v. Wade is, of course, about abortion. We know that. But it is also
about something
[[Page S8819]]
else. Roe v. Wade is also about--it is about federalism.
Roe v. Wade is also about the American people. Roe v. Wade is about
whether a finite group of the managerial elite--and by the ``managerial
elite'' I mean the entrenched politicians, the bureaucracy, the media,
the academics, the corporate phonies, all of whom think they are
smarter and more virtuous than the American people--should have the
right to make moral decisions for the American people, instead of the
American people making those decisions for themselves.
That is really what Roe v. Wade is about.
Now, I am pro-life and I am anti-Roe v. Wade. So I want to say up
front: I do have an opinion.
But even pro-choice legal scholars who believe in legalized abortion
on demand understand, as does every fairminded person who knows a
lawbook from a J. Crew catalog, that Roe v. Wade is one of the most
arbitrary, it is one of the most ad hoc, and it is one of the most
poorly reasoned decisions in the history of the United States.
In Roe v. Wade, as you know, Mr. President, the U.S. Supreme Court
held that a generalized right to privacy, not explicit in the
Constitution, means that a woman has the virtually unfettered
discretion to terminate a human life--some, to be fair, would say a
potential human life--before viability.
What is viability? As my colleagues talked about, that is a really,
really good question.
But I digress.
Anyone who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog also knows that
there is absolutely no foundation--not in the text, not in the
structure, not in the history, not in the tradition of the
Constitution--for a constitutional right to abortion, and certainly not
on the basis of some unmoored general right to privacy that is not
enunciated in the Constitution.
And don't even get me started on Roe v. Wade's trimester analysis and
the ruling. Try to find ``trimester'' in the U.S. Constitution. You
won't. You can't.
The truth is--and people on both sides of this issue who are
fairminded and reasonably objective--and by that, I mean can see the
other point of view. The truth is that Roe v. Wade's constitutional
right to an abortion is a 48-year-old, judge-invented rule that
represents the U.S. Supreme Court winging it.
Now, I know what we were told. We were told back in the 1970s: Look,
we have got to have a national rule to settle this issue. Only
Washington, DC, can settle this issue. We have to have a rational rule.
We need some peace in the land. We need consensus.
How is that working out for us?
Roe v. Wade didn't settle anything.
Now, in the Dobbs case, which the U.S. Supreme Court is about to
hear, the U.S. Supreme Court has a really rare opportunity to say, as
Justice Scalia wrote in one of his opinions, that value judgments made
on behalf of people should be voted on by those people and not dictated
from Washington, DC.
In the Dobbs case, the United States Supreme Court has the rare
opportunity to say what we all know, and that is that America is this
big, wide-open, diverse, sometimes messy, sometimes dysfunctional,
sometimes imperfect, but always trying-to-get-better group of good
people. That is what America is.
And we don't always agree--especially not on value judgments,
especially not on the ultimate value judgment--like when it is
appropriate to take a human life. That is why we get to vote. That is
why we get to vote, and that is why we have elected representatives who
oftentimes vote on our behalf--elected representatives who also can be
unelected if we don't like how they vote.
And, finally, in Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court has the rare
opportunity to defederalize and deconstitutionalize abortion and return
the issue to the States, where it was before Roe v. Wade.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Dobbs, does not have the opportunity--and
this is important--to say ``no right to an abortion in America.'' Let
me say that again because some of the proponents of Roe v. Wade, I
think, have shaded the truth on this. At issue before the Supreme Court
in Dobbs is not the right to have an abortion. It is the right--the
issue before the Supreme Court in Dobbs is, What is the appropriate
political form to make these value judgments? Is it the government or
is it the people?
And I hope that the U.S. Supreme Court takes advantage of this rare
opportunity before it.
I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today
highlighting the momentous occasion for not only my home State of
Mississippi but for our entire Nation. Senator Roger Wicker and I could
not be prouder of our State.
Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v.
Jackson Women's Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law
banning most abortions after 15 weeks. This law, the Gestational Age
Act, was introduced by my friend, Mississippi State Representative
Becky Currie, and was signed into law by Mississippi Governor Phil
Bryant in 2018.
This case presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the Court
to reconsider decades of misguided abortion law that began with Roe v.
Wade and has continued under Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
There is no doubt that this case is the most significant pro-life
legal opening in half a century and, certainly, in my lifetime. I am
very proud that my State of Mississippi is in the center of this.
In the 48 years since the decision in Roe v. Wade, 62 million unborn
babies have lost their lives. This is a terrible moral stain on our
Nation that we have a chance to reverse at long last.
There are many reasons for the Supreme Court to reconsider its
course. For one, medical technology has made significant advances--
especially with ultrasound technology--making clear what those of us in
the pro-life movement already knew: that unborn children are human
beings.
Thanks in large part to the ultrasound technology, we now know that,
by 15 weeks, an unborn baby has a fully developed heart with a strong
heartbeat, responds to touch, and can make facial expressions, yawn,
hiccup, and suck their thumbs.
For another, the United States is a real outlier in the world when it
comes to the abortion issue. We are one of only seven countries that
allow abortions on demand up until the moment of birth, along with the
likes of China and North Korea.
The Supreme Court should uphold Mississippi's law, bringing our
Nation closer to the international consensus on human rights for the
unborn.
As a legislator, I am confident in saying it is time for our laws to
reflect what the rest of the world has already figured out: that life
exists before birth and it needs to be protected. The only difference
between a fetus and a first grader is 6 years.
Since the Supreme Court announced it would take up the Dobbs case, I
have been earnestly praying for this case. I pray for the Members of
the Supreme Court to be open to the legal and moral arguments against
Roe v. Wade. May God grant them the wisdom for the task and grace for
the unborn.
I have also been praying for my friend Mississippi Attorney General
Lynn Fitch, our State's solicitor general, Scott Stuart, and the many
others in the AG's office who have worked tirelessly to represent our
State so well in this case.
With the oral arguments scheduled for tomorrow morning, I pray that
God would grant them all confidence and courage, as well as the right
words to say in the Court.
