[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15624-H15631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DUTY, HONOR, AND COUNTRY--GREATER LOVE THAN THIS NO MAN HAS THAN HE 
                    GIVE UP HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, in that beautiful State of yours, North 
Carolina, may you have a wonderful holiday season. And as one fellow 
Christian to another, a very merry Christmas on this the birth of our 
Savior.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to title my special order, which I believe 
will be the last speech of this holy week, and probably the last speech 
of the first session of the 104th Congress. I would like the title to 
be ``Duty, Honor, and Country,'' the motto of West Point, a school that 
my dad dearly desired my two brothers and I would attend, but he moved 
us to California and diverted that path.
  ``Duty, Honor, and Country,'' followed in my title, Mr. Speaker, by 
the beautiful words of St. John, chapter 15, verse 13, ``Greater Love 
Than This No Man Has Than He Give Up His Life For His Friends.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to do 30 minutes in this Christmas season on 
what we owe to our young men and women in uniform, particularly past. 
They bought for us our freedom of speech in this great legislative 
Chamber, and some of them with wounds that they carry to the end of 
their life's course in this mortal existence.
  Also, I am going to, as I mentioned earlier today, think about the 
feast day of the Holy Innocents, the children slaughtered from newborns 
up to 2 years of age by the cruel despotic Roman-appointed leader of 
the Holy Land when Christ was born, Herod. Herod the Great, Herod the 
Evil, Herod the Great Builder, Herod the Destroyer of Children.
  That feast day is December 28. And although we will come back in on 
that day, there will probably, as the majority leader said, be no 
votes. So on December 28 I hope some Americans, at least those who 
respect their Judeo-Christian or Islamic heritage, will reflect on what 
we are doing to children in this world. So the second 30 minutes of my 
special order is going to be on whether or not our country will ever 
again attain greatness as long as we kill a million and a half babies 
in their mother's wombs and kill more than a quarter of all children 
conceived in this great country. More than a quarter of our pregnancies 
end in death.
  Now, to duty, honor, country, and what one of the world's great 
political leaders calls us to. I watched Billy Graham on television for 
an hour last week and I know the great respect this great Protestant 
leader has for the current vicar of Christ in Rome, Pope John Paul II. 
Here, Mr. Speaker, from Vatican City, 2 days ago, is the Pope's message 
to the world.
  It is in honor of all the children throughout the world who are 
forced to fight wars or forced to prostitute themselves, who must beg 
for money to eat or even beg for their parents' affections. Pope John 
Paul II dedicates the entire year of 1996, due to start in 9 days, to 
these sad and suffering children.
  Here are the Pope's words and what he will formally release New 
Year's Day, which the Catholic Church marks as World Peace Day. The 
Pope says:

       Let us give children a future of peace. This is the 
     competent appeal which I make to men and women of good will, 
     and I will invite everyone to help children to grow up in an 
     environment of authentic peace. This is their right and it is 
     our duty.

  French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican's Commission on 
Peace and Justice, said the Holy Father wants, ``To gather in his arms 
all the children who suffer, and all the healthy and happy children 
also.'' The cardinal noted that all envoys, papal envoys, including the 
one in Washington, DC, around the world, would deliver this message to 
all world leaders. So it is on its way to the White House, I trust, 
this week.
  Pope John Paul noted the increase in regional and ethnic conflicts 
and he lamented:

       Children have become even the targets of snipers. Their 
     schools have been deliberately destroyed, and the hospitals 
     where they are cared for, once wounded, have been bombed. In 
     the face of such horrendous misdeeds, how can we fail to 
     speak out with one voice in condemnation?

  The Pope also decried that young people are, ``systematically hunted 
down, raped, or killed during so-called ethnic cleansing.'' He also 
condemned sex tourism, which is very prevalent throughout all of the 
successful free market economies of the Pacific rim. In this sex 
tourism, children are forced to become prostitutes. And then the use of 
children in the drug trade, he also condemned.
  Children suffering, and again this is a direct papal quote, ``even in 
wealthy and affluent homes,'' also came under the Pope's scrutiny. He 
decried the trauma children suffer seeing marriages break up and the 
loneliness and lack of moral guidance of others who find their main 
contact with reality in television programs which often present unreal 
and immoral situations.
  Now, at Disneyland, in my district, I went earlier this month to the 
beautiful Christmas carol day that the people at Disney put on in both 
Disney World and Disneyland. I do not know if they do it in Japan or in 
Europe, but they sang beautiful hymns. All of the standard Christmas 
hymns, everyone rising and singing together ``Silent Night.'' They sang 
in one of the hymns about rejecting the evil of Satan.
  I sat there and thought, Disney, like all of America, is torn between 
decadence and triviality and inspiration and a family future for this 
country. Disney's beautiful gift to everybody who was at Disneyland on 
that Sunday, December 10, of this month, they gave America a very 
strange Christmas present. Tore up the survivors of the family of 
Richard Nixon, one of them a grandson of both Eisenhower and the son-
in-law of Richard Nixon, Dwight David Eisenhower. Tore them up with 
this evil characterization of Richard Nixon as a foulmouthed alcoholic, 
who somehow or other was feeling some fantasy guilt over the 
assassination of a predecessor President, John F. Kennedy, with whom he 
had a warm friendship when they served in the Senate together.

  This strange Christmas season film, ``Nixon,'' follows a film earlier 
in 1995, that I have not heard a proper apology from Disney on, the 
film ``Priest,'' where although the title is singular, ``Priest,'' it 
was about five Roman Catholic priests; one an adulterer, another a 
homosexual, another an embezzler and a thief, another one a drunk, and 
I have forgotten what the fifth one was. I would not give it the 
decency of seeing it. It was made in England but released by the 
Miramac division of Disney.
  The Catholic League for Human and Civil Rights said if this film had 
been called mullah, about the Islamic faith, five loathsome people 
betraying the Koran; or if it had been called Rabbi, about five Rabbis 
betraying the commandments of Moses, who is looking down at me here, 
the great leader from the 1100's, Maimonides, over in the northeast 
corner of the House; if it had been about five Rabbis betraying their 
covenant with God, wouldn't this have brought the wrath of every 
politician in this House and the other down on the head of Disney, 
calling them a foul anti-Semitic organization that was the very 
embryonic cause of the rise of Hitler in Europe? Of course, they would 
have.
  Disney, with a CEO of Jewish, wonderful Hebrew heritage, would not 
have dared release a film made in Great Britain called Rabbi or one 
tearing apart any other group. Suppose the film had been called King, 
and it was about Martin Luther King, and treated him with disrespect. 
They would have had every park around the world properly picketed. But 
no proper apology this year from Disney.
  Then we find all these little sexual innuendoes stuck in there by 
smart 

[[Page H15625]]
aleck animators, and my friend Michael Eisner's only comment is, what 
do I do, discipline the whole group? Well, you know what Walt Disney 
would have done? His daughter said this the other day. He would have 
fired everybody at Disney and started from scratch if the guilty party 
would not have stepped forward and accepted dismissal or suspension.
  No, it is a sad day when you hear beautiful hymns at the wonderful 
family resorts owned by this great heretofore traditional family-
respecting organization. So I would like to counter that with the words 
of Cardinal James Hickey of this archdiocese of Washington. He points 
out in his newsletter, ``Reflections,'' that Christmas is a day when we 
celebrate the reality that Jesus, the eternal son of God, became one of 
us. He was born into our world. He was born to redeem us from our sins.

