Remarks at 2013 March for Life - Jan 25, 2013

Black gave this address at a rally on the National Mall.

Thank you so much, and I am so inspired by the crowd that is here today to fight for life. You know, when the Supreme Court made their decision 40 years ago they certainly didn't do us any favors, but they certainly didn't do us any favors in doing it January.

Yet despite that, the threat of snow and ice did not keep you all away. Thank you so much for being here today.

On January the 22, 1973, the day the Supreme Court handed down the ruling on Roe versus Wade, I was working as a nurse in an emergency room in Baltimore. And this was a time when it was still not widely accepted for women to pursue a career outside the home or own a business or maybe even run for elected office, but despite those in-roads we have made toward gender equality, abortion on demand continues to undermine the freedom and the justice that generations of women have fought for. You know, the reality is 40 years ago after Roe v. Wade, one-third—one-third—of my daughter and granddaughters' peers are not here today to benefit from the progress that we made and to share in the hopes and dreams of the future. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

For decades pro-abortion activists have perpetrated many lies about abortion, particularly to women.

Lie number 1: we have been told that abortion is a merely a means of female liberation, justice and empowerment. But pitting mothers against the unborn is not liberating. It's a horrible injustice that in the last 40 years has resulted in 55 million aborted babies whose mothers have gone on to live in many cases with severe physical, emotional, and mental and spiritual scars. Women who have had abortions are 30 percent more likely to face emotional and mental problems. They're 40 percent more likely to have a premature birth, and 3 times more likely to experience drug and alcohol problems during their lifetime. Such lies cannot continue.

Lie number 2: we've been told that abortion is about choice, but in reality abortion is a false choice. Abortion leads to the death of a child, robbing society of its future mothers and fathers, nurses, doctors, teachers, scientists, and a choice to take what is not ours to take—the life of another person. It's not a choice at all. It is a mistake.

Lie number 3: we have been told the lie that a fetus is not a life, but you know what—medical advances have affirmed what many of us knew in our hearts when that decision was made so many years ago, that the fetus living inside a women's body is not a blob of tissue. It's a human being. A living, breathing baby who has a right to life, just like you and me.

Today, 40 years after Roe v. Wade, while I am still a registered nurse, my fight for life has shifted from the emergency room to the Tennessee State Capitol to the Halls of Congress, and I'm committed to using whatever opportunities and power, influence that my current position affords me to protect and defend the sanctity of life.

And one way I have done in my current efforts is to defund the largest abortion provider in America, also known as Planned Parenthood.

You all probably already know this, but according to the most recent report Planned Parenthood put out they have provided 300 abortions just in this last year. In other words, listen to this, one abortion every 94 seconds, and you know what taxpayers' money has unwittingly helped foot the bill for this. Planned Parenthood receives more than one-half billion taxpayer dollars annually for what is intended to be women's health money, but it badly misuses this money to subsidize a big abortion business. And that is why at the start of this new year with the blessing of my good friend and your good friend, Congressman Mike Pence, who is now the Governor of Indiana, who has fought for so many years, has handed me over HR217, the Title 10 Abortion Provider Prohibition Act. If signed into law, my bill would insure that the Title 10 federal grants are used for their intended purpose of strengthening families and providing critical health services for women and would bar those dollars from going to organization that provide abortions.

On this 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we remember those tens of millions of babies who will never be able to celebrate a birthday, who will not go to college, they won't contribute their God-given talents to this world, and our thoughts and prayers are with those countless men and women whose lives have been forever changed by the violence of abortion. Today we press on for the fight for life, and the hope that one day we will live in a country where each and every life born and unborn is respected, valued and given the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

God bless your efforts. Thank you so much for what you do for the right for life.

Speech from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACK1268CrdI