Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank, Mr. Levin for introducing this important resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of the brutal suppression of innocent men, women and children in China. Twenty years ago, in May 1989, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered on Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China to express their desire for peaceful democratic reform. In the face of these massive demonstrations the Chinese Communist Party hesitated. There were apparently some decent men and women in the party's leadership, who had begun to understand what a tragedy Communist rule has been for the Chinese people, countless millions of whose lives had been destroyed by its famines and cultural revolutions and totalitarian social controls. But we know what happened. Jiang Zemin [JANG ZUH-MEEN] pushed the reformers aside, cleared Tiananmen Square with tanks, and shot to death thousands of peaceful demonstrators. In December of 1996 here in Washington, at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, General Chi Haotian, the Defense Minister of the People's Republic of China, the general who was the operational commander of the soldiers who slaughtered pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square in June of 1989, said, ``Not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.'' According to General Chi, the Chinese Army did nothing more violent than, and I quote him, ``pushing of people.'' General Chi not only met with Mr. Clinton in the White House but was accorded full military honors, including a 19-gun salute and visits to military bases. Rather than getting the red carpet, General Chi should have been held to account for his crimes against humanity. To counter the big lie, I quickly put together and chaired a hearing of eyewitnesses to the Tiananmen Square massacre, including several Chinese, a former editor of the People's Daily, and Time Magazine's Beijing bureau chief. I also invited General Chi or anyone else to testify before our committee from the government of China. They were no-shows, although I left a chair for them. One of our witnesses, a man by the name of Xuecan Wu, the former editor of the People's Daily, was singled out by Li Peng for punishment and got 4 years in prison for trying to tell the truth to his readers in Beijing. Mr. Wu called General Chi's lie about no one being killed ``shameless'' and told my subcommittee that he personally saw at least, and I quote him here, ``at least 30 carts carrying dead and wounded people.'' Eyewitness Jian-Ki Yang, Vice President of the Alliance for a Democratic China, testified, and I quote, ``I saw trucks of soldiers who got out and started firing automatic weapons at the people. Each time they fired the weapons, three or four people were hit, and each time the crowd went down to the ground. We were there for about an hour and a half. I saw 13 people killed. We saw four tanks coming from the square, and they were going very fast at a very high speed. The two tanks in front were chasing students.'' He went on to say, ``They ran over the students. Everyone was screaming. We counted 11 bodies.'' Time Magazine's David Aikman, another eyewitness said, and I quote, ``Children were killed holding hands with their mothers. A 9-year-old boy was shot seven or eight times in the back, and his parents placed the corpse on a truck and drove through the streets of northwest Beijing on Sunday morning. `This is what the government has done,' the distraught mother kept telling crowds of passersby through a makeshift speaker system.'' Madam Speaker, 20 years after Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government perpetuates General Chi's Orwellian fabrication that no one died. In truth, thousands died and approximately 7,000 were wounded. Twenty years after Tiananmen Square, an untold number of democracy activists remain incarcerated for peacefully advocating human rights. To be jailed by the Chinese, as we all know, means torture, humiliation, and severe deprivations. The ugly spirit of the Tiananmen Square Massacre continues. The brave and noble human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng has been subjected to excruciating torture that continues today. We must raise our voice on his behalf--and for others like him. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wouldn't let China's shameless human rights record ``interfere'' with other issues including and especially China's purchase of U.S. treasury securities to finance America's debt. Wittingly or not, that kind of attitude enables abuse and torture. In the early 1990s, Congressman Frank Wolf and I visited Beijing Prison Number 1, a bleak gulag where 40 Tiananmen Square prisoners were being unjustly detained. We saw firsthand the price paid by brave and tenacious individuals for peacefully petitioning their government for freedom. And it was not pretty. They looked like the walking skeletons of Auschwitz. Despite the hopes and expectations of some that robust trade with China would usher in at least a modicum of respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, the simple fact of the matter is that the dictatorship in China oppresses, tortures and mistreats millions of its own citizens. Moreover, China is the land of the one-child-per-couple policy, a barbaric policy that makes brothers and sisters illegal. Forced abortion, force sterilization and ruinous fines are routinely deployed to ensure compliance with this Draconian and utterly cruel family planning policy. The criminal slaughter of Tiananmen has had terrible and lasting consequences for the Chinese people, and for the world. China had reached a turning point, and failed to turn. Twenty years later, it still has not turned. The Chinese people still live under a one-party government that ruthlessly represses dissenters and democratic activists, that controls all news media and blocks and censors the Internet. The Communist party still enforces a one-child policy that makes brothers and sisters illegal, and regularly conducts campaigns of forced abortion. It still persecutes religious believers, and it has stepped up its campaign of cultural genocide in Xinjiang [SHIN JANG] and Tibet. The men and women who rule China today are the proteges of the criminals of Tiananmen, and, in order to claim legitimacy, do everything they can to suppress the facts about Tiananmen. Last summer Frank Wolf and I walked across Tiananmen Square--officials searched us before we entered the square, and squads of police surrounded us while we were on it, terrified we might hold up a simple sign or banner. Later, we tried to look up ``Tiananmen Square'' on the tightly- controlled Chinese Internet. Of course, mere mention of the slaughter has been removed from the Chinese Internet. As noted in the resolution before us, the Chinese authorities censor any effort to inform the public about what occurred in June 1989. I also want to say that our government has not done enough to support the Chinese people. And our failure has been a defining event for our own foreign policy, also with terrible consequences for the world. The Chinese Communist Party, and dictators around the world, drew the conclusion that America's talk of human rights was just hot air, that the only interests that really matter to us are financial. Our government has a duty to speak up more on human rights in China. Unfortunately, they have been doing the opposite. President Obama has not shown much interest in human rights. In our policies towards Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, to name a few countries, human rights has been dramatically downgraded, and everyone understands this. And Secretary Clinton has effectively taken human rights off the U.S. agenda with the Chinese Government, telling the global media that concern for the protection of human rights of the Chinese people can't be allowed to ``interfere'' with the economic crisis, climate change, and security--as if human rights were disconnected and irrelevant to those issues. And so, Madam Speaker, it is all the more important that the House of Representatives pass this resolution, and by doing so: express sympathy to the families of those who suffered so terribly as a result of the Chinese Government's actions 20 years ago, and our solidarity with those who continue to suffer human rights abuses at the hands of Chinese Government officials; call for a full and independent investigation into what occurred during the Tiananmen Square suppression; call on the Chinese Government to release all those, including those who participated in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, who are wrongfully imprisoned in violation of their human rights; and call on the Administration to take aggressive action in support of China's human rights defenders.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 171, a powerful statement calling for meaningful constitutional reform and strengthened U.S. engagement in Bosnia. I want to thank Chairman Berman for authoring this legislation, and I am very proud to be one of the cosponsors. Mr. Speaker, this resolution makes all the important points on the need for real constitutional reform. It notes that the Dayton Accords, notwithstanding their merits in stopping the war and the genocide, ``included many compromises imposed by the need for quick action to preserve human life that have hindered efforts to develop efficient and effective political institutions.'' Everyone involved in the Dayton Accords understood that they were not intended to be more than a tourniquet designed to halt the genocide and to act as a bridge towards good governance and a workable constitution. And the time for meaningful, sustainable and just reform has come. Importantly the resolution notes the progress Bosnia has made since 1995. And by almost all accounts, that progress is truly remarkable. I visited Bosnia again in July of 2007 and was deeply impressed by the economic and social recovery that has taken place within the past 12 years. On the constitutional arrangements, Mr. Speaker, the resolution points to the history of strong U.S. support for the ``legal continuity and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina'' and notes that the current Dayton-based constitutional arrangements are ``neither efficient nor rational.'' The resolution praises the value of a ``united multiethnic country'' and ``full incorporation into the Euro- Atlantic community'' in stabilizing the Balkans. Mr. Speaker, efficient and rational arrangements to unite the multiethnic country and enable it to be fully incorporated into NATO and the EU can only mean a major reform that abolishes the ``entity'' voting system so that the vote of every Bosnian citizen will be of equal weight. Under the current Dayton-based system, only 22 percent of the deputies can block any proposed legislation. And, in fact, this happens all the time. In the past 13 years such a ``super-minority'' has blocked over 260 bills. To put this number in context, in the same period, the national legislature passed less than 150 laws. Mr. Speaker, this is a serious problem. It is the reason that we are here today talking about constitutional reform in Bosnia. Mr. Speaker, as chairman or co-chairman for 12 years of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known around here as the Helsinki Commission, and co-chairman of the Bosnia Caucus with my friend and colleague from Missouri, and chairman of the House Human Rights Committee for 8 years, I've had the opportunity to chair numerous Bosnia hearings and author congressional resolutions on Bosnia, including H. Res. 199 on the Srebrenica genocide. My most recent trip to Bosnia was in July of 2007, and I joined