[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3559-H3560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I noticed how many of my fellow colleagues
here this afternoon had been speaking about the outrageous and
repugnant veto of the legislation overwhelmingly passed in both Houses
of the U.S. Congress regarding partial-birth execution-style abortion.
During the debate I tried to get pro-life Members on both sides of
the aisle in the oldest party of America, the great Democratic Party,
and the grand old party over here, I tried to get them all to use this
expression execution-style because the attack to the child, and it is a
child that is almost always viable, can survive outside the womb even
if it is what we called disabled, that the attack is similar to the
Cosa Nostra, or organized crime, attack, sometimes with a .22 pistol,
to keep down the sound to the base of the skull. This is a common
assault, whether it was with sword, ax, or during the Chinese
revolution, Stalin's purges, or Hitler's henchmen.
For example, at the trench at Babyar in the Ukraine, or many of the
labor camps with sick people, Japanese warlords directed soldiers
executing our men and our Filipino allies on the Bataan death march 54
years ago.
This execution to the base of the skull, it was used in the Balkans
all this last 4-year period of horrible ethnic cleansing and human
rights violations, a bullet or a knife to the base of the skull.
And here in debate in one of these two houses was a woman, no less,
an elected woman, talking about defending that this was important to
the life of the mother. And somebody got up who served in this House
honorably for 8 years, Senator Bob Smith, and said, wait a minute, if
it is for the life of the mother, why is the abortionist holding the
baby in the birth canal? Why is he interrupting the birth process? This
is conversely to what you are saying, endangering the mother's life. It
is truly infanticide.
And I think that to let people know how unprecedented it is, as it
says in a front-page story in the Washington Times, and I have not
looked at the Post today and the New York Times to see whether they
buried it, but it is a front-page story about all eight U.S. Catholic
cardinals hitting Clinton on abortion, and I am going to yield to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] and then read as much as I can
of the bishop's letter and submit the rest, ask unanimous consent to
submit the rest, for the Record, and I will return to the floor, as I
am sure the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] will and the
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] will many times on this.
This has got to rip apart Stephanopoulos' so-called Catholic plan to
win the election in 202 days.
Mr. HUNTER. I do not want to take much time from my friend.
Mr. DORNAN. You are not taking it from me, but from eight cardinals;
go ahead, though.
Mr. HUNTER. In that case, I feel better.
But let me just thank him, thank Bob Dornan, for all the great work
that he has done on behalf of unborn children and the fact that you are
carrying this fight, as you have carried it for many, many years on the
House floor, and I agree with you that the President has gone too far,
that he stepped too far even for people who are able to look the other
way on this issue in his party, and I hope that it is going to pull
people off of this bandwagon that the President is putting together for
his 1996 presidential campaign.
Mr. DORNAN. Well, you know our colleague, Mr. Smith from New Jersey,
has been here. He is a classmate of yours, for 16 years almost, but he
has this angelic face. I almost said he looked like an acolyte, and,
therefore, he can stand where you are at this mike or down in the well
and say tougher things than most of us can say.
He has been calling Clinton for 3\1/2\ years the abortion President.
Nobody has ever jumped up and taken down his words, and I have
refrained from doing that until this moment. But this shows, beyond all
shadow of doubt, that Mr. Clinton is not a new Democrat, he is not a
moderate Democrat, he is not even a run-of-the-mill liberal like many
of our honorable friends on the other side of the aisle who are proud
of their liberal philosophy, believe in a larger Federal Government
than we do, basically to help the poor, to help children.
[[Page H3560]]
We have hurt children more on this House floor in the last 2 years
than I ever dreamed it here in the House, and I do not question their
good will, but I noticed that most of them who are sincere liberals of
principle, classic liberals, are also against this partial birth.
So I will put in the cardinal's letter, Mr. Speaker, and then read it
slowly tomorrow from today's Record.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office of the
President,
Washington, DC, April 16, 1996.
President William Clinton,
The White House,
Washington, DC.
Dear President Clinton: It is with deep sorrow and dismay
that we respond to your April 10 veto of the Partial-Birth
Abortion Ban Act.
