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"The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus." (emphasis mine)

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, can you imagine that if? What possible reason could the Court have for such an if other than its obvious fear of being exposed to the truth? Or should I say, by the truth?

The Court, in addressing the absoluteness of the privacy of the woman, made no mention of the husband-father, or the parents of a minor girl, and no mention of society, or their rights. Of course, we've already seen, no right to life of the embryo or fetus is ever mentioned !

I shall not discuss the obvious denial of the husband's rights as a father by the Court's decision, inasmuch as the Court stated the following in footnote #67:

"Neither in this opinion nor in Doe v. Bolton, post, do we discuss the father's rights, if any exist in the constitutional context, in the abortion decision. No paternal right has been asserted in either of the cases, and the Texas and the Georgia statutes on their face take no cognizance of the father. We are aware that some statutes recognize the father under certain circumstances. North Carolina, for example, 1B N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-45.1 (Supp. 1971), requires written permission for the abortion from the husband when the woman is a minor, that is, when she is less than 18 years of age, 41 N. C. A. G. 489 (1971); if the woman is an unmarried minor, written permission from the parents is required. We need not now decide whether provisions of this kind are constitutional."

I shall only say that should the Court subsequently declare the woman's right to privacy as an individual negates any right of the husband to have a say in an abortion decision, or of the parents of a minor girl to have such a say, it will have connived at another enormous travesty of justice.

It is important to restate in this connection the previously quoted words of Dr. Horatio R. Storer in 1868:

"Physicians have now arrived at the unanimous opinion, that the foetus in utero is alive from the very moment of conception. ... (T) he willful killing of a human being, at any stage of its existence, is murder . . . (A)bortion is, in reality, a crime against the infant, its mother, the family circle, and society..."

ΧΙ

The permissive decisions of the Court, filled as they are with matters not of Constitutional derivation, are marked by the omission of any mention of something else not of Constitutional derivation, but long associated with unwanted children, the common process and widespread utilization of adoption. Of course, to have made any such mention would have seriously weakened the Court's conclusion that such unwanted children may simply be killed by abortion.

Adoption could not have escaped the notice of the learned judges as capable of resolving all the considerations they brought up to legalize abortion, except that of saving the life of a mother. The embarrassment of an unwed mother before the birth can largely be avoided by utilization of the long established services of groups and agencies truly concerned for the welfare of such women. Millions of children have lived normal lives as the adopted sons or daughters of loving men and women who have regarded them as completely their own. Because of the Court's decision, millions upon millions of children who otherwise would have been adopted, are being killed instead. Untold numbers of childless couples are cruelly denied the love and companionship they'd receive from those lost children, and are prevented from showering their own love upon those children.

It is common knowledge that because of the enormous increase in the number of abortions since legalization by the Court, there have arisen black markets in the baby business, so desperate are some people to adopt a child, and so few the children available for adoption.

XII

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I stand second to none in my concern for the right of privacy for the individual citizen. I stand second to none in my constant vigilance, which truly has been called the price of

liberty, lest the State move a single step closer to the ever-beckoning ultimate evil, the potential total tyranny of government over the people.

I completely share the concern expressed by Justice Douglas in his concurring opinion in Roe lest "the police power would become the great leveller of constitutional rights and liberties."

I often utilize Justice Brandeis' famous expression of the right of privacy as the right "to be left alone."

Apart from human nature itself, in my opinion, nothing is so common to men and women of every race, creed, color and nationality, as the simple, fundamental desire to be left alone. And because of the legalistic complications it entails, they especially want to be left alone by government.

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I know you share in those convictions.

Well, I would like to declare as strongly as I can, that the millions of American citizens whose shock and outrage over the abortion decisions had much to do with these present hearings coming to pass, relish their right to privacy just as much as you and I!

But they have absolutely no problem in deciding whether any unborn human being's right to life is as important as their own right to privacy! Or as important as anyone else's right to privacy. They know that that right to life of a developing infant in the womb is as far above any born person's right to privacy as the heavens are above the earth!

The Court disagrees.

I share their shock and outrage. I have heard their cries for corrective action, by a Constitutional Amendment if necessary, and I have acted toward that end on their behalf.

XIII

Before discussing my specific proposal, H.J. Res. 246, I want to state that I believe the Court's decisions, though I deplore them, in the long run may prove to be fortuitous. The resulting controversy may well engender in the whole people through hearings like these and in other forums-a deeper understanding of the genesis and development of human life in its prenatal stages. This understanding, in turn, can lead to their approbation of a Constitutional proviso enlarging upon the protection our Charter gives all human life, and the rights accompanying such life.

The unborn comprise the only class now constitutionally discriminated against. But even before the decisions, permissive abortion was on the increase, and the statutes of a number of states had been weakened.

XIV

The Court said it need not answer the fundamental question, when does human life begin?

We in the Congress must do so.

