[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 70 (Monday, May 1, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5928-S5929]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  DR. HENRY FOSTER SHOULD BE CONFIRMED

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I had the privilege of serving in 
the House of Representatives with Congressman Paul Findley, who is now 
retired and writes a Sunday column for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier 
in Illinois.
  My friend, Gene Callahan, who once served as administrative assistant 
for Senator Alan Dixon, still get the Jacksonville newspaper, and he 
sent me Paul Findley's commonsense reaction to the nomination of Dr. 
Henry Foster.
  I ask that it be printed in the Record.
  The column follows:

                  Dr. Henry Foster Should Be Confirmed

                           (By Paul Findley)

       During a discussion at a meeting of the Pittsfield Rotary 
     Club, a member asked if I favor the confirmation of Henry 
     Foster, M.D., President Bill Clinton's nominee to be surgeon 
     general of the United States.
       My answer was affirmative. Based on what I believe to be 
     factual about Foster's career, he should be confirmed. The 
     president is entitled to have a surgeon general of his own 
     choosing, barring the disclosure of some important flaw in 
     character or record.
       A casual reader glancing at headlines and picking up 
     snippets from televised news reports might easily reach the 
     erroneous conclusion that Foster's record is badly flawed, 
     that he is a back-alley disgrace to the medical profession 
     who has spent a long career performing abortions.
       It was a curious happenstance that the question was raised 
     in Pike County, once the family home of a physician who fit 
     that dreary description and gained a reputation as one of 
     Chicago's preeminent abortionists. This was a half-century 
     ago when abortion was illegal, not job in Illinois but 
     throughout the nation. Never indicted, the doctor in question 
     made abortion his career, performing the surgery 
     clandestinely in various parts of Chicagoland. It was his 
     specialty. So far as I know, he did nothing else. He catered 
     mainly to people who could not afford to travel to Sweden for 
     the desired surgery. Legend had it that he periodically 
     hauled bags of money back to Pike County.
       By contrast, the president's nominee is not an abortionist. 
     In the years since abortion has been made lawful by ruling of 
     the U.S. Supreme Court, Foster, by his own account, performed 
     39 abortions, all of them to save the life of the mother or 
     to end pregnancies caused by rape or incest. He has delivered 
     several thousand babies and declares that he abhors abortion.
       Some years ago, like many other physicians, he performed 
     procedures that sterilized institutionalized women who were 
     determined to be severely mentally retarded. At the time, 
     that procedure was legal and broadly accepted by the medical 
     profession. Both law and medical policy have since changed. 
     Under existing law, sterilization can be performed only 
     through court order.
       Abortion, of course, has been legal for many years in the 
     United States and is widely practiced. In fact, the 
     Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education now 
     requires that programs to train doctors in obstetrics must 
     include abortion skills. About a million abortions are 
     performed here each year, notwithstanding widespread 
     controversy that sometimes becomes violent and even fatal. 
     House Speaker Newt Gingrich, although anti-abortion, wisely 
     advises his Republican colleagues in the Senate, where the 
     confirmation vote will occur, not to focus on Fosters, 
     abortion record.
       Although, like thousands of other U.S. physicians,, Foster 
     has performed a few abortions since the procedure became 
     legal, it has never been more than a minor part of this 38-
     year practice. To his credit, he has been candid on all 
     points.
       [[Page S5929]] He is former dean and acting president of 
     Meharry Medical College in Nashville, widely praised for 
     bringing new vitality to the school. He has initiated a 
     successful program to discourage teen-age pregnancies called 
     ``I Have a Future.''
       His nomination is praised by Dr. Louis Sullivan, a former 
     Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bush 
     and himself a medical school president.
       The White House bungled the Foster nomination process by 
     failing to get the facts straight about his background in 
     abortions and related matters, but that is no discredit to 
     the nominee. Certainly, the president could have found a less 
     controversial nominee. (He could have chosen a dermatologist, 
     for example).
       But the important fact is that Foster is the nominee. He is 
     the president's choice. He has a significant record of 
     leadership in the medical profession. There is not the 
     slightest hint of unethical or illegal conduct. Unless some 
     shocking revelation comes to light, he deserves confirmation 
     by a strong bipartisan vote.
     

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