mr. speaker , reclaiming my time , i rise today to oppose public funding for the destruction of human embryos . 
there is actually a very simple reason for that , and that is because you and i were once embryos . 
now , an embryo may seem like some scientific or laboratory term , but , in fact , the embryo contains the unique information that defines a person . 
all you add is food and climate control and some time , and the embryo becomes you or me . 
now , there are people who want to use public money to destroy embryos , and they talk about this bill as being a good first step . 
what happens if we run the clock to step two or step three ? 
my own daughter wrote a little story , and i will read it , about step three : `` i lived with 40 others in a compound supervised by cool , efficient orderlies . 
instead of playing , i stood pondering a troubling dream from the night before . 
it was of a loving father giving his child a name . 
i have always been just 52561b . 
`` i started imagining what it would be like to be named when the lab technician called me down the sterile white hall to my monthly checkup . 
i was given the usual clear injection and scanned . 
the medic flipped through the images which showed my organs and wrote , `healthy , still usable ' across the file . 
`` several weeks later , i heard footsteps outside my cell and low voices . 
the door unlocked and i was led again into the clinic and placed on the stainless table , but the injection this time was amber colored and i immediately sensed that something was wrong . 
numbness started spreading across my body , great agony , no breathing , and the table was lifted and i slid down a chute into a large , steel box with waste paper and garbage from the lunch room . 
`` my body now thrashed uncontrollably , but as everything grew dark , there was a bright figure who seemed to protect me . 
he looked at me with such love and said , `i have given you the name tesia , which means `` loved of god. '' ' `` i awoke to see a wrinkled face with twinkling dark eyes framed by white hair . 
he must have seen my questioning expression . 
he explained , `you were a clone being held as a source for body parts , but when a recipient dies , the clone is considered useless and is given a lethal injection . 
i managed to get to you before the poison finished its work. ' `` i was stunned . 
after a pause , he said , `what shall i call you ? 
' at first i was startled until i remembered . 
i said , `tesia. '' ' mr. speaker , this building was built by our founders on pillars , but not just pillars of marble . 
one pillar was the conviction that god grants life as an inalienable right , and they fought so that pillar would not be toppled by tyrants . 
and our sons and daughters fight so that pillar will not be toppled by terrorists . 
we must vote today so that that pillar will not be toppled by technology that is run amok . 
oppose public funding which destroys little you 's and me 's , and oppose this harvest of destruction . 
