[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 99 (Friday, June 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8527-S8528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          NOMINATION OF DR. HENRY FOSTER TO BE SURGEON GENERAL

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wish to address the Senate on the 
situation facing the President's nomination submitted to the Senate for 
the office of Surgeon General.
  Mr. President, it is now nearly 4 months since President Clinton sent 
to the Senate the nomination of Dr. Henry Foster to be Surgeon General 
of the United States. On May 2 and 3, the Labor Committee held hearings 
on the nomination and on May 26 the committee voted to approve the 
nomination and sent it to the full Senate for final action.
  Already 3 weeks have passed and nothing further has happened. It is 
time for a vote.
  Dr. Foster has demonstrated his impressive qualifications, his 
character, and his vision for the future of health care in this 
country. During the committee hearings, he successfully put to rest the 
charges attacking his character and his ability. He earned the 
admiration and respect of the committee and the American public. Even 
some who opposed the nomination have expressed the belief that the 
Senate 

[[Page S8528]]
should vote. Other opponents have threatened to filibuster to prevent a 
final vote.
  It is time for the Senate to act. By now it is obvious that Dr. 
Foster is a highly principled physician and educator who has devoted 
his life and his career to the service of others. His record is 
outstanding. He has been widely praised for his contributions to the 
quality of health care for his patients, for his service to his 
community, and for his research and teaching and medicine. We do a 
disservice to Dr. Foster, the Senate and the Nation as a whole by 
prolonging this process.
  The Nation has now been without a Surgeon General for 6 months, and 
there is no justification for further delay. Only one issue is holding 
up this nomination. Many other issues have been raised as a 
smokescreen, but they are easily dispelled. The real issue delaying 
this nomination is the issue of abortion. The diehard opponents of a 
woman's right to choose are doing all they can to block this nomination 
because Dr. Foster participated in a small number of abortions during 
his 38-year career. But Dr. Foster is a baby doctor, not an abortion 
doctor. He has delivered thousands of healthy babies, often in the most 
difficult circumstances of poverty and neglect. As one commentator has 
observed, ``Dr. Foster has saved more babies than Operation Rescue.''
  In any event, abortion is a legal medical procedure and a 
constitutionally protected right. It is not a disqualification for the 
office of Surgeon General of the United States. And there is no 
justification for some of our Republican colleagues to try to make it 
one.
  Dr. Foster is an obstetrician and a gynecologist, and it is no 
surprise to anyone that he has participated in abortions. Those who 
have heard Dr. Foster describe his vision for health care and have 
examined his record know about the lives he has saved, the hundreds of 
young doctors he has trained, his outstanding research on sickle-cell 
anemia and infant mortality, his model program on maternal and infant 
care, and his groundbreaking work to combat teenage pregnancy. 
President George Bush thought so highly of Dr. Foster's ``I Have a 
Future Program'' in Nashville that he honored it with the designation 
as one of his thousand points of light.
  With this nomination, the Nation has an unprecedented opportunity to 
deal more effectively with some of the more difficult challenges facing 
us in health care today and to do it under the leadership of an 
outstanding physician and an outstanding human being who has devoted 
his life to providing health care and for opportunity to those who need 
the help most.
  As Dr. Foster has stated, his first priority will be to deal with the 
Nation's overwhelming problem of teenage pregnancy, and he is just what 
the doctor ordered to lead this important battle.
  Teenage pregnancy is a crisis of devastating proportions. The United 
States has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the industrial 
world. More than a million U.S. teenagers become pregnant every year, 
and every day the problem gets worse. Dr. Foster can be the national 
spokesman we need on this issue to educate teenagers about the risks of 
pregnancy.
  Every day, every week, every month, every year, the number of 
teenagers lost to this epidemic grows further out of control. With Dr. 
Foster's leadership, we have an unparalleled opportunity to deal more 
effectively with this cruel cycle of teenage pregnancy, dependency and 
hopelessness.
  Dr. Foster's ``I Have a Future Program'' has been a beacon of hope to 
inner-city teenagers. His program provides the guidance they need to 
make responsible, sensible decisions about their health and their 
future and to put themselves on the road to self-sufficiency and 
productivity and away from dependency, violence and poverty. He has 
taught them to say no to early sex and yes to their futures and to 
their education and to their dreams.
  Dr. Foster has devoted his life to giving people a chance, giving 
women the chance for healthy babies, giving babies a healthy childhood, 
giving teenagers a chance for successful futures.
  Now Dr. Foster deserves a chance of his own, a chance to be voted on 
by the entire Senate. I urge the majority leader to do the right thing 
and bring this nomination up before the Senate and a vote by the entire 
Senate.
  Mr. President, I heard earlier during the debate and discussion that 
we have legislation before us that is going to be necessary to pass by 
October. I daresay that every day that we delay in terms of approving 
Dr. Foster is a day when this Nation is lacking in the leadership of 
this extraordinary human being who can do something about today's 
problems, not problems and challenges that the States are going to face 
in the fall, but today's problems, tomorrow's problems, on the problems 
of teenage pregnancy and the problems of child and maternal care, and 
all the range of public health problems that are across this country.
  That individual ought to be approved. We ought to have a debate. If 
the majority leader was looking for something to do on a Friday, we 
ought to be debating that today and voting on it today, instead of 
debating the issue that is going to deny working families income to put 
bread on the table.
  We can ask what our priorities are. The majority has selected to 
debate Davis-Bacon, not to debate the qualifications of Dr. Foster. As 
much as I am sympathetic to where we might be in the fall, I am 
concerned about the public health conditions of the American public 
today. There is no excuse--no excuse whatsoever--not to bring him up, 
other than the power of those who have expressed their views about the 
issues on abortion. That is what is behind this delay, and it is wrong.
  Dr. Foster has appeared before the committee, answered the questions, 
has been reported out, and he is entitled to a vote. Even two members 
of our committee who voted in opposition indicated that they believe 
the Senate ought to vote on this.
  We have to ask ourselves, how much longer do we have to wait? This is 
a timely, important, sensitive position, and this country is being 
denied the leadership of Dr. Foster, and we have no adequate 
explanation about why that is the case. The nominees are entitled to be 
debated and to be reported out and, once reported out, they are 
entitled to be voted on in the U.S. Senate.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that we will have an opportunity the next 
time the majority is looking around for something because we are not 
ready to deal with the welfare reform issues, and we are not prepared 
to deal with some other issue, that we can move ahead on the Dr. Foster 
nomination. We are ready to debate it. The committee is ready to debate 
it. We are entitled, he is entitled, and the country is entitled to 
have a vote on that nomination, and I hope that it will be very soon.

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