Most of all, I have been praying for all the unborn children whose
right to life hangs in the balance of this case.
Throughout this time, I have kept the words of I Samuel 1:27 close to
my heart: ``For this child I have prayed, and the Lord hath given me my
petition, which I asked of him.''
So today, tonight, and tomorrow morning, I will be praying without
ceasing. I hope each of you will join me in prayer for this historic
court decision that started in Mississippi.
May the Dobbs case restore the sanctity of life and reverse the moral
stain of Roe v. Wade.
Thank you, Mr. President.
[[Page S8820]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, for nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade has been a
disaster for our country and its citizens. Sixty million unborn lives
have been lost to abortion, and our politics have been distorted by a
ruling that deprives the American citizen--the voter--of the right to
determine questions on which there is constitutional ambiguity.
The Senate confirms individuals to the judicial branch to be judges.
They are to judge, not to legislate. Listening to those whom we
represent and proposing legislation on their behalf is our job here in
the Capitol and the job of our representatives in State legislatures
throughout all 50 States. The separation of these powers is crucial to
how our democracy functions.
Yet previous iterations of the Supreme Court have seen fit to usurp
this legislative power, particularly as it relates to abortion.
In doing so, a majority of these unelected judges and Justices have
relied upon specious jurisprudence to eviscerate State laws that
protect the unborn.
You don't need to take the word of a conservative Republican from
Kansas. Writing when she was a circuit court judge, the late Ruth Bader
Ginsburg explained:
Roe v. Wade . . . invited no dialogue with legislators.
Instead, it seemed entirely to remove the ball from the
legislators' court.
One more liberal law professor acknowledged that ``Roe short-
circuited the democratic deliberation that is the most reliable method
of deciding questions of competing values.''
These assessments are exactly right. The fallout of Roe, and affirmed
by Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, is obvious. A vacancy to the
Supreme Court has become a cage match--a fight here in the U.S. Senate.
Someone as eminently qualified as Amy Coney Barrett should have been
confirmed unanimously.
Today, many of my Democratic colleagues support packing the Supreme
Court with more Justices because they believe the Court will block
their agenda, which is ironic because for nearly a half century,
virtually every State ever to provide protection to unborn babies has
been foiled by the judicial branch. Something terribly wrong has
happened to our democracy when so much energy is focused on the Court.
Again, quoting then-Justice Ginsburg on Roe's attempt to put the
issue of abortion to bed, she said in 1985, the Court's ``heavy-handed
judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have
provoked, not resolved, conflict'' and in 1993 declared that the ruling
``prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.''
Given these examples of our polluted discourse, no one can reasonably
say that the politics of abortion have improved since then. In fact, it
has only gotten much worse.
What has improved, however, is our understanding of the science of
embryology. Regrettably, it is not enough to say a unique human life
begins at the moment of conception for it to receive protection. But we
know when unborn babies feel pain; we know when they can survive
outside the womb; and a remarkable 4D ultrasound reveals what we
already knew: These unborn babies are fully human and deserve the right
to life, and yet our legal regime denies them that right.
Because of Roe, a child in America can be terminated for any reason--
any reason--up to the moment of its birth. That places the United
States in the company of China and North Korea. Surely, a democracy
founded on the belief that all people ``are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of Happiness'' has a greater respect for human life
than these brutal communist regimes.
Tomorrow's Mississippi case will test that proposition. However,
there is no doubt that the reversal of Roe will not end the practice of
legal abortion. Several States have already enacted permissive abortion
laws that would remain even on Roe's demise.
The point here is that my effort and the effort of my colleagues and
millions of other Americans to defend life will continue regardless of
how the Supreme Court rules in the coming months, including in my State
of Kansas. These efforts will depend on civil persuasion of our
neighbors and responsive State and Federal legislators. We will need
legislation that protects the unborn and assists new families in caring
for their child.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear the most significant abortion
case in the last 30 years. Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
Organization. This case provides the Court the opportunity to
relinquish the legislative power it has assumed and return it to the
people and their representatives. The Court will be better for it, and
so will our politics. And most importantly of all, millions of future
voices will get to have their say in the process too.
I now yield the floor to my colleague, the Senator from Nebraska,
Senator Fischer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
Organization, the case that will come before our Nation's highest Court
on December 1, is truly a historic case. It is about a law the State of
Mississippi passed in 2018 to ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks
of pregnancy.
When I was a member of the State legislature in Nebraska in 2010, we
passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Nebraska's bill
banned most abortions after 20 weeks, the point when science at that
time told us that unborn babies start to be able to feel pain. We were
the first State in the country to pass a law of this kind, and in our
Nebraska unicameral, we passed it with 44 ``yes'' votes and just 5
``no'' votes.
Nebraska has a unicameral--1 House, 49 Senators. We have pro-choice,
pro-life, Republicans and Democrats that voted for this bill. We had
pro-choice Republicans. We had a number of pro-life Democrats. In fact,
we had a former Democratic National Committeeman vote for this bill.
All we cared about was protecting the most vulnerable people in our
society--unborn children.
I was proud to support Nebraska's bill. I was proud that pro-life
Democrats, pro-choice Republicans, put their differences aside to vote
for it. And I am proud today to stand with Mississippi as their law
comes before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Back in July, I joined more than 200 of my colleagues in the Senate
and the House of Representatives in filing an amicus brief supporting
Mississippi's bill. In our brief, we argued that the precedence the
Supreme Court set in Roe v. Wade and a later case, Planned Parenthood
v. Casey, are outdated. When Roe was decided nearly 50 years ago,
babies born before 28 weeks were not expected to survive. Today, the
miracles of modern medicine have allowed babies born much earlier to
not only survive but to go on to live full and happy lives.
Just last year, a little boy was born right next door to Mississippi,
in Alabama, at 21 weeks. He was 132 days premature, and he weighed just
14.8 ounces. Fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable--
unthinkable--for him to live beyond a few days. But this July, he
celebrated his first birthday.
Fifty years ago, ultrasounds and sonograms were not widely available.
