WASHINGTON — Yesterday evening, Speaker Johnson delivered floor remarks on the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision, which returned the question of regulating abortion to the people’s elected representatives. Speaker Johnson joined House Republican Conference Vice Chairman Blake Moore and other House GOP Members in delivering remarks to honor this lifesaving anniversary.
“And from the moment Roe was decided in 1973, pro-life advocates went to work to pray, organize, build faithful and effective coalitions, and educate the public on the scourge of abortion,” Speaker Johnson said. “And they did not do that with hate; they were motivated by love. That’s what this has always been about.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks here.
Below are Speaker Johnson’s remarks as delivered:
Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to join all my colleagues in celebrating the fourth anniversary of the lifesaving Dobbs decision. As we know, and I know it’s been discussed tonight, that decision reversed five decades of inhumane social engineering – the murder of tens of millions of unborn children. And ultimately it returned the question of regulating abortion to the people’s elected representatives where it should have remained the whole time.
I was born one year before Roe v. Wade, almost exactly to the day. I was born in January of 1972. Roe was in January of ‘73, as we know. And in my 54 years of life, I’ll say the Dobbs decision represents the most consequential and lifesaving decision of my lifetime. And I used to go into the courts for almost 20 years as a constitutional law litigator and defend the sanctity of human life. But Dobbs was the big one. Think about how many innocent, unborn children have been lost to the hands of big abortion. Estimates suggest somewhere, somewhere above 65 million lives. I’ve always believed that that’s a low estimate because we know many states do not accurately report abortion numbers. It’s probably much higher than that. But that’s just the numbers since Roe was decided in 1973, and it’s just an unconscionable thing. It’s an unspeakable evil. But thankfully, by the grace of God, the Supreme Court finally righted that egregious wrong. The conditions that led to that decision did not materialize overnight. It took a long, long time.
And from the moment Roe was decided in 1973, pro-life advocates went to work to pray and organize and build faithful and effective coalitions and educate the public on the scourge of abortion. And they did not do that with hate; they were motivated by love. That’s what this has always been about. We know that mere words of support are not enough, and advocates for life as we are, we must continue to advocate for and support the heroic mission of things like the pregnancy resource centers around the country. They do vital work – so important. And those centers don’t just provide lifesaving and practical care; they empower women to choose life. And we know the statistics. You know, when a woman sees her unborn child on an ultrasound, she has about an 86% chance of going through with the pregnancy to understand that that is a child there. It’s a person no matter how small.
And of course, this anniversary and this year is particularly important. Next Friday, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, our 250th anniversary as a nation. The Declaration is our nation’s birth certificate. That’s how we describe it all the time because it is. And in that certificate, we boldly proclaim the self-evident truths that all people are created equally by God. And all people are endowed by Him, God, our Creator, with their inalienable rights. And of course, that begins as articulated in the Declaration with the right to life, logically. We still have work to do to continue building a culture of life. We still have work to ensure that we are living up to the ideals espoused in the Declaration. And we should let this anniversary serve as calls to action. And that’s what we do here tonight: a call to action to continue building a culture of life and to advance policies which protect the sanctity and the dignity of every human life. So, I want to thank you again, my good friend, a great champion for the rights of the unborn yourself, Vice Chairman Blake Moore for organizing this special order. And I yield back.
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