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 .  