Today, they are an essential part of prenatal care. The pictures that
these technologies enable families to see of their unborn children,
even at the early stages of pregnancy, are often nearly identical to
the newborns they will soon become. The advancements of the last 50
years have left no doubt about the humanity of the unborn. And as
science continues to progress over the next 50 years, new developments
are going to keep allowing babies born earlier and earlier to survive
and to thrive.
The laws of just about every developed country have kept up with this
rapid progress, but here in the United States our laws are stuck in the
past. The United States is one of only four nations on Earth where
certain States allow abortions up to the day of birth. That puts us in
the uncomfortable company of China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Ninety
percent of countries around the world limit abortion at 15 weeks, the
same point as Mississippi's law, and some even earlier. In Europe
alone, there are eight countries with laws that are stricter than
Mississippi's. That includes Germany, where abortion is illegal in most
cases just after 12 weeks. Women seeking
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abortions before 12 weeks in Germany also have to go through a 3-day
waiting period and a mandatory counseling session.
Mississippi's law isn't that different from Germany's. In some ways,
it is even more lenient, but it is still being challenged in our court
system based on legal decisions from decades ago.
Our laws are outdated, and America's unborn children are paying the
price. Since 1973, more than 60 million abortions have taken the lives
of more than 60 million American children, many of whom could have
survived outside the womb.
It is past time for the United States to move into the 21st century.
The Supreme Court has a chance to help us do that by upholding
Mississippi's law in the Dobbs case, and I hope they will.
With that, I would yield to my colleague from Kansas, Senator
Marshall, who is also a doctor, a gynecologist, and obstetrician.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking the Senator
from Nebraska for helping to bring to light the significance of the
Dobbs Supreme Court case.
For some 30 years, I had the honor, the privilege of delivering a
baby most every day of my life. Some 5,000 babies in residency and
another 5,000 babies in private practice. Some days, I delivered none.
Other days, it was one or two. There were days when I delivered 10, 11,
12 babies a day.
Some of those babies I could fit in the palm of my hand. Other
babies--I delivered several babies over 15 pounds.
It has now been almost 4 years since I delivered my last baby, but I
am still often asked: Do I miss obstetrics; and let me tell you, boy,
do I miss it.
My favorite part of the whole process, as I recall, though, was after
a hard, long labor, seeing that baby emerge from the mother, holding
that baby in my hands and waiting for it to cry. Sometimes it was
crying as it entered into this world, other times it took 5 seconds,
sometimes 30 seconds, sometimes a minute or two would go by as we
worked on the baby. But my favorite part of every pregnancy was taking
that crying baby and handing it over to a new mom and dad. It was
absolutely the most spiritual moment of my life--the closest I ever got
to seeing what God was truly like, to see a newborn baby in the hands
of its mom and dad, with this just total agape love--this unconditional
love. It was just the honor of my life to experience that almost on a
daily basis.
But today I want to talk about my favorite OB visit which came at 15
weeks, typically. At about 15 weeks after conception, moms would come
in for maybe their third or fourth visit. My first question was always:
Are you feeling the baby move? And the mom's eyes would light up. Maybe
she had had a miscarriage before or maybe it was an infertile couple or
maybe this was her third or fourth baby, but when I asked them: Are you
feeling the baby move yet, her eyes would light up.
And mom would lie down on the bed, and I would put my hands on her
abdomen and feel the size of her uterus to assess how big the baby was.
And so often as I put my hands on her skin, I could feel the baby
pushing back or kicking back.
And then we put the Doppler on the mom's abdomen and listened to the
baby's heartbeat, and usually if there was a brother or sister in the
room, that baby's big brother or big sister would squeal: Mommy, what
is that noise? What is that noise? And almost every time, as I heard
the sibling ask mom that question, you could hear the baby's heart rate
increase with excitement. That baby inside the womb knew that was its
brother or sister there that was talking, and it was excited to hear
that voice. And the mom would respond: Darling, that is your little
baby brother or sister. And as mom spoke, the baby's heart rate would
slow back down to what it was before--that calming voice.
So that brings me to the Dobbs case. The Mississippi Dobbs case
protects life after that 15-week visit I just described.
I recognize and believe that life begins at conception, but maybe not
all of America agrees with me on that. But I do believe with all my
heart that a huge part of America agrees, we should not allow abortions
on babies that can feel pain or that can respond to their mom's voice
or their sibling's voices. Right?
Ask yourself that same question. An unborn baby that can feel pain,
that knows its mom's voice, should that baby be deprived of life
outside the womb?
I struggle as I watch America be one of seven nations that allows
abortions after 15 weeks. And I point out that all these other nations
are agnostic or totalitarian nations for the most part. And I struggle
as I recall the moms and dads who lost a baby at 15 weeks or at 18
weeks or at 23 weeks. I recall their mourning. I recall their tears.
I recall how, in our hospital, we might be struggling to preserve a
pregnancy, to save a baby's life, to be resuscitating a baby while in a
nearby town the abortion industry is claiming another life at this same
gestational age.
I struggle to think we live in a society that allows this barbaric
treatment of the unborn. We hope and pray that this landmark Supreme
Court case will result in a decision that reflects the values of most
Americans and will protect life after 15 weeks.
Unfortunately, because of a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court case, my home
State of Kansas has become an abortion destination--an abortion
destination. The Kansas Supreme Court has paved the way for unlimited
abortions, abortions paid for with tax dollars. That is why, back home,
I will be fighting for the Value Them Both Amendment that protects the
values of both the mom and the baby.
Look, America does not want an unlimited, unregulated abortion
industry. This is not consistent with our values. I believe most
Americans value them both. We value both the mom and the baby. I fought
my whole life for moms and babies, and I am going to keep fighting for
them both.
Mr. President, I yield the floor to my friend and mentor from Texas,
who has been leading the fight up here in DC for years. I look forward
to his sharing with us what Texans are talking about on the
significance of this Dobbs Supreme Court case.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleagues
for being willing to stand up and defend innocent human life.
I remember, recently, watching a young woman walk across one of the
downtown bridges in Austin, TX, carrying a sign that read: ``Abortion--
any time, any reason.''