                              {time}  1615

  He was born to mend our broken hearts.
  Cardinal Hickey has a beautiful letter that he gives to not just the 
faithful of his denomination, but to all people of God in this Capital 
City and Capital District of ours, and he talks about his boyhood home 
in Midland, MI, and how his mother would prepare this beautiful meal 
for his large family, and how in the afternoon he would return to the 
parish church with his mother to visit the crib of the infant Jesus.
  He said, ``It was there that my mother taught me this prayer.'' I had 
never heard this, but it captures certainly the whole spirit of the 
nativity of Jesus. The prayer says, ``Sweet little Jesus, come and take 
birth in my heart.''
  In this beautiful city, there is a Franciscan church with a disarming 
name. It is called Commissariat of the Holy Land. To a military person 
like myself, that means commissary. Well, in a way it means the same 
thing. The Commissariat of the Holy Land is the headquarters in this 
country to raise money to take care of all of the Christian sites in 
Israel.
  Now, yesterday, Bethlehem went from Israeli control, since 1967, back 
to the Arab people of Judea and Samaria. It is interesting that 
Bethlehem, as the birthplace of Jesus, as the Israelis have always 
respected, will still have Christians and Franciscans taking care of 
that site, this time under the care of a provisional government, 
Arafat's government, that will be mostly Islamic.
  All of the holy sites, including where Jesus was born at Nazareth, 
are taken care of by the Franciscans. So, I will take my family on 
Christmas Eve, praying for the men and women in Bosnia, which I had 
hoped to give up my Christmas to be with them, instead we will go up to 
the Commissariat up in Northeast Washington and visit the most perfect 
replica of Jesus' birth site as it has been reconstructed in Nazareth, 
and the absolute perfect replica of the tomb of Jesus, as it is today 
inside the Holy Sepulchre Church.
  Mr. Speaker, I would recommend to anybody of any faith, if they can 
find time over this next week, visit the Franciscan Commissariat. It is 
open to all faiths, every religion of the world. Come and see these 
beautiful, full-scale representations of some of the greatest spots, 
holy spots in that land that we all refer to as sacred, terra sacred, 
the Holy Land.
  Now to, my theme about duty, honor, and country. I have before me a 
press release form the U.S. Army about an Army sergeant first class who 
gave his life for his country, for his friends and, actually, for the 
torn nation of Haiti.

  He was killed less than a year ago, January 13, 1995. Army Sfc. 
Gregory Cardott, of Cupertino, CA. This will be the first Christmas his 
wife Darlene, and two beautiful daughters will spend without their 
hero, Green Beret father. He was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces 
Group for the last 3 years before his death, last January.
  The Third Special Forces is that special forces group that has as its 
responsibility all of the Caribbean and all of the western part of the 
continent of Africa.
  He was a proud soldier; a proud Green Beret. His brother said that he 
had talked to his beautiful wife, Darlene, on the phone 2 days before 
he was killed. They were planning to speak within the next day on his 
birthday. His birthday would have been January 14, the day after he was 
killed.
  He said that he told her he felt pretty safe in Haiti and for her to 
not worry about him. ``Greg was a heck of a guy,'' his brother-in-law 
Jack Brown said. ``A real patriot. He loved to parachute, loved Special 
Forces, would do anything for them, any time, anywhere. He got along 
with just about everybody, but most of all, he loved his family.''
  He was born in San Mateo, grew up in Cupertino, hometown of a great 
minister and brother of a squadron commander of mine, a double ace in 
Korea and a 7-year POW, Robbie Robinson. I hope his brother, if any 
friends are listening, that the Reverend Reisner will please remember 
Gregory Cardott, whatever his faith, in their services in that 
beautiful California area.
  Darlene is a nursing student. I hope she has completed her nursing 
training in the last year as a distraction for the pain in her heart. 
She said, ``They come to your door in their beautiful uniforms and they 
tell you he's gone,'' she said with a break in her voice.
  Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that Mr. Clinton and all of us were 
hoping no one would die in Haiti. I said on this House floor that this 
defrocked Catholic priest, who publicly would claim he loved the smell 
of burning flesh, was not worth the life of one decent American man or 
woman. I still believe, although he is leaving office, that Aristide, 
who I believe is an unstable person, that it was not worth putting him 
back in power for a year this last September; was worth the life of 
Gregory Cardott.

  Listen to how Gregory died. He was guarding the post with other Green 
Berets. An Army major, a Haitian, Haiorel Frederick, and his driver 
rammed the checkpoint that Greg was guarding. Greg called to another 
soldier to jump in their humvee and they gave chase. They pulled over 
this victim in the village of Bigot, about 60 miles north of Port-au-
Prince.
  I visited with some of the special forces there this week last year. 
One eyewitness said that Major Frederick got out of the jeep and killed 
Greg Cardott on the spot and wounded the other soldier. Another soldier 
came driving up in a truck and jumped out and killed the gunman, so we 
do not have to worry about Major Frederick being released by some 
future Haitian Government, the way the assassins of our four Marines in 
June 1985, the assassins who sprayed them with automatic weapons fire 
and then went up and shot each one of them coup de grace in the back of 
their head or temple; one of them even surviving, then dying in the 
hospital a year later. I believe his name, well, I will not say his 
name, although I know it. The same name as a friend I have served with 
here in the House. I am afraid the parents might be listening.
  They just released those assassins down in El Salvador. Before, we 
brought them freedom with 5,000 of our men serving there. And if 
Clinton decides to veto the Defense authorization bill, it will enrage 
me and take the breath out of me, because in that bill that he would be 
vetoing is the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for all 5,000 
Americans, including the four ex-Marines and the helicopter crew that 
were executed in the back of their head, gangster style, for serving in 
El Salvador by the Communist Farabundo Marti in that country. We bought 
them their freedom. They have had now three democratically elected 
Presidents in a row, and yet time marches on and very few people think 
about these men who gave their lives.
  Mr. Speaker, we have had an American killed in Tuzla. He was not in 
uniform. He worked for the United Nations, and his name jumps at you 
off this story. William Jefferson, as in William Jefferson Clinton. He 
was executed, gangster style in the back of his head, by Mujahedin 
terrorists a few kilometers from Tuzla during the debate in this House 
over sending our young men and women into that killing area. Yet, I 
could not get his name out of our intelligence services until after the 
debate was over. If I had, I assure my colleagues I would have made his 
funeral in New Jersey 2 weeks ago a nationally recognized event, 
because this man also working in the name of peace died for his 
country, as did our three diplomats, two of them uniformed military 
people on leave from a diplomatic mission that were burned and killed 
when their French armored 

[[Page H15626]]
vehicle rolled down a hill on that ugly, muddy road, the Igman Road 
that we had to cut through the hills to get into poor besieged 
Sarajevo.

