I thank you for your invitation to appear before the subcommittee today in order that I might express the views of the coalition, its distinguished national and international board of advisors, some of whom have already testified at earlier hearings by this subcommittee, including Sir William Liley, KCMG, and those opinions of the thousands of grassroots people whom we have had the honor of serving on a day-to-day basis since the coalition opened its office almost 2 years ago. Mr. Chairman, I would request at this time that my testimony in full, along with all attachments, be entered into the record? Is this satisfactory? Senator BAYH. Without objection it will be ordered. [The full statement of Ms. Engel follows.] TESTIMONY ON THE HUMAN LIFE AMENDMENT BEFORE THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY SENATOR BIRCH BAYH, CHAIRMAN AUGUST 21, 1974 Presented By: RANDY ENGEL NATIONAL DIRECTOR UNITED STATES COALITION FOR LIFE EXPORT, PENNSYLVANIA Mr. Chairman and Members of the Sub-Committee: I am Randy Engel, National Director of the United States Coalition for Life, an international research center and clearinghouse specializing in domestic federal anti-life programs within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Agency for International Development. Thank you for your invitation to appear before the sub-committee today in order that I may express the views of the Coalition, its distinguished national and international board of advisors, some of whom have already testified at earlier Senate hearings on the Human Life Amendment, and that of thousands of grassroots people whom we have had the honor of serving on a day to day basis since the Coalition opened its offices almost two years ago. Mr. Chairman, about four months ago, the Coalition filed with your office, the transcript of a speech made by Louise Tyrer, M.D., Family Planning Division of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, before the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians' 12th Annual Meeting, Memphis, Tennessee on Tuesday, April 16, 1974, on the status of the various Human Life Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. (Attachment A) According to Dr. Tyrer's assessment of the Congressional scene there are two basic approaches. One - a "state's rights" approach which would return the power of lawmaking in the area of abortion to the individual States. The second which would guarantee the full protection of the law to the unborn child from the moment of fertilization. The "State's rights" approach she states, and correctly so, is unacceptable to the majority of Pro-Life people yet very attractive to the legislators because " it sought of takes the ones off their backs from making any decisions." The remainder of her talk stresses the necessity of stalling the hearings of this sub-committee by having Planned Parenthood physicians flood the sub-committee with requests to testify. This, Dr. Tyrer suggests would be politically expedient and politically NECESSARY for you Mr. Chairman, in order to keep the amendments bottled up in sub-committee until you had gone through the election process in the Fall. Now, Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to embarass you in any manner. Not because I fell Dr. Tyrer was incorrect in her judgment of the political realities of the Senate and House Committees dealing with the abortion issue or her assessment that stalling these subcommittee hearings by dragging them out month by month would be politically expedient for you and others who might prefer not to have a roll call vote on a Human Life Amendment before election time. But rather, because with few exceptions, almost every Senator and Representative in Congress would like nothing better than to get rid of the abortion issue tomorrow, if not before, or at least dump the matter back into the lap of the State legislatures. The massive slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent unborn children is not a federal matter they say. We are not responsible for the Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1972 which is now the law of the land they say. Well, I am here Mr. Chairman to tell you and every other Senator and Congressman that like it or not - Abortion IS your affair. That the massive slaughter of unborn children in this country IS a proper matter of federal concern. Moreover that this Congress IS directly responsible for the almost inevitable Supreme Court decision which stripped unborn children of their inalienable right to life. Congress IS responsible because over the last ten years it has permitted an anti-life philosophy and anti-life programs and policies to become matters of NATIONAL POLICY, promoted and supported by tax dollars. It is the Federal Government Legislative and Judicial branches at all levels Executive, threat to unborn children in recent years. The Executive Branch because it has failed to correct the anti-life abuses primarily within the bureaucracies of HEW and AID and has permitted key anti-life leaders such as Dr. Louis Hellman the Office of Population Affairs and Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, Director Population Bureau for Population and Humanitarian Affairs to remain in office. -- The Legislative Branch, because it has authorized legislation and appropriated funds year after year to initiate, promote and sustain anti-life programs in virtually every conceivable federal bureaucracy including the -- The Judicial Branch whose Highest Court by a 7 to 2 decision legalized the killing of unborn children up to and including the time of birth · a decision based in part upon the impeccable historic credentials of the Playboy Foundation as well as numerous anti-life lower court decisions, brought about through the tireless efforts of federally-funded Legal Service lawyers. Earlier in my testimony I made reference not only to federal anti-life programs and policies but also to an anti-life PHILOSOPHY which has in fact become the State religion in so far as federal taxes, personnel, offices and publications are used to support such a philosophy or way of life. This philosophy now expressed as a matter of national policy is reflected in the following quotations CHAPTER V. "The wickedness of creating a Large Family" from "The most serious evil of our time is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day is breeding too many children...." "Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and institution for the feeble minded cries out against the evils of too prolific breeding among wage-workers." "...The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." "...What shall be said of us (society) who permit outworn laws and customs to persist in piling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and spiritual degradation." CHAPTER VII. "When Should a Woman "No more children should be born when the parents, child to a life of misery and places upon community CHAPTER IV. "The Fertility of "....we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential source of endless progeny of defec |