On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took to the Senate floor to talk about the dignity of life and the need for true pro-family policies. His remarks are below:
Rubio: Our nation was founded on an incredibly powerful, truly audacious idea. The idea that every single human being was created with rights that come from your Creator, from God, not from the government. Not from the laws. Not even from the Constitution or your leaders.
You’re born with these rights and inherent in that is our powerful national commitment, that everyone should have the freedom that comes with those rights.
For 244 years, our story has been that of a nation on a continuous and steady march to live up to those ideals. And tomorrow, thousands will come to Washington once again for a different march, but one that I believe is tied directly to this nation’s ongoing quest to fulfill the promise of its founding.
Almost a half-century ago, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that within our Constitution was the implicit right to end the life of an unborn child.
And since then, every single day in this country, unborn human beings have their life ended before they even draw their first breath.
They are denied the freedom to live, not because they did anything wrong. They are denied this most basic of rights unfairly, because of circumstances they had nothing to do with and do not control.
That this occurs here is shameful enough — and that is what I believe history will regard it. That we use taxpayer money to promote and export it abroad is outrageous.
Before…we passed a bill to deal with the pandemic, or bring back good jobs back to the United States, or any other of the major issues confronting our country, in one of his first acts, President Biden decided to prioritize tearing up the so-called Mexico City Policy — a policy which rightfully bans our taxpayer dollars from being sent to organizations that use it to perform or promote abortions overseas.
Abortion is a very difficult and uncomfortable topic.
No one can pretend that a 15-year-old girl who is pregnant and afraid faces an easy choice.
It also doesn’t feel like freedom to have laws that tell people what they can or cannot do with their body.
But in this case, the challenge that we have is that it is a case that puts the fundamental rights of two people into director conflict. The right of a mother to control her own body versus the right of an unborn child to live.
And so it forces us to decide which one of these two rights wins out.
I and those who march tomorrow have chosen life. Not because it is an easy choice, but because it is the clear one.
Because the right to live is the one right upon which all of our other rights depend. Without life, there is no speech to protect and no religion to practice. Without life nothing else matters.
But being Pro-Life isn’t just the right to be born; it also means the right to live and to thrive.
Once a child is born, that child depends on their parents and those raising them have a moral and legal duty to care for them. Not just to feed, clothe, and house them. But to provide a safe and stable home and the chance at a good education and a better future.
This is why being pro-life must also mean being pro-parents.
Being a parent is the most influential role anyone will ever have and the most important job any of us will ever do.
This is why I worked to successfully expand the Child Tax Credit.
And why I am ready to work with President Biden to help expand it further.
I am concerned about some of the details of the policy he has outlined. For example, his proposal appears to unfairly benefit parents who send their children to commercial childcare over stay-at home parents, or grandparents, or other caregivers.
But this is an area where we share a common goal. And one where I believe we can find a way to work together.
It is also why I support creating the opportunity for every parent in America to have access to Paid Family Leave. Because no one should be thrown into welfare, or debt, or bankruptcy because they got pregnant, because they had a child.
It is also, by the way, why I support school choice. In America, rich parents can afford to send their kids to any school they want, and they do. Upper-middle class parents can move to neighborhoods with good public schools. But it is unfair that the only parents in America who are forced to send their children to the school the government tells them to, even if that school is failing their children, are the parents who do not make enough money to have another option.
For 21st-century America to move closer to fulfilling our founding principles of equality, freedom, and fairness, every child deserves the right not just to be born, but also the right to live and to thrive. The right not just to exist, but the right to pursue and fulfill their potential.
And I believe that what’s at stake is nothing less than our identity as a nation.
If we become a place where your right to be born and your ability to succeed are determined by who your parents are or by the circumstances of your conception, then we may remain indeed a rich, powerful, and important country. But we will no longer be a special one.
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