relatives of those killed, murdered--massacred--in the Srebrenica genocide in a ceremony interring hundreds of the approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who were killed in what the U.N. euphemistically designated to be a ``safe haven.'' It wasn't. The ceremony was solemn, it was holy, and it was numbing. Reis Ceric, the Grand Mufti, gave a very powerful talk, a sermon, to all of those who had gathered. Reis Ceric is a great man of peace and faith, and, I'm honored to say, a good friend. Dr. Haris Silajdzic, the President of Bosnia, is likewise a good friend, and spoke very eloquently about the huge loss of life, the importance of justice as well as about the future. Seeing hundreds of caskets with exhumed victims left an indelible impression on me. During that visit and after meeting here as well as in Europe with members of the Bosnian community, it has become abundantly clear that while Bosnia needs to move forward, that there needs to be an accounting for the atrocities committed. And to move ahead they need constitutional reform. Sometimes we get reports or hear that ethnic tensions are rising in Bosnia and that, therefore, the constitutional reform process has to be slowed for a while--put on the back burner. That would be a big mistake. Bosnia is in a position similar to that of Poland, Romania, and other countries of Eastern Europe in the 1990s. When we debated their admission to NATO, for example, some said that their admission would destabilize the region. They were flat wrong. What could have dangerously destabilized Eastern Europe was continuing uncertainty about whether these countries would join the West or whether they might remain in the Russian sphere of influence. We resolved that uncertainty and further stabilized Eastern Europe by welcoming them to the West. Likewise, with Bosnia, it's long past time to send a strong, unambiguous signal that Bosnia does not have to remain a country forever preserved in the amber of the Dayton Accords. With this resolution, we invite the Bosnians to reform their constitution, become a one-person, one-vote democracy, and join the Euro-Atlantic community. Mr. Speaker, our country has played a constructive role in Bosnia through both Democrat and Republican administrations, and I know the Bosnians appreciate that very much. The great majority of them will welcome strengthening our engagement to complete the American legacy of spreading democracy and security in Bosnia. This is a good resolution, and I urge its passage by all Members of the House.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the country lost a great and extraordinary American on Saturday. Jack Kemp was a man of deep faith in Christ, husband to the equally remarkable Joanne, father of four, and grandfather of seventeen. And he was, for those of us who knew him so well, above all, a family man. He was also a former star quarterback, HUD Secretary and Congressman, and will be deeply missed by all of us who knew, respected, admired, and loved this special person. I first met Jack when he campaigned for me in Trenton back in 1978 in my first bid for Congress. A decade later, as HUD Secretary, he actually helped us get the first demonstration project for Trenton's Weed and Seed program, one of only four in the country. Twenty years later, Weed and Seed continues to help disadvantaged youth in Trenton. By his contagious enthusiasm, balanced energy, personal integrity, dedication to high moral principles and sheer determination, Jack Kemp changed America and, in the process, changed the world. Jack Kemp believed in the politics of inclusion and worked tirelessly to extend hope and opportunity to all, regardless of age, gender, creed, disability or dependence, including and especially unborn children. In a 1993 speech, Jack Kemp said, ``Every single year, there's a tragic silence of a million newborn cries that will never be heard. Talents that will never be developed. Potential we will never see. Books never authored. Inventions never made. The right to life is a gift of God, not a gift of the state.'' Jack Kemp was always proudly pro-life. In the early 1980s, Jack Kemp wrote the Kemp-Kasten anti-coercion law to protect women everywhere, especially in China, from the horrific crime of coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization. He always cared for the weak disenfranchised and the vulnerable. Jack Kemp's speech on the Martin Luther King holiday in 1983 was among his most remarkable and enduring. He eloquently spoke of Dr. King's courage and legacy and the necessity of healing and reconciliation, and that the King holiday, like the civil rights struggle itself, was a necessary continuation of the American Revolution. Jack Kemp not only wrote landmark laws but was the quintessential ideas man as well, and his often outside-the-box thinking became the inspiration for innovative reforms, including urban enterprise zones, the Reagan tax cuts, and the realization of homeownership that had been denied to so many. Jack Kemp was truly one of a kind, one of the all- time greats.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 342, offered by my good friend and colleague, Mr. Joseph Cao. The ``Vietnamese Refugees Day'' resolution sets aside May 2, 2009, as a day of remembrance and celebration for the growing Vietnamese American community in the United States and throughout the world. First, I would like to say a few words about Mr. Cao, the first Vietnamese-American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Joseph is a husband, proud father and man of deep and abiding religious faith and currently serves the people of Louisiana's Second District with honor and distinction. Mr. Cao is far too modest and humble to say it, but he is the quintessential example of a refugee success story. Joseph Cao's father, a lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, was captured by the North Vietnamese at the end of the war and was incarcerated for seven terrible years in a reeducation camp. In 1975, at the age of 8, Joseph escaped Vietnam with two of his siblings. His mom and jailed father remained behind. Joseph Cao worked hard in his new adopted homeland. Smart, resourceful, devout and generous to a fault, Joseph earned his Bachelor's Degree at Baylor, his Master's from Fordham University, and his J.D. from Loyola Law School. Never forgetting the plight of refugees, and wanting to make a difference in the lives of the disenfranchised, Joseph became an immigration lawyer. He worked tirelessly to aid refugees and to assist in unifying families. He served as a member of the board of directors of Boat People SOS, and he is now a member of the United States Congress and is a rising star in the House. Mr. Speaker, Joseph Cao is an inspiration to all who escape tyranny and come to America. With persistence and hard work and faith, Joseph inspires a new generation of refugees and, really, everyone else as well that you can achieve much and do wonderful things if you put your mind to it and you persist. Joseph's legislation highlights the extraordinary work and the contributions made by Vietnamese Americans and the work of groups like Boat People SOS and the work of people like Dr. Thang, who have welcomed Vietnamese asylum seekers fleeing reeducation camps, harassment, and religious persecution, labor violations and other human rights abuses. Over 2 million boat people and other refugees from Vietnam have received asylum in the United States and around the world. Half of those individuals have made their home in the U.S. Vietnamese Americans have made and continue to make a significant contributions to our country, bringing their rich heritage and culture and work ethic to the United States, their new, cherished permanent home. The sad thing, Mr. Speaker, is that Vietnam's government continues to repress its own citizens, and the human rights record of that country's government remains deplorable. So many Vietnamese suffer each day at the hands of the government and secret police. It's deplorable.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Additionally, ethnic religious minority groups such as the Montagnards in the Central Highlands and the Khmer Krom Buddhists continue to face intense persecution, beatings and even death. I would hope that Mr. Cao's resolution causes this Congress to reexamine Vietnam's human rights record and redouble our efforts to promote freedom and democracy in Vietnam and to remove hindrances for Vietnamese people seeking asylum in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. Again, I congratulate my good friend and colleague. His is a success story that needs to be held up in neon lights. Joseph Cao, you are an extraordinarily talented and courageous leader.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend and colleague, Mr. King, for his leadership, for his consistency in promoting human rights, and for bringing to this floor tonight another opportunity for us to affirm the dignity and the value of all human life, including that of the unborn. Mr. Speaker, last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, presented bouquet of flowers on behalf of the American people--a very nice gesture--and then went on to Houston, Texas, to receive the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood. In her remarks, Secretary Clinton said she was ``in awe''--I repeat, ``in awe''--of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. To our distinguished Secretary of State, I respectfully ask: Are you kidding? In ``awe'' of Margaret Sanger, who said in 1921, ``Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems.'' And who also said in 1922, ``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.'' Later, in 1939, Sanger wrote, ``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social service backgrounds and with engaging personalities.'' She wrote, ``The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,'' she goes on, ``and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.'' Secretary Clinton in her speech said that Margaret Sanger's life and leadership was ``one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race.'' Mr. Speaker, transformational, yes. But not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, a person of color, vulnerable, or among the many so-called undesirables who Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race. To me, and to many, including my distinguished colleague in the well, the juxtaposition of the last week's two very public events in Mexico City and in Houston bring into sharp focus two huge and irreconcilable world views. On the one hand, the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe has for five centuries brought a message of hope, faith, peace, reconciliation and protection for the weakest, most vulnerable among us. On the other hand, each year, Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood kills approximately 300,000 unborn baby girls and boys in their abortion clinics scattered throughout the United States. Worldwide, the loss of innocent human life at the hands of Planned Parenthood is in the millions. Planned Parenthood even supports the hideous brain-sucking method of abortion called partial birth abortion. On a visit to the Basilica in Mexico City in 1999, Pope John Paul II publicly entrusted protection of all at-risk human life, including especially unborn children and their mothers, to Our Lady of Guadalupe because the miracle she wrought 500 years ago resulted in an end to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice to a serpent God that claimed anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000 victims a year. Indeed, the miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, known so well especially in Latin America, but