mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. sensenbrenner )  for the time .  mr. speaker , my comments prepared for now had essentially to do with the point that has been made already here many times .  carving out exceptions to the criminal prohibitions of h.r. 748 for adult siblings , for cousins and uncles would not protect young girls who are made victims of incest by those very adult siblings , cousins or uncles ; and it would be a terrible idea to add that to a bill whose primary purpose is to protect the rights of parents and their children .  but i had a chance just to kind of step back here for a moment , mr. speaker , and ask myself why the intensity of this debate .  i would have to step back and say that respectfully i would submit that maybe it is about the foundational issue here of abortion because if we were not talking about the surgery of abortion , there would be no debate here .  no one would say it is not all right to take a young girl across the state line for an appendectomy .  that would be an outrageous discussion .  it really is about this whole notion of abortion , and i do not understand the intensity completely , but i believe it has something to do with the conscience in all of us collectively that we are beginning to realize that somehow , as americans , we are bigger than abortion on demand ; that 40 million dead children is enough ; and that somehow we need to start asking the real question .  the real questions is , does abortion take the life of a child ?  if it does not , it is a nonissue .  if it does , then we are in the midst of the greatest human holocaust in the history of humanity .  i think somehow we collectively in our hearts understand that , and therefore , it creates all this acrimony on the finer points ; but the real abuse of power is that this body has the power to protect these little babies , and instead , we are debating the finer points in a committee report , and i am ashamed of that .  i pray that somehow we can get to the point where we can come together and not have to look back .  the fugitive slave act was a perfect example .  we looked back and said how did we let that happen .  that was an acrimonious debate , too .  there was a little thing called the civil war over it .  we do not need to proceed down that line .  somehow may compassion and the simple truth prevail here .  