That is what she was advocating for. I was shocked when I saw it
because I thought even the most ardent advocates of abortion would not
take that position of denying the humanity of this unborn child, but,
apparently, that is what it has become here--48 years after the Supreme
Court first created a right to abortion out of whole cloth as a
constitutional right.
You look, in vain, in the Constitution of the United States, as well
as in the amendments to the Constitution, for any reference at all to
abortion. What you will find, if you read the Declaration of
Independence, is a familiar statement to all of us. On July 4, 1776,
the 13 States then that made up America wrote: ``We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.''
By the way, there is no asterisk--there is no footnote--that says, if
you are an unborn human life, that you are denied this unalienable
right to life.
Such noteworthy figures as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was probably one
of the most aggressive advocates for abortion rights on the U.S.
Supreme Court, later in life decried the fact that, by the Supreme
Court's holding a right to abortion as a constitutional right, it
denied the very sort of give-and-take debate by which our differences
are resolved in the States and at the national level.
I would just like to point out some of the misinformation that you
hear and read about Roe v. Wade.
If Roe v. Wade is no longer the precedent by which abortion rights
are decided, it will not mean that abortion will not be available in
many, if not all, of the States. What it will mean is that it will be
decided, under our Federal system, on a State-by-State basis,
[[Page S8822]]
according to the decisions made by elected State leadership, including
the legislature.
In 1973, Richard Nixon was inaugurated for the second time as
President of the United States. Suffice it to say that a lot has
happened since then--a lot. I think it is entirely appropriate that the
U.S. Supreme Court revisits its precedents, including Roe v. Wade--
decided in 1973--and decide if that precedent has stood the test of
time.
By the way, in serving on the Judiciary Committee, we frequently have
nominees for the Supreme Court of the United States come before the
committee, and many of my pro-choice colleagues will say: Do you agree,
Judge or Future Judge, that Roe v. Wade is the precedent of the U.S.
Supreme Court?
Of course, that is along with Casey and the other decisions that have
been decided since then, but they act as if the U.S. Supreme Court
cannot revisit bad decisions and correct those bad decisions.
To act as though Supreme Court precedent is somehow sacrosanct would
still leave us with the likes of Dred Scott, which treated African
Americans as less than fully human. Obviously, we fought a Civil War,
and 600,000 Americans died--that would be the equivalent of 3 million
people today--in a bloody Civil War that tore our country apart.
So being able to revisit those precedents, especially in light of the
passage of time and over long experience, is entirely within the
purview and entirely appropriate for the Supreme Court to do.
Well, we have heard from my other colleagues that, since Roe was
decided in 1973, more than 60 million abortions have been performed in
the United States. As originally was decided, Justice Blackmun wrote an
opinion and established an event he called viability. Basically, the
argument by the proponents of Roe is that somehow, in this decision by
Justice Blackmun's saying that abortion should be widely available pre-
viability, we should not be able to reconsider or take a look at that.
The truth is, Justice Blackmun admitted this was an arbitrary standard.
What does ``viability'' mean?
We have heard that seven countries around the world have more
permissive or equally permissive abortion laws as the United States. I,
frankly, don't want to be in the same company as North Korea or the
People's Republic of China, governed by the Communist Party. I would
hope that America would aspire to something different and better and
more humane, more in line with our fundamental statement about the
unalienable right to life.
But, as to the fact that America is only one of seven countries that
allows elective abortions after 20 weeks, which, as I said, puts us in
the same category as communist China and North Korea, you would think
that would raise a huge red flag as to say something is terribly wrong
here.
How is it that we are in the same category as communist North Korea
and as communist China when it comes to the value we place on unborn
life?
Well, unfortunately, we have seen the right to life become a partisan
issue in the U.S. Congress when you take a look at the pro-life
legislation which has been introduced over the last years.
We saw last year, for example, our Democratic colleagues filibuster
legislation to outlaw elective abortions after 20 weeks, which is when
science tells us that an infant can feel pain. Then they blocked a bill
requiring physicians to provide lifesaving care to infants who survive
abortions. This is care that any other newborn baby would receive, and
yet our colleagues--so concerned about the backlash among their pro-
abortion constituents--blocked it, denying a child born alive after a
botched abortion the same sort of care that any other newborn would be
entitled to. They blocked it.
And the latest attack on an unborn baby's right to life is the
Women's Health Protection Act. This bill would undermine State laws
limiting abortion, even after viability, and undercut the Supreme
Court's ruling that defines our current definition of ``viability.''
What does ``viability'' mean?
Even at 20 weeks, can an unborn child live without medical attention
and support from their mother or medical personnel?
Of course not.
This was an arbitrary line drawn by the Supreme Court in 1973. As we
have heard from many of my colleagues, medicine has, thankfully,
advanced considerably since that time.
Well, even though the U.S. Congress seems to be stuck when it comes
to the issue of abortion and respecting the right to life of unborn
babies, thankfully, the States have taken the issue up, which is why
States, like Mississippi, have passed their own legislation to protect
unborn babies.
Pro-abortion advocates say, well, 15 weeks--which is what the
Mississippi law says. They say that a right to abortion only for the
first 15 weeks of a pregnancy violates constitutional rights. But it is
interesting. It is no less arbitrary than this notion of viability,
which suggests that a child can live--which they cannot--outside the
mother's womb even if they are 20 weeks or 24 weeks of gestational age.
Interestingly, in a number of States, like Massachusetts and Nevada,
abortions are restricted after 24 weeks. California, Washington,
Illinois are among States that explicitly restrict abortions after
viability.
The American people clearly stand behind the protection of unborn
life. This summer, a poll found that 65 percent of Americans believe
that abortion should be illegal in the second trimester. That is the
second 3-month period of a 9-month pregnancy.
Opposition to third-trimester abortion is even stronger, as 80
percent of Americans are opposed to a third-trimester abortion. Indeed,
the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Nebraska law banning
late-term abortion, which is essentially producing a delivery while the
child is still alive, killing the fetus, and then completing that
abortion. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld a ban on that
third-trimester, late-term abortion--that brutal and barbaric practice
that even the Supreme Court could not abide.