really around the world, has been extraordinarily compelling and inspirational for centuries. In 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a native American at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, and asked that a church be built on the site of the apparition. The Catholic bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign. At the behest of the Blessed Mother, and despite the fact it was winter, Juan Diego gathered roses from the site into his tilma for presentation to the Bishop. When Juan Diego met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga with the roses tucked under his apron, a miraculous image suddenly appeared on the cloth. The Bishop was stunned, and he believed. The image of the Blessed Mother wasn't painted. There are no brush strokes. To this day, the image defies all scientific explanation as to its origin. Within a few years of the miracle, more than 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity and a strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe began that continues to this day. Each year, some 18 million to 20 million pilgrims visit the miraculous image in Mexico City. Last Thursday, Hillary Clinton visited the shrine. On Friday, she paid homage to Planned Parenthood and to Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was a self- described pro-abortionist eugenist and a racist who considered charity care for impoverished, disenfranchised women, including women of color, especially pregnant women, to be ``cruel.'' In her book, ``The Pivot of Civilization,'' Margaret Sanger devoted an entire chapter that she entitled: ``The Cruelty of Charity,'' to her inhumane case for not helping--and I repeat that--not helping poor pregnant women with prenatal and maternal care. Sanger said in the book--and I read her book--``We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'' In chapter 5--again, chapter 5 is called: ``The Cruelty of Charity''--she writes, ``Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease.'' Sanger writes, ``Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and diminish the spread of misery and destruction and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding, and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and dependents.'' That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. She continues, ``My criticism therefore is not directed at the failure of philanthropy but rather at its success.'' Sanger goes on to say, ``There's a special type of philanthropy or benevolence now widely advertised and advocated both as a Federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me,'' that is to say Sanger, ``as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of maternity and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers. ``Such women are to be visited by nurses and receive instruction in the hygiene of pregnancy, to be guided in making arrangements for confinement, to be invited to come to the doctors' clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are informed, to receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for 1 month afterwards. Thus, are mothers and babies to be saved, childbearing is to be made safe.'' Construing to demean the generosity of pregnancy care centers, Margaret Sanger goes on to say, ``The work of the maternity centers in the various American cities, which they have already been established and in which they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out is carried out among the poor and the most docile section of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity. ``The effect of maternity endowments of maternity centers supported by private philanthropy would have perhaps already have had exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it. ``Such benevolence,'' she goes on to say, ``is not merely superficial and nearsighted.'' Sanger continues, ``It conceals a stupid cruelty. Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we may question its value even through the unfortunate mother. Simon concludes, ``The most serious charge that can be brought against modern benevolence is that it encourages''--and I say this again--``the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents, and dependents.'' Such audacity, such an inhumane view of human life. Mr. Speaker, in her speech at the Planned Parenthood gala accepting the Margaret Sanger award--and I have many other quotes from Sanger that I will put into the Record, and I invite Members and the American people to look at those quotes, and there is so much more. But in her speech last Friday, Secretary Clinton said she admired Sanger for her vision, was in awe of her, and that Margaret Sanger's work here and in the United States and certainly across the globe is not done. Translated, ``not done'' means more abortions here in the United States, in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the world. Planned Parenthood's mission statement, documents, and work in the field make it absolutely clear that they seek a global unfettered right to commit violence against unborn children at all stages of development. Planned Parenthood seeks integration of all health care with abortion, with no conscience rights whatsoever for medical practitioners, no parental consent or notification whatsoever for minors. And all of this paid for by the United States taxpayer. Which begs the question, Mr. Speaker. Is our Secretary of State unaware of Margaret Sanger's inhumane beliefs? Was she not briefed on Margaret Sanger's cruel and reckless disregard for poor, pregnant women? Respectfully, Secretary Clinton should at a minimum return the Sanger award. More importantly, Congress and the White House must at long last take a long, hard, second look at the multimillion, almost billion, dollar corporation called Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse Incorporated. Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically, psychologically, and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, benign, or empowering about abortion. It is a violation of a child's fundamental human rights. Rather than partnering with Planned Parenthood and like-minded NGOs to promote abortion worldwide with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, the United States should affirm the inherent value, dignity, worth of both victims of abortion, mother and child. We need to promote nonviolent, life-affirming solutions to women both here as well as abroad. Women deserve better than abortion. We should always and in every way affirm the precious lives of both. And on that score, Margaret Sanger and far too many others would disagree. I strongly urge my colleagues to take that second look at Planned Parenthood. It is time to respect the value and the dignity of all human life. Mr. Speaker, last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, presented a bouquet of flowers on behalf of the American people--a nice gesture--and then went on to Houston, Texas to receive the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood. In her remarks, Secretary Clinton said she was ``in awe'' of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. To our distinguished Secretary of State, I respectfully ask, are you kidding? In ``awe'' of Margaret Sanger who said in 1921 ``Eugenics is . . . the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems'' and in 1922 said, ``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.'' Later in 1939 Sanger wrote ``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.'' Secretary Clinton said in her speech that Margaret Sanger's ``life and leadership'' was ``one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race.'' Mr. Speaker, transformational yes, but not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, disabled, vulnerable, or among the many so called undesirables who Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race. To me--to many--the juxtaposition of last weeks two very public events--in Mexico City and in Houston--bring into sharp focus, two huge and irreconcilable world views. On the one hand, the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe has for 5 centuries brought a message of hope, faith, love and protection for the weakest, most vulnerable among us. On the other hand, each year Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood kills approximately 300,000 unborn children in their abortion clinics throughout the United States. Worldwide the loss of innocent human life at the hands of Planned Parenthood is in the millions. Planned Parenthood even supports the hideous brain sucking method of abortion called partial birth abortion. On a visit to the Basilica in Mexico City in 1999, Pope John Paul II publicly entrusted protection of all at risk innocent human life, including and especially unborn children and their mothers, to Our Lady of Guadalupe because the miracle she wrought 500 years ago resulted in an end to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice to a serpent god that claimed 20,000 to 50,000 victims a year. Indeed, the miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been extraordinarly compelling and inspirational for centuries. In 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a Native American at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, and asked that a church be built on the site of the apparition. The Catholic Bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign. At the behest of the Blessed Mother, and despite the fact that it was winter, Juan Diego gathered roses from the site into his tilma for presentation to the Bishop. When Juan Diego met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga with the roses tucked in his apron, a miraculous image suddenly appeared on the cloth. The Bishop was stunned, and believed. The image of the Blessed Mother wasn't painted--there are no brush strokes--and to this day the image defies all scientific explanation as to its origin. Within a few years of the miracle, more than 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity and strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe began, that continues to this day. Each year some 18-20 million pilgrims visit the miraculous image in Mexico City. Last Thursday, Hillary Clinton visited the Shrine. Then on Friday she paid homage to Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a self- described pro-abortion eugenist and racist who considered charity care for impoverished, disenfranchised women, including women of color, especially pregnant women, to be ``cruel.'' In her book, the Pivot of Civilization, Margaret Sanger devoted an entire chapter entitled ``The Cruelty of Charity'' to her inhumane case of not helping--I repeat not helping--poor, pregnant women with prenatal and maternal care. Sanger said in the book, ``We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'' In Chapter 5 of that book Sanger writes: `` . . . Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. ``Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents.'' Sanger continues, ``My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the `failure' of philanthropy, but rather at its success. . . .'' Sanger goes on to say, ``there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me (Sanger) as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of maternity, and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers. Such women are to be visited by nurses and to receive instruction in the ``hygiene of pregnancy''; to be guided in making arrangements for confinements; to be invited to come to the doctors' clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are informed, to ``receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for one month afterward. Thus are mothers and babies to be saved, `Childbearing is to be made safe.' '' Construing to demean the generosity of pregnancy centers Sanger continues, ``the work of the maternity centers in the various American cities in which they have already been established and in which they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out, is carried on among the poor and more docile sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity. . . . The effect of maternity endowments and maternity centers supported by private philanthropy would have, perhaps already have had, exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it.'' Such ``benevolence'' is not merely superficial and nearsighted. Sanger continues to write: ``it conceals a stupid cruelty . . . Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitable hasten, we may question its value even to the normal though unfortunate mother.'' Sanger concludes, ``the most serious charge that can be brought against modern `benevolence' is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents.'' Sanger also said: ``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.'' ``Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.'' Margaret Sanger, Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12. ``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful education approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.'' Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976. ``Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need . . . We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.'' Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review. ``Eugenics is . . . the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems. Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5. ``As an advocate of birth control I wish . . . to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the `unfit' and the `fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty- stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation . . . ``On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.'' Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5. ``The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.'' Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5. ``Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying . . . demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism . . . [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant . . . We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'' Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on ``The Cruelty of Charity,'' pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition. ``The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.'' Margaret Sanger, quoted in Charles Valenza. ``Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?'' Family Planning Perspectives, January-February 1985, page 44. ``The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.'' Margaret Sanger. Speech quoted in Birth Control: What It Is, How It Works, What It Will Do. The Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference. Held at the Hotel Plaza, New York City, November 11-12, 1921. Published by the Birth Control Review, Gothic Press, pages 172 and 174. ``The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order . . .'' Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922. ``[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children . . .'' Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922. ``Give dysgenic groups [people with `bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.'' Margaret Sanger, April 1932 Birth Control Review. In her speech at the Planned Parenthood Gala, accepting the Margaret Sanger award, Secretary Clinton said she admired Sanger for her ``vision,'' was in ``awe of her'' and that ``Margaret Sanger's work here in the United States and certainly across the globe is not done.'' Translated, ``not done'' means more abortions here in the United States, in Latin America, Africa, Asia--the world. Planned Parenthood's mission statement, documents, and work in the field make it absolutely clear that they seek a global unfettered right to commit violence against unborn children at all stages of development. Planned Parenthood seeks integration of all health care with abortion, with no conscience rights whatsoever for medical practitioners, no parental consent or notification for minors, and all paid for by the taxpayers. Which begs the question: is our Secretary of State unaware of Margaret Sanger's unhumane beliefs? Was she not briefed on Margaret Sanger's cruel and reckless disregard for poor pregnant women? Respectfully, Secretary Clinton should at a minimum return the Sanger award. More importantly, Congress and the White House must, at long last take a long hard second look at the multi-million corporation Planned Parenthood--Child Abuse Inc. Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically and psychologically and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, benign or empowering about abortion. It is a violation of a child's fundamental human rights. Rather than partnering with Planned Parenthood and like minded NGOs to promote abortion worldwide, with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, the United States should affirm the inherent value, dignity and worth of both victims of abortion--mother and child. We need to promote both at home and abroad. We should always and in every way affirm the precious lives of both. On that score, Margaret Sanger and far too many others would disagree. I thank my good friend and yield back to him.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for bringing that up. Back in 1984, when President Reagan first announced the Mexico City policy, it was designed to separate abortion from family planning. It got its name, as I know the gentleman knows, Mexico City policy because it was at a U.N. conference that the venue was in Mexico City; hence, its name. But it was a very well calibrated, very thoughtful policy which said that there ought to be a very bright line of demarcation between family planning and abortion, and that we would only fund those foreign nongovernmental organizations that divested themselves of lobbying, promoting, and performing abortions as a method of family planning. It was a policy that worked. NGOs got funding. We are the largest provider of family planning in the world. But now, the organizations that will receive those funds, and we are talking about over one-half billion dollars per year of taxpayer funding, will be used to promote abortions in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, Europe, everywhere where the law still protects and safeguards the sanctity of human life. Most of the African countries, most of the countries in Latin America protect the lives of their innocent unborn children as a matter of human rights. Now, abortion organizations, backed with huge subsidies from the Federal Government--and President Obama was the one who signed the executive order that reversed the Mexico City policy. And, as the gentleman said, and I offered the amendment on the floor that he was talking about that regrettably failed, the misguided cheers and happiness about giving money to an organization that completely targets innocent babies in the womb for destruction. We live in 2009. As the gentleman knows, ultrasound technology, prenatal surgeries have shattered the myth that an unborn child is human and alive. Of course they are. A child in utero may need a blood transfusion or microsurgery or some other intervention, medically speaking, to abate or mitigate some anomaly before birth. I chair the Spina Bifida Caucus. Some of the early interventions for spina bifida children can have a marvelous quality of life impact later on, from birth on. But you do it before birth. Bernard Nathanson, as my distinguished colleague knows, was the leading abortionist in the seventies. He founded, along with Betty Friedan and Lawrence Lader, NARAL, one of the biggest pro-abortion organizations in this country. He changed positions after he was doing surgeries and looking at the unborn child as a patient at St. Luke's Hospital in New York. He ran an abortion clinic, was a big activist for years, and then became a pro-lifer. And he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, and I quote, ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I have presided over 60,000 deaths.'' And then he became a pro-lifer. And now he has spoken out for many years on behalf of the human rights of the unborn, and that the women are injured, the babies are victimized and killed, and that this death and destruction to our offspring and to our women and to mothers must cease. We now are exporting. We don't export enough. We certainly don't export enough commodities. Our economy has been hurting for a number of months now and even years. What we are exporting, tragically, is abortion, and the taxpayers of America are the ones who are subsidizing that, enabling that promotion of abortion in Africa and Latin America and elsewhere. There was a famous movie years ago, and my friend and colleague from Iowa probably saw it, The Ugly American. You know, I love what we can do foreign policy-wise to help and to ennoble and to make healthier people around the world, whether it be on AIDS treatments and all the other things that occur internationally, hunger alleviation, clean water, safe blood. But abortion takes all that. It tells people in the developing world, just like the vision of Margaret Sanger that we don't want you. That your children are not--are dehumanized and are expendable. As the great Henry Hyde used to say, liable to extermination. You can terminate the innocent and inconvenient with such ease. Who is to speak out for them? They can't speak for themselves because of their immaturity and their dependency. So I congratulate the gentleman because the time has come, the time has truly come for America to begin a great awakening when it comes to the value, the dignity and the sanctity of human life. Abortion is violence against children. Despite all of the platitudes, all of the cheap sophistry that routinely is employed to cover up abortion, it is violence. Dismembering a child, chemically poisoning a child, inducing a miscarriage whereby the child then dies very early because of the inability to cope after being separated from the mother, all of these methods of abortion have one goal in mind, the killing of the unborn child. Recently I watched and read a statement that Father Pavone, a priest for life actually put together. And he talked about Dr. Haskell, who is the man who came up with the partial-birth abortion method. And one of the main reasons why, and maybe the primary reason why that method was crafted, where a baby is half born, his or her brain is pierced in the back of the head and the brains are literally sucked out, was to ensure that the abortion didn't produce a live birth. Years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is just south of my district, had a big story called ``The Dreaded Complication'' and spoke about the fact that every year something on the order of 500 children survived later-term abortions only to die maybe a day later, several hours later, but some went on to be adopted. For the abortionist, this was a complication, a dreaded one. So Haskell and others decided to do away with that possibility by completely collapsing the brain cavity and sucking the brains out of a child. We get accused of inflammatory rhetoric by the pro-abortion side when we describe what it is that they do in abortion clinics. It is violence. It hurts women. And finally, as Dr. Elvita King has said so eloquently--the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, a woman who used to be