[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16590-S16591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   LEGISLATION ON LATE-TERM ABORTIONS

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to follow up on the remarks of the 
majority leader in which he stated that next week we will be taking up 
the ban on late-term abortions. The point I want to make, because he 
referred to President Clinton, is in a press release that was sent out 
by the White House. It is true that the House did vote yesterday to ban 
late-term abortions. Unfortunately, they did not allow any amendments 
to the bill. And the bill makes no exceptions for life of the mother, 
for serious health risks to the mother, or for cases of severe fetal 
abnormalities, such cases where there is such serious abnormalities 
that organs are outside of the body.
  The House did not want to have any reasonable amendments on that 
bill. It is a very radical bill, and the President restated his long-
held belief that though he does not want to see abortions, he wants 
them to be legal and rare. But the fact is, in a late-term abortion, 
you must consider the life and the health of the mother.
  I feel it is very important that when this bill comes to the U.S. 
Senate, we have an opportunity to know what we are doing. For the first 
time, the House has made abortion a criminal act. They would put a 
doctor in jail, even if the doctor acted to save the life of a woman. 
Now, surely, we need to study that.
  Surely, we should have some hearings in our Judiciary Committee, 
where we can bring forward the doctors, where we can bring forward the 
women who have gone through this hellish experience. The House makes up 
a whole new term for these kinds of abortions. It is not a scientific 
term. They made it up. I, for one, was not elected to be a doctor. I 
have great respect for doctors. Many doctors oppose what the House did. 
I certainly was not elected to be God. I do not know how Senators feel, 
but, for a moment, I would like them to think about if their loving 
wife came home to them and said: We have a horrific situation. If I 
carry this pregnancy to term, I am going to die. I really think there 
are colleagues on the floor here that never think about this in 
personal terms.
  In the House, they did not allow people to vote a moderate approach 
to this issue. I think that is a grave injustice to women in this 
country, to families in this country, to doctors in this country, to 
common sense in this country. Frankly, it was a grave injustice to the 
Members of the House, who had no opportunity to vote a moderate vote.
  Life of the mother. Oh, they say in that bill a doctor could use it 
as a defense. He could go in front of a jury and 

[[Page S 16591]]

beg for forgiveness and say, ``I did it to preserve or protect the life 
of the mother.'' But, my goodness, what are we doing here? Why are we 
so radical when we could craft a bill that would be sensible? I think 
it is all about ideology, about contracts with America; it is not about 
real people.
  I say to my friends in the U.S. Senate, if your wife came home to you 
and you were facing losing her, you would say to that doctor, ``Save my 
loving wife.'' You would not want that doctor to be hauled off to jail.
  I hope this Senate can take a more moderate course. I will stand here 
and fight for that moderate course for as long as it takes, because I 
think this is a very important issue to real people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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