Pro-life congressman: The steps of the U.S. Capitol are ‘stained with the blood of our own children’

by Ben Johnson

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The refusal of Congressmen inside the U.S. Capitol building to stop the plague of abortion has led to one pro-life representative to charge that the steps of the Capitol are "stained with the blood of our own children.”

Congressman Trent Franks, R-AZ, chided his fellow politicians during a press conference with Rep. Steve Stockman introducing a bill that would define in law that life begins at the moment of conception.

CNSNews.com reported that Franks made the remarks as the congressmen unveiled the latest iteration of the Sanctity of Life Act, which would also deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over the issue of abortion.

While Congress has the constitutional authority to limit judicial oversight, it has been hesitant to exercise it.

“The right to life is the most basic and inalienable of all human rights and decades of scientific progress continue to prove life begins at conception,” Congressman Stockman said in a press release. “Passage of a Sanctity of Life Act would be a landmark achievement for civil and human rights in the United States.”

“Government has one responsibility and that is to protect the individual right to life and property,” he added.

Stockman sponsored the original Sanctity of Life Act in 1995.

Congressman Ron Paul also introduced a version of the bill several years in a row. His son, Senator Rand Paul, has promoted a bill with similar provisions, the “Life at Conception Act.”

Stockman, a limited government conservative and pro-life stalwart, also co-sponsors the similarly named Sanctity of Human Life Act, which states that “the life of each human being begins with fertilization...irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency.”

At that time, “every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood,” that bill states. It also grants all U.S. states and territories the authority to make appropriate laws “to protect the lives of all human beings residing in its respective jurisdictions.”

Rep. Franks also introduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a national ban on abortions after 20 weeks, which recently passed the House of Representatives.

The momentum of the national bill, as well as a similar fetal pain bill in Texas and other state laws, have filled Franks and the pro-life movement with a sense of hope.

Earlier this week, he told LifeSiteNews co-founder John-Henry Westen, “We are starting to win.”

The national fetal pain law has yet to be introduced in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, had expressed an interest in sponsoring a Senate counterpart to Franks' bill