on the other side of this issue, who had two abortions herself, and has spoken out on behalf of the unborn child and his or her mother--abortion is the ultimate civil rights movement of our day. She is the niece of Martin Luther King. She knows a thing or two about human rights and civil rights. And she says that as a society, it is time to look carefully, get rid of the platitudes, get rid of the euphemisms that have stifled true debate, words like ``choice.'' Choice to do what? To destroy an unborn child in a very vicious way. We need to protect both. One of the most beautiful things of the group that she is a part of called ``Silent No More,'' made up exclusively of women who have had abortions, is that they reach out to women who are in crisis, who have the post-traumatic stress disorder, have grave misgivings, not right away, but maybe a couple years later, maybe several years later, and say there is a path to reconciliation and peace. That is what the pro- life movement is all about. We have never been about judgment. We have always been about enfranchisement. Protect the baby. Protect the mother in the first place. And for those who have already had abortions, who like Martin Luther King's niece, Elvita King in Silent No More and other women who have bravely spoken out on behalf of the unborn and their mothers, there are two victims, one is killed, one is injured. They need our help, our love and our compassion. Unfortunately, they don't get that from the other side. It is called ``empowerment.'' There is nothing empowering about destroying an unborn child. And it is time--and I would hope, as the gentleman would hope, that there would be a campaign that men and women in America, Members of Congress, who have for a long time voted the pro-abortion side, would take a second look, look at Planned Parenthood this second time. To look at, as you pointed out, what Dawn Johnson has said when she says ``Women are not fetal containers,'' that degrades the beauty and the magnificence of procreation and of life and the way we all came into this world. So I thank the gentleman for this time and hope that there will be a new, a re-evaluation, a new reappraisal of what the culture of death has done. Fifty million unborn children have been killed since 1973, a staggering loss of human life. And as you have pointed out previously, Mr. King, there has been a very suspicious disproportionality when it comes to how many African Americans have been killed. And many, including Dr. King and others, are more than suspicious, especially given Margaret Sanger's and others' viewpoint about who is desirable and who is undesirable. So I strongly urge this re-evaluation. It needs to take place now. Finally, and I said ``finally'' before, but this will be final, President Obama sadly and tragically, with the enormous support and the wellspring of goodwill that is being afforded him, is the abortion President. Every move he has made, whether it be the reversal of Mexico City, his embrace of the Freedom of Choice Act, which may come up on this floor some time, we don't know when, the move to get rid of conscience protections that men and women in the medical profession absolutely need so they are not complicit in killing innocent human life, taxpayer funding for abortion, the embrace of embryonic stem-cell research at a time when induced pluripotent stem cells, which are embryo like but do not require the killing of an embryo and can come right off your skin and mine and be manipulated in a way that will be lifesaving, cord blood, all the adult stem cells, the alternatives to embryonic work, embryonic has not worked, and yet with great fanfare he has embraced that at every turn. And the one that the gentleman brings to the floor tonight, Dawn Johnson, in what is truly an outrageous view, an inhumane view, a tragic view towards the sanctity of life, people of her kind and people with her perspective are embedded all over the Obama administration and will daily be promoting and proffering policies, very often in a stealthy way, that will promote the culture of death. And to our friends in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, watch out. The abortionists are coming. And they are coming from the Obama administration. I thank my friend.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I say to my good friend, Mr. King, I have been offering the Mexico City Policy since 1984. I have been here for 29 years, and I offered it the first time. And I remember members on the other side of the aisle saying that none of the family planning NGOs will take the money with that kind of conditionality. They were so focused and filled with their wanting to provide abortions. That didn't happen. NGOs lined up. The money went out the door. And we had that line of demarcation between abortion and family planning for years. Bill Clinton reversed it, and during the course of his presidency, we fought hard to restore it. And in the end, for the last 2 years of the Clinton administration, we had first a modified and then the full Mexico City Policy back. President Bush, by executive order, re-established it, and family planning moneys flowed, but without abortion promotion or performance. And then, President Obama, like I said, just a couple of days after being sworn in, re-established, or reversed I should say, the Mexico City Policy with more money now flowing to those organizations. Why the joy and the happiness on the side of those who promote abortion? It is bewildering in the extreme. Father Pavone's Web site, and I encourage people to check it out, he talks about a meeting when this Dr. Haskell, the man who devised this child-abuse method called partial-birth abortion, as you pointed out where the baby's brains are literally sucked out, he presented that method, as Father Pavone points out in one of his speeches, it actually has much about what happened in this conference, and the conference was filled with abortionists. And when the baby actually died, it was being killed, because he had it all on film, they broke into applause at the demise, at the death of that child. That is pathetic. It is beyond tragic. I said during the debate, and remember Bill Clinton vetoed partial-birth abortion not once but twice, that when my young girls, and we have two girls, four children totally, but when they were young, if they were to play ``doctor,'' the girls, and take their dolls as they had when they were 5 and 6, turn them around and pierce the back of their skulls and then suck their brains out, we would seek, as would any parent, immediate counseling. Something would be wrong. When someone embraces the death of a child, something is very, very dangerously wrong. I have seen on this floor time and again--and I would say we won the debate, I would say to my friend, but lost the vote on Mexico City Policy. And when we have lost fights on partial-birth abortion, for example, not in vote count, but in vetoes by the previous administration, it never ceases to amaze me that one could be joyous over allowing, facilitating and enabling more death to children and more wounding of their mothers. That is what this is all about. I believe passionately, and I have been in Congress 29 years, and I spend much of my time working on human rights issues, humanitarian issues around the world, whether it be in Africa working on human trafficking or on trying to mitigate and stop terrible things like torture. I wrote four torture victims relief acts--laws--they are not bills, they are laws, and many, many other laws, microcredit financing for the developing world, three human trafficking laws beginning with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, I believe passionately in human rights. But birth is not the beginning of a person's life. We need to see it as an event that happens to each and every one of us, and that those children in utero are no less human and alive than you and me. They are definitely dependent. They are immature, as is a newborn, as is a 1 year old. And a compassionate and sane society would seek to enfranchise, not disenfranchise. So when they expressed on the other side, and a few on our side of the aisle, happiness over the loss of the Mexico City policy, it was very clear to me. I had nothing but sorrow because there is one predictable consequence, more dead babies and more wounded mothers. I yield back.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Just a couple of final comments. And I again thank my friend and colleague for his leadership on this fundamental human rights issue of protecting the unborn child. You know, the most persecuted minority in the world today are unborn children. The acceptable bias today is abortion. To be prejudiced against unborn children is somehow acceptable. It's certainly legal in this country. And that is a very significant tragedy for our society. It is time we called it for what it is. It is child abuse, abortion. It is violence against children. It is prejudice. And I would hope that Members--you know, I've heard some of our finest leaders in the pro- life movement say over the years that Americans won't stop abortion until they see it. We have to push away the euphemisms that have cloaked this for the last three decades and figure it out, not figure it out, just simply spend some time focusing on what it is that the abortionist does. It is violence against children. It actually engenders pain for the unborn child. My friend and colleague will know that 3 years ago, 4 years ago I offered legislation on this floor called the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. We got 250 votes, bipartisan votes for at least advising a woman that, from at least the 20th week on, her child might feel significant pain. The evidence clearly suggests that a child who is killed by dismemberment or some other hideous method of abortion, feels pain that is up to four times more excruciating than a newborn or an older child because the nerve endings are so close to the skin, and the ability of the body to dampen pain has not matured sufficiently. There's a method of abortion known as the D&E. The method literally involves hacking off the arms and the legs of an unborn child, decapitation, takes upwards of 30 minutes for that method to effectuate its kill. And at least in the beginning moments of that abortion, the child feels excruciating pain. Today, because of the great work of people like Dr. Anand and others, when prenatal surgeries are performed and the child needs to be surgically opened up to do some procedure that is benign and life- affirming, he or she gets anesthesia. An unborn child gets no such consideration. We treat animals with more benevolence and in a more caring way in terms of pain mitigation than we do unborn children. That legislation should be on this floor. A child should not only not suffer the cruelty of being killed, but also the pain that goes along with it. Most Americans are woefully unaware. Some of my colleagues, our colleagues are probably woefully unaware as well that pain is real for these children as they die a death due to abortion. I yield back.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009: Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H Smith Bill Number: HR 1105 Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)--Health Facilities and Services Legal Name of Requesting Entity: St. Francis Medical Center Address of Requesting Entity: 601 Hamilton Avenue, Trenton, New Jersey 08629 Description of Request: I have secured $238,000 for St. Francis Medical Center to complete needed expansion and renovation of its Emergency Department and outpatient services in order to improve health care services for the uninsured and underinsured residents of Trenton, New Jersey. Requested project funds will cover the cost of renovations and furnishings to upgrade and streamline the ED and clinics. The upgraded Emergency Department will improve security, privacy, and efficiency for patients and their families. Further, the flow of services between the Emergency Department and the specialty and walk-in clinics will be greatly improved to better meet the needs of vulnerable patient population. St. Francis Medical Center will invest $250,000 over the next two years to cover additional operational costs and will seek funding for the additional costs of the project through operations, philanthropy, and other sources.