TRANSCRIPT: Rep. Franks' Born Alive Debate Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-08) was on the House Floor today to debate HR 3504 the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. A portion of his speech follows:

"The Born Alive Abortion Survivor Protection Act, Madam Speaker, protects little children who have been born alive. No one in this body can obscure the humanity and the personhood of these little born alive babies. Nor can they take refuge within the schizophrenic paradox Roe vs. Wade has subjected this country to for now more than 40 years.

"The abortion industry labored all these decades to convince the world that unborn children and born children should be completely separated in our minds, that while born children are persons worthy of protection, unborn children are not persons and are not worthy of protection. 

"But Madam Speaker, those who oppose this bill to protect born alive babies now have the impossible task of trying to join born children and unborn children back together again and then trying to convince all of us to condemn them both as inhuman and not worthy of protection after all.

"To anyone who has not invincibly hardened their heart and soul, Madam Speaker, an honest consideration of this absurd inconsistency is profoundly enlightening. Because you see, this country has faced such paradox and self-imposed blindness before. There was a time that our own house rules banned any discussion or debate in this chamber about the effort to end human slavery in America.

"But, Madam Speaker, that debate did come, and with it, came a time when the humanity of the victims and the inhumanity of what was being done to them, became so glaring, even to the hardest of hearts, that it moved an entire generation of people to find the compassion and the courage in their souls to change their position. And now to this generation, Madam Speaker, that time has come again."

Click here to watch the full speech.