Holy -Innocent- Memorial at, Palm Bay, FL 32905 US -              "JUSTICE FOR ALL" REP. HENRY HYDE, THE LATE CONGRESSMANS SPEACH-SEPT.19,1996

REP. HENRY HYDE, CONGRESSMAN.

   In the classic Russian novel, Crime and Punishment [Fydor] Dostoyevsky has his muderous protagonist Raskolnikov complain that "Man can get use to anything the Beast"The fact that we are even debating this issue- That we have to argue the about the legality of an abortionist's plunging a pair of sissors into the back of a child's neck, whose trunk, arms and legs have already been born, and then sucking out his or her brains- only confirms  Dostoyevsky's harsh truth. We were told in the Judiciary Committee by a nurse in attendance during a partial-birth abortion that the little arms and legs flailing and suddenly stiffen as the sissors are plunged in. The people that like to say,"I feel your pain," can't be referring to that little infant.
   What kind of people have we become that this" procedure" is even a matter for discussion? Can't we draw the line at torture? And if we can't what has become of us? We are incensed at ethnic cleasing in the Balkans. How then can we tolerate infant cleasing here at home?
   There is no argument here about when a human life begins. The child that is destroyed in unmistakably, brutaly killed.
 I have finally figured out why supporters of abortion on demand fight this infanticide ban tooth and claw. It is because for the first time since, roe v. wade the focus  for the debate is squarly on the baby and the harm that abortion inflicts on the unborn child- or ion this case, a child that is four fifths born. The child who the advocates of abortion have done every thing in their power to dehumanize , is as much the bearer of human rights as any member of this House. To deny those rights is more then a betrayal of a powerless individual whom some find burdensome. It is to betray the central promise of America: that there is in this land"Justice For All" That is why advocates of abortion on demand, having  detached them selves from the instinct for Justice that gave birth to our Country.
    President Clinton reacting angrily to Congress' challenge to his veto of the partial-birth ban, claimed not to understand the morality of our position. He asserts a morality of our"compassion" for those who engage in a practice that Senator [Daniel P.] Moynihan called indisinguishable from infantcide. Not that it will really mater to Mr. Clinton, but let me explain that there is no moral or medical justification for this barbaric assalt on a partially born infant. Dr. Pamela Smith, director of medical education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Chicago's Mt. Sinai Hospital testified to that.
   Quite a different"doctor" the abortionist who is the principal perpetrator of these attrocities, Martin Haskell has conceded that at least 80% percent of the partial-birth abortions he performs are entirely elective and he admits to more then 1,000 of them. We have been told in some extreme  cases of malformed babies, as though life is only for the privleged ther planned, the perfect. But James McMahon cited nine such abortions simply because the child had a cleft lip. 
   Other physicians  have made it clear this procedure is never a medical neca, but mearly a convenicnce for those that choose to abort late in pregnancy, when it become physically difficult to dismember the unborn child in the womb.
   The Presidents claim that he wants to "solve a problem" by adding a "health" exception to the legislation is spurious. As anyone who has spent 10 minutes studying federal law understands- and I know that includes Mr. Clinton-any health exceptions are so broadly construed by the courts as to make a ban meaningless.
   There is one constant commitment that has survived twists and turns of policy during this admistration that is it's unshakeable commitment to a legal regime of abortion on demand. Nothing is or will be done to make abortion "rare". No legislation , no regulatory act will be allowed to impede the mosst permissive abortion license in democratic world Mr. Clinto would do us all a favor and make a modest contribution to the health of the democratic process, if he would simply concede the obvious and spare us further exibitions of his manufactured grief.
    In one of his memours, Dwight D. Eisenhower , about the death of World War II, said," " the loss of lives that might have creatively lived, scars the mind of the civilized world" Our souls have been scarred by the well over 1 million abortions in this country every year. Our souls have so  much scar tissue that there is'nt room for anymore. What do we mean by "Human Dignity"? if we subject innocent children to the brutal execution when they are almost delivered? We all hope and pray for "death with dignity"but what is dignified about death by sicssors stuck into your neck so your brains can be sucked out? We have had long and bitter debates in Congress  about "assalt weapons" These sicssors and suction machines are assalt weapons worse then any AK47,you might miss with an AK47, but the abortionist never misses.
   It is not just the babies that are dying for the leathel sin of being unwanted. We are dying , not from the darkness but from the cold: the coldness of self brutialization that chills our sensibilities and allows us to claim this unspeakable act is an act of "comassion". If you vote to uphold the Presidents veto, if you vote to maintain the legality of a "procedure" that is revolting to even the most hardened heart , then please never use the word compassion ever again.
   I am not in the least embarrassed to say that I believe we will one day each and everyone of us be called upon to render an account of what we have done, and what we have failed to do in our life times. And while I believe in a mercyful God, I would be terrified to at the thought of having to explain, at the final judgement, why I stood unmoved while Herod's slaughter of the innocent was being reenacted in my own country.
    This debate has been about an uspeakable horror. And while the details are graphic and grisly, I think has been helpful for all of us, and for our country, to recognize the full brutality of what goes on in America's abortuaries, day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, yearin, year out. We are not talking about abstractions here. We are talking about life and death at their most elemental. And we ought to face the truth of what we oppose or we support, stripped of all euphemisms.
   "WE RISK OUR SOULS-WE RISK OUR HUMANITY-WHEN  WE TRIFLY WITH THAT INNOCENCE   OR DEMEAN IT OR BRUTALIZE IT" 
    We have talked so much about the grotesque. Permit me a word about beauty. We all have our own images of the beauty of the face of a loved one, the dawn, the sunset, the evening star. I believe there is nothing in this world of wonders is more beautiful then the innocence of a child. Do know what a child is? He or she is an opportunity for love, and a child with disabilities is even a greater opportunity for love.
    We risk our souls - we risk our humanity- when we trifle with that innocence or demean it or brutalize it. We need more caring and less killing. Let the innocence of the unborn have the last word in this debate. Let their innocence appeal to what President Lincln called "the better angels of nature" Prove Raskolnikov wrong. Declare partial-berth abortion is something we will never get use to> Make it clear once again, that there Is"JUSTICE FOR ALL' even the defenceless of this land.


Partial birth abortion was legal untill President Bush signed a bill  April 23,2007  as unconstitutional. This article appeared in the June Issue of Columbia Magazine .  A collection of Rep. Henry Hydes speaches including this one called " CATCH THE BURNING FLAG" Avaliable from : nationalview.com/hyde



























 

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