Your veto of this bill is beyond comprehension for those
who hold human life sacred. It will ensure the continued use
of the most heinous act to kill a tiny infant just seconds
from taking his or her first breath outside the womb.
At the veto ceremony you told the American people that you
``had no choice but to veto the bill.'' Mr. President, you
and you alone had the choice of whether or not to allow
children, almost completely born, to be killed brutally in
partial-birth abortions. Members of both Houses of Congress
made their choice. They said No to partial-birth abortions.
American women voters have made their choice. According to a
February 1996 poll by Fairbank, Maslin, Aaullin & Associates,
78 percent of women voters said No to partial-birth
abortions. Your choice was to say Yes and to allow this
killing more akin to infanticide than abortion to continue.
During the veto ceremony you said you had asked Congress to
change H.R. 1833 to allow partial-birth abortions to be done
for ``serious adverse health consequences'' to the mother.
You added that if Congress had included that exception,
``everyone in the world will know what we're talking about.
On the contrary, Mr. President, not everyone in the world
would know that ``health,'' as the courts define it in the
context of abortion, means virtually anything that has to do
with a woman's overall ``well being.'' For example, most
people have no idea that if a woman has an abortion because
she is not married, the law considers that an abortion for a
``health'' reason.
Similarly, if a woman is ``too young'' or ``too old,'' if
she is emotionally upset by pregnancy, or if pregnancy
interferes with schooling or career, the law considers those
situations as ``health'' reasons for abortion. In other
words, as you know and we know, an exception for ``health''
means abortion on demand.
You say there is a difference between a ``health''
exception and an exception for ``serious adverse health
consequences.'' Mr. President, what is the difference--
legally--between a woman's being too young and being
``seriously'' too young? What is the difference--legally--
between being emotionally upset and being ``seriously''
emotionally upset? From your study of this issue, Mr.
President, you must know that most partial-birth abortions
are done for reasons that are purely elective.
It was instructive that the veto ceremony included no
physician able to explain how a woman's physical health is
protected by almost fully delivering her living child, and
then killing that child in the most inhumane manner
imaginable before completing the delivery. As a matter of
fact, a partial-birth abortion presents a health risk to the
woman. Dr. Warren Hern, who wrote the most widely used
textbook on how to perform abortions, has said of partial-
birth abortions: ``I would dispute any statement that this is
the safest procedure to use.''
Mr. President, all abortions are lethal for unborn
children, and many are unsafe for their mothers. This is even
more evident in the late-term, partial-birth abortion, in
which children are killed cruelly, their mothers placed at
risk, and the society that condones it brutalized in the
process.
As Catholic bishops and as citizens of the United States,
we strenuously oppose and condemn your veto of H.R. 1833
which will allow partial-birth abortions to continue.
In the coming weeks and months, each of us, as well as our
bishops' conference, will do all we can to educate people
about partial-birth abortions. We will inform them that
partial-birth abortions will continue because you chose to
veto H.R. 1833.
We will also urge Catholics and other people of good will--
including the 65% of self-described ``pro-choice'' voters who
oppose partial-birth abortions--to do all that they can to
urge Congress to override this shameful veto.
Mr. President, your action on this matter takes our nation
to a critical turning point in its treatment of helpless
human beings inside and outside the womb. It moves our nation
one step further toward acceptance of infanticide. Combined
with the two recent federal appeals court decisions seeking
to legitimize assisted suicide, it sounds the alarm that
public officials are moving our society ever more rapidly to
embrace a culture of death.
Writing this response to you in unison is, on our part,
virtually unprecedented. It will, we hope, underscore our
resolve to be unremitting and unambiguous in our defense of
human life.
Sincerely yours,
1 Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago;
Cardinal James Hickey, Archbishop of Washington;
Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston; Cardinal
Adam Maida, Archbishop of Detroit; Cardinal Anthony
Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia; Cardinal
William Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore; Cardinal Roger
Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles; Cardinal John
O'Connor, Archbishop of New York; Most Rev. Anthony
Pilla, President, National Conference of Catholic
Bishops.
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