  But at this time of the year we should remember the four Americans 
who have died already in Bosnia. Mr. William Jefferson, Bob Frasure, 
Tru Nelson, and Joe Cruzell. As I said, two of them in uniform, 
although on leave to the State Department.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to submit, maybe the legislative day is still 
continuing until we adjourn here, I am going to submit a House 
concurrent resolution. I have already submitted it as a House joint 
resolution, but I should have made it a concurrent resolution, my staff 
got it wrong here.
  It is a bill that I hope to have many Members on when we come back 
next year. It is patterned after an event that took place on December 
20, 134 years ago on December 20, in the first year of the War Between 
the States, the Civil War. The House and the Senate established a 
committee called simply, it sounds very modern, a Joint Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, meaning the Civil War.
  They did not trust Abraham Lincoln or his military experience to 
conduct the war without constitutional Senate and House oversight. Yet, 
he had been a captain in the Blackhawk Regiment; had engaged, although 
not in severe combat, in a home protection operation in the Indian Wars 
in Indiana and Illinois, his part of the country; and, it goes without 
saying that the current occupant of the Oval Office is no Abraham 
Lincoln, a man of towering character who when we quoting from Holy 
Scripture, we knew it was coming not only from his brain but his heart.
  So, if this Congress in 1861 on December 20 would form a joint 
committee to oversee the war, I am putting in a House concurrent 
resolution to establish a joint committee to oversee the conduct of 
Operation Joint Endeavor/Task Force Eagle.
  I have already spoken to the Speaker about it and to the chairmen of 
some of our ranking committees here that have oversight of foreign 
affairs: The Committee on International Relations and the Committee on 
National Security, and I think that we should do that to make sure that 
we have that exit strategy that has still not been pointed out to us at 
the House.

  At this point in the Record, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask 
unanimous consent to put in the letter of a colonel, an Army colonel, 
who won the Distinguished Service Cross. That is usually a medal of 
honor without enough eyewitnesses. He was a Bataan death march survivor 
and he wrote an open letter, simply titled ``Memorandum for Record'' on 
September 7, 1992.
  Mr. Speaker, every major newspaper, all the networks, and PBS and the 
Wall Street Journal rejected this letter. Only the great Washington 
Times in this city printed it. It is by Col. Eugene Holmes, and I would 
like to ask permission that that letter be put in the Record.
  It was a delayed response, delayed by many years, from 1969 to 1979, 
to 1989, to 1992, 23 years later. He was responding to a letter by 
Oxford student Bill Clinton, a letter that Mr. Clinton had written 
December 3, 1969. I would like to ask unanimous consent to put Colonel 
Holmes' 23-year-after-the-fact letter to the Nation in, and then follow 
with the text of Bill Clinton's letter to this colonel when he was on 
active duty.
  Mr. Speaker, this picture hangs in the front of my office. It is the 
first thing visitors see as they come through the door that the 
citizens from the 46th District of California have graciously elected 
this Member of Congress to represent.
  It says at the top Normandy. It has the flags of the major 
participants: Canada, the United States, the Union Jack of Great 
Britain, and the French Tricolor. Our Old Glory is in the middle, but 
we suffered as we know most of the casualties because Omaha Beach, one 
of the five beaches, was the toughest.
  There is copy at the bottom of this and I would like to read it as I 
close out of duty, honor, country, and dedicate it not only to all the 
veterans of my dad's war, where he was wounded three times, World War 
I, and all the World War II veterans that this specifically represents, 
closing out the last year of World War II, and this the last speech of 
1995, the 50th anniversary year, but to dedicate it to all the young 
men and women who served in Vietnam particularly, because they still 
are disrespected by the likes of Oliver Stone and by even the current 
Commander in Chief, who would not use the word Vietnam when he named 
every other hot spot in the world and every other past conflict of this 
country, as a rationale for putting young men and women in harm's way 
in the Balkans.

                              {time}  1630

  But Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Panama, forgive me if I leave something 
out, Desert Shield and Storm, everybody who serves on active duty 
anywhere in the world, from our furthest-flung radar sites up in 
Greenland down to those Navy pilots that I flew with 2 years ago next 
month down in Antarctica.
  The beautiful framer of this picture, Thomas O. Nichols wrote to me 
this Veterans Day, November 11, 1995. We close the 50th anniversary of 
World War II. I was not able to do this that day.
  There is no other Member of the House or Senate I would make this 
request to other than you, sir. And he says some nice things about my 
passion. Then he says, As you know, this Normandy print is the official 
print for the World War II commission and is recognized in Europe, 
Canada, and the United States. I would greatly appreciate it if you 
would read the words under the Normandy print hanging in your front 
office, if you would read it on the floor. There would be no finer 
compliment offered to the men and women of the European theater than to 
have you read it for the record. My deep thanks are extended, if in 
fact the request is possible. In closing, this airborne ranger shares 
your love of country and no matter what the future brings to you and 
your family, he then says some nice things.
  I am sorry I did not do it on the day that found my dad relieved, as 
he used to tell me, he had a prayer, Lord, take me to heaven, do not 
maim me or burn me. That was his World War I simple prayer of a young 
man that was ready to die for his country but like all young men was 
asking God if the chalice of terrible wounds would be passed from them. 
I should have brought the copy to read from, but I am going to have to 
read it right from the print itself.
  It says, Utah Beach, Point du Hoc, Omaha Beach, Gold Beach, Juno 
Beach, Sword Beach. On the morning of June 6, the combined allies 
forces, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, began the 
most dramatic military operation in the history of warfare. The 
invasion to free Europe was on and at H-Hour 0630 Operation Overload 
hurled 5,000 ships, thousands of support craft, 1,100 aircraft and 
nearly 200,000 men against Hitler's vaunted Atlantic wall. Out of the 
night came the paratroopers, including our Sam Gibbons, Democrat of 
this current Congress, came the paratroopers out of night to secure the 
fields. From the chilled gray mist of H-Hour came the landing craft, 
ushering thousands of brave young men into the frigid waters along the 
31-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline. Rangers climbed the cliffs 
of Point du Hoc to secure a foothold for freedom. This commitment to 
victory was accomplished by Allied leadership, more than a year of 
deception, the brilliance of British cypher-brakers and the heart of 
every individual soldier illuminating the dawn of what will forever be 
known as D-Day.
  Every man that scaled those cliffs or hit those hallowed sands, never 
would they have dreamed that we would be there guarding Europe for the 
rest of this entire century and that 41 years later, we would still be 
sending young men in harm's way to stop Europeans from slitting one 
another's throats and, as the Pope said, sniping to death one another's 
children in the name of some sort of ethnic purity.
  On the other half of the gilded 50th anniversary emblem over a large 
Purple Heart, it talks about the 50th anniversary, which I was lucky 
enough to attend a year and a half ago.
  And it says: On the morning of June 6, 1994, a soft breeze danced 
along the coast of Normandy carrying the spirit of the fallen, the 
missing and the veterans back home who could not be with us. Orders 
came from above to fall in, 

[[Page H15627]]
stand tall and share the grandeur of the 50th anniversary rollcall. By 
God's side, they assembled. The men walked at an honored pace and they 
wept with pride for their gum-chewing, got-a-smoke buddies who are gone 
but not forgotten. They hugged and shook the hands of strangers, never 
to be considered less than their fellow warriors. Wives, widows, 
children and grandchildren listened to the testimonies with humble 
respect. Noble words were spoken by officials, dignitaries, presidents, 
prime ministers and the Queen of England. Yet nothing of this day was 
to compare with the deeds of these men, for it belongs only to them. A 
footnote to history, in spirit the men of Operation Jubilee and the men 
of Exercise Tiger were there with us also.

