[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 99 (Friday, June 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8541-S8543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MEASURE READ FOR THE FIRST TIME--S. 939

  Mr. SMITH. I send a bill to the desk and ask that it be read for the 
first time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 939) to amend title 18, United States Code, to 
     ban partial-birth abortions.

  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask the bill be read for a second time.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Did the Senator make an objection?
  Mr. LEAHY. The Senator from Vermont objects to the second reading--
obviously not to the first reading, but I object to the second reading.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The bill will be read for 
the second time on the next legislative day.
  The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and the Senator from 
Texas [Mr. Gramm], I rise today to introduce the Partial-Birth Abortion 
Ban Act of 1995. This bill is the companion legislation to a measure 
that was recently introduced in the House of Represenatives by 
Congressman Charles Canady of Florida. Congressman Canady is the 
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the 
Constitution which held a hearing on the bill yesterday.
  Mr. President, partial-birth abortions are first performed at 19 to 
20 weeks of gestation--and often much later. To give my colleagues a 
clear understanding of how well developed an unborn child is that late 
in pregnancy, I have here an anatomically correct medical model of an 
unborn child at 20 weeks' gestation. It is unlikely that the cameras 
will pick it all up, but this is the actual size of a 20-week child, 
and the bodily features are there--nose, eyes, lips, fingers, toes--
almost perfectly formed so that anyone could see that this is a child.
  I want to point out to my colleagues that this is the smallest that 
this child could be under this procedure, which begins at 5 months or 
20 weeks. So that this child is aborted in this procedure minimally at 
this size and much larger as the child grows in the womb.
  Now, I have brought some photographs to the floor that show perhaps a 
little more clearly premature babies of the very same age of many of 
those babies who are the victims of these partial-birth abortions.
  This photograph here--this is an AP photograph, by the way--is of 
tiny Miss Faith Materowski. Little Faith Materowski was born at 23 
weeks of gestation, approximately this size, weighing in at 1 pound and 
3 ounces. This photograph was taken about a month after she was born. 
The good news is that little Faith Materowski survived, and she 
survived because her mother chose to have her receive medical 
attention. She did not choose to have an abortion.
  In photograph No. 2, we see a little lady named Melissa Mauer. She 
was born at 24 weeks of gestation, weighing only 14 ounces, Mr. 
President--14 ounces--less than a pound. She is shown in the picture 
about 8 days after her birth, at which point she was breathing on her 
own in an incubator.
  Unfortunately, Melissa died after briefly struggling for life after 3 
months.
  In photograph No. 3--this photograph was in the Miami Herald--we see 
a healthy little Miss Kenya King, who was born about 22 weeks into 
gestation, so is approximately the size of this model that I am 
holding. She weighed only 18 ounces at birth. She is shown here 4 
months later, home at last with her parents.
  Now, with a series of illustrations, in a moment I am going to try to 
demonstrate to you what is done to children like these and like this. 
This procedure is done to children--not fetuses or some inanimate 
object--children, Mr. President.
  Now, as we put the pictures up, keep in mind that Dr. Martin Haskell, 
who by his own admission performed over 700 of these procedures--they 
are called partial-birth abortions--as of 1993, he told the American 
Medical News he had performed 700 of these. That is the official 
newspaper of the AMA. So the illustrations and descriptions that I am 
about to present are technical and from a technical point of view would 
be found or could be found in one of those journals.
  In the first illustration, the doctor--excuse me, the abortionist--it 
is interesting that I made a slip there, saying doctor, because were 
this to be some type of a miscarriage or premature birth, the doctor 
would be assisting the birth of this child, because the mother wanted 
the child. But in this case, another decision has been made without the 
child's consent, of course, and the abortionist reaches in with 
forceps, using the ultrasound aid, and grabs the child with the forceps 
by the foot or leg, and then in the next picture he turns that child 
with the forceps so that he can pull the child out through the birth 
canal by the feet.
  So you can see this being the birth canal, the child--this is a 
child, like this, and like those three children that we saw in those 
photographs. 

[[Page S8542]]

