[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 8 (Friday, January 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S934-S935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       VIOLENCE AT HEALTH CLINICS

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in the absence of any other pending 
business in the Senate, I have sought recognition to comment briefly 
about violence at clinics, with respect to two principle issues.
   [[Page S935]] One is a contention which is advanced by some, and has 
been used as a possible legal defense, that violence and murder is 
justifiable homicide. There is absolutely, positively no basis 
whatsoever in criminal law for such an assertion that anybody who 
murders or assaults or maims at a clinic where the clinic may be 
performing abortions has any conceivable legal justification under the 
doctrine of justifiable homicide.
  That is a legal principle that I worked with to a considerable extent 
during my 12 years in the Philadelphia district attorney's office, and 
the doctrine of justifiable homicide has been worked out in a very 
careful way; for example, when a police officer may seek to defend an 
innocent victim, citizen, during the course of a robbery and may shoot 
a robber in order to stop the murder of an innocent citizen in the 
course of a felony. And for someone to seize upon the term of 
``justifiable homicide,'' picking it out of the thin air to say that 
that is any reason for committing violence at a clinic where abortions 
may be performed is just absolutely preposterous.
  One of the problems which has arisen, Mr. President, has been really 
insufficient condemnation of violence at these clinics.
  I was very pleased to see the statement made by Cardinal Law of 
Boston asking for a cessation of any picketing, where the situation may 
be permitted to cool. But it seems to me that we need to speak out on 
levels to condemn that kind of conduct and to state as unequivocally as 
possible that there is no conceivable justification as ``justifiable 
homicide.''
  The other point that I want to comment on briefly, Mr. President, is 
that at these clinics where women secure medical care, abortion is a 
relatively small percentage of what is done; that most of the women who 
go there--I heard the percentage is as high as 90 percent--are there 
for medical purposes. They are there for mammograms to guard against 
breast cancer. They are there for Pap smears to guard against cervical 
cancer. They are there for a whole range of medical procedures.
  When there has been an epidemic of violence at these clinics, the 
women stay away in droves because there is terror that in being there, 
they may be in the midst of violence.
  So I wanted to take a few moments in the interlude of the 
proceedings, Mr. President, to make those two points and to speak out 
as forcefully as I can, and with the background I have had as a 
district attorney dealing with the concept of justifiable homicide, to 
make it as unequivocal and forceful as I can that there is no 
conceivable justification for that violence and to say, at the same 
time, that it is driving many women urgently in need of medical care 
away from those facilities.
  I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleague from Kentucky for 
securing the time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. EXON. Will the Senator withhold?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania withhold 
the quorum call?
  Mr. SPECTER. I do.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Nebraska.

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