  Tiger was the event weeks before when German E-boats had killed 
almost 900 Americans who were practicing to offer their lives this day. 
It was kept secret for 20 years and so their memory is hard to conjure 
up in the historical recall of Americans who otherwise would have 
respected them so much. Operation Jubilee is another one of those 
failed operations earlier from which we learned so much to preserve as 
much life as we could in finally bringing the fight home to Adolf 
Hitler.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to go up to the leadership table for the 
second part of my special order on the protection of innocent human 
life. Before I do, I would like to point to the cloisonne pin that I 
wear for the First Armored Division out of Bombholder, Germany and tell 
all the families, including one of our young staffers who said his best 
friend who is a second lieutenant in Old Ironsides, the First Division, 
who fought its way up through Italy and then fought so effectively on 
the left flank of the four-day miraculous, only 4-day land war in 
Desert Storm, he has had to put off his marriage. I wonder how many 
marriages were delayed, how many leaves were canceled to come home at 
Christmas time that had been planned by young fiances and young 
husbands and young brides. How many people could have been saved a lot 
of anguish by just delaying this operation a week, particularly since 
God had delayed it with weather the first week.
  If Bob Dole, our great leader in the other Chamber, does go over 
there in the next few days right after Christmas, and he is still 
contemplating it, I hope he will take me with him. I am leaving the 
floor to go over there after this special order and beg him to take a 
fellow presidential candidate with him. It will be a good message to 
send to our men and women in the field that, yes, of course we support 
the troops.
  Bob Dole, who does not like the operation but voted begrudgingly to 
back up Clinton, this Member, who if I had not been undercut by some 
leadership here, would have easily won a House vote to cut off all 
money to support this operation when Europeans, Europeans should be 
handling the ground since we handled the airlift, the sealift, all the 
air power almost, the sea power, the food, the medicine, all the fuel 
and 99 to 100 percent of all the intelligence, why do we have to go 
into the fog and the mines and the 4 foot snow drifts now on what will 
be probably not a mild winter like last year but the usual severe 
Balkan winter that troops fought in in World War II.
  Why do we have to go on the ground again ending this century near 
Sarajevo where it began with the slaughter of millions and millions of 
people which began with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by a 
Bosnian Serb teenager on June 28, 1914.
  So I end this part of Duty, Honor, and Country, for those who served 
in the past, who still serve with the pain of their wounds that have 
not fully healed, and for those wonderful servicemen and women around 
the world, go up to the leadership desk and take up the slaughter of 
the innocents and tell a story about a doctor, not a doctor, an 
abortionist who is buried near my parents, and I hope it was a real 
burial and not a fast one upon the Catholic Church and the people at 
Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.


                    Inches from Infanticide Abortion

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, in California, while we were debating what I 
have decided to call inches from infanticide abortion, what my wife 
calls gangster execution style abortion, what my oldest son, Robert 
Kenneth Dornan, Jr. Calls coup de grace abortion, what the heroic 
Senator from New Hampshire calls partial birth abortion, as did our 
fine second-term Congressman from Florida, Mr. Canady, here in the 
House call it second-term abortion. I will call it inches from 
infanticide murder abortion. Listen to this story about a specialist in 
this style of killing.
  Specialist in late term abortions buried with Catholic rites, Los 
Angeles. Dr. James Timothy McMahon, one of two abortionists in the 
United States who specializes in partial birth, coup de grace 
abortions, died on October 28, right during the week of our debate on 
this issue. The Senate debated it on December 2. By the way, the House 
vote, Mr. Speaker, was 288 to 139. The Senate vote was 54 to 44. Think 
of that 44 and think of that 139. If you are a loyal stumbling, 
sinning, practicing Catholic, like myself, think that in the 15 
Republicans who voted for this coup de grace execution style abortion, 
there were three people who have Catholic in their biography. On the 
Democratic side, there were 36 Democrats on the other side out of the 
139 who have in their biography, Catholic.
  Now, the House, on November 1, 3 days, All Saints Day, 3 days after 
the death of James Timothy McMahon voted to ban this. On November 8 the 
Senate voted to refer it, and then on December 2, thanks to Bod Smith 
and a few other heroes in the other Chamber, brought it back and 
defeated it by 10 votes. It should have been defeated unanimously.
  To the surprise of many Catholics, McMahon, who described performing 
abortions as his passion and admitted to performing 1,200 abortions 
annually since 1972, 23 years, tens of thousands of abortions, he 
was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles on November 4.

  Mr. Speaker, that is my parents' burial cemetery. My mother, my 
father, my grandmother, Katy McDonough McFadden, my uncle Jack Haley, 
my great aunt who was born on New Year's Day, who holds down that 
generation still very much alive, has her name already inscribed, 
Florence next to her beloved Jack's name, next to him is his mom Nellie 
Haley, right three graves away is Dixie Crosby. When I looked at it the 
other day, shocked me, she died at 41. First funeral I ever went to in 
my life with my friend Gary, the other three Crosby boys.
  Gary Cooper up on the edge of the hill in front of the grotto of Our 
Lady of Lourdes. This last trip two Sundays ago I noticed for the first 
time Rita Hayworth, Jimmy Durante, Macdonald Carey, I still remember 
him as a child playing the 1F-4F hell cat, wildcat pilot in Wake 
Island, a classic World War II film, a great actor worked right up 
until cancer took him. I look at this famous cemetery, Bela Lugosi not 
5, 5, maybe 4 graves from my parents' plot. And over this two streets 
in the section called Holy Martyrs, section cc, last month on November 
4th is this abortionist buried.
  I sincerely pray that the extreme unction, the last rites of his 
Christian faith were a take, but there is suspicion, maybe not, that it 
was all some sort of sham by a grieving sister. He died after receiving 
the last rites of his church, said Father Pat, well, I will not give 
Father Pat's last name. He is an American citizen of only 6 months, Mr. 
Speaker, born in Kilkenny, Ireland, where the great Saint Kenneth comes 
from, my middle name.

                              {time}  1745

  He said he was in no position to give details about McMahon's final 
repentance or reconciliation with his Catholic faith, but, before 
dying, he did establish the James McMahon Fund.
  Now, a person who works at the abortion clinic told me he renounced 
his life of abortion killing, and yet the James McMahon Fund is not to 
advance the cause of protecting innocent human life at the beginning. 
It is a fund at the National Abortion Federation here in Washington to 
support access to legal abortion. Memorial donations can be made to the 
National Abortion Federation or to the Surgical Clinic in Los Angeles, 
one of two facilities that Dr. McMahon ran with his partner, also with 
an Italian-American name, presupposing, maybe, he was an altar boy at 
one time as McMahon bragged he was.
  The National Abortion Federation, started in 1977, my first year in 
this 

