[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11366-S11389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 1995--VETO

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from 
Missouri.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you, Madam President. I thank the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, who has been doing an outstanding job helping us to have 
an opportunity to express our views on the partial-birth abortion 
override measure which is before us. It is pretty important for us to 
understand this isn't a pro-choice or pro-life measure. This is not an 
argument against abortions generally. It is not even an argument 
against late-term abortions. It is merely an argument against the 
brutality which takes place in a specific type of abortion, which has 
been described adequately here on the floor of the Senate. But it is 
one of those things which, obviously, is uncomfortable for people to 
talk about.
  It is a brutality that results when a child which is all but born is 
being killed in the process of birth. And there has been the side issue 
raised here, that somehow this has to do with the health of the mother, 
and that if we didn't kill the child at this point, the mother's health 
would be impaired.
  This has been contradicted by the best medical experts--not the least 
of which is C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General of the United 
States, who basically says medical necessity does not come into these 
cases. Since the child is already born, really, we are talking about 
what happens to the child--virtually already born--not what happens to 
the mother.
  But I would like to add something to the debate. I would like to a 
add a few questions that I think we ought to ask ourselves. One 
question is: What are we signaling? What are we telling the rest of the 
world when we say that we as a people are indifferent to this kind of 
brutality toward a child that is all but born, except for the last, 
say, 3 inches of its body? That since it has technically part of its 
body still in the mother, that it is subject to being killed? It is 
very difficult for me to understand what we are saying to the rest of 
the world when we are allowing this type of gruesome procedure to occur 
in this country.
  What do we say to China when we try to shape their human rights 
policy? We say that you ought to have a high regard for your citizens; 
that you should not be oppressive; that you should not abuse people; 
that you should not persist in practices which are against human 
dignity. How do we say that to China when we enshrine or 
institutionalize this procedure and decide that the brutalization of 
children in this way is still acceptable when there are clear 
alternatives? How can we question the practice of child slavery in 
other nations around the world when our own Nation's lawmakers cast 
cavalier votes that really result in brutality?
  Let me be clear. The signals we send as a world leader do not trouble 
me as much as the signals that we are sending to our young people. In 
our society, the biggest crime problem we have is violent crime among 
young people who seem to have no regard for the lives of victims, who 
seem to view dismemberment or brutality as a matter-of-fact thing. What 
are we telling our own youngsters? What values are we teaching them 
when we say that the difference between a partial-birth abortion and a 
homicide is merely whether the head is all the way out or just part of 
the way out? We have said that it is OK to be involved in a partial-
birth abortion because the child isn't totally born, but if there were 
just another 3 or 4 seconds of process, the child would be born and 
then it would be homicide.
  I do not think we are sending the right signals to our young people 
about tomorrow. What values do we send the young people when we suggest 
that there is more concern to be shown for animals and our environment 
than there is for young people?
  For example, H.R. 3918 was introduced by a Member of this body when 
that Member was in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill protects 
animals from acute toxic tests in laboratories. What are we saying when 
we are concerned about protecting animals from toxic tests designed to 
save lives and we are not willing to protect children from a brutal 
procedure designed to end their life?
  What are we saying when another Member of this body introduces a 
measure which prescribes criminal penalties for the use of steel jaw 
leghold traps on animals, saying that it is brutal to catch an animal 
with a trap that clamps down on the leg of the animal? A sponsor of the 
bill stated in the Chamber, ``While this bill does not prohibit 
trapping, it does outlaw a particularly savage method of trapping.''
  If we are willing to do that to protect animals from a kind of 
brutality and abuse, I have to ask myself, have we not missed something 
if we are unwilling to take a step to prohibit a kind of brutality 
against children that medical experts acknowledge is a brutality which 
is totally unnecessary?
  There seems to be a blind spot in the Senate's conscience when it 
comes to things that are abortion related, but we cannot let the debate 
over abortion