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009: Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith Bill Number: H.R. 1105 Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)--Health Facilities and Services Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Georgian Court University Address of Requesting Entity: 900 Lakewood Avenue, Lakewood, New Jersey 08701 Description of Request: I have secured $190,000 for the Autism Institute for Training and Applied Research at Georgian Court University, Lakewood, New Jersey in Division F of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. The Institute will establish a statewide resource for parents, caregivers and healthcare professionals and provide development and in-service training and outreach and conduct applied research on all facets of autism spectrum disorders. Georgian Court University is committed to this project and is in the process of developing courses in autism and has hired a full-time faculty member devoted to autism research.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Mr. Speaker, imagine that you are a child of only 4 years old, and your best friend, your father, is your primary caregiver. You live with your parents by a lake in a quiet neighborhood in New Jersey, and your days are filled with boating, swimming, sports, and other fun with your dad. Then suddenly, one day your mother takes you on a jet; you move to a foreign country; and for 4\1/2\ years you live with the confusion, pain, and anxiety of not understanding why your dad is not there with or for you. The little contact you have with Dad are a few phone calls, routinely interrupted when the phone is taken from you and abruptly ended while your father is trying to tell you how much he loves and misses you. That is what happened to Sean Goldman, an American citizen born and living in the United States for the first four years of his life, until June 2004, when his mother took him to her native country of Brazil. Almost as soon as she arrived in Rio de Janeiro, she advised Sean's father, David Goldman, that she was permanently staying in Brazil, the marriage was over, and that she was not going to allow Sean to return home to New Jersey; and Sean has not seen his real home since. Stunned, shell-shocked, and utterly heartbroken, David Goldman has refused to quit or fade away. His love for his son is too strong. He has been working tirelessly every day during the last 4\1/2\ years, using every legal means available to bring Sean home. On paper, the laws are with him. Child abduction and the retention of a kidnapped child are serious crimes. The courts of New Jersey, the place of Sean's habitual residence, granted David full custody, as Chairman Berman pointed out a moment ago, as far back as August 2004. On the international front, David has had every reason to believe that justice would be swift and sure because, unlike some countries, Brazil is a party to an international convention and in a bilateral partnership with the United States, which obligates Brazil to return children, even those abducted by a parent, to the place of habitual residence, in this case New Jersey. To David Goldman's shock and dismay, however, that has not happened. Even after Sean's mother died unexpectedly in August of 2008, the people unlawfully holding Sean in Brazil, especially a man who is not Sean's father, have refused to allow Sean's return home to New Jersey or, until last month, even to see his father. Last month, I traveled to Brazil with David Goldman on what was his eighth trip to try to see his son and advance the legal and diplomatic process of returning Sean home to the United States. This trip was different, however, and we sincerely hope a turning point. First and foremost, he got to visit with his son, and we met with several key Brazilian officials in President Lula's government, including Ambassador Oto Agripino Maia at the Ministry of External Affairs and others, in the judicial system Minister Ellen Gracie Northfleet, the former chief justice and current member of the Supreme Court. We were encouraged by their apparent understanding of Brazil's solemn obligation as a signatory to the Hague Convention to return Sean to the United States. In subsequent meetings here in the U.S. with Brazilian Ambassador Antonio Patrioto and the Brazilian Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Osmar Chofi, we were again assured that the Lula government believes that Sean Goldman should be in the United States and with his father. Still, deeds, not just encouraging words, are what matter most, and Sean remains unlawfully held in Brazil. When in Brazil last month, I had the extraordinary privilege of joining David and Sean in their first meeting in 4\1/2\ years. Now almost 9, Sean Goldman was delighted to see his dad. The love between them was strong and was obvious from the very first moment. In the first moments of their meeting, I did see the pain on Sean as he asked his father why he hadn't visited him in 4\1/2\ years. David told him that he has traveled to Rio several times to try to be with him. But in order to mitigate Sean's pain because of the abduction, David blamed only the courts, not the abductors, for the separation, a sign of class and I think a sign of David's sensitivity. This is a picture to my left here that I took while I was in Brazil, a picture of a dad with his son after shooting baskets and playing a game of ``around the world.'' Sean, a remarkable young man who needs to work on his set shot, was completely at ease and eager to get reacquainted with his dad. I took this picture about 1 hour after their first reunion after 4\1/2\ years. The joy on both of their faces, as I think all can see, is compelling. There were hugs and there were kisses, and you can see that there was a great bond between this dad and his son. Mr. Speaker, the kidnapping of Sean Goldman and his continued 4\1/2\ year unlawful retention in Rio must be resolved immediately and irrevocably. A father, who deeply loves his son, wants desperately to care for him and spend precious time with him and has had his nationally and internationally recognized parental rights, and his son has had his rights as well, violated with shocking impunity. David Goldman should not be blocked from raising his own son. And a child who recently lost his mom belongs with his dad. The Government of Brazil, Mr. Speaker, has failed to live up to its legal obligations under international law to return Sean to his biological father. The Government of Brazil has an obligation they must fulfill and without further delay. The resolution before us today expresses the House of Representatives' profound concern and calls on Brazil to, in accordance with its international obligations and with ``extreme urgency'' bring about the return of Sean Goldman with his dad, David Goldman, in the United States. Justice delayed, Mr. Speaker, is justice denied. And Sean's place is with his dad. Mr. Speaker, on the bigger picture, international child abductions by parents are not rare. The U.S. Department of State reports that it is currently handling approximately 1,900 cases involving more than 2,800 children abducted from the United States to other countries. And those numbers do not include children whose parents, for whatever reason, do not report the abductions to the U.S. Department of State. In recognition of the gravity of this problem and the traumatic consequences that child abductions can have both on the child and the parent who is left behind, the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was reached in 1980. The purpose of the Hague Convention is to provide an expeditious method to return an abducted child to the child's habitual residence so that custody determinations can be made in that jurisdiction. According to the terms of the Convention, such return is to take place within 6 weeks--not over 4\1/2\ years--after proceedings under the Convention are commenced. The United States, Mr. Speaker, ratified the Hague Convention in 1988. Brazil acceded to the Hague Convention in 1999 and the Hague Convention was entered into force between Brazil and the U.S. in 2003, a year before Sean was abducted. In accordance with the Hague Convention, David Goldman on September 3, 2004, filed, in a timely fashion, an application for the immediate return of his son. Brazil, sadly, has failed to deliver. I would point out on a positive note that within a week of our return home to the United States, the Brazilian courts did take what we consider to be a major step in the right direction for David and Sean. The decision was to move the case from the local courts, which were erroneously bogged down in making a custody determination, to the Federal court capable and responsible for making decisions in accordance with obligations under the Hague Convention. Pursuant to an amended application filed under the Convention after the death of Sean's mother and in accordance with the ``expeditious return'' provisions of the Hague Convention, Brazil's only legitimate and legal option now, as it has been, is to effectuate Sean's return. And it must be done now. Finally, Mr. Speaker, this weekend, Brazilian President Lula will visit the United States and visit one-on-one with President Obama. The White House meeting should include a serious discussion about Brazil's--and this is the State Department term--pattern of noncompliance with the Hague Convention and Brazil's obligation to immediately fulfill this obligation in the case of Sean Goldman and many other cases like it, including one that Mr. Poe will bring up momentarily. I'm happy to say that over 50 Members of the House, including my friend and colleague, Mr. Holt, have cosponsored this resolution. Over 43,000 people from 154 nations have signed a petition urging Brazil to do the right thing and expeditiously return Sean to the United States. So many people, Mr. Speaker, have joined in and helped David in his fight for his son and deserve our appreciation and respect. His extraordinarily talented legal counsel here in the United States, Patricia Apy, and in Brazil, Ricardo Zamariola, Jr., have made their case with expertise, precision, compassion and particular adherence to the rule of law. The staff at our consulates in Brazil--Consul General Marie C. Damour, Joanna Weinz and Karen Gufstafson--have all tirelessly and professionally worked this case for several years as if Sean and David were their own family. Special thanks to Ambassador Cliff Sobel. A number of journalists, including Bill Handleman of the Asbury Park Press, have written powerful columns about David's loss and his entire terrible ordeal. Meredith Vieira, Benita Noel and Lauren Sugrue of NBC's Dateline have probed, investigated and demanded answers, thus ensuring that the truth about this unlawful abduction is known to the public, including and especially to government officials both here and Brazil. In fact, it was a Dateline special on the Goldman case that caused me to call David and to get involved. And finally, a special thanks to the countless volunteers, including Mark DeAngelis, who has done yeoman's work, including managing a Web site--Bring Sean Home--and have proved to be an invaluable support system during this most difficult and trying time for father and son. I urge Members to support this resolution. Again I want to thank Chairman Berman for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the floor and to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, our distinguished ranking member. This resolution I believe will make a difference not just for David and Sean but for so many others who are similarly situated.