[[Page H15628]]
House; it is a trade association--I love that, I do not love it, I hate 
it--for abortion providers. And the summer before he died, McMahon, 57, 
worked hard to mobilize the abortion establishment to fight this 
Congress and our attempts to outlaw the coup de grace, execution style, 
a few inches from infanticide murder abortion procedure which he 
specialized in and charged up to--grab onto you seat, Mr. Speaker--
charged $8,000 to perform.
  McMahon described himself as an altar boy and admitted baptizing 
babies he aborted, if the parents wished it to be done. Is this a 
messianic complex this man had?
  In a 1990 interview by Karen Tumulty, of Newt Gingrich's Man of the 
Year Time magazine cover, Karen Tumulty, and I have been trying to 
cross paths with her to discuss this 1990 article I remember reading at 
the time, wrote that McMahon had reconciled his gruesome practice with 
his conscience and his religious beliefs, noting that the abortionist 
is still attending mass occasionally. In my denomination 
``occasionally'' does not cut it, but better once a year, twice, 
Christmas, Easter, than not at all.
  ``I've always been a classic liberal,'' he confessed. ``I believe in 
freedom in the broadest sense.'' He had the freedom to hold the baby's 
head in the birth canal as you suck its brains out. ``I frankly think 
the soul or personage comes in when the fetus is accepted by the 
mother.''
  How is that for a little personal philosophy, Mr. Speaker? The 
mother, to use a medieval term, ensoulment, the mother ensouls the baby 
with a thought. ``I want you; you now have a soul.''
  So, tomorrow, if she changes her mind because the abortion industry 
is beating on her, and all the networks are saying how wonderful it is 
to finish your schooling or get a new washing machine or a new Mustang 
convertible, to abort that child, and you decide to cave in, is it too 
late? Should NARL ask people now, ``Did you ensoul your baby by saying 
you wanted it at any time in the early stage of your pregnancy?'' What 
a pompous, heretical philosophy.
  He said--he spoke with pride about his abortion skills:
  ``Frankly, I don't think, I was any good at all until I had done 
3,000 or 4,000,'' he told Karen Tumulty, then with the L.A. Times.
  He would never hire abortionists to work in his facility unless they 
performed at least 600. That gives new meaning to the numerical game we 
all play with the White House, when a part-time, one-time abortionist 
who said it was wrong, nice man, Dr. Foster, lost the Surgeon General's 
job on one-twentieth of this figure, that you have to have 600 notches 
in your belt, he says, before you come to work for him.

  ``There is a great deal of craft in this procedure,'' the partial 
birth, execution-style, coup de grace abortion.
  Mr. Speaker, he was in demand as a speaker at abortion conferences 
where he explained his field of expertise. He put his medical knowledge 
into layman's terms, however, when he told Tumulty how he performed the 
abortion which she described as follows. This is Karen writing about 
McMahon:
  ``McMahon has developed his own method which he calls intrauterine 
cranial decompression,'' translation Crushing the skull, cranial 
decompression.

       He arranges the fetus so that he can remove it feet first. 
     Before the skull emerges, he ``collapses'' it by inserting a 
     three-millimeter instrument known as a cannula and extract 
     its fluid. By keeping the fetus intact, he says he runs less 
     risk of internal injury to the woman. ``I want to deal with 
     the head last, because that is the biggest problem,'' he adds 
     levelly,``from my point of view, the fetus is a potential 
     problem to the patient.''

  But then, if the parents want, he will baptize it.
  Although McMahon did not allude to it, there was also a legal 
problem. According to legal experts, when the legs and body of a baby 
have emerged from the birth canal, they are legally protected.
  What? Legally protected legs and arms? Yes, because if you cut an arm 
off, you go to jail like the guy that tore the arm off little Rosa, who 
appeared on Phil Donahue's strange show at age 4, beautiful child.
  He said, ``The legal border, however, is the neck.'' Therefore, if 
any killing is done, it must be done in utero.
  So, you got protected arms and legs, Mr. Speaker, but get that head 
while it is still in utero.
  During debates in the House of Representatives on November 1 and in 
the Senate on November 7 and 8, and then finally successfully since 
this article on December 1, supporters of this partial birth abortion 
defended the procedure as an emergency treatment for women in difficult 
pregnancies.
  On Nightline Senator Bob Smith, New Hampshire, was brilliant against 
another Senator who will remain anonymous because of House rules, when 
he said, ``Wait a minute. If the mother is in distress, why does the 
doctor hold the head in there until he has taken out all the brain?
  And then this Senator spoke in circles, and then Smith came back 
again, and finally Ted Koppel interrupted and said, ``Senator, you do 
your position no good,'' he said to the the woman, ``unless you answer 
this question. You leave your supporters dangling.''
  They were left dangling.
  As McMahon explained to West magazine, published by the San Jose 
Mercury News, the partial birth abortion procedure takes many days.
  In simple terms, reporter David Early wrote,

       McMahon floods the cervix with laminaria, a seaweed fluid 
     that gently enlarges the canal while sharing the fetus. This 
     process takes several days until the fetus can be slipped out 
     of the lower uterus intact.
       Usually the head of a late fetus is too large to fit 
     through the cervix, so he uses the needle to extract just 
     enough fluid from the head to slip it out.
       The total time for the operations is generally about 52 
     hours.

  This Christian paper I am reading from, the Wanderer, made several 
attempts to obtain a statement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 
which would explain why Dr. McMahon was entitled to a Catholic burial 
in the Holy Martyr section of the Holy Cross Cemetery, but various 
official spokesmen were unable to provide an explanation. Finally my 
friend, Roger Cardinal Mahoney, said, ``I can't check the background of 
everybody on something like this.''
  Well, here is an article from Cardinal Hickey's Catholic Standard 
last week, Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, a writer I am not familiar 
with, Gerard Perseghin. Gerard interesting. That is the patron saint of

 pregnant women, of mothers-to-be, of mothers.

  Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left? I want to pace this.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Coble). The gentleman has 10 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Perseghin titles his Christmas season article ``A 
Gruesome Reality.''
  ``Over the years, I have been moved by mothers telling tearful 
stories of how their daughters died getting abortions, legal ones. And 
now the pro-life front has alerted us to the horrors of partial 
birth,'' execution-style, coup de grace, seconds from infanticide, 
inches from infanticide abortion.
  ``In the 22 years I have been writing stories about the pro-life 
movement since Roe v. Wade made abortions legal, nothing quite compares 
with this episode of legal abortion history.'' Herodean.
  ``The House of Representatives voted last month.''
  ``Helen Alvare, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bishops on pro-life issues, 
pointed out that this procedure crosses the line between abortion and 
infanticide.
  ``The most eloquent description comes from a registered nurse, Brenda 
Pratt Shafer, a self-described pro-choice person.'' Her testimony is 
chilling. We have heard it on this floor many times. I will not repeat 
it, in the interest of time, but I will ask that this whole article be 
put in the Record at this point.
  The article referred to is as follows:

               [From the Catholic Standard, Dec. 7, 1995]

                           A Gruesome Reality

                         (By Gerard Perseghin)

       Over the years, I have been moved by mothers telling 
     tearful stories of how their daughters died getting 
     abortions, legal ones.
       And now, the pro-life front has alerted us to the horrors 
     of partial-birth abortions
       In the 22 years I've been writing stories about the pro-
     life movement since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, nothing 
     quite compares with this episode of legal abortion history. 
     The House of Representatives voted last month on a bill to 
     outlaw partial-birth abortions. Now it is the Senate's turn 
     this week, and I hope they do likewise. Numerous authorities 
     like Helen Alvare, spokeswoman 

