Pro-Life Lawmaker Promises Ambitious Agenda

CAPITOL HILL — For more than three decades, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., has headed up the Pro-Life Caucus in the U.S. House. He's faced many grueling battles over abortion, and often seen defeat with pro-choice forces in control of  Congress or holding the veto pen at the White House.
 
Now his party is in control of Capitol Hill and the incoming president is pro-life.  So is Donald Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, a long-time ally of Smith's in the battle against abortion when Pence was a congressman.

'We Have a Very Robust Agenda'

Smith told CBN News pro-life lawmakers are ready to tackle abortion on several fronts.
 
"We have a very robust agenda. We're hoping to pass the Pain-Capable Act for Children that would stop abortion after 20 weeks, maybe even lower," Smith said. "Then there's the legislation to make permanent the Hyde Amendment and all the other abortion restrictions."
 
Smith said of that powerful legislation, "The Hyde Amendment has saved two million people by taking away the subsidy for abortion."
 
He pointed out Hillary Clinton promised if she became president she'd do what she could with congressional allies to kill the Hyde Amendment.
 
Despite Obama Pledge, Obamacare Subsidizes Abortion
 
Even with the amendment, Smith is distraught how much federal funding is going to support abortion.
 
As he put it, "Obamacare subsidizes abortion-on-demand, even though the president told us in 2009 in a joint session of Congress there's no way we're going to pay for it.  He said that right in the chamber.   And yet over a thousand Obamacare plans subsidize abortion-on-demand.   We need to get rid of Obamacare, get rid of the abortion subsidy."
 
Another top goal of Smith's: "Defund Planned Parenthood, which has killed more than 7,000,000 unborn babies – one organization!" Smith exclaimed,  "They do over 320,000 or more every single year."
 
'People Are Being Coerced'
 
Something that galls Smith is how much conscience rights are eroding, so he and his allies want to protect them.
 
"There's been an all-out assault for eight years on conscience rights protection in a number of states," Smith protested, "and people are being coerced into paying for abortion."
 
The New Jersey Republican is the prime sponsor of legislation to fight dismemberment abortion.
 
"People need to focus on what abortion actually does.   It chemically poisons or it dismembers a baby, piece by piece," Smith explained.  "It's horrific, it's horrendous, it's cruelty, and we need to stop it.   And also care equally for the mother, because she is the co-victim of every abortion."
 
Supreme Court Could Go Pro-life
 
Smith also believes Trump's picks for the U.S. Supreme Court could change its decades long track record of mostly supporting abortion.
 
"We hope that the Supreme Court will move in the direction of embracing life, not destroying it," Smith said.  "It's 4-to-4 now, and even one of those, Anthony Kennedy, is an open question all the time.  Had Hillary won, every new Court justice would have been on the other side.   And every state law passed, including funding restrictions, state and federal, would have been eviscerated by the high court."
 
Democrats may have lost the levers of power in Washington, but Smith believes they'll fight on, Supported by allies in the media.

Smith complains, "They have so tampered down the truth and disallowed any kind of real inspection of what abortion does to women, and of course what it does to babies."
 
'Very, Very Animated Fight'
 
The congressman believes the last thing the pro-choice side will do is surrender.
 
"So there will be a very, very animated fight," Smith predicted, adding, "I welcome it.  We need the national debate on abortion."
 
Why does Smith feel the fight is a good thing?   He told CBN News, "I am one of those who believes the more we debate, the more we discuss this, the more chilling effect it has on abortions because people realize that it injures women and destroys babies."