We need not determine it. We need only give legal approbation at the Federal level to what has been scientifically and medically long since determined.

Justice White said:

"This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."

As Justice Rehnquist pointed out, the people had been deciding the issue since "(B)y the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 there were at least 36 laws enacted by state and territorial legislatures limiting abortion." Because the Court negated the abortion statutes of the several States, the people are now forcing the Congress to take action in this area in which it previously was not required. These hearings, and the earlier hearings in the other body, are part of the action, following introduction of legislation by numerous Members.

We have seen, through the analysis I have made here, that the Court actually did what it said it need not do. It did decide when life begins, in its own outrageously, subjective way, in defiance of the unrefuted scientific and medical certainties of the past century and a half!

And that decision has been imposed in the Nation's law upon an alert, intelligent people that is undeniably the most advanced in the history of the world. We must respond to the voice of the people.

XV

My proposal, H.J. Res. 246, is drawn to undo the damage wrought by the Court. Its key section reads as follows:

"With respect to the right to life guaranteed in this Constitution, every human being, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, or of any State, shall be deemed, from the moment of fertilization, to be a person and entitled to the right of life."

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, in its decision the Court acknowledged the great truth underlying this language in my proposal:

"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." (emphasis mine)

The American people who are outraged by the decisions are demanding some kind of action from Congress that will give permanent legal recognition to the right to life of the unborn.

The Court itself has pointed out the way, a precise way, by which the Cougress can answer the people. The people themselves will necessarily have to give their approbation to any Amendment the Congress brings before them.

My amendment, following that precise way, would recognize constitutionally the personhood of the unborn long since recognized by men and women of science and medicine, but still denied by our highest tribunal.

The sole question before us is simply this:

Is the majority in the Congress willing to adapt the Constitution to the truths of science and medicine, or is it desirous of approving, by its silence and inaction, the adaption of the Constitution by the Court to the "mistaken and exploded medical dogmas" long since discarded by men of science and medicine? I cannot conceive of 535 elected representatives of the people wanting to turn the clock back a century and a half. Yet that's exactly what we in Congress will do to the Constitution if we permit the Court decisions to stand uncorrected by the Amendment I propose.

My Amendment would establish the constitutional right to life of the unborn. Any problems some might think this would raise in relation to the rights of others could be taken care of by due process of law and the judicial determination of the respective constitutional rights of all concerned.

XVI

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, in concluding, I wish to turn once more to the liberty Justice Harlan spoke of as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause.

Can that liberty be anything other than the liberty spoken of by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, that great document which can be called the soul of the Constitution since it animated our fundamental legal Charter?

Up to this point in my testimony, I have not referred to the religious convictions and beliefs which, as we all know, have been in the forefront of the human life vs abortion controversy.

But in drawing my testimony to a close I should like to ask you to ponder with me the fundamental religious convictions embraced by the Declaration:

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed. . ."

The Creator, Whom our forebears acknowledged before the world, has chosen to establish a method of creation by which His human creatures come into being through the union of man and woman. That creation process has been seen by science and medicine with ever greater preciseness and comprehension. Its steps follow, one by one, as certainly as night follows day. Those disciplines have come to see the prenatal human stage of existence as just that-one stage of man's life on earth. Numerous scientists, technicians and physicians are hard at work studying human life at the other end of its earthly termold age, and the decline of man's powers that comes with it-in order to help

man to better live that stage of human existence. Such science and medicine honor life granted by the Creator as surely as our Forefathers honored it. We must prevent its desecration!

If life is bestowed by the Creator of each and every human being, how can we justify any permissive taking of such life at any stage? Due process must be required for such an enormously significant act, whether performed by the State, or any doctor, or anyone else.

We in the Congress must fulfill the responsibility the Declaration declares is ours to secure the rights the Creator has bestowed on the people we govern, all the people, at any stage of their individual existence.

It is my hope and prayer, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, that you will endorse my proposal to the House in order that the Congress may protect the rights, and the life, and the liberty, of the unborn who yet will walk in our land, and for whose individual contributions to society posterity shall forever be indebted.

STATEMENT OF HON. LEONOR K. (MRS. JOHN B.) SULLIVAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to have this opportunity to express my views before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights considering Right to Life Amendments to the Constitution. I come before this Committee not as a professional "expert witness," but as a woman Member of Congress. I can not address myself to the legal technicalities of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade or in Doe v. Bolton. Noted Constitutional lawyers will give testimony on these specific issues. Nor do I address myself to the vast amount of highly technical medical and scientific data which will be presented by more knowledgeable experts from their respective fields. I come before this Committee as a female Representative of the people of Missouri.