[[Page H15629]]
     for the U.S. bishops on pro-life issues, have pointed out that this 
     procedure ``crosses the line between abortion and 
     infanticide.''
       The most eloquent description comes from a registered 
     nurse, Brenda Pratt Shafer, a self-described pro-choice 
     person. The nurse who claims to have participated in three 
     partial-birth abortions with doctors who pioneered the 
     procedure described it this way as performed on a third 
     trimester baby boy:
       The abortionist ``delivered the baby's body and the arms--
     everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just 
     inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping 
     and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor 
     stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the 
     baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startled reaction, like 
     a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor 
     opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube 
     into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the 
     baby was completely limp.''
       This is attacking human life, little human beings, when 
     they are at their most vulnerable, grasping for life, for a 
     hand to help them see the light of day and join the human 
     race.
       It is ludicrous that the child's head is left inside the 
     mother for purely technical reasons. If the child were fully 
     outside the mother, it would be murder. As it is, the 
     procedure can still be classified technically as abortion. 
     But we know better. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, the expert 
     source for abortion data, claims 164,000 abortions a year are 
     performed after the first three months of pregnancy. Pro-
     abortion groups say ``only'' 600 of these partial birth 
     abortions are performed each year, but the national Right to 
     Life Committee says ``the practices of Dr. Martin Haskell and 
     the late Dr. James McMahon alone would approximate that 
     figure . . . ''
       Pro-choice types like to argue that many of these fetuses 
     are dead before the procedure. Dr. Haskell who has performed 
     them estimates that about two-thirds are alive, and they do 
     feel pain. Anesthesia given to the mother doesn't affect the 
     child as much. There is no basis in scientific fact to think 
     the child doesn't fell the pain and is dead, said the 
     American Society of Anesthesiologists testifying before the 
     Senate judiciary Committee in mid-November.
       In a breakdown submitted to a House subcommittee, Dr. 
     McMahon said of 175 partial-birth abortions he performed, the 
     largest single category, 39 cases, were for ``depression'' on 
     the part of the mother. Another nine were for cleft palate. 
     In 1993 Dr. Haskell said 80% of the ``extraction'' procedures 
     are ``purely elective.''
       Furthermore, a member of the Council on Legislation of the 
     American Medical Association itself has said the partial-
     birth abortion is not a recognition medical technique and 
     called it ``repulsive.''
       Partial-birth abortions also send the cruelest of messages 
     to people with disabilities struggling with demeaning 
     attitudes. Alvare said, ``Are we now going to tell persons 
     with disabilities that a method of abortion considered 
     gruesome even by its supporters is saved especially for 
     them?''
       Partial-birth abortion, as she said, ``violates everything 
     that is good, everything held dear in the human person . . . 
     ''

  I will just finish her statement. The little baby's hands grasp. The 
doctor sticks the scissors into the back of the head, execution style. 
Baby's arms jerked out in a flinched style reaction like a baby does 
when he thinks he might fall. The doctor jams open the scissors and 
then sticks a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucks the 
baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp.
  This is attacking human life, little human beings, when they are at 
their most vulnerable, grasping for life, for a hand to help them see 
the light of day and become part of the human race, or already part of 
it. It is ludicrous that the child's head is left inside the mother for 
technical legal reasons. If the child were fully outside the mother, of 
course it is murder. It is a procedure that can still be classified 
technically as an abortion. We know better.
  The Alan Guttmacher Institute, very liberal, Mr. Speaker, which is 
not the expert source for the liberal media for abortion data, says 
there are 164,000 abortions a year performed after the first 3 months 
of pregnancy, 164--let us see. We lost 33,629 in Korea, we lost 48,000 
overall, with the accidents included. We lost in Vietnam, with 
accidents included, 47,700-some in combat, another 10 accidents. We 
still have not reached 164. Let us throw in the 53,000 combat deaths in 
World War I, not the pneumonias, and you are getting close to the this 
figure.
  World War I, Korea, Vietnam, and you would still have to throw in 
some of the millions that died of pneumonia in World War I. This is 
incredible. You can easily throw in everybody killed in Desert Storm, 
Grenada, Panama, and it is amazing, and we do this every year. I am 
talking about wars like Vietnam that took 10 years. They are performed 
after the first 3 months.
  Pro-abortion groups say only every time they give that figure, only, 
and they say there is only 600 of these partial birth abortions 
performed each year. If McMahon took credit for half, I guess that 
leaves Dr. Martin Haskell, who refused to testify at the Senate hearing 
after they voted to table it November 8, last month, but he is still a 
big mouth on this.
  He says that he would approximate that figure, 600, and he said that 
two-thirds of them are alive, that this lie about the anesthesia is 
wrong, that most of them are elective. Now we have the American Society 
of Anesthesiologists in a George Will column saying this is baloney, 
that enough anesthesia knocks out the little baby.
  McMahon said of the 175 partial-birth abortions he performed 
recently, the largest single category, 39 cases, were for the 
depression of the mother. I wonder how depressed they are when they see 
it being debated in the U.S. House and Senate, and big margins, 
although they should have been bigger like the ones I have given. He 
said 39 for depression. Nine were for cleft palate.
  Do you know one of the more exciting Presidential candidates, Mr. 
Speaker, had a cleft palate, one associated with the beautiful Rainbow 
Coalition? God loves him.
  Do you know that two of our best speakers on the House floor, one of 
them that is terrific in that well with special orders, from parts of 
middle America, that he had a cleft palate that has been perfectly 
repaired; that I know of at least two or three other people, including 
Johnny Cochran, who so shamefully twisted the truth to defend a double 
killer, he, you can tell from this mustache, survived and had repaired 
a cleft palate. But nine of these mothers said no, no cleft palate, 
kill the baby. Even in the 7th, the 8th, the 9th month.
  Haskell, who is still alive, said 80 percent of the extraction 
procedures are purely elective. Partial-birth abortion, says one of the 
lady heads of the Council on Legislation of the American Medical 
Association, it violates everything that is good, everything held dear 
in a human person.
  I saved this for last.
  Do you know what took the life of abortion James Timothy McMahon, Mr. 
Speaker, buried in the Holy Martyr section near my parents? A malignant 
brain tumor, 3 days before we started debate, on the very day some of 
our misguided leaders were trying to stop those of us in this House who 
probably call ourselves pro-life, trying to stop us from bringing 
pictures to the well.
  I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if I may put in the Record two articles: 
``Fanatics for Choice'' by our friend, George Will, a beautiful article 
talking about how Americans are beginning to recoil against the 
fanaticism that has helped to produce this fact, more than a quarter of 
all American pregnancies are ended by abortions; and then the letter 
from the Life Issues Institute on six issues, and I will xerox this for 
the staff after I am through, on six things that are going to probably 
affect our August convention in San Diego next year:

                     [From Newsweek, Dec. 11, 1995]

Fanatics for `Choice'--Partial Birth Abortions, Sonogram Photos and the 
                  Idea That `the Fetus Means Nothing'

                          (By George F. Will)

       Americans are beginning to recoil against the fanaticism 
     that has helped to produce this fact: more than a quarter of 
     all American pregnancies are ended by abortions. Abundant 
     media attention has been given to the extremism that has 
     tainted the right-to-life movement. Now events are exposing 
     the extraordinary moral evasions and callousness 
     characteristic of fanaticism, prevalent in the abortion-
     rights lobby.
       Begin with ``partial-birth abortions.'' Pro-abortion 
     extremists object to that name, preferring ``intact dilation 
     and evacuation,'' for the same reason the pro-abortion 
     movement prefers to be called ``pro-choice.'' What is 
     ``intact'' is a baby. During the debate that led to House 
     passage of a ban on partial-birth abortions, the right-to-
     life movement was criticized for the sensationalism of its 
     print advertisements featuring a Dayton nurse's description 
     of such an abortion:
       ``The mother was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat 
     was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor went 
     in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them 
     down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body 
     and the arms--everything but the head. The doctor kept the 
     baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers 
     were clasping and unclasping and his feet were kicking. Then 
     the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of 