[[Page S11367]]

generally obscure the fact that what we are trying to do here is just 
what the Senator from Rhode Island said he was trying to do with steel 
jaw traps. He was trying not to prohibit trapping but to prohibit a 
particularly savage method of trapping. This is not a bill to outlaw 
abortion, but it is a bill to curtail a practice of brutality committed 
against children under the guise of abortion, and abortions would still 
persist even if the bill were passed or if the override were to be 
undertaken.
  This takes me back to the beginning. The emotion and strife of the 
abortion debate are blinding and confusing some of us as Members. The 
choice for us is clear. This is not a choice of pro-life or pro-choice. 
This is a choice about whether or not we as a culture are willing to 
say that we will be against brutality of infants in the same measure we 
have been against brutality of animals for experimentation, that we 
will have a kind of culture which we can recommend around the world and 
to our own children. That we will have respect for life and that 
brutality, especially when it is unnecessary, we will not tolerate.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, when President Clinton vetoed the Partial-Birth 
Abortion Ban Act on April 10, he said there are ``rare and tragic 
situations that can occur in a woman's pregnancy in which, in a 
doctor's medical judgment, the use of this procedure may be necessary 
to save a woman's life or to protect her against serious injury to her 
health.''
  The former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. C. Everett 
Koop--a man who President Clinton singled out for praise on August 23 
as someone trying ``to bring some sanity into the health policy of this 
country''--has said that ``partial-birth abortion is never medically 
necessary to protect a mother's health or future fertility.'' Let me 
say that again: it is never necessary.
  That is consistent with testimony that the Judiciary Committee 
received from other medical experts last fall. Dr. Nancy Romer, a 
practicing OB-GYN from Ohio, testified that in her 13 years of 
experience, she has never felt compelled to recommend this procedure to 
save a woman's life. ``In fact,'' she said, ``if a woman has a serious, 
life threatening, medical condition this procedure has a significant 
disadvantage in that it takes 3 days.''
  Dr. Pamela Smith asked during her testimony before the Committee:

       Why would a procedure that is considered to impose a 
     significant risk to maternal health when it is used to 
     deliver a baby alive, suddenly become the ``safe method of 
     choice'' when the goal is to kill the baby? And if abortion 
     providers wanted to demonstrate that somehow this procedure 
     would be safe in later-pregnancy abortions, even though its 
     use has routinely been discouraged in modern obstetrics, why 
     didn't they go before institutional review boards, obtain 
     consent to perform what amounts to human experimentation, and 
     conduct adequately controlled, appropriately supervised 
     studies that would insure accurate, informed consent of 
     patients and the production of valid scientific information 
     for the medical community?

  Even Dr. Warren Hern, the author of the Nation's most widely used 
textbook on abortion standards and procedures, is quoted in the 
November 20, 1995 edition of American Medical News as saying that he 
would ``dispute any statement that this is the safest procedure to 
use.'' He called it ``potentially dangerous'' to a woman to turn a 
fetus to a breech position, as occurs during a partial-birth abortion.
  Defending the indefensible is an understandably difficult task for 
President Clinton and other defenders of this procedure. What decent 
person does not get a shiver up the spine upon hearing a description of 
a partial-birth abortion, a procedure that was characterized by a 
member of the American Medical Association's legislative council as 
``basically repulsive'' and ``not a recognized medical technique.'' I 
suspect that was why the council went on to vote unanimously to endorse 
the partial-birth abortion ban just over a year ago.

