[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          IN SUPPORT OF PRESIDENT CLINTON'S VETO OF H.R. 1833

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                           HON. NITA M. LOWEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 30, 1996

  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer you to this moving 
letter from Diane Reiner in support of President Clinton's veto of H.R. 
1833. Mrs. Reiner, like so many of the women we have heard from, 
discovered late in her wanted pregnancy that the fetus she was carrying 
was terribly deformed and would not survive. After carefully weighing 
all of the options, Mrs. Reiner and her husband decided to have an 
abortion. As I, and others, have stated throughout the debate on this 
bill--this tragic decision must belong to the woman, her husband, her 
doctor, her clergy and the friends and family that she chooses to 
consult. The one group of people it clearly does not belong to is the 
Congress.
                                                    July 25, 1990.
     Hon. Nita Lowey,
     U.S. House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative Lowey: I am writing to let you know 
     that I have tremendous respect for your efforts in standing 
     up for women and our right to choose. I thought you would be 
     interested in seeing this letter that I sent to President 
     Clinton to thank him for his brave and compassionate veto of 
     H.R. 1833.
       Thank you for your courage and hard work.
           Sincerely,
     Diane Reiner.
                                                                    ____

       Dear President Clinton: Thank you for vetoing H.R. 1833, 
     the Canady/Smith bill.
       I am a 43-year-old woman who had a late abortion in 1988. I 
     was married and pregnant with a wanted child, but my husband 
     and I discovered at a routine sonogram that our child was 
     fatally deformed--that it had no proper brain, no proper 
     lungs, that its organs were not properly inside its body 
     cavity, that its spine was bent at a 45-degree angle, and 
     that its extremities were also deformed. The only reason it 
     was alive inside of me was because it was dependent upon my 
     body as its life support system--through the umbilical cord. 
     It would not have been able to live on its own for more than 
     a few seconds, if that, after birth since its own lungs and 
     brain could never function. (I use the pronoun ``it'' because 
     we never were able to discover the gender of our unborn 
     child.)
       This was a total tragedy, of course. We are very loving 
     people who wanted children very much. We had been trying for 
     several years to have a child. We were devastated. We took a 
     week to decide whether or not we could stand to have an 
     abortion, or whether we should carry the doomed child to full 
     term (it would very possibly have made it to full term and 
     then died at birth, we were told). I decided that to save my 
     sanity I would take the very grave step of aborting. I didn't 
     think I could stand to carry my baby 3 more months, waiting 
     for it to die. This decision filled me with a certain type of 
     grief, and it felt like it was almost too much to have to 
     make this choice, but my husband and I actually prayed about 
     this (we are not members of any one particular religion, but 
     we are spiritual people) and were led to our ultimate 
     decision.
       The abortion method used in my case was a bit different 
     than the one at issue in H.R. 1833, but it was similar. The 
     whole thing was infinitely sad and torturous to go through, 
     but I thanked the doctor who was willing and able to perform 
     such a difficult (emotionally difficult) procedure. He was my 
     angel of mercy, Mr. Clinton!
       It is people in situations such as the one I and my husband 
     went through who need these rare late-term abortion 
     procedures. We are not murderers. We are grief-stricken, 
     would-be parents who are in a horrible crisis and are trying 
     to take the best course possible. If we did not have the 
     technology which allows us to see inside a pregnant woman in 
     her 6th month then perhaps we wouldn't be discussing late-
     term abortion procedures. But we do have this technology, for 
     better or worse, and if we can discover at 6 months that our 
     baby will die at birth, how can it be a sin to terminate the 
     life at that point rather than waiting a few more agonizing 
     months for the same outcome?
       I particularly commend you on vetoing H.R. 1833 since I 
     realize that it is a risky business for you politically at 
     this point, it being an election year during which certain 
     conservative forces are making their presence clearly known. 
     So thank you again. . . . on behalf of me, my husband, and 
     the other women and couples who have had and will have need 
     for this merciful procedure.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Diane Reiner.
       P.S. I now have a wonderful 6-year-old daughter.
       
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