[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 169 (Monday, October 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H11382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT A BAD IDEA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sorrow that I take the 
floor today to talk about this issue of partial-birth abortions. There 
really is no such medical term, and I think it is terribly unfortunate 
this House is going to be dealing with a bill on that this week.
  I think one of the reasons it is coming up is because Members do not 
understand childbearing and birth. We all got here the same way, but it 
is absolutely amazing how little we understand about the birth process.
  Let me say, first of all, in 1920, 800 women in this country died for 
every 100,000 live births. There were all sorts of risks in having 
children. In 1990, that came down from 800 to 8. That is something we 
are very proud of, the great strides we made in safe motherhood.
  But this Congress, because of playing politics with this issue and 
trying to think of 30-second ads and all sorts of distortions we can 
run against people on this issue, is about to start turning back the 
clock on safe motherhood.
  Let me talk a little bit about late abortions and what a nightmare 
they are. When we look at the number nationwide, there are fewer than 
600 abortions a year in this country done in the final term, fewer than 
600 in this huge country. So just a handful of people are affected. 
Maybe that is why it is so easy to politically target them. But as I 
have been talking to my colleagues about this bill, I find there are 
all sorts of things that they do not really understand. So let me talk 
a bit about what doctors say the reason for these abortions are.
  First, we can find that sometimes a woman's health deteriorates very 
rapidly, and this is the only thing that can be done to save the life 
of the mother. There are things like severe heart disease or kidney 
failure or rapidly advancing cancer. Those are some instances where it 
is, unfortunately, the awful, awful, awful decision of the mother's 
life or continuing on.
  The second is even more grisly to talk about, and those are the 
discovery of fetal anomalies that are inconsistent with life.
  What am I talking about there? I am talking about a child that has no 
kidneys or a fetus that they find only has one chamber in the heart or 
that it has large amounts of brain tissue missing or the brain is on 
the outside or it does not have a head. All of these conditions are 
inconsistent with life. Again, we cannot usually determine these until 
late in the pregnancy because sonograms are not that accurate until the 
fetus is larger.
  So when we have either of those alternatives, medical officials and 
families are faced with some of the most gut-wrenching decisions any 
American could ever be faced with.
  When I have talked to people about this bill, they come up with all 
sorts of questions about why can they not.
  Well, you cannot do a caesarean because you have to cut through the 
muscle wall. The muscle does not thin out until 36 weeks, so you really 
are seriously damaging the woman's ability to have future children. You 
cannot do a dilation because the cervix just is programmed not to 
dilate until about 36 weeks, and so it is a very long, long, long and 
painful process that may go on to 4 or 5 days. And if the child dies in 
utero, it starts to disintegrate and can become a great life threat to 
the mother because she will lose her ability to clot and bleeding and 
other things.
  These are the serious things this House will be tampering with if we 
start telling doctors what they can and cannot do. I hope Members 
really look at this and say this is not our role as Members of 
Congress.

                          ____________________