  It is because the procedure is so difficult to defend that some have 
tried to suggest that it is used only in cases that threaten a mother's 
life or health. Let me note, then, the words of Dr. Martin Haskell, who 
authored a paper on the subject for the National Abortion Federation. 
In an interview with American Medical News, Dr. Haskell said, ``in my 
particular case, probably 20 percent (of the instances of this 
procedure) are for genetic reasons. And the other 80 percent are purely 
elective.'' Eighty percent are elective--not medically necessary--but 
elective.
  Another doctor, Dr. James McMahon, who performed at least 2,000 of 
these procedures, told American Medical News that he used the method to 
perform elective abortions up to 26 weeks and non-elective abortions up 
to 40 weeks. His definition of ``non-elective'' was expansive, 
including ``depression'' as a maternal indication for the procedure. 
More than half of the partial-birth abortions he performed were on 
healthy babies.
  And what did the Record of Bergen County, NJ, find when it published 
an investigative report on the issue just last week? It reported that 
in New Jersey alone, at least 1,500 partial-birth abortions are 
performed each year, far more than the 450 to 500 such abortions that 
the National Abortion Federation claims occur across the entire 
country.
  According to the Record, doctors it interviewed said that only a 
``minuscule amount'' of these abortions are performed for medical 
reasons.
  The medical experts tell us that this procedure is neither necessary 
nor safe. It is not done out of medical necessity, but largely for 
elective reasons. That is why so many people around this country are 
opposed to this procedure, and why even its most ardent defenders are 
uncomfortable discussing it.
  In his recent book, Judge Robert Bork wrote about the squandering of 
our common cultural inheritance in the name of radical individualism. 
What could be more radical than suggesting that individuals can 
interrupt the birth process and suction the brains out of a healthy 
viable child, all in the name of free choice? Does not sanctioning the 
death of a child for no reason other than convenience denigrate the 
idea that there is inherrent value in every person?
  Judge Bork wrote that ``security has become a religion.'' ``We demand 
it not only from government,'' he said, ``but from schools and 
employers. We demand to be protected, he goes on to say, ``not only 
from major catastrophe but from minor inconvenience.''
  There are striking parallels here with the procedure we are 
discussing. In its report on partial-birth abortion, the New Jersey 
Record found that the procedure was performed mostly on people ``who 
didn't realize, or didn't care, how far along they were.'' Is choice, 
free of consequence or responsibility, truly free? Or are we simply 
putting government more in charge of our choice and freedom by 
protecting us from the consequences of our own actions?
  It seems to me that people of good faith can debate when, during a 
pregnancy, life begins--whether it is at conception, at the end of the 
first trimester, or at some other point. But I think it is very 
difficult to make the case that life has not begun once a pregnancy is 
well along when a baby can be delivered either to be saved and live, or 
just before completely born to be brutally killed. If a doctor 
performing a partial-birth abortion happened to allow the child to 
completely clear the mother's body, it would have the same protections 
under our Constitution that any other human being would have. The 
difference between life and death here is literally a matter of inches. 
The hands and feet are in this world and are living and moving. The 
chest is visibly breathing. Only the head remains in the birth canal; 
and it is dismembered in this procedure.

  Madam President, President Clinton has taken the position that 
abortion is justified for any reason, under any circumstance, no matter 
how far along the pregnancy. I intend to vote to override the veto. I 
encourage my colleagues to do the same, and put an end to this cruel 
and barbaric procedure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mrs. BOXER. May I ask the Senator how much time he would like to 
have?

[[Page S11368]]

  Mr. FEINGOLD. I ask the Senator from California to yield me up to 10 
minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. The Senator is yielded 10 minutes, immediately followed 
by, if it is all right with my colleague, Senator Robb for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there any objection?
  Mrs. BOXER. I would amend that. Senator Coverdell would like 2 
minutes in between the two speakers on my side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, this is a difficult issue for everyone 
concerned. No one likes abortions, whatever procedure is used.
  It is a difficult subject to discuss, perhaps most difficult for 
those who have had abortions or have had to face the choice of an 
abortion.
  Madam President, I will vote to sustain the President's veto because 
I believe, fundamentally, that the decision about whether to choose an 
abortion should remain a personal, private decision by the woman 
involved, and the decision about what procedure is necessary to protect 
the health and life of a woman is one that should be made between the 
woman and her physician, not by the Federal Government.
  Before I briefly address the specifics of this bill, I wish to take a 
moment to pay tribute to the Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], who 
has been such a courageous leader on this issue, as have a number of 
other Members of the Senate.
  I also praise the Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray], who this 
morning expressed her outrage at the tenor of this debate where 
individual Senators talked about the joy of being in the delivery room 
with their wives, as if that gave them the authority to dictate to the 
women of this country what options should be available to them in a 
time of distress and urgency. I share that concern.
  For that reason, I come to the floor this afternoon to take a little 
time to underscore why this legislation is wrong and why President 
Clinton was courageous and correct in his decision to veto it.
  Madam President, let me say again, no one likes abortion. No one 
wants to talk about abortion or the procedure. We ought to clearly 
understand what the effort behind this legislation is. It is to ban 
abortions entirely, not just this one particular procedure. I know this 
firsthand from the Judiciary hearings on this bill where I had a chance 
to ask one of the proponents what the position of her organization was 
on a variety of other abortion procedures.
  The response I received was very clear. The witness admitted that 
their goal was to outlaw and criminalize every single kind of 
procedure. That is why the underlying push behind this legislation is 
clear. It is not, and I repeat not, to ban just one form of abortion. 
It is to outlaw all forms of abortion, from taking a pill such as RU-
486 within the first several weeks after conception to this rarely used 
procedure, the late-term abortion.
  If proponents of this legislation wanted to ban only this form of 
abortion, they could have done so by accepting the amendment of the 
Senator from California which would allow a physician to use this 
technique only if necessary to protect the life of a woman or to avoid 
serious adverse health consequences to the woman.
  The President said in his veto message that he was vetoing the bill 
because it ``does not allow women to protect themselves from serious 
threats to their health'' and because it refuses ``to permit women, in 
reliance on their doctor's best medical judgement, to use this 
procedure when their lives are threatened or when their health is put 
in serious jeopardy.''
  The amendment offered by my friend from California, Senator Boxer, 
would actually impose an even stronger standard than contained in Roe 
versus Wade, which speaks only to the health of a woman. The Boxer 
amendment would have allowed this procedure to be banned unless it was 
necessary to avoid a serious adverse health consequence to the woman.
  If the proponents of this legislation would accept that amendment, 
this bill could be passed and sent to the President, as the Senator 
from California has said, within hours, and he would sign it into law.
  The fact that the proponents of this legislation refuse to accept an 
amendment to allow a physician to use this procedure if necessary to 
avoid a serious adverse health consequence reveals what this debate is 
really about: it is about scoring political points, confusing the 
public, and beginning a process aimed at outlawing all forms of 
abortion.
  I want to respond briefly to the claims made that this procedure is 
never medically necessary.
  I attended the Judiciary Committee hearings and what I heard was that 
different physicians have different opinions about whether this 
procedure is more or less safe for a woman than other procedures, 
whether the procedure may be necessary in a particular situation to 
protect a woman's future ability to bear children, and precisely what 
the procedure is that would be banned under this legislation.
  So, what I heard was a professional disagreement among members of the 
medical community on the efficacy and risks associated with various 
abortion procedures.
  Each side of this debate can quote from the medical expert they 
prefer as to the safety or necessity of the particular procedure. That 
medical professionals have different opinions on these issues is both 
understandable and expected.
  But that, Mr. President, is precisely why trained physicians and 
their patients, not Members of Congress, should make the decisions 
about what course of treatment is appropriate in an individual 
situation.