[[Page H15630]]
     his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle 
     reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. 
     The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered 
     suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains 
     out.''
       To object to this as sensationalism is to say that 
     discomforting truths should be suppressed. But increasingly 
     the language of pro-abortion people betrays a flinching from 
     facts. In a woman's story about her chemical abortion, 
     published last year in Mother Jones magazine, she quotes her 
     doctor as saying, ``By Sunday you won't see on the monitor 
     what we call the heartbeat.'' ``What we call''? In partial-
     birth abortions the birth is kept (just barely) partial to 
     preserve the legal fiction that a baby (what some pro-
     abortion people call ``fetal material'') is not being killed. 
     An abortionist has told The New York Times that some mothers 
     find such abortions comforting because after the killing, the 
     small body can be ``dressed and held'' so the (if pro-
     abortionists will pardon the expression) mother can ``say 
     goodbye.'' The New York Times reports, ``Most of the doctors 
     interviewed said they saw no moral difference between 
     dismembering the fetus within the uterus and partially 
     delivering it, intact, before killing it.'' Yes.
       Opponents of a ban on partial-birth abortions say almost 
     all such abortions are medically necessary. However, an 
     abortionist at the Dayton clinic is quoted as saying 80 
     percent are elective. Opponents of a ban on such abortions 
     assert that the baby is killed before the procedure, by 
     the anesthesia given to the mother. (The baby ``undergoes 
     demise,'' in the mincing words of Kate Michelman of the 
     National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. 
     Does Michelman say herbicides cause the crab grass in her 
     lawn to ``undergo demise''? Such Orwellian language is a 
     sure sign of squeamishness.) However, the president of the 
     American Society of Anesthesiologists says this 
     ``misinformation'' has ``absolutely no basis in scientific 
     fact'' and might endanger pregnant women's health by 
     deterring them from receiving treatment that is safe.
       Opponents of a ban say there are only about 600 such 
     procedures a year. Let us suppose, as not everyone does, the 
     number 600 is accurate concerning the more than 13,000 
     abortions performed after 21 weeks of gestation. Still, 600 
     is a lot. Think of two crashes of jumbo airliners. Opponents 
     of the ban darkly warn that it would be the first step toward 
     repeal of all abortion rights. Columnist John Leo of U.S. 
     News & World Report says that is akin to the gun lobby's 
     argument that a ban on assault weapons must lead to repeal of 
     the Second Amendment.
       In the prophecy born of hope, many pundits have been 
     predicting that the right-to-life ``extremists'' would 
     drastically divide the Republican Party. But 73 House 
     Democrats voted to ban partial-birth abortions: only 15 
     Republicans opposed the ban. If the ban survives the Senate, 
     President Clinton will probably veto it. The convention that 
     nominated him refused to allow the Democratic governor of 
     Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, who is pro-life, to speak. Pro-
     choice speakers addressed the 1992 Republican Convention. The 
     two presidential candidates who hoped that a pro-choice 
     stance would resonate among Republicans--Gov. Pete Wilson, 
     Sen. Arlen Specter--have become the first two candidates to 
     fold their tents.
       In October in The New Republic, Naomi Wolf, a feminist and 
     pro-choice writer, argued that by resorting to abortion 
     rhetoric that recognizes neither life nor death, pro-choice 
     people ``risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us 
     with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and 
     women who share a cheapened view of human life.'' Other 
     consequences of a ``lexicon of dehumanization'' about the 
     unborn are ``hardness of heart, lying and political 
     failure.'' Wolf said that the ``fetus means nothing'' stance 
     of the pro-choice movement is refuted by common current 
     practices of parents-to-be who have framed sonogram photos 
     and fetal heartbeat stethoscopes in their homes. Young 
     upscale adults of child-bearing age are a solidly pro-choice 
     demographic group. But they enjoy watching their unborn 
     babies on sonograms, responding to outside stimuli, and they 
     read ``The Well Baby Book,'' which says: ``Increasing 
     knowledge is increasing the awe and respect we have for the 
     unborn baby and is causing us to regard the unborn baby as a 
     real person long before birth . . .''
       Wolf argued for keeping abortion legal but treating it as a 
     matter of moral gravity because ``grief and respect are the 
     proper tones for all discussions about choosing to endanger 
     or destroy a manifestation of life.'' This temperate judgment 
     drew from Jane Johnson, interim president of Planned 
     Parenthood, a denunciation of the ``view that there are good 
     and bad reasons for abortion.'' So, who now are the fanatics?
                                                                    ____


            [From the Life Issues Connector, December 1995]

                       Questions Needing Answers

       General Powell has withdrawn from the race but he leaves 
     behind several unanswered questions. These questions were 
     publicly posed by Bill Bennett in a column in the Wall Street 
     Journal (G. Seib 10/18/95) and in a letter to Paul Weyrich, 
     10/13.
       They were made in support of a Powell candidacy but are now 
     moot in that regard. However, the questions will be heard 
     again and again in the coming year. The reason is that these 
     arguments were given nation-wide play by a number of 
     nationally syndicated columnists, and not well answered by 
     them. Further and most importantly, we will see these 
     arguments used by others right up to the election.
       1. The first voiced criticism is of pro-life tactics as 
     unsuccessful and, as yet, not stopping the devastatingly high 
     number of abortions in America. But, let us not forget that, 
     although there remain 1.5 million abortions annually, without 
     the pro-life opposition, there would likely be half again as 
     many babies being killed today.
       Certainly the dramatic drop in numbers of facilities doing 
     abortions and the number of abortionists doing them is a 
     clear result of pro-life efforts. Perhaps the greatest 
     accomplishment in the US as compared to many western nations, 
     is that abortion is still looked upon by the general public 
     as a bad thing. The label ``abortionist'' is still a term of 
     condemnation. This climate is and will be of vast importance 
     in some day turning this around.
       The reason for the failure to limit abortions is not the 
     pro-life movement, but the members of the US Supreme Court. 
     Would Powell have appointed Supreme Court nominees who will 
     reverse Roe v. Wade?--will Spector? Alexander? Forbes?
       2. There was sharp criticism of maintaining the ``chimera 
     [fantastic scheme] of a constitutional amendment'' and that 
     ``this has done nothing to reduce the number of abortions.'' 
     Of course we don't have a constitutional amendment, because 
     we don't yet have two-thirds support in both houses of 
     congress nor the majorities in the state houses to ratify it. 
     However, a federal constitutional amendment to protect from 
     conception must remain our ultimate goal, even though it is 
     not likely to happen in the near future. It is not a chimera.
       An intermediate goal is the reversal of Roe Vs. Wade, 
     which, because of the Supreme Court, is also currently not 
     obtainable. One only has to look to the states to see 
     progress in what has been allowed by the Supreme Court--
     parental notification, informed consent, waiting periods, no 
     funding, etc. Rather, the true chimera would be a president 
     who was pro-abortion, who would (if he chose to) work around 
     the edges, trying to reduce the number of abortions. 
     Everything that was mentioned might reduce the number of 
     abortions, if aggressively carried out, by only 5% or 10%.
       3. Another argument asked why pro-lifers won't accept the 
     logical conclusion of putting women in jail. This area has 
     been thoroughly investigated and documented. Throughout the 
     entire history of the United States, when abortion was 
     illegal and abortionists were jailed, not a single woman was 
     even indicted for being an accomplice to an abortion. The 
     woman has always been considered the second victim, not the 
     perpetrator. If anyone implies that he thinks this should 
     happen, he stands quite alone. No responsible leader in the 
     pro-life movement supports this. Certainly no one in the pro-
     abortion movement or any legislators would advocate such a 
     harsh treatment of women. This argument is fallacious, 
     uncharitable and not worthy of serious discussion.
       4. Have pro-lifers supported pro-abortion candidates in the 
     past? Two instances have been cited when the National Right 
     to Life Committee worked for pro-abortion candidates, US 
     Senators Paul Coverdell and Kay Bailey Hutchison. This 
     analogy fails badly by ignoring some very key factors in 
     NRLC's decision. Certainly NRLC's strategy was controversial 
     in some pro-life circles. However, that was another issue in 
     itself. In each of the above instances, pro-lifers were faced 
     with a very aggressive, pro-abortion candidate on one side, 
     and a pro-abortion candidate on the other who was willing to 
     support peripheral pro-life issues. Their decision was to 
     support the lesser of two evils. This, however, was done 
     after the primaries, when the candidates were in place. To 
     argue this prior to the primaries, is an entirely different 
     story. At this point, we still have the option of electing 
     pro-life candidates in the primaries and in the general 
     election.
       5. Perhaps the strongest argument posed to pro-lifers in 
     one we will hear again and again from the liberal media and 
     from ``personally opposed, but'' candidates. It is expressed 
     in the following. ``It seems to me that there is something 
     wrong with some pro-life advocates who embrace candidates 
     when they pay lip-service to pro-life principles which lead 
     to no real world actions. Frankly, I prefer a political 
     leader who would not change the legality of abortion, yet who 
     is also genuinely and deeply troubled by 1\1/2\ million 
     abortions a year, eager to limit them, discourage them, 
     and eventually end them, than a person who mouths the 
     words and does little else to reduce the number of 
     abortions.''
       This is cutting the question and in a rather unfair way. It 
     sets up, on one extreme, a pro-abortion candidate who is 
     eager to reduce abortions. On the other extreme, it sets up a 
     pro-life candidate who intends to do nothing to reduce 
     abortions. This is totally unrealistic. Who are these two 
     candidates? By what dimension can anyone be reasonably 
     confident that such a candidate occupies the first position? 
     And who are those titular, pro-life candidates who will do 
     nothing to stop it? Certainly not Dole, Gramm, Lugar, 
     Buchanan, Gingrich, Keyes or Dornan. If one is to argue for 
     such a candidate, such argumentation should involve at least 
     a realistic picture of the candidate himself and the 
     prospective alternatives.
       For most pro-lifers who rule out a pro-abortion candidate 
     for the presidency and the vice presidency, the bottom line 
     is the 

