Lankford Calls Out Democrats’ Tone Deaf Push for Abortions on Demand While Russia Murders Ukrainians

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on the Senate floor on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on the Senate floor on Rumble.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks at the press conference on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks at the press conference on Rumble.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today raised his intense and complete opposition to Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) appalling, tone-deaf vote this week on the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which Lankford says is more accurately described as a bill to allow unlimited abortions on demand until birth. To quote the bill itself, it would “permit health care providers to provide abortion services without limitations … and to promote access to abortion services.”

Lankford is the leading voice in Congress for the protection of life. Lankford continues to oppose Biden’s abortion-promoting nominees, including opposing Xavier Becerra to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Dr. Robert Califf to serve as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Lankford pushed back on the Biden Administration’s rule to allow taxpayer-funded abortions. He successfully secured language in the Democrats partisan $3.5 trillion Fiscal Year 2022 budget resolution to save the long-standing Hyde and Weldon Amendments, which prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions and abortion-related discrimination against health care workers, including insurers.

Lankford remains a staunch advocate for conscience protections for those who decline to participate in abortions. Lankford called for unanimous consent to pass his Conscience Protection Act, which he introduced to protect healthcare providers, including health insurance plans from government discrimination if they decline to participate in abortions. Unfortunately, Democrats blocked his bill.

Ahead of oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization before the US Supreme Court recently, Lankford met with Students for Life during a prayer vigil. The case presents the Court with the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Lankford gave a moving speech on the Senate floor recognizing the significance of Dobbs in the fight for life. He joined an amicus brief signed by more than 220 Members of Congress supporting the state of Mississippi in Dobbs and encouraging the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Lankford published an op-ed ahead of Dobbs highlighting the pivotal moment the case presents for protecting the right to life in the nation. Lankford released two episodes of a four-part series on his podcast, The Breakdown with James Lankford, highlighting the science behind life in the womb and the stories behind the pro-life movement.

Transcript for Floor Remarks

A week ago, the Senate went on a short one-week recess to be back in our state. It was already scheduled for us to be in our state, getting a chance to be able to just interact with the people at home. It was a good week to be able to interact with a lot of people back home for me personally, but we all watched as we were scattered around the country in the past week Russia roll tanks into Ukraine. And we watched in horror as Russian aircraft flew over Ukrainian cities, as they fired missiles into Ukrainian apartment complexes, as they have slaughtered their neighbors because Putin wanted their land and to dominate the region.

All of us, as we got back together this week, were ready to be able to speak into the issues with Ukraine, ready to be able to stand with the people of Ukraine, ready to be able to talk about the sanctions and what was going to happen and how we were going to actually respond to the Russians murdering their neighbors and a dictator thug trying to dominate the region.

But instead of that, my Democrat colleagues decided not to talk about Ukraine when we got back together, but instead they want to talk about expanding abortion in America. How incredibly tone-deaf is that? The whole world is talking about Ukraine and the oppression they’re experiencing, and the United States Senate is talking about how do we get more abortions in America. That’s what we’re going to vote on? That’s what we’re going to debate, is how do we get and increase abortions in America when the world sees what’s happening in Ukraine. What in the world? How tone-deaf can we be?

This body should be the place where we’re actually debating the biggest issues of the day, and apparently to my Democratic colleagues the biggest issue of the day is how many more abortions can we get in America, because that seems to be bigger than Ukraine, bigger than 7. 5 percent inflation, bigger than $30 trillion in debt, bigger than anything. The most important thing is, how can we take the life of more children. What has this body become, when there’s an obsession with abortion?

This is the most pro-abortion president this country has ever had and the most pro-abortion Democratic Party our country has ever seen.

It is now impermissible to be a Democrat and to support the life of children. You’re pushed out of the party, and it’s moved from, there used to be the vast majority of democrats were pro-life Democrats, to then it was fewer and fewer and fewer. And now it’s moved from, ‘You can’t just not be pro-life, now you have to actually be pro-abortion, well beyond pro-choice.’ Now you have to find ways to increase abortions in America to be accepted in the party.

This is not where America is. The bill that’s being brought to the floor in just minutes from now, in the middle of a war in Ukraine, is not about protecting Ukrainians. It’s not even about protecting children in our country. It’s about destroying children in our country.

This bill as being advertised, it’s just going to codify Roe. Oh, it’s not going to codify Roe. This is about stripping away every protection from any child in the womb from any state in the country.

This particular bill prohibits parental notification. If a child wants to get an abortion, this bill says to the parents, ‘You don’t get to know if your child is having an abortion.’ By the way, name another medical procedure that the parents are not allowed to be able to know about for their own child.

This takes away waiting periods. It takes away health and safety standards for abortion clinics so abortion clinics in every state can’t have health and safety clinics because those clinics that take the life of children, we don’t care what they look like for the health and safety standards of them. It takes away ultrasound requirements. This bill literally says to expectant moms, ‘You don’t need to know what’s going on in your body. We’ll just take care of it for you.’ So no state is allowed to be able to inform a mom what is happening in her own body because the goal of this is not getting information to moms, the goal of this is increasing abortions because all that happens with an ultrasound is give information to the mom and let her choose. Oh, no, that’s not acceptable because she may choose life, and this bill is determined to increase the number of abortions in America.