  Without going through a detailed description of the different 
opinions, some physicians told the committee that there were a number 
of situations where alternative abortion procedures had a higher risk 
to the woman.
  For example, testimony was presented indicating that a woman was 14 
times as likely to die from a cesarean hysterotomy than from a D&E 
procedure.
  There was also testimony about certain alternative procedures that 
can cause a traumatic stretching of the cervix that increases a woman's 
chances for infertility in the future. Others disagreed.
  Again, what this debate told me is that there is room for 
disagreement between physicians about specific medical procedures.
  It should not be the role of Congress to decide or determine which 
side of this debate is right or wrong. These are medical questions that 
ought to be decided by medical professionals, not Members of Congress.
  One woman who had made the difficult choice of choosing this 
procedure when a much wanted pregnancy had turned into a tragedy told 
our committee, as follows:

       It deeply saddens me that you are making a decision having 
     never walked in our shoes. When families like ours are given 
     this kind of tragic news, the last people we want to seek 
     advice from are politicians. We talk to our doctors, lots of 
     doctors. We talk to our families and other loved ones, and we 
     ponder long and hard into the night with God.

  We ought to listen to those words. These decisions are private, 
personal, painful decisions to be made by the families involved, guided 
by their physicians.
  Congress ought to leave these decisions with the people involved.
  To tell a woman and her family that Congress will not allow her 
doctor to use a procedure which will allow her a greater chance to be 
able to have another pregnancy and bear a child in the future is cruel 
and unconscionable.
  To tell a woman and her family that Congress will not allow a 
physician to use this procedure if necessary to protect her from 
serious, adverse health consequences is just wrong.
  Let me say one more time: If the aim of this legislation was simply 
to restrict the use of this particular procedure, they would have 
accepted the Boxer amendment.
  But this is not the goal of the proponents of this bill.
  The goal is to outlaw each and every abortion procedure, one by one. 
That is what is at stake. The President's veto should be sustained.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for a question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I will.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Wisconsin says that this decision

