Chris Smith March for Life Speech: End Abortion to Protect Women and Children
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 22, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The following is the text of the speech to pro-life advocates at the March for Life 2010 that took place today in Washington, DC. Smith, the head of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, is one of several members of Congress to address the March for Life crowd.
Thank you one and all for being an important part of the greatest human rights struggle on earth — the right to life movement.
By the grace of God, we stand behind, with and unabashedly for both victims of abortion — women and children.
For all of us, all human life is precious and sacred and in urgent need of protection. We welcome and deeply respect everyone including the weak, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised. We especially admire and honor the extraordinarily courageous post-abortive women who are silent no more. Their voice and witness show the path to reconciliation for all women who have been first deceived, then victimized by abortion.
And President Obama–the abortion president—should know this: even though you have unleashed the full might and power of your administration in the ignoble promotion of abortion on demand both in the United States and around the world, especially in Africa and Latin America, we do pray and fast for you, even as we tenaciously fight your anti-life policies.
Years ago, a friend of mine and a friend of many of you–Dr. Jean Garton—wrote a book with a title inspired by the question of her young child who unexpectedly walked into a room as she was preparing a lecture on abortion.
Her three year old took one gasping look at the photo of the badly bruised and battered body of an aborted baby and shouted: "Mommy, who broke the baby?"
That young child saw the brutality of abortion and understood.
That child saw, and knew immediately, that babies are smashed and broken to bits by abortion. And with alarm, wanted to know, who did it?
President Obama, is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence against children, a pernicious form of child abuse, falsely marketed as choice, a human right, health care and safe? Abortion isn’t health care. There is nothing whatsoever benign, healing or nurturing about abortion.
Safe? Certainly not for the 52 million babies who have been dismembered or chemically poisoned or starved to death since 1973. And certainly not for women, who have been hurt physically and psychologically, and the medical data strongly suggests abortion even causes prematurity in a significant percentage of children born to women who have undergone abortion.
Safe for women? At least 102 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression and even higher incidences of suicide in women who abort. This has been covered up.
Safe for women? At least 28 studies–including three in 2009—show that an abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30-40 percent or more, yet the abortion industry has largely succeeded here as well in suppressing those facts.
Nevertheless, according to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 2009 was a pivotal year in the debate about the abortion breast cancer link. Three studies were published from Turkey, China and the United States which matter-of-factly demonstrate the abortion breast cancer link as one of many breast cancer risk factors.
For example, the recent U.S. study by Jessice Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrated that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. Study co-authors included Janet Daling and Louise Brinton.
Amazingly, Brinton was a chief organizer of the 2003 National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop denying the link. Now a study she co-authored reiterates the link and reports them as consistent with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor for breast cancer.
Abortion, safe? Not for subsequent children of women who have had an abortion. At least 113 studies show a dramatic association between abortion and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies–36% after one abortion, a staggering 93% after two. In like manner, abortion causes lower birth weights in subsequent children. Prematurity and low birth weight are leading causes of disability in children.
Abortion is a serious human rights abuse, Mr President.
With indomitable trust in God, we today recommit and reiterate our resolve to pray, fast and work to protect and enfranchise all, regardless of age, race, sex, disability, wantedness or condition of dependency.
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