Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent
that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be
discharged from further consideration of S. 3274 and the Senate proceed
to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered
read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. Mr.
President, I object.
  While my colleague's bill seemingly aims to assist expecting mothers
with the burdensome cost of pregnancy and childbirth, I would like to
point out that this legislative effort is not designed for success, and
it has zero bipartisan support.
  However, bipartisan support in this arena is possible, and I am so
grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked
with me on the Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act. I introduced
this effort last year with Senators Kaine, Gillibrand, and Hawley to
insulate expecting parents from the high cost of pregnancy and
childbirth by eliminating cost-sharing requirements for prenatal,
childbirth, neonatal, perinatal, or post-partum healthcare. Bringing a
child into the world is costly enough without piling on cost-share fees
that saddle many mothers and families with debt. The bill would take
away some of the burden for childbearing generations.
  My hope is that if we can relieve the financial stresses associated
with pregnancy and childbirth, more families will be encouraged to
embrace the beautiful gift and the responsibility that comes with
parenthood.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1756

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is toward the end of June, and 250
years ago today Thomas Jefferson was in the third floor of a rented
space in Philadelphia, literally by himself, working at a desk that he
had built himself writing a declaration--250 years ago literally today
he was by himself writing away on that.
  Within about 4 days from now 250 years ago, the Committee of Five--
the four others that worked with him--all determined: No, this is the
document that we are going to present to the Continental Congress. It
is kind of remarkable to be able to think about that kind of history.
  They determined that they were going to end that simple statement at
the introduction to say:

       We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
     created equal, [that] they are endowed, by their Creator,
     with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
     Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

  It was a much-debated statement, and they made several different
changes to it, but that same statement 250 years later still rings true
as a core value of who we are as Americans.
  Today I rise to be able to mark the fourth anniversary, though, of
the Dobbs decision--a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned
the issue of abortion and when life begins and who we are going to be
as a people on this issue of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness back to the elected representatives from the States and to
the people.
  Today we are remembering 60 million children who died under the 49-
year time period under Roe v. Wade and the conversation that is still
happening all over the country. We the people are still having a dialog
about the value of every human person and whether life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness still applies to everyone. Does it apply to
only people that are a certain height, a certain weight, a certain age?
Or does it apply to every single person?
  I am one of those crazy people that actually believe that children
are valuable--all of them. And I know it is much maligned in our
culture currently, and it is very vogue to be able to say some children
are valuable and some children are disposable and those children that
are disposable, we shouldn't even discuss. But, honestly, I think we
should continue the conversation, the dialogue that has been going on
for 250 years, to determine: Does life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness apply to all of us? Are all people created equal, or are some
people more equal than others?
  Just because a child cannot defend themselves, just because a child
doesn't weigh very much yet doesn't mean it is not a child.
  Science would say that life begins at conception when the cell
division happens. Every single cell in the woman's body has the exact
same DNA except when she is pregnant--then there are certain cells in
the womb that have different DNA. Do you know why? Because it is a
different person.
  And there is cell division happening in the woman's body because she
is alive, and there is cell division happening in that child's body
because so are they, and they are a uniquely different God-created
person. They are not inconvenient. They are a child. And we are still
having this conversation as a country to try to determine what are we
going to do about that.
  So me and my colleagues have come to the floor today on the fourth
anniversary of the Dobbs decision and said: Let's keep the dialogue
going. Let's keep talking about this issue of when a child is a child.
Do they have to be a certain weight? Do they have to be a certain age?
Do they have to be a certain height? Or is it when basic science would
say that child is a child?
  What is interesting about this is I am not even bringing a bill
tonight to be able to deal with the issue of abortion of a child. I am
actually bringing a bill tonight to be able to talk about conscience of
individual healthcare providers.
  You see, most doctors and healthcare professionals share a common
science-based belief that a child in the womb is just like the children
they care for outside the womb. The only difference is time.
  A child at conception and a child outside the womb are no different.
It is just 40 weeks older. That is it. I am 40 weeks older than I was
40 weeks ago. That child is 40 weeks older from conception to birth,
but it is still the same child.
  The millions of Americans who believe this same truth, we have
conscience protection laws on the books, and we have had them on the
books for a long time. In fact, there are 25 Federal conscience
protection laws right now that are already the law of the United
States. Many of these have just flatout not been controversial. Let me
give you a couple of them.
  The Church amendments. These laws protect the conscience rights of
individuals and entities that object to performing or assisting in the
performance of an abortion or a sterilization against their religious
or moral convictions. When that passed Congress--right after Roe v.
Wade--when that passed Congress, it passed 92 to 1. It was not
controversial.
  In 2004, when Congress created the Weldon amendment--which is in all
of our annual appropriations bills still. The Weldon amendment bars the
Federal Government and State and local government recipients of Federal
funds from discriminating against healthcare entities that refuse to
provide, pay for, provide coverage, or refer for abortions. It wasn't
controversial. It passed overwhelmingly. It still continues.

  The conscience protection bill that I bring tonight is also very
straightforward. It is already in Federal law that individuals have the
right of conscience. The challenge is, those individuals only are
protected in the right of conscience if the Federal Government actually
goes and prosecutes individuals that violate their conscience. So if
the executive branch chooses not to enforce the law--they just ignore
it, though it is federally against the law but no one prosecutes--then
nothing happens and that individual has rights that are actually not
protected by their own government.
  This conscience protection bill is very simple. It says if their
rights of conscience have been violated, according to Federal law, that
individual has a private right of action to bring their own suit. If
the Federal Government won't defend their rights under Federal law,
they have the ability to be able to bring it on their own.
  This is a very simple, straightforward bill. It doesn't change
anything about abortions. We will have the exact same number of
abortions the next day after this passes that we did