[[Page S11369]]

should be left up to the mother and doctor, as if there is absolutely 
no limit that can be placed on what decision they make with respect to 
that.
  The Senator from California is going to go up to advise you of what 
my question is going to be, and I will ask it anyway. My question is 
this: If that baby were delivered breech style and the head--everything 
was delivered except for the head, and for some reason that that baby's 
head would slip out so that the baby was completely delivered, would it 
then still be up to the doctor and the mother to decide whether to kill 
that baby?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I would simply answer the question by saying under the 
Boxer amendment the standard of saying it has to be a determination, by 
a doctor, of health of the mother, is a sufficient standard that would 
apply to the situation covered by this bill. That would be an adequate 
standard.
  Mr. SANTORUM. That doesn't answer the question. Let's assume the 
procedure is being performed for the reason you stated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin has the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Would you allow the doctor to kill the baby?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. That's not the question. What this bill is about is a 
question that should be answered by a doctor and the woman who receives 
the advice of the doctor. Neither I nor is the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is truly competent to answer those questions. That is why 
we should not be making those decisions here on the floor of the 
Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 10 minutes of the Senator has expired.
  The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, the Senator from Wisconsin has 
asserted that proponents of this legislation are simply trying to ban 
every form of abortion. I rise as a classic example of that not being 
the case. I support Georgia law, which grants broad latitude in the 
first trimester, subject to changes in conditions as we go on through, 
and I supported that law.
  I find this medical procedure repugnant almost to the point of 
unbelievable--I cannot even believe we are debating whether it should 
occur, here.
  However, after learning about it, I did call a prominent doctor in my 
State, familiar with this aspect of medicine, and asked her. I gave her 
my instinct, but I said, ``Give me your professional judgment.'' I will 
report that for the debate before the Senate. She says:

       It is never necessary to do a partial-birth abortion of a 
     live fetus. In the extremely rare case of a severe fetal 
     abnormality which mechanically precludes normal vaginal 
     delivery, the partial-birth method is justifiable but 
     certainly not necessary, as C-section can be employed. Even 
     when the life of the mother is endangered, the partial-birth 
     method should not be used--

  This is an exception, incidentally, to the partial-birth abortion 
ban--life of the mother.

     Because, if the mother's life is in danger you would want to 
     deliver the baby as soon as possible. It does not make sense 
     to use the more time consuming partial-birth abortion 
     procedure when you can use a C-section to remove the infant 
     quickly.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 2 minutes of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized for 15 
minutes.
  Mr. ROBB. Madam President, I will yield to the Senator 
from California for 1 minute.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend for coming over to participate in this 
debate. I am looking forward to his remarks. I know he has given 
extensive thought to this.
  I thank my friend, Senator Feingold, for coming over to participate 
in this debate. We sent this issue to the Judiciary Committee, where he 
sat and listened intently to all of the testimony.
  It is important to note that I made a unanimous-consent request--I 
will do so again--to ban this procedure except where the woman's life 
is at stake or if she faces serious adverse health consequences. The 
Senator from Pennsylvania said no.
  We could walk down the aisle together, ban this procedure but for 
those circumstances. But I think what is behind all this is not the 
life of a woman, a woman like Vikki Stella, who could have been 
rendered sterile and not been able to have her latest little child, 
Nicholas, if this procedure was not available to her. We are putting a 
woman's face, a family's face on this issue.
  We have drawings of parts of a woman's body that we have seen here 
before in the debate. We may see it again. Some of us find it 
offensive. We want to show the faces of the families who are in these 
very difficult situations. I thank my friend for partaking in this 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, the argument I'm about to make is not 
directed toward those who consistently vote what they believe to be the 
pro-life position on issues affecting reproductive rights. This is an 
easy vote for them--even though it might not be if they focused on the 
implications of the actual bill language rather than the emotions it 
has stirred. Instead, my argument is directed to those who had the 
courage to oppose this legislation originally, but have since been 
subjected to enormous pressure to change their vote and override the 
President's veto.
  I know how tough this vote is for pro-choice Senators and I can't 
promise anyone there won't be a political price to pay. This issue was 
designed from the start to fracture the pro-choice coalition and 
undermine support for a woman's right to reproductive freedom. To that 
end, this veto override attempt was deliberately delayed until today 
for maximum voter impact before the election. But I urge you not to 
succumb. Our Forefathers envisioned a Senate with enough backbone to 
withstand the passions of the moment--and of the other body--and on 
this vote we're being put to the test.
  Mr. President, let's be clear as to what this attempt to override the 
President's veto of the so-called partial birth abortion ban is all 
about--and what it's not about. It's not about whether to have an 
abortion. It's not about when to have an abortion. It's only about how 
to have an abortion--and whether the Government ought to intervene and 
restrict a physician's professional judgment.
  As noted in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer, one critic of the 
bill, Georgetown University law professor Louis Michael Seidman, told 
the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall that the proposed law ``does 
nothing to discourage abortion per se. It does nothing to protect the 
rights of fetuses, nothing to protect potential life, and nothing to 
protect actual life.'' As long as there are other legal methods to 
obtain an abortion, Dr. Seidman says that the bill's only effect is to 
force women ``to choose a more risky abortion procedure over a less 
risky one.''
  Even proponents ought to be troubled by the fact that nothing in this 
bill would prevent a woman from having an abortion. It wouldn't even 
prevent a woman from having a third trimester abortion. All it would do 
is prevent a doctor from using a procedure that might be necessary to 
protect the woman's health or future reproductive capacity. And I don't 
believe the Government ought to intervene in that decision, Mr. 
President. To me, decisions on how best to protect a woman's health are 
better left to physicians.
  And while I strongly oppose third trimester abortions except to 
protect the life or health of the mother, this bill would make no 
exceptions for the health of the mother. In fact, the bill's proponents 
defeated an amendment to grant an exception to protect the health of 
the mother, claiming it would gut the bill. They did it knowing it 
would have made the bill acceptable to many more Members of this body--
and to the President--therefore eliminating the bill's potency as a 
political issue. Pulitzer Prize winning author David Garrow made this 
point in yesterday's' Philadelphia Enquirer when he wrote: ``How could 
adding a `serious health risks' exception `gut' a measure intended to 
curtail supposedly `elective' or unnecessary procedures?''
  Mr. President, I have always been pro-choice, but I have never been 
pro-abortion. As far as I'm concerned, abortions ought to be safe, 
legal, and rare. While this bill wouldn't make late term abortions more 
rare--in fact, there's no evidence they constitute more than an 
infinitesimal percentage of abortions actually performed in the

