WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chairman of the Bipartisan Pro- Life Caucus, made the following statement after the Supreme Court of the United States announced that it will hear the Bush administration’s appeal – which would reinstate the federal ban on partial-birth abortion – of an 8^th Circuit Court decision: 

“I applaud the Supreme Court for deciding to hear this vitally important case that would reinstate the federal ban on partial-birth abortion, preventing further destruction of babies by this gruesome procedure which is never medically necessary.

“It is essential that this abhorrent procedure, in which late-term babies are partially delivered then stabbed in the head with scissors in order to have their brains siphoned out, be forever banned.   This abortion procedure is nothing less than torture of a human being and is representative of child abuse in its most violent form. 

“Thirty years after Roe, over 47 million babies have been murdered, their futures violently ended without ever having the ability to contribute to humankind.  The sheer number of children destroyed is numbing – over 47 million lives that will never be lived; more than the populations of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, D.C. combined.

“Abortion is child abuse and it exploits women. Women deserve better than having their babies stabbed, cut, decapitated, or poisoned. Women deserve nonviolent, life-affirming, positive alternatives to abortion.