I remember a time when Democrats used to talk about ‘safe, legal and rare.’ Now they just want ‘safe, legal and common.’

What have we become?

This bill is the one-minute-from-infanticide bill. It mandates abortion in every state up to the moment of birth. That’s North Korea, that’s China, not the United States of America, except for this Senate. They want to be more like North Korea and China, apparently, to be able to follow their great humanitarian example and to be a nation that takes the life of children rather than protects each child as precious.

They look in the womb and see a business model. I look in the womb and see ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart and a functioning nervous system, and DNA that is different than the mom’s or the dad’s DNA. In every definition of science, that is a unique person and unique child, but it only seems to be a nuisance to some.

I don’t think children are a nuisance. I think children are precious. And in a day when we should be talking and debating about protecting life in Ukraine, this body, instead, and my Democrat colleagues don’t want to talk about Ukraine. They just want to talk about abortion. Again. It’s heartbreaking that’s where we are.

It’s also heartbreaking that this body has become this focused when the rest of the country is saying, ‘How can we add limits to abortion?’ The latest poll, 71 percent of Americans want at least some restriction on abortion. But, oh, no, not in this body. Apparently there are people that disagree with the American people. They say, ‘No limits, any moment, any time, any child.’

I don’t believe a single person in this chamber should vote for this bill, not only because of what it does to the states but what it does to just decent people. If you’re an individual working in a hospital today and when you were hired you said, ‘I went into the medical profession to save life, not take it,’ and when you were hired as a nurse or as a doctor, you said, ‘I don’t want to perform abortions.’ That’s allowed right now under law. It wouldn’t be under this. If you go into the medical profession, you will perform abortions when Democrats in DC tell you to perform abortions because they want more. And so conscience protections are taken away in this bill. People of conscience, people of faith that say, ‘I don’t want to take the life of children,’ will be required or they’ll lose their job. And, oh, by the way, if you try to slow someone down from getting an abortion, this bill actually gives the right for someone to sue you if you try to limit them from having an abortion.

This is by far the most extreme pro-abortion bill that has ever been put in front of Congress ever and it was done when we should be debating Ukraine, but Ukraine’s not important—abortion is.

And so my Democrat colleagues did this instead today as the callback vote and the response to Putin’s aggression. Well, I disagree. I disagree.

Transcript for Press Conference

Well, it’s frustrating to be able to see how tone deaf my colleagues have really become. After a week of brutal assault by the Russians into Ukraine, after a week of tanks rolling into Ukraine, devastating Ukraine in attacks from every direction on the people there, what my Democrat colleagues want to talk about today is not how to stand with the people Ukraine, it’s how to take the life of more children in America. I am astounded how tone deaf that they have become at how obsessed this Democrat Party in Washington has become with increasing the number of abortions in America.

This is the most pro-abortion president ever in the history of our country, and this is the most pro-abortion Democrat Party ever in the history of our country.

There used to be a time when there were pro-life Democrats, and then there were fewer and fewer pro-life Democrats. Now it’s, they can’t be even pro-choice Democrats, they have to be pro-abortion Democrats. They used to say, ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ Well, that’s no longer true anymore.

This particular bill takes away all restrictions on any safety requirement on any abortion clinic in America. So safety’s not the issue anymore. Rare is not the issue anymore—literally they’re doing abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. In fact, they strip away from this any information that you could get to a mom. If they come into a clinic, they can’t be required to have an ultrasound because that would give information to the mom and then she could make her own decision. They strip away any way to be able to get additional information to moms. The focus is not for the mom to be able to make an informed decision. The focus is for her to have an abortion.

So, ‘safe, legal, and rare,’ is now all just ‘legal’—that they want to just press to be able to have more and more abortions.

How incredibly tone deaf can this party be, to on this week at this moment in the middle of a world conflict that’s happening in Europe between two major powers, that all they want to talk about is, how do we get more abortions in America.

Yes, we need to be able to put this bill down, not just because it’s incredibly obvious that a child is a child, that what you’re destroying is not random tissue in a mom’s womb. That tissue has DNA that’s different than the mom’s DNA. That tissue has ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart and a functioning nervous system. There is no difference between a child in the womb and any adult in this room except for time. That’s it.

I had someone that caught me last week while I was in Oklahoma and wanted to have a conversation about a woman’s right to be able to choose and a woman to have control of her body. And all I could ask her was, ‘Does the little girl in the womb, does she get a choice as well?’

In this particular bill, not only does she not, but you can actually file a lawsuit against somebody that actually challenges the abortion that woman is about to have. So it is an aggressive increase-abortion bill like we have never seen in the history of Congress. This takes abortion to a whole new level and says, ‘We want more abortions in America.’ Goodbye, ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ Hello, just ‘legal and frequent and not really concerned about safety as long as we can get more.’

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