[[Page S11370]]

United States--it could make them significantly less safe.
  Mr. President, I respect the convictions of those who believe we 
ought to choose life over abortion, and I applaud those who remind us, 
lawfully and peacefully, of the consequences of our choice. And like 
the vast majority of our fellow citizens I find the graphics used to 
depict the procedure in question repulsive. But I doubt that many of us 
would find an explicit portrayal of any procedure to terminate a 
pregnancy any less disturbing.

  I was not comfortable voting against this bill originally, because I 
don't want to encourage abortions at any stage of a pregnancy and I'd 
like to eliminate them altogether in the third trimester--except when 
the life or health of the mother is threatened. But this bill wouldn't 
prohibit a single abortion from taking place, even in the third 
trimester. It would only increase the risks for women who already have 
difficult and sometimes tragic circumstances to deal with--and I 
believe that when faced with those circumstances, the woman and not the 
Government should decide. On this bill, the President made a gutsy 
call, but he made the right call and I hope at least 34 of us have the 
courage to stick with him and uphold his veto.
  With that, Madam President, I yield whatever time I have remaining 
back to the Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. How much time is left in Senator Robb's time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 30 minutes, 30 seconds.
  Mrs. BOXER. In Senator Robb's 15 minutes, how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I shall not take the 8 minutes. But 
before the Senator from West Virginia leaves, I want to thank him. I 
applaud him for his real courage, for him coming to this floor and 
saying the real truth, which is this: There is no reason that we are 
taking this bill up today in the last week of the session, or the last 
few days of the session, other than for strictly political reasons.
  There is no reason why this Congress sat on this issue for 5 long 
months. If we had sat down and worked it out and the amendment which I 
offered, which got 47 votes in our last debate, could be worked on, we 
could have a bill, as my friend said, that we could all vote for, that 
would outlaw this procedure except where the woman's life is at stake 
or she faced serious adverse health consequences. The Senator would 
join me in that bill. The President would sign that bill.
  I just want to say to my friend, it takes courage to come here and 
speak the truth. You have done so, and I thank you very much.
  Further, I would like to say, again, that the President, before he 
wrote his veto message, thought long and hard about it. This is a 
President who will sign a law that outlaws late-term abortion except 
for cases where the life and health of the mother are endangered. This 
is a President who wants to sign a bill that would, in fact, outlaw 
this procedure except for those rare, tragic circumstances, 
circumstances like the one of Vikki Stella.
  I want to point out, as we put the woman's face on this issue and we 
put the family face on this issue, Madam President--and I know you are 
aware of the face that we tried to put on this issue--we find out that 
these women and their families are not political people. For them it is 
not a partisan issue. Some are Republican, some are Democrat, some are 
pro-choice, some are anti-choice, some really never thought about it 
much.
  They are American families. They want their babies. They find out in 
the end something went drastically wrong, and the shock and the pain 
and the horror of that seems to be overlooked by those who would look 
at this woman and say to her, say to her husband and say to her 
children, ``You know, it really doesn't matter about you. It doesn't 
matter about you.'' I do not understand how those holding that position 
can really look at this woman, in her eyes, and tell her that she did 
the wrong thing to follow her doctor's advice, to follow her God, to 
discuss it with her family, to preserve her life, her fertility, her 
health. I do not know how Senators could do it.

