Floor Statement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte on H.R. 3504, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Chairman Goodlatte: Millions of people have viewed videos of representatives of the organization Planned Parenthood, which performs some forty percent of all abortions each year.  Those videos, recorded undercover, include discussions of instances in which, during the course of an attempted abortion, a baby is born “intact.” As one doctor caught on tape said, “Sometimes … if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then they [the babies] are intact.  But that’s not what we go for.”  Another business executive said, “If you had intact cases, which we’ve done a lot, we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its entirety.” A procurement manager says on a video, “I literally have had women come in and they’ll go in the OR [the operating room], and they’re back out in three minutes, and I’m going ‘What’s going on?’  ‘Oh yeah, the fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the stirrups.  It just fell out.’” And a former employee of the same company told investigators that she was shown the results of one abortion by a doctor, and as she recalls: “This is the most gestated fetus and the closest thing to a baby I’ve seen … and she [the doctor] taps the heart and it starts beating … The nodes were still firing and I don’t know if that means it’s technically dead or it’s alive.  It had a face.  It wasn’t completely torn up.  Its nose was very pronounced.  It had eyelids … Since the fetus was so intact she said ‘Ok, well, this is a really good fetus and it looks like we can procure a lot from it.  We’re going to procure a brain … That means we’re going to have to cut the head open … She takes a scissors and she makes a small incision right here [at the chin] and goes, I would say, maybe a little bit through the mouth, and she’s like, “Ok, can you go the rest of the way? … And so she gave me the scissors and told me that I have to cut down the middle of the face.  And I can’t even describe what that feels like.” The House Judiciary Committee, which I chair, is undergoing a comprehensive investigation of the issues raised by these videos.  But as that and other investigations continue, Congress must move immediately to protect any children born alive during the course of a failed abortion. The bill before us today is simple, yet profound, insofar as it might be a reflection of the nation’s conscience.  Its operative provisions provide that in the case of an abortion that results in a child born alive, any health care practitioner present must exercise the same degree of professional care to preserve the life of the child as he or she would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.  The bill also provides that the child must be immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.  If a baby born alive is left to die, the penalty can be up to five years in jail.  If the child is cut open for its body parts, or some other overt act is taken, the punishment is that for first degree murder, which can include life in prison or the death penalty. Babies are born alive during failed abortions.  The House Judiciary Committee, just last week, heard direct testimony by two grown women who, as babies, survived attempted abortions.  The mother of one of them, Gianna Jessen, was advised by Planned Parenthood to have an abortion.  But as Ms. Jessen testified: “Instead of dying, after 18 hours of being burned in my mother’s womb, I was delivered alive in an abortion clinic in Los Angeles.”  Her medical records state clearly that she was “born alive” during an abortion.  She continued, “Thankfully, the abortionist was not at work yet.  Had he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there to die.  Instead, a nurse called an ambulance, and I was rushed to a hospital.  Doctors did not expect me to live.  I did.  I was later diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, which was caused by a lack of oxygen to my brain while surviving the abortion.  I was never supposed to hold my head up or walk.  I do.  And Cerebral Palsy is a great gift to me.” Just think of that for a moment.  Ms. Jessen says cerebral palsy is a gift to her because it came with the gift of life. Ms. Jessen presented a picture at the hearing showing the results of the sort of abortion she survived.  Today, I ask the nation to see in its collective mind the body of a baby, much like this one, on the floor, born alive during a failed abortion.  I ask that we collectively reach down into our hearts, and also reach down to the floor.  And as we vote today, I ask that we, as a nation, grasp the value of life, and also grasp that baby’s back, lift its tiny body off the ground, and bring it to a hospital -- and not leave her with the abortionist. I yield back. Click here to watch the full speech.