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank Mr. Poe for his leadership on behalf of the child who has been abducted and congratulate him on his work.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to say very simply that our message to the Brazilian government is to bring Sean home, and to do so today. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H. Res. 194, supporting the goals of International Women's Day, provides us with an opportunity to celebrate the important contributions to all levels of society and social advancement of women around the globe. I would like to focus my comments on three areas referenced in the resolution on which so much more needs to be done to ensure women and girls worldwide achieve their full potential. One is with respect to the horrible phenomenon, the criminality, of human trafficking. The resolution cites reported estimates that between one and two million women are trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labor, and domestic servitude each year. Some NGO estimates are far higher than that number. Women are robbed of their dignity, fundamental human rights, and forced into bondage and sexual servitude. They are modern- day slaves. In 2000, I was the prime sponsor of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 which, together with its reauthorizations, including Chairman Berman's legislation reauthorizing the law last year named after the great British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, who stopped the slave trade in London, has made the United States a leader in addressing the egregious human rights violations of trafficking and motivated other countries and governments to do the same. Yet much work remains to be done if we are to eliminate this scourge. Too much demand, enabled by crass indifference, unbridled hedonism and misogynistic attitudes, has turned women and girls into objects, valued only for their utility in the brothel or in the sweatshop. Society has helped perpetuate this heinous crime by failing to utilize all the means at our disposal to combat it. Legislation that I will soon introduce, along with Don Payne from my own home State of New Jersey, entitled the ``International Megan's Law,'' would address this omission with respect to sex tourism to exploit children. It would seek to protect girls and boys around the world from sexual exploitation by establishing a notification system between governments when a known high-risk sex offender is traveling or intends to travel internationally. Government representatives from other countries, including Thailand, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Australia, have expressed a desire to cooperate with the United States to address the degrading exploitation that occurs as a result of sex tourism. Girls are the primary victims in this often overlooked form of trafficking. Another key area in critical need of improvement is that of maternal health. Most of us are familiar with the appalling statistic that in sub-Saharan Africa, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 16, compared with 1 in 2,800 in developed countries. It is unacceptable and awful in the extreme that most of these maternal deaths are preventable. During the Africa Subcommittee's hearing about safe blood that I chaired in the 109th Congress, we heard from Dr. Neelam Dhingra of the World Health Organization. Dr. Dhingra informed us that the most common cause of maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa is severe bleeding, which can take the life of even a healthy woman within 2 hours if not properly and immediately treated. She gave us the astonishing statistic that in Africa severe bleeding during delivery or after childbirth contributes to up to 44 percent of maternal deaths, many of which could be prevented simply by having access to safe blood. A sufficient quantity and quality of immediately available and usable blood must become the norm and not the exception. I congratulate Chaka Fattah from Philadelphia, a Member of Congress, for his work in promoting safe blood. Another unacceptable risk for many women giving birth in the developing world, especially Africa, is obstetric fistula. Fistula, Mr. Speaker, can be treated and repaired through a relatively minor surgical procedure that costs, on average, $150 per surgery. Still, large numbers of women, an estimated 2 million, endure tremendous pain and numbing isolation that comes from being the walking wounded, incontinent and ostracized, and not able to get to a hospital--like the famous hospital in Addis, which performs these wonderful interventions. I visited that hospital and saw dozens of women who got fistula repair, and the smiles on their faces were amazing. With just a small investment of health care dollars, the lives of women throughout Africa could be dramatically changed. Helping mothers and helping babies goes hand in hand, Mr. Speaker. There is no dichotomy. When women receive proper prenatal and maternal health care, they are less likely to die in childbirth, and when unborn babies are healthy in the womb, they emerge as healthier, stronger newborns. Birth is not the beginning of life, it is merely an event in the baby's life that began at fertilization. Life is a continuum with many stages. I believe, Mr. Speaker, human rights should be respected from womb to tomb, and that no violence is acceptable against anyone, regardless of age, race, religion, gender, disability, or condition of dependency. We need to recognize this biological fact in policy, funding and programs, and treat both mother and baby, including the unborn child, as two patients in need of respect, love and tangible assistance. We need to affirm them both. I would like to conclude by raising the plight of women, and especially the girl child, who suffer from the coercive population control agenda of the Chinese Government. As you know, Mr. Speaker, I was blocked from offering two pro-life, pro-child, pro-women amendments to the huge $410 billion omnibus. One of those amendments would have restored the Kemp-Kasten policy for all organizations, including the U.N. Population Fund, if they had been found to be involved with coercive population control. I held 26 hearings, Mr. Speaker, on human rights in China when I was the chairman of the Human Rights Subcommittee and met with numerous women during frequent human rights missions to China. There is no doubt that the U.N. Population Fund has supported, co-managed, and whitewashed the most pervasive crimes against women in all of human history. China's one-child-per-couple policy relies on pervasive coerced abortion, involuntary sterilization, ruinous fines in the amounts of up to ten times the salary of both parents, imprisonment, and job loss or a demotion to achieve its quotas. In China today, brothers and sisters are illegal. Women are told when and if they can have the one child permitted by law. And rather than showing compassion and tangible assistance to unwed mothers, unwed moms, even if it's their first baby, are forcibly aborted. Let me say that again. There are no unwed moms in China, they are all forcibly aborted. Women are severely harmed emotionally, psychologically and physically. Chinese women are violated by the state. The suicide rate for Chinese women is about 500 per day, according to the most recent Human Rights Report from the Department of State--it just came out 2 weeks ago--and that number far exceeds any other number. Then there are the missing girls, upwards of 100 million girls missing in China as a direct result of sex selection abortions. This gendercide is a direct result of the one-child-per-couple policy combined with a preference for boys. That human rights abuse has to be made much more visible. The Chinese Government has to take corrective action. And all of us have to do our part to stop this gendercide of young girls, of little girls. I urge unanimous support for H. Res. 194. It is an excellent resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the distinguished gentlelady for yielding and thank her for her leadership. I would especially like to thank Tom Lantos, our revered and great and honorable former chairman of the committee who did pioneering work on Tibet and really helped bring the Dalai Lama here in the first place and made that very important connection many, many years ago. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago today the Tibetan people rose up against the tyranny that the Chinese communist party was imposing on it. The outnumbered Tibetans fought stubbornly but did not succeed in overthrowing the tyranny. Sadly, the Chinese forces killed over 86,000 Tibetans, and the Dalai Lama had to leave Tibet to lead a government in exile. But I think the Tibetans succeeded in doing something else 50 years ago. They put down a spiritual marker. They decided that, materially free or not, persecuted or not, the Tibetan people were going to remain Tibetan and were not going to forsake their religious heritage for the mess of ideological and atheistic nonsense the communists offered them. They would preserve their spiritual freedom, even in the Laogai. And since 1959 every generation of Tibetans have taken up that decision and reaffirmed it. We cannot speak about 1959 without remembering 2008, when the Chinese government brutally crushed Tibetans' largely peaceful marking of the 1959 uprising. Last year Lodi Gyari, His Holiness' Special Envoy, told me and others on the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that Tibet had ``become, particularly, in the last few weeks, in every sense an occupied nation, brutally occupied by Armed Forces.'' This week, as our distinguished Speaker of the House just mentioned, the Dalai Lama has described the situation in Tibet as hell on Earth. Shockingly and almost laughingly, the Chinese government shot back today and said Tibet is paradise on Earth. Well, it was, Mr. Speaker. Now it's paradise lost. Just as it did in 1959, last year the Chinese government ordered its soldiers and police to shoot. The death toll is well over 100. We don't even have any idea how many were wounded, how many were left wounded or dying in attics and cellars because they knew if they went to a hospital they would simply disappear into the Chinese Laogai. As in 1959, last year the Chinese government subjected Tibetans to mass arrests. They searched whole sections of cities house by house. Chinese officials admit to over 4,000 arrests. Even today, thousands of monks are still held under house arrest or lockdown. Mr. Speaker, in 1995 I chaired a congressional hearing in which we heard from six survivors of the Laogai. One of them was Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who spent 24 years in prison. When we invited him to come and speak, he brought with him some of the instruments of torture that are routinely employed and used in a horrific manner against men and women in Chinese concentration camps. He told us that many people die of starvation. But when he brought those instruments, he couldn't even bring them past our Capitol Police, they stopped him. I had to go down to the entrance and escort him through. At the hearing, he held up those electric batons that are used in the mouth and elsewhere in order to provide electric shocks. And while he was giving his testimony, he broke down. He held it up and said this is what went into my mouth, as a Buddhist monk, and into the mouths of other people, to shock and to deface. He has trouble swallowing to this day. He told us about self-tightening handcuffs and held up his wrists and showed us the scars on his body. Not just on his wrists, but elsewhere as well. He told us how the guards pierce people with bayonets, and he also told us that every bit of this was routine and almost mundane. Yet in the face of this, he and so many others like him persevered, and the Tibetan people at large continue on, keeping faith, including their admirable principle of nonviolence.