  With this child now, the forceps are around the legs and the child 
now is being pulled from the birth canal. In the next illustration, the 
abortionist delivers the entire body except for the head of the child. 
So we now have the abortionist pulling the child all the way out from 
the uterus with the exception of the head which the doctors tell me is 
approximately 85 to 90 percent of the child.
  Now, the fourth illustration--this is pretty rough, Mr. President. I 
have seen a lot in my life. I am 54 years old, and I have seen some 
pretty rough things. But I cannot imagine, in a country as great as 
this why anyone could sanction--whether you be pro-choice or pro-life--
how anyone could sanction what I am about to show you happens.
  If the head of this child comes through the uterus, they must try to 
keep it alive. So the abortionist has to be certain that the head does 
not come through the uterus. So he stops the baby from coming through 
the uterus at the head, and takes a pair of scissors, as you can see--I 
am going to try to demonstrate it here with this little model, which 
would be just like this, superimposed upon that picture--he takes the 
scissors and places them into the back of the head, into the cranium, 
and opens those scissors, once he sticks them in like that, to open a 
gap in the child's head. After that procedure is done, they insert a 
catheter into the back of the neck, the back of the cranium, and 
literally suck the brains out of that child, and as you can see there, 
the baby is hanging limp, now dead.
  That is called partial-birth abortion.
  We are really talking about inches here, are we not? What is a birth? 
Ninety percent out of the uterus, is that a birth? One hundred percent 
out of the uterus? Is that what we are going to say is a birth?
  So a couple of inches and this child can live, but because it is 
prevented from fully coming out of the uterus by the abortionist and he 
then places the scissors to the back of the head, opens up an incision 
and inserts the catheter into the brain to suck the brains out, because 
that decision is made by someone other than the child, that child is 
denied life.
  Mr. President, by the 19th or 20th week of gestation, when this 
unspeakably brutal method of abortion is used, the child is clearly 
capable and able to feel what is happening. This is a living human 
being.
  According to neurologists, premature babies born at this stage may be 
more sensitive to painful stimulation than others. We had testimony 
yesterday at a press conference that I attended with a neurologist who 
indicated that. He does surgery on babies all the time, and he 
indicated point blank that that child would suffer pain in that 
procedure.
  I think that most of my colleagues, and certainly most if not all 
Americans, would be absolutely appalled, sickened, and angered at such 
a brutal act committed against another human being. I know I had that 
feeling. I did not know that this procedure existed, Mr. President, 
until a couple of weeks ago, and I have been for 11 years an advocate 
of the pro-life cause, but I never knew this. I never knew this 
happened, and doctors who are gynecologists have told me that they did 
not know it either.
  I just ask my colleagues a very simple question: If you had a dog or 
a cat or a pet that you needed to put to sleep, would you do it that 
way? Would you do it that way? Would you insert a pair of scissors into 
the back of the head of your family pet and suck the brains out to put 
it to sleep, Mr. President? Would anybody do that? This is the United 
States of America, the greatest country in the world, that says under 
the Constitution that we have an obligation to protect life. This is 
happening in America, probably right now as I am speaking. We would not 
do it to an animal, not a pet, and we do it to our children.
  Under the Supreme Court Roe versus Wade decision, this partial-birth 
abortion procedure that I just described is legal in all 50 States. So 
anyone listening out there who says, ``That doesn't happen in my 
State,'' it does. Somewhere in your State it is happening probably 
right now. Indeed, addressing the controversy over the partial-birth 
abortion method, the National Abortion Federation has written to its 
membership stating--and here is the document, here is what they say: 
``Don't apologize: This is a legal abortion procedure.'' And they are 
right, it is legal.
  But I am going to tell you something, Mr. President, if I have 
anything to do with it, it is not going to be legal very much longer. 
This is a sickening, disgusting act that should never be tolerated, not 
1 day longer, not 1 minute longer.
  My good friend--and he is a good friend--the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, Newt Gingrich, has told audiences all over America for 
the past couple of months that America cannot survive with 12-year-olds 
having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of 
AIDS and 18-year-olds receiving diplomas that they cannot read, and he 
is right. And I am going to add one more to it. America cannot survive 
when some of its doctors turn from being healers to stabbing innocent 
babies to death when they enter the birth canal. America is not going 
to survive doing that either.
  Dr. Martin Haskell has claimed responsibility, proudly, for 700 of 
these partial-birth procedures as of 1993. Pro-choice, pro-life, I do 
not care what your position is. How can you tolerate this? How could 
you possibly condone this act? James McMahon, who was profiled in the 
January 1990 article in the L.A. Times makes late-term abortions his 
speciality--late-term abortions his speciality.
  In that article, Dr. McMahon coldly claims credit for having 
developed the partial-birth method which he calls ``intrauterine 
cranial decompression.'' Nice way of saying murdering a child that is 
three-quarters of the way out of a birth canal. ``I want to deal with 
the head last,'' Dr. McMahon comments icily, ``because that's the 
biggest problem.''
  In the United States of America, a doctor who took an oath to save 
lives is killing a child. That is not killing a child? Somebody stand 
up and tell me on the floor of the U.S. Senate that that is not killing 
a child. Have the guts to come down here and stand up--I will yield to 
you--and tell me that is not killing a child.
  According to the American Medical News, Dr. McMahon does abortions 
through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, but he says he will not do an 
elective procedure after 26 weeks--26 weeks. At 26 weeks, many babies 
are capable of living independent of the mother; 40 weeks is a full-
term pregnancy. That is nice of him.
  Mr. President, this grotesque and brutal partial-birth abortion 
procedure that I have described on the floor of the Senate can be and 
must be--must be--outlawed. Simply stated, the legislation that Senator 
Gramm and I have introduced today will do just that, it will amend 
title 8 of the United States Code and provide that ``Whoever, in or 
affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-
birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under 
this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.''
  Not the woman--the abortionist. Our bill defines ``partial-birth 
abortion'' as ``an abortion in which the person performing the abortion 
partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus 
and completing the delivery.''
  Thus, the bill would ban not only the brain-suction, partial-birth 
abortion that I described, but any other abortion that involves the 
partial delivery of the child before he or she is killed.
  The bill specifically prohibits the prosecution of a woman upon whom 
a partial-birth abortion is performed. The bill is aimed at the 
abortionist. It is aimed at the brutality of this act. In addition, the 
bill provides a life-of-the-mother exception.
  Mr. President, I am confident that no matter how one feels about this 
very controversial issue of abortion, that reasonable people, caring 
people in this country are going to step up and say, ``This is wrong, 
this is wrong, and we are going to stop it.''
  I am going to fight to the last day that this Congress is in session 
to get this bill voted on in the U.S. Senate, and I am going to stand 
up here again and again. I welcome my colleagues who want to come forth 
and defend this. I cannot wait to engage in the debate. Today I am 
introducing the bill, but there will be a day tomorrow or the 

