[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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