[[Page H15631]]
     fact that there will almost certainly be appointments to the Supreme 
     Court in the next presidential term. As previously mentioned, 
     the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement is to protect 
     babies in their mothers' wombs. An intermediate goal would 
     be, at the least, to return that option to each state to 
     decide. Neither of these will happen until the Supreme Court 
     has a majority of justices who will allow this to happen. The 
     president appoints these Supreme Court justices.
       6. There are some who believe that none of the present 
     Republican contenders can beat Clinton. Logic, therefore, 
     drove them to support Powell who they thought could. But is 
     the power of the presidency the only consideration?
       In his letter of October 9, Dr. James Dobson gave one 
     answer. He denounced Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed and 
     also Bill Bennett for suggesting that they might back Colin 
     Powell in the general election. ``Is power the motivator of 
     the Great Crusade? If so, it will sour and turn to bile in 
     your mouth.''
       But more pragmatically, let's remember why cross-over 
     Democrats, ``Reagan Democrats,'' have voted for Republican 
     presidential candidates in recent years. Keep in mind the 
     deepseated mind-set that, ``my father and grandfather always 
     voted Democrat.'' Never forget, also, their same rejection of 
     country club Republicans. It takes a paramount issue to get 
     traditional Democrats to cross over and vote for a Republican 
     candidate. The catalyst that has done this in recent years 
     has been abortion and other family value issues. Nothing much 
     less than a deepseated conviction on family value issues can 
     get your average Reagan Democrat to again vote Republican. If 
     they have a choice between a solid pro-abortion Democrat 
     incumbent and a basically pro-abortion Republican challenger, 
     who they suspect will betray them on family value issues, 
     they're either going to stay in the Democrat column or 
     they're going to go to the shopping center instead of the 
     polls that day.
        In the coming months the Republican party will have to 
     decide whether to keep or change the pro-life plank in its 
     platform. Again in the election campaign next fall, all these 
     arguments will be repeated by the liberal media and by pro-
     abortion and ``moderate'' candidates.
       Pro-lifers should be prepared. Our nation must decide if it 
     wants to nominate someone who will build on the gains made in 
     the 1994 November election, or someone who will temporize, 
     split, and perhaps end up destroying it.

                             {time}   1700

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I would repeat my Christmas recital from 
last night, to end on a happy note. This is done in the spirit of the 
season. After all, the Oval Office had children in it the other day 
when the occupant talked about ``It's a time for peace, not threats.'' 
And both of my California daughters called me, and my daughter here 
later and my sons, and said what is this, using the word threat in 
front of little children in the Oval Office? They think that means 
Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. They do not know it is a battle of words 
between Capital Hill and the other.
  Let me give my Christmas recital. There are a lot of mistakes, since 
I gave them a bad copy last night. It is entitled, paraphrasing Clement 
Clark Moore's ``The Night Before Christmas,'' it is entitled ``A Visit 
From a Santa Imposter'':

     T'was the night before Christmas and all through this House,
     the liberals were playing the cat and the mouse.
     The budget was hung by threads of despair,
     while we hoped and we prayed Bill Clinton would care.
     The night before last, while snug in his bed,
     visions of veto pens danced in Bill's head.
     He dreamed of Webb Hubble all through the night
      and vowed he would veto if only for spite.
     While out in the land there arose such a clatter,
     taxpayers demanding, just what is the matter?
     Balance that budget, shut some Feds down.
     Our poor Army's in Bosnia, they yelled with a frown.
     The moon on the breast of last night's fallen ice
     gave delusions of grandeur to Hillary; how nice.
     When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
     but Willie as Santa, his gang as reindeer,
     passing out pork in Fed buckets and pails,
     while frightening the old folks with MediScare tales.
     More swooping than vultures his coursers they came,
     Bill whistled and shouted and called them by name:
     ``Now Al Gore, Panetta, Moscow and Stephie;
     on Flowers, on Troopers, on Inhale and Betsy.
     From the top of the heap to the top of the Hill,
     now bash away, bash away, go for the kill''
     While back in the House the hurricane rages.
     The freshmen are busy inspiring the pages
     With sad words from ladies, and gentlemen too,
     who would rather be home with an eggnog or two. . .
     where children and grandchildren snuggle in bed,
     waiting for Santa, the real one, in red.
     But struggle we will until our promise is met,
     a budget that's balanced; falling national debt.
     A tax break for families with children to raise,
     a gift to our Nation more conservative days.
     And then in a twinkle we heard on this roof,
     the stomping and pawing of each liberal hoof.
     As the Speaker called order, we all turned around,
     as he came through the cloakroom looking smug and quite 
           round.
     He was dressed all in glitter, Al says fur's not allowed.
     He threw Big Macs and french fries all over our crowd.
     ``You have won now; it is over, I fear.
     The budget is signed, my election draws near.
     But if I should lose, I will still be around.
     I'm goin' to Hollywood. It's my kind of town.''
     He plopped in his sleigh, to his libs gave a yell,
     and then they were gone like spenders from hell.
     But we heard him exclaim as they galloped 'cross heaven.
     ``Bob Dornan impeaching me? Film at eleven.''

  Have a merry Christmas down there in North Carolina.

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