Last June, a baby born at 21 weeks and 2 days, this last summer,
celebrated his first birthday. That is what is at stake here when you
are dealing with more than just one person--or you are dealing with
more than just one person.
The question is: How do you balance and deal with the rights not only
of the woman seeking the abortion, but also of the unborn child?
Right now, under its current jurisprudence, that unborn child is not
even considered a human.
America cannot be its best if we devalue the lives of the most
vulnerable among us. I believe that babies with heartbeats,
fingerprints, and taste buds deserve some protection under the law.
I am proud of the efforts led by our colleague Senator Lankford and
others to make sure that we actually have a discussion about this issue
and don't just sweep it under the rug and we don't just let the pro-
abortion lobby mischaracterize what we are talking about, as if
eliminating Roe would eliminate abortions in America. It would just
allow the States to do it on a State-by-State basis.
But, actually, Roe was made up right. It created a constitutional
right that is not even stated in the Constitution itself, and it
created an arbitrary time limit in which abortions could be performed
or not as a matter of constitutional right.
So I join the rest of the body and this country awaiting the Supreme
Court's ruling. I believe that it is more than appropriate for the
Supreme Court to revisit its precedence that essentially disparaged and
denigrated the right to life of an unborn child.
I would yield the floor to my friend from Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. In December of 1952 and again in December of 1953, the
Supreme Court was packed. There were lines out into the hallway, with
people waiting to get in to hear oral arguments. In December, the Court
would hear arguments on the legality of segregation brought by Thurgood
Marshall, representing the Brown family in Topeka, KS.
Just 56 years before Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was
protected by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. They ruled that
separate but equal facilities were constitutional, thus enshrining the
national
[[Page S8823]]
disgrace of segregation into America--an absolutely terrible decision
by the Supreme Court that haunted our Nation for decades. It took 56
years before the Supreme Court corrected its wrong.
Now that more than a century has passed since the Plessy v. Ferguson
decision, the Nation still celebrates the Court that decided the Brown
v. Board of Education case, as Justices righted a great wrong against
millions of people. There was a simple lesson in that decision: When
the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake.
In a lesser known case that affects just about every American now, in
2018, the Supreme Court overturned by a 5-to-4 decision 51 years of
precedent on the collection of taxes for businesses called the physical
presence rule. Many people now know it as the internet tax rule. It
changed the way taxes were collected on the internet.
When they made that decision in 2018, there was great confusion and
consternation, statements that it would be impossible to implement it
and it would bring certain destruction to internet commerce. In fact,
in the dissent in that 5-to-4 decision, the minority in the Court
stated this:
E-commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of
our national economy against the backdrop of these
established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any
alteration of those rules with the potential to disrupt the
development of such a critical segment of [our] economy
should be undertaken only by Congress.
The Court should not act on this important question of current
economic policy solely to correct a mistake it made over 50 years ago.
It was hand-wringing by the Court, the minority there, that they
opposed correcting the obvious mistake of the Court from 51 years
before because it could hurt the cyber economy. In other words, doing
the right thing involved a risk.
Well, yesterday was Cyber Monday. It was one of the largest single
days of purchasing online in history. The Court did the right thing,
and the economy kept going. There was a simple lesson in that decision:
When the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake, even if it
was 50 years later.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral
arguments in what could potentially be the most consequential case for
human rights in 48 years.
Tomorrow at 10 a.m., nine Justices will hear arguments and ask
questions of the attorney general of the State of Mississippi and
counsel representing an abortion clinic in Mississippi. Tomorrow
morning, the Court will consider whether all previability prohibitions
on elective abortions are constitutional.
Tomorrow, this Court has the opportunity to uphold the self-evident
truth to personhood, the facts of science and of our heart's
declaration, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Simply stated, the Court has an opportunity to correct its mistake from
1973, 48 years ago.
In 2018, the Mississippi Legislature enacted the Gestational Age Act,
which limits abortion to 15 weeks of gestation except in a medical
emergency and cases of severe fetal abnormality.
Jackson Women's Health Organization, an abortion clinic in
Mississippi, sued. Federal courts held that the law was in violation of
the Court precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Now it is known as
the Dobbs case. It stands before the Supreme Court at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
This case presents an opportunity for the Court to reconsider Roe v.
Wade and turn the role of legislating on the issue of life back to the
States, where it was pre-Roe v. Wade.
In Roe v. Wade, as this body knows extremely well, the Supreme Court
decided the Constitution guarantees the right to have an abortion until
the viability of a child, with very little understanding of the term
``viability.'' Years later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court
also said that the government couldn't place an undue burden on access
to abortion, which has been used to block many laws that aim to protect
women and children.
Both decisions were completely arbitrary and not based in
constitutional law. ``Viability,'' quite frankly, is impossible to
define because children develop at different speeds. One child, Curtis
Means, left the University of Alabama at Birmingham Regional Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit after he was prematurely delivered at 21 weeks, 1
day--the youngest child to be born ever. Another child, though, may not
survive if they were even delivered at 32 weeks. Viability was
completely invented by the Court in 1973 as a standard and is
impossible to actually track.
America has not forgotten about these children. We have not moved on,
and we have not just accepted Roe v. Wade, because when we see a child,
as this one is at 15 weeks, we actually see a baby, shockingly enough.
Forty-eight years ago, the Supreme Court may have decided that a woman
has a right to an abortion, but we never lost track of humanity.
Abortion is not just a medical procedure; it is the taking of a human
life.
I talked this morning with an abortion survivor. And, yes, they do
exist by the thousands. She is in her forties. She has children of her
own now. She survived a botched abortion and was actually delivered
alive during an abortion procedure. She was taken by a nurse to the
NICU unit of that hospital, and she is still alive and thriving today.
I sat there with that abortion survivor, thinking that abortion is not
about random tissue; it is about a person--quite frankly, this morning,
the person who was sitting right in front of me.