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I appreciate that. They are determined to endure, Mr. Speaker, and to overcome hate with kindness and benevolence and charity.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you, Mr. Jordan, for your leadership. I think the American public would be pleased to know that you headed up an effort with a Member on the Democratic side, Heath Shuler, and 180 Members signed a letter to the leadership of the House, the Democratic leadership, asking that these pro-life riders--we do not want our funding, our tax dollars being used to facilitate to kill children.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I am very grateful to be here for this hour. And I hope some of my colleagues will join me on a very important discussion about embryonic stem cell research and the huge alternative--``the'' alternative--adult stem cells, that have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that it is not only ethical, but it works. Madam Speaker, at a time when highly significant--even historic-- breakthroughs in adult stem cell research have become almost daily occurrences, and almost to the point of being mundane, President Obama has chosen to turn back the clock and, beginning just 3 days ago, will force taxpayers to subsidize the unethical over the ethical, the unworkable over what works, and hype and hyperbole over hope. Human embryo destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable, and unreliable, it is now demonstrably unnecessary. Assertions that leftover embryos are better off dead so that their stem cells can be derived is dehumanizing, and it cheapens human life. There is no such thing as a leftover human life. Ask the snowflake children, Madam Speaker, ask their parents. Snowflake children are those cryogenically frozen embryos who were adopted while still frozen. This past Monday, I had the privilege of being with several of those children. They look just like any other kid, any other child. And those kids could have been subjected to embryo-destroying research or they could have been poured down the drain. But thankfully, the donors, the biological parents, decided that they are better off alive and flourishing. And these kids, like so many of the other snowflake children that I have met in the past, were just like any other child. Life is a continuum, Madam Speaker. It does not begin at the moment of birth. It starts at the moment of fertilization and continues unabated, unless interfered with, until natural death. Birth is an event that happens to your life and to mine, it is not the beginning of life. Madam Speaker, a recent spectacular breakthrough in the noncontroversial adult stem cell research and clinical applications to effectuate cures or the mitigation of disease or disability have been well documented. For several years, significant progress has been achieved with adult stem cells derived from nonembryonic sources, including umbilical cord blood, bone marrow, brain, amniotic fluid, skin, and even fat cells. Patients with a myriad of diseases, including leukemia, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, sickle cell anemia, and dozens of other diseases have significantly benefited from adult stem cell transfers. In 2005, Madam Speaker, I wrote a law, the Stem Cell Research and Transplantation Act of 2005. It was legislation that created a national program of bone marrow and cord blood, umbilical cord blood--or that blood that is found in the placenta--that is teeming with stem cells of high value that can be coaxed into becoming pluripotent, capable of becoming anything in the human body. We know for a fact that cord blood stem cells can mitigate, and in some cases even cure--and there have been several--those suffering from sickle cell anemia. One out of every 500 African Americans, unfortunately, have sickle cell anemia. And cord blood transfers have the capacity and the capability to effectuate cures or the mitigation of that disease. And we have several examples. I remember when the bill was stuck--first here, and then on the Senate side. We were able to bring people, including Dr. Julius Erving, to a press conference to appeal to the House and Senate leadership to bring that legislation forward simply because it would save lives, but it was being held hostage by the hype and the hyperbole of embryonic stem cell research, which has not cured anyone. The legislation passed the House. Finally, it was dislodged from the Senate and became law. And now we have a nationwide network overseen by HRSA, under the Department of Health and Human Services, to grow our capacity--the number of specimens of cord blood stem cells--to type it, freeze it, use best practices, and promote cures. Now, the greatest of all breakthroughs--the greatest, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many eminent scientists--is what is known as induced pluripotent stem cells. And I say to my colleagues, and I say to anyone who may be listening on C-SPAN, iPS cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, are the future and the greatest hope for cures. They are embryo-like, but they are not embryos. There is no killing of an embryo to derive the stem cells. On November 20, 2007, Japanese scientist, Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, and Wisconsin researcher, Dr. James Thomson, shocked the scientific community by independently announcing their ability to derive induced pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming regular skin cells. And unlike embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors, and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong antirejection medicines are administered, induced pluripotent stem cells, iPS cells, have none of those deficiencies, and again, are emerging as the future, the greatest hope of regenerative medicine. Mr. Obama is way behind the times. Making Americans pay for embryo- destroying stem cell research is not change we can believe in--far from it--it is politics. A decade ago, the false hope of embryo-destroying research made it difficult to oppose, no doubt. There was a lot of hype, a lot of hot air--much of it well meaning, perhaps--but it was very misleading. That is no longer the case. So the question arises; why persist in the dehumanizing of nascent human life when better alternatives exist, alternatives that work on both ethics grounds and efficacy grounds? Nonembryonic stem cell research is the present and it is the future of regenerative medicine, and the only responsible way forward. I would be happy to yield to my good friend and colleague for any time he would like to take.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank Mr. Pence for his excellent remarks, and for the logic, the compelling logic that he brings to the floor, not just today, but so often. This is a human rights issue. It is also a patient issue. You know, one of the overlooked--and the mainstream press sometimes gets it right, but we are only beginning to see, in some of the commentary post-decision on Monday by President Obama, one of the things he lifted was an executive order that President Bush put into effect on June 20, 2007 expanding approved stem cell lines in ethically responsible ways. And it provided a boost to the National Institutes of Health to do research on alternative sources of pluripotent stem cells that prioritizes research with the greatest potential for clinical benefit. He revoked this--he being President Obama. In other words, that which has worked, that has absolutely stunned, in a positive way, the community, the scientific community, now takes a back seat to what is essentially abortion politics, turning that which is unborn, that which is newly created into a commodity that could be destroyed at will. Let me also say that the Washington Post had an excellent piece today by Kathleen Parker, and the headline was ``Behind the Cell Curve, Why is the President Ignoring a Scientific Gift?'' Kathleen points out: ``One fact is that since Obama began running for President, researchers have made some rather amazing strides in alternative stem cell research. Science and ethics finally fell in love, in other words, and Obama seems to have fallen asleep during the kiss. Either that or he decided that keeping an old political promise was more important than acknowledging new developments. In the process he missed an opportunity to prove that he is pro-science but also sensitive to the concerns of taxpayers who don't want to pay for research that requires embryo destruction.'' She points out that ``in fact, every single one of the successes,'' every one, ``in treating patients with stem cells thus far for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, for example, have involved adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells, not embryonic stem cells. ``The insistence on using embryonic stem cells always rested on the argument that they were pluripotent, capable of becoming any kind of cell. That superior claim no longer can be made with the spectacular discovery,'' as I said at the outset, ``in 2007 of `induced pluripotent stem cells,' '' or iPS cells, ``which was the laboratory equivalent of the airplane. Very simply, iPS cells can be produced from skin cells by injecting genes that force the cells to revert to their primitive `blank state' form with all the same pluripotent capabilities of embryonic stem cells. ``But `induced pluripotent stem cells' don't trip easily off the tongue,'' she goes on to say, ``nor have any celebrities stepped forward to expound their virtues. Even without such drama, however, Time Magazine named iPS innovation number one of its Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2007, and the Journal of Science rated it the number one breakthrough of 2008. ``The iPS discovery even prompted Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers `may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate.' '' And yet now we see that Barack Obama has put that front and center again, choosing politics over science, over ethics, in promoting embryonic stem cell research when the clear future of stem cell research is in the area of induced pluripotent and in the area of adult stem cells. I would like to yield to Dr. Broun, a distinguished medical doctor, for any comments he might have.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for his eloquent statement. We have two Members that want to join in. I would just very briefly say, and I would recommend, that those who may be watching this either look at this in the Record or Google it. In the U.S. News & World Report, Dr. Bernadine Healy, from Ohio, who used to be the head of the National Institutes of Health, asks a very probing question and then answers it why embryonic stem cells are obsolete. And as she points out, the breakthroughs have been in the areas of adult stem cells. And as she calls the induced pluripotent stem cells--again, the ones that can be taken right from our skin--she calls that the blockbuster discovery of 2007.