A few weeks ago marked the third anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize abortion and permit in practice, abortion-on-demand. The thousands of people from throughout the country who gathered in Washington to commemorate January 22, 1973 is living testimony that the people of this country are unwilling to sit back and allow the continued killing of unborn human life and the further degradation of women. It has been three years since the unborn have been denied the potential for life outside of the womb. Now is the time to amend the Constitution and protect the unborn.

As a woman, I feel I must address myself to the relationship between the abortion issue and the advancement of the women's movement.

It is a widely held belief that it is a woman's prerogative to choose whether a pregnancy will or will not continue. If there is going to be equality between the sexes, then a woman ought to be able to use her body any way she sees fit. Therefore, it is argued that a woman should be free to either nurse the fetus to birth or to abort the unborn child. This is supposedly a solely personal decision which can only be made by the woman.

At first glance, this may appear to be a reasonable argument. Let me assure you that this position is not universally held by all women. Abortion-on-demand must not be equated with the advancement of the women's movement. The rights of women can not be carried so far as to violate the rights of others-including the unborn.

Although the fetus must depend on the life support it receives from a woman's body, it is not just another part of her body. The single-cell fertilized ovum which develops into a separate living human being cannot be considered a mere appendage. The fetus has a genetic code which is totally different from the cells of the mother's body. Even the fact that the woman has brought the fetus into existence and continues to maintain it gives her no right to abort the fetus at her discretion. Even after birth a child must depend on the care of its mother. If independent self-support becomes the standard for determining whether human life should be protected, infanticide and euthanasia can also be justified. The value of human life at any stage in its development is absolute and must not be compromised. The lack of concern for the true dignity of women and the rights of the unborn can only lead to the further degradation of life. Albert Schweitzer once said, "If a man loses reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all life."

I have introduced two Constitutional Amendments which address themselves to the protection of the unborn. H.J. Res. 675 is the same Resolution that the

Missouri General Assembly approved by an overwhelming margin, I have also introduced H.J. Res. 681, the Life Support Amendment, which is based on the wording of Professor John Noonan of the University of California. This language is similar to the wording introduced by Senator Burdick before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. During the course of these hearings, I trust that these two Amendments and others friendly to the protection of life will receive careful and fair consideration.

In this our bicentennial year, America is at a crossroads. Decisions on many issues made today will shape the course of the next two hundred years. Let us not retreat from the protection of life. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction is the fir and only legitimate object of good government."

I am also attaching for a part of the record the statements I placed in the Congressional Record when I introduced the above-mentioned Resolutions.

[From the Congressional Record, Sept. 20, 1975]

THE RIGHT TO LIFE

(Mrs. Sullivan asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. Sullivan. Mr. Speaker, on January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court made it possible for any woman in the United States to obtain an abortion at any point in her pregnancy even up to term. Since that decision, over 1 million babies a year have been killed in the womb. Because the preponderance of medical evidence clearly indicates that human life does begin at conception-abortion is the killing of that life. Today, I, as a woman Representative, am introducing as a constitutional amendment the same resolution which the Missouri General Assembly approved by an overwhelming vote. I strongly feel that abortion on demand is not an advance of woman's rights; on the contrary it is an exploitation of the very dignity of womanhood. Permissive abortion makes possible the ultimate degradation of women.

Some insinuate that the movement for women's rights includes unrestricted abortion. I do not believe that this truly represents the feeling of the women of my State or of the country. The growth of "feminists for life" groups attests to this belief.

Granted that we are confronted with many serious social problems in our society today, we must realize that wanton disregard of human life and the human rights of others cannot be recognized as a rational solution; rather it is a brutal and dehumanizing one.

When the black man was deprived of his "personhood" 100 years ago by the awful Dred Scott decision, the Congress of the United States restored honor to this great country of ours by passing the 14th amendment and thereby enabling the people to ratify it. I implore Congress to act decisively once again and on the eve of our Bicentennial to guarantee that "no person including the unborn, shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

[From the Congressional Record, Sept. 30, 1975]

THE RIGHT TO LIFE-WHEN DOES HUMAN LIFE BEGIN

(Mrs. Sullivan asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute, to revise and extend her remarks and include extraneous matter.)

Mrs. Sullivan. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I introduced an amendment asking that "personhood" be conferred to all human beings irrespective of age, health, function, or condition of dependency-including their unborn offspring at every stage of their biological development.

I pointed out my obligation to all the women in this country who feel that our current laws are an exploitation of the very dignity of womanhood.

Today, I further emphasize that this right to life is not a sectarian religious issue. It is not a Catholic-Protestant or Jewish issue. It is an issue of an unalienable human right; namely, life itself.

Hence the quest, "When does human life begin?" is appropos.

When does human life begin? Human life begins when the 23 chromosomes of ovum are united with the 23 chromosomes of the sperm. At this point of fertilization a new independent life comes into being. This is a scientific fact-the unborn child is alive because he has the characteristics of life; he can reproduce his own cells and develop them into a specific pattern of maturity and function. Genetic

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