Now, I understand full well I am a pastor who is now a Senator. I am
fully aware that I have a Biblical worldview. My dedication to children
is not just because I am a follower of Jesus and believe that every
person is created in the image of God; I also firmly can look at the
science. The science is clear to anyone who is willing to get past the
talking points and actually look into the womb.
At the moment of fertilization, a new and distinct human being comes
into existence. It is not just a fertilized egg; it is a new human.
This new cell, which is called a zygote, shows behavior that is unlike
the behavior of any other cell around it that is in the woman's body.
The DNA inside that cell is different than the DNA inside any other
cell in the mom's body. That cell has everything that he or she needs
to become a fully developed human being.
Everyone listening to me right now--everyone--was once a single-cell
zygote, completely dependent on your mom for nutrition. That is why we
encourage moms to eat good foods, take prenatal vitamins, stop smoking,
and all those things, because we want to protect the development of her
child. Why? Because we all recognize that that is a child, and what a
mom does now will affect the future for that child.
As the baby grows in his or her mother's womb, it continues to
develop. At 15 weeks, as this baby is--and that is what the Mississippi
law is all about, is a baby who looks just like that. At 15 weeks, a
baby has a heart, lungs, skin, eyes, a nervous system. By 15 weeks or a
little over 3 months of pregnancy, this preborn baby is moving around
in response to touch. All of her organs are formed, and she just needs
more time for them to grow and develop. Her heart already has four
chambers. It has already beaten millions of times and pumps more than
six quarts of blood per day. She cannot breathe outside the womb, but
she is breathing inside the womb. She has arms and legs. She has 10
fingers and 10 toes and normally by this point already shows a
preference for being right-handed or left-handed. She has eyes, lips, a
nose, fingernails, eyebrows, even taste buds. She can feel pain.
This decision has ethical, moral, and medical implications. Look in
the mirror, anyone in this room. You have fingers and toes and lips and
a nose and fingernails and eyebrows and taste buds. You can feel your
heart beating. The only difference between you right now and this child
is time. That is it.
But for some, it is easy to just close their eyes and ignore the
self-evident fact because it is easier to talk about Court precedent or
choice, because if we look at each child and recognized this child for
who she is, it is hard to process that in the last 48 years, 62 million
children have died by abortion in America. And for some, they can't
allow themselves to acknowledge what is self-evident because it would
be too painful to think about 62 million children.
Can I tell you, 62 million children is the combined population of
Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
[[Page S8824]]
Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, West
Virginia, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Arkansas,
Nevada, Iowa, Utah, Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama,
and Oklahoma--combined.
A Court decision that led to the death of 62 million children is a
Court precedent that needs to be discarded.
Prior to 1973, each State had its own laws on abortion. That is what
would happen again if the Court overturns Roe v. Wade. We will have a
patchwork of laws on abortion, just like we do right now on homicide.
In some States, like mine, if a pregnant mother and her child are
killed, the perpetrator faces two charges of murder, one for the mom
and one for the child. In other States, the perpetrator would only face
one charge of murder because that State doesn't recognize that child's
existence at all. I think that is absurd, but that is a law in one
State, and it changes from State to State. People can speak to their
own State legislators about changing that law in their State and about
recognizing the value of every child, even a child in the womb, but
until they do, that child is a nonentity in some States. That kind of
difference in homicide laws is allowed by the Supreme Court already.
This Court should give that same right to every State for every preborn
child, not just for some.
The law being debated in the Supreme Court tomorrow reflects the will
of the people of Mississippi, just as many pro-life laws in Oklahoma
and in our legislature have reflected the will of the people of
Oklahoma.
The arbitrary, outdated viability standard established by the Court
makes it harder for States to protect women from physical risk that
accompany late-term abortions. It makes it difficult to allow States to
protect preborn babies in the second trimester, who can experience
pain. The viability standard prevents States from banning dismemberment
abortion. The viability standard deters States from protecting children
diagnosed with Down syndrome, developmental disabilities, and children
being aborted simply because they are male or female. It also prevents
States from protecting the lives of their own citizens at any stage of
development.
I don't understand how infants have become a partisan issue. I really
don't.
There are some issues, as I talk to my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle, where I can see their perspective and their point of
view. I may not agree, but I can understand their point of view.
But on this issue I do not understand how some people see a baby
sucking their thumb in the womb and they see them only as medical
waste. I don't understand how some people can support an abortion in
one moment, but when they talk to a woman who has had a miscarriage,
they immediately respond with ``Oh, I am so sorry.'' If a miscarriage
is the loss of a child, then what is an abortion?
I don't understand how the same person who fights to protect the
right to abort children also brings a gift to a baby shower and
celebrates a mom and a baby. How can one child be worth celebrating and
the other child be medical waste? I just don't understand that
compartmentalization.
Frankly, I don't understand how some people who are pro-abortion
justify protecting Bald Eagle eggs in Federal law but have no problem
supporting the taking of human life in the womb.
Children are not medical waste. Children are beautiful, innocent, and
valuable. Some people who are pro-abortion call pro-life people
horrible names, and they say they are trying to limit a woman's choice
and her freedom while they work to protect her right to have her own
baby literally have its arms and legs torn off in the womb so the child
would bleed to death in the womb and then each body part would be
suctioned out separately.
I don't consider that freedom. I consider that cruel and inhumane.
They say it is a woman's choice. But when does the child get to
choose? Some people in our Nation actually celebrate the death of
children like it is some glorious empowerment of a woman that she is
able to pick and choose which baby will live or die based on her
decision. I don't think that is empowerment. I think that is barbaric.
Mother Teresa stated: ``It is a poverty to decide that a child must
die so that you may live as you wish.''
Change begins tomorrow. Tomorrow the Court will have the opportunity
to uphold our Constitution; eradicate the outdated, oppressive, and
deadly precedent; and turn our discussion about life over to the
legislators in each State. Now is the time for this Court to overturn
Roe v. Wade.
Our Nation prides itself on human rights and individual liberties,
but we have this huge, glaring exception: We deny the obvious fact of a
child until they are born. We ignore a child's existence until it is
convenient.
I really believe, in the decades ahead, our Nation will catch up and
we will look back on these years with grief. We will be shocked that
when we saw a pregnancy test that said ``positive,'' somehow we didn't
figure out that meant positive for tissue; it meant positive for a
baby.
I look forward to the day when the United States will be a beacon of
justice for every child and not just a few; when we will be a Nation
that protects the weak, not just a Nation that stands up for the
strong; when we will lead the world to protect the innocent and speak
for those who cannot speak for themselves; when America is a beacon of
hope for every child.
Southern slave owners in 1830 denied humanity to their slaves. Men in
1900 denied women a right to vote. The United States rounded up
Japanese Americans in World War II and put them into camps.
All three of those were considered legal and appropriate at the time.
All three of those were fought tenaciously when they were changed, and
all three of them are a national embarrassment now.
There was a time when the Court ruled that separate but equal was
justice. Then, six decades later, they reversed course, ending
segregation. Justice requires, when the Court gets it wrong, that they
correct their own mistake. This time there are millions of children
counting on the Court getting it right.
``Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers
them in times of trouble''--Psalm 41, verse 1.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Durham Investigation
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on November 3 of this year, Special
Counsel Durham indicted Christopher Steele's primary subsource, Igor
Danchenko. He indicted him on five counts of lying to the FBI. He lied
about his contacts and the identity of his sources.
One of the more serious lies was about Sergei Millian. The indictment
shows that Danchenko alleged a phone call occurred between him and
Millian about a Trump-Russia conspiracy. That call was part of the
basis that the FBI used to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
Now, according to Durham, Steele's source lied about the call because
that call never happened. This is yet another stunning, fatal defect
against the Obama-Biden administration's fake predicate to investigate
Trump--specifically, yet another illustration of Justice Department and
FBI failure.
Now, as a result of these failures, this country has been dragged
through the mud for years. That statement is well understood at this
point, but I have more to explain about it.
The indictment also shows that one of Steele's sources was a
``longtime participant in Democratic Party politics'' and that he
``fabricated'' at least some of the information that he gave to
Danchenko.
This source, identified as Charles Dolan, ``actively campaigned and
participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of Hillary
Clinton'' during the 2016 election.
Another one of Danchenko's sources was also a Hillary Clinton
supporter. Charles Dolan gifted to this particular Russian subsource an
autobiography of Hillary Clinton signed with these words: ``To my good
friend, a great Democrat.''
Now--get this--while the Democrats were smearing Trump with false
Russia allegations, they were the ones rubbing elbows with Russians and
spreading false information in the media, and, of
[[Page S8825]]
course, the media, as we know, gladly ran with that information. For
example, President Biden's current National Security Advisor, Jake
Sullivan, promoted the false story about the Russian bank called Alfa
Bank communicating with the Trump organization, when he worked for the
Clinton campaign.
Notably, during congressional testimony, several years ago, Sullivan
said that he wasn't sure who Marc Elias represented when he presented
Trump opposition research to the campaign. Now, for crying out loud,
Elias was the Clinton campaign's general counsel.
My oversight work dating back to December 2016 has focused on the
Democratic Party's and Clinton campaign's links to the Steele dossier.
Last Congress, Senator Johnson and I obtained many records relating to
Crossfire Hurricane. We were able to get many of them declassified for
the public.
I point you to our April 15, 2020; December 3, 2020; and December 18,
2020, press releases on this information. Some of the declassified
records show that the FBI had reports in its hand that showed the
Steele dossier was most likely tainted with Russian disinformation.
One document indicates that the FBI received a U.S. intelligence
report on January 12, 2017, warning of an inaccuracy in the dossier in
relation to Michael Cohen. The report assessed that the material was
``part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign
relations.''
That same day, the FISA warrant against Page was renewed for the
first time by Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. This is when the
Obama-Biden administration and the Justice Department were still in
charge.
A similar U.S. intelligence report arrived on February 27, 2017,
undercutting a key allegation against then-President Trump. The report
noted claims about Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013 ``were false, and
they were the product of Russian intelligence services infiltrat[ing] a
source into the network'' of sources that contributed to the dossier.
Just over a month later, the FISA warrant against Page was then renewed
for a second time.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the FBI also opened a
counterintelligence case on Danchenko and failed to tell the FISA Court
about it. If this fact pattern was a movie script, nobody would believe
it.
With Durham's recent indictments, we now have even more proof that
the Trump-Russia collusion investigation had the wrong name. It should
have been the Clinton-DNC-Russia collusion investigation.
The media and many members of the Democratic Party ought to be
ashamed of the falsehoods that they were spreading throughout these
years. Our political discourse has been damaged for decades to come
because of that scheme.
Recently, the Washington Post had to correct over a dozen articles
relating to its previous Russia reporting in light of the extensive
errors made by that newspaper--years of errors, I might add. I think it
is somewhat unprecedented, and I am sure the Washington Post hated to
retract and correct the record.
As Durham proceeds, I would say this: Don't take your eyes off of
government misconduct. The Justice Department and the FBI hid critical
information from the FISA Court that would have cut against their case.
They failed to correct the record when they should have corrected the
record. Simply put, the Justice Department and the FBI misrepresented
information to the court. That conduct can't be allowed to pass.
Remembering Tom Riter
Mr. President, on another matter, just a short point I want to make
about a very important voice in agriculture journalism that has gone
silent.
Every Tuesday morning--probably for 52 weeks out of the year--I hold
a conference call with agriculture reporters and farm broadcasters to
discuss news and issues impacting the 2 percent of the Americans who
feed and fuel the world. I am talking about our family farmers.
For the past several decades, the first question each week came from
a very familiar voice in the agriculture community: Tom Riter of WNAX
out of Yankton, SD.
Sadly, Tom passed away on November 21, just a few days before
Thanksgiving.
Tom rarely--and I mean very rarely--ever missed my weekly call. In
fact, he always kicked off the discussion that was carried on by
probably another dozen people--kicked off the discussion with a smart
question about farm policy. Undoubtedly, his reports kept his listeners
informed on issues that make a big difference to their lives, their
farms, their ranches, and businesses in the American heartland.
