Collins statement on protecting life

"Contending an unborn child has no life to lose becomes impossible when we reflect — even momentarily — on what an abortion entails. . . . Let us not speak of abortion as a victimless choice. At best, abortions aim to ease one person’s suffering at the expense of another person’s existence. We must cultivate compassion and practical support for women who find themselves pregnant under difficult or oppressive circumstances, and we must protect the most defenseless humans among us — those living in the womb. One person’s reproductive right cannot outweigh another person’s right to live."

WASHINGTON — Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, gave the following opening statement during today's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties hearing. Below are the remarks as prepared. Ranking Member Collins: The title of this hearing is “Threats to Reproductive Rights in America.” The “rights” mentioned in the title refer to the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision inRoe v. Wade. As members of the Judiciary Committee, it’s appropriate to examine why the test of time has exposed Roe as a failure in viable judicial precedent. As mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends, it’s necessary to consider why Roe is a failure of compassion for both women and children. While Roe asserts a woman’s right to privacy anchors her right to an abortion, abortion destroys the right to life — along with liberty, the pursuit of happiness and all other constitutional rights — of the children it kills. It’s impossible to imagine the framers intended the right to privacy to eclipse one of the self-evident, unalienable rights that motivated the birth of our nation. Contending an unborn child has no life to lose becomes impossible when we reflect — even momentarily — on what an abortion entails. I am grateful for our witnesses today, who are here to give us a look at lives abortion would snuff out. These witnesses are not alone in recognizing the humanity of an unborn child. In her dissenting opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, Justice Ginsburg argued that, compared to partial-birth abortions, the common dismemberment abortion method “could equally be characterized as ‘brutal,’ involving as it does ‘tear[ing] [a fetus] apart’ and ‘ripp[ing] off’ its limbs.” Let us, then, be honest. Let us not speak of abortion as a victimless choice. At best, abortions aim to ease one person’s suffering at the expense of another person’s existence. We must cultivate compassion and practical support for women who find themselves pregnant under difficult or oppressive circumstances, and we must protect the most defenseless humans among us — those living in the womb. One person’s reproductive right cannot outweigh another person’s right to live. Justice Ginsburg also took issue with Roe on legal grounds. As a law professor, she wrote, “Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the . . . statute before the court . . . Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify.” Other pro-choice legal experts have also voiced concerns with the foundation of this decision. Edward Lazarus, a former clerk to Justice Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion inRoe, said, “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose . . . The problem . . . is [Roe] has little connection to the constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history or precedent.” Mr. Lazarus went on to say, “As a matter of constitutional interpretation, even most liberal[s] — if you administer truth serum — will tell you it is basically indefensible.” Jeffrey Rosen, formerly of The New Republic and currently President of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, wrote, “Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it.” Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at Penn Law School, said, “It is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment . . . As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether.” As a result of Roe’s lack of legal justification, the Supreme Court has since limited its effect. 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey permitted states to regulate abortions in the first trimester or at any stage before fetal viability, provided they don’t impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion. In 2003, Congress banned partial-birth abortions — which none other than Justice Ginsburg called “brutal.” In a partial-birth abortion, a living baby is delivered feet-first and its skull crushed before its chin clears the uterus — moments before the live birth is complete. In 2007, the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban — which applied at any point during pregnancy — in Gonzales v. Carhart, ruling the federal law did not impose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion. Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion noted the law “expresses respect for the dignity of human life” and affirmed the government’s interest in protecting the medical profession’s integrity. He wrote, “The government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman.” Mr. Chairman, the decades since Roe v. Wade have repeatedly delivered legal decisions making it clear any threat to Roe is posed by the illogic of its majority opinion. Today, let us consider what our witnesses can tell us about how protecting life is the cornerstone of all other liberties.