[[Page S8543]]
next day when I am looking forward to debating them. I want to hear 
what their rationale is for this procedure. I just want to hear their 
defense of it. Ultimately, I think, if we can get the bill through, the 
Supreme Court will find the bill to be constitutional. I think it 
stands the test of constitutionality. Even in Roe versus Wade, that 
decision recognized that a newborn child is a person. Is that a newborn 
child--90 percent birth?

  I am confident that the court will find that the Congress has the 
power to protect unborn children, who have started their journey 
through the birth canal, before being brutally killed, before they 
travel those last few inches. That is all we are talking about, Mr. 
President--a few inches. That is the margin between life and death. 
Inches. Inches.
  Do you know that in this procedure if an abortionist was distracted 
and that child came through the birth canal, the child would have to 
survive. They could not do this procedure because it is out of the 
birth canal. That is the tragic irony of all this. That is why they do 
it. That is why they do it, Mr. President, because there is nothing 
more embarrassing to the abortionist than having the aborted baby live. 
That has happened. I talked to a woman who is 18 years old who survived 
it, so I know it happens. A beautiful young lady she is, and she is 
contributing to America.
  Of these 700 that Dr. Haskell killed, how many Presidents are in that 
number? How many doctors who might find a cure for cancer? How many 
inventors? Who knows. We will never know, will we? They are gone--to 
the scissors.
  Sticking scissors. Take a pair of scissors when you go home tonight, 
and stick them into your hands a little bit, until you can just feel 
the nip of it. Or perhaps why do you not try doing it in the back of 
the neck and see how it feels, see if it hurts.
  I am going to see that this bill gets on the desk of President 
Clinton if it is the last thing I do before we leave this Congress. I 
hope, Mr. President, if you are out their listening, that you will sign 
this bill and you will stop this. I know how you feel about abortion, 
but I want to know how you feel about this. I hope you will sign this 
bill, because this is an outrage. It is unbecoming of this country to 
even think about it, and to even have to be here on the floor of the 
U.S. Senate and admit that this is happening in this country.
  So I am looking forward to the debate, as I say. I hope my colleagues 
who support this will be down on the floor and debating it here in 
front of all America--this cruel, horrible act against another human 
being, a precious little baby that is defenseless. We had a doctor 
yesterday, a gynecologist, who explained all of this, how it all works 
and how you turn the baby so carefully to remove it from the uterus as 
it is being born, and you are so careful with it, you take care of it 
and protect it. But not in this case. It is just a baby, an innocent 
baby. Surely, we have more important things to do in the United States 
of America than this. How could any doctor who took an oath ever 
perform those, and then brag about it?
  Mr. President, I think I have made my point. It has, frankly, been a 
very difficult speech to get through. It is quite emotional for me, and 
I know how the occupant of the chair, the Senator from Minnesota, feels 
about this issue. It is difficult to get through these remarks. I do 
not do it to offend people or to be overly graphic. But it is important 
that we understand that this is happening, and we must use every public 
access that we have to stop it.
  So there will be another time, Mr. President, sooner rather than 
later, when we are going to debate this again right here. I will be 
here. Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. How much time is reserved under the previous order for the 
Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont has 20 minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Leahy pertaining to the introduction of S. 940 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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