He happened to be a native of Rock Rapids, IA, not far from Yankton.
He was a fellow University of Northern Iowa Panther. Tom joined WNAX in
1999, so he was around that station for 22 years, I think it adds up
to. Ever since, I have looked forward to our weekly discussions.
I am grateful for Tom's dedication to his craft, specifically his
work to expand the public's understanding and appreciation of the ag
community's contribution to our society--most importantly, that 2
percent of the people in this country who produce the food for the
other 98 percent.
My wife Barbara and I extend our sympathies to Tom's family and
friends, the WNAX family, and his colleagues in the ag press community.
We lost a very big voice for American agriculture. He will be greatly
missed.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Peters.) Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Gun Violence
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, our collective heart as a nation is
breaking for your State. At Oxford High School today, reports suggest
that a 15-year-old turned a semiautomatic weapon on his classmates.
Three are dead. Eight are injured.
Our hearts are breaking a little bit harder in Connecticut because we
know the pain that ravages a community when a shooting happens at a
school. Newtown, CT, will never be the same after what happened there
now almost a decade ago.
Reports are that at Oxford High School nearly 100 911 messages came
into police during the time of the shooting. It gives you a vision into
the terror that happens inside a school when a classmate opens fire. I
think about this, first and foremost, as a parent of a seventh grader
and a fourth grader who are part of a generation that accepts as part
of their childhood the risk of not leaving school at the end of the day
because of a violent attack. That is the reality of being a kid in
school today. I am angry about it as an American, but I am angry about
it as a parent, that my children have to go through active shooter
drills because this has become a regular facet of being a child in
America--exposure to gun violence.
It sickens me to think that my fourth grader has to worry about this
when he goes to school every day.
I understand that my Republican colleagues have very strong views on
issues related to abortion, but I listened to my Republican colleagues
come down here one after another today and talk about the sanctity of
life at the very moment that moms and dads in Michigan were being told
that their kids weren't coming home because they were shot at school
due to a country that has accepted gun violence due to Republicans'
fealty to the gun lobby.
Do not lecture us about the sanctity, the importance of life, when
100 people every single day are losing their lives to guns, when kids
go to school fearful that they won't return home because a classmate
will turn a gun on them, when it is in our control whether this
happens.
You care about life? Then get these dangerous military-style weapons
off the streets, out of our schools.
You care about life? Make sure that criminals don't get guns by
making sure that everybody goes through a background check in this
country.
This only happens in the United States of America. There is no other
nation in the high-income world in which kids worry about being shot
[[Page S8826]]
when they go to school. It happens here in America because we choose to
let it happen.
We are not unlucky. This is purposeful. This is a choice made by the
U.S. Senate to sit on our hands and do nothing while kids die.
It doesn't even involve any political risk. The changes we are
talking about in order to make our schools safe places, they are
supported by the vast majority of Americans, Republicans and Democrats.
And yet the gun lobby and the gun industry is more important to half of
the Members of the Senate than is the safety of our kids, and that is
infuriating.
Make no mistake about it, there is a silent message of endorsement
sent to would-be killers, sent to individuals whose brains are
spiraling out of control when the highest levels of the U.S. Government
does nothing, shooting after shooting. Somewhere in these broken
brains, they have convinced themselves that they can right perceived
wrongs by firing a gun into a crowd. And when Congress--when the
highest, most important, most powerful leaders in the land do nothing,
shooting after shooting, you can understand why those broken brains
imply that as endorsement. We have become part of the problem. Our
silence has become complicity.
And I am here to tell you that there is a very low likelihood that
your child will die in a school shooting. It is still a very, very
infrequent occurrence in this country, given the number of kids who
walk into a school every day. But the very fact that every child fears
for their life, the very fact that every parent thinks about this when
they send their kid to school, that is both a moral and practical stain
on this country because kids' brains can't learn when they fear for
their lives. No parent should have to sit down and talk to their kid
about why, even though you see this happen in Newtown and you see this
happen in Parkland and you see this happen in Michigan and you see this
happen in California, it won't happen to you, dear. Because when these
kids see it on TV every single day, you can't blame them for coming to
the conclusion that it may happen to them.
I remember watching on TV once a young woman in the aftermath of a
school shooting. There are so many of them now that I can't even
remember which one this was. And she said to the TV reporter who was
interviewing her: I just assumed that it would happen at my school
eventually.
What a sad state of affairs that this is what it has come to.
I am beyond my tipping point, but I needed to come to the floor today
because having sat in that chair listening to my colleagues tell me how
much they care about human life--well, you have an opportunity to do
something about it. You have an opportunity to save lives right now.
Kids that are walking into schools tomorrow need you--need you--to step
up and pass laws that are going to make sure that only responsible
people own guns. And the guns that are used in these school shootings--
the semiautomatic rifles, the AR-15 variants--they stay in the hands of
law enforcement.
And even if you don't believe that those laws will have the practical
consequence of stopping every school shooting, please acknowledge that
there is a moral impact of the actions that we take. By signaling to
everyone in this country--but in particular these individuals who are
contemplating these evil actions--that we don't accept this level of
carnage, there will be an impact. And I tell you that because I know
history.
There are two massive declines in the murder rate in this country in
the last 100 years. It is not coincidental to the 10-year period after
the two most significant antigun violence measures passed by Congress.
The first big decline is in the late 1930s and 1940s, right after
Congress passes its first bill regulating the possession of firearms in
this country. The second big decline is in the 1990s and early 2000s
right after Congress passes the universal background checks law and the
ban on assault-style weapons.
That is not coincidental. It is because those laws had a practical
effect on crime but also a moral effect as well. The proof is right
there in front of you of what can happen, of how many lives can be
saved if we stand up and act.
So, please, I beg my colleagues, if you are going to come down here
and talk about the sanctity of life, explain to the American people why
the gun lobby matters more than the safety of our children who are
walking into school every day fearing for their life.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________