  So now what we have here is, every time one of these stories is told, 
a Senator stands up and says, ``Oh, but not her. We didn't mean her. 
She didn't have that procedure.'' Then we have the letters from the 
women saying, ``Wrong, Senator. You don't know everything. I did have 
this procedure. I know the procedure I had.''
  To me, Madam President, it is a portrayal--I do not know how else to 
put it--of arrogance. If I put the best light on it, I will call it 
well-meaning, but even that I wonder about, because why wait until the 
last week to make this point?
  I share the feelings of Senator Patty Murray, and I urge my 
colleagues, if they did not hear her, to talk to her, because I 
honestly feel that there is a certain arrogance in this debate, 
arrogance on the part of Senators who think they know more than 
doctors, arrogance on the part of Senators who think they know more 
than Vikki Stella and her husband and her kids.
  We even had one case of a woman who consulted with her priest on the 
issue of what she and her husband should do. Her parish priest 
supported her decision to terminate the pregnancy. The priest told her 
to follow the advice of her physician, so she could live for her family 
and for her children.
  So I just cannot understand how colleagues feel that they can outlaw 
a procedure, make no true life exception, as the New York Times said 
today, so narrow it could never be used, make absolutely no health 
exception, and think they are doing something to help life. It is not 
helping life if a woman like this dies in the prime of her life. These 
pregnancies are fatally flawed. They are dangerous to the women. If 
these babies were to survive, we know from testimony they would live 
moments, maybe seconds in agony.
  So I think, my colleagues, as we come down to this vote and all its 
implications, we need to decide what is the role of a U.S. Senator? Is 
it to be a doctor? Is it to be God? What is it to be? I think there are 
certain things that are best left to these families in their anguish, 
to these doctors who know the facts. I hope and I do believe we will 
have enough colleagues to stand for these women and for their families.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the next 
Republican speaker, Senator Lieberman be recognized to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there any objection? Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record a letter from Dr. Pamela Smith describing Ms. 
Stella's condition as she knows it, and suggesting that this procedure 
was not appropriate for her to go through, that there was a safer 
medical procedure, and also to have printed in the Record a copy of 
``Williams Obstetrics'' which is the authority on obstetrics, also 
describing what is medically recommended in cases where Mrs. Stella had 
her procedure. There were alternatives, safe alternatives, safer 
alternatives for her to go through.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                Physicians' Ad Hoc


                                          Coalition for Truth,

                               Alexandria, VA, September 23, 1996.
       Dear Senator Santorum: My name is Dr. Pamela E. Smith. I am 
     founding member of PHACT (Physicians' Ad hoc Coalition for 
     Truth). This coalition of over three hundred medical 
     providers nationwide (which is open to everyone, irrespective 
     of their political stance on abortion) was specifically 
     formed to educate the public, as well as those involved in 
     government, in regards to disseminating medical facts as they 
     relate to the Partial-Birth Abortion procedure.
       In this regard, it has come to my attention that an 
     individual (Ms. Vicki Stella, a diabetic) who underwent this 
     procedure, who is not medically trained, has appeared on 
     television and in Roll Call proclaiming that it was necessary 
     for her to have this particular form of abortion to enable 
     her to bear children in the future. In response to these 
     claims I would invite you to note the following:
       1. Although Ms. Stella proclaims this procedure was the 
     only thing that could be done to preserve her fertility, the 
     fact of the matter is that the standard of care that is used 
     by medical personnel to terminate a pregnancy in its later 
     stages does not include

[[Page S11371]]

     partial-birth abortion. Cesarean section, inducing labor with 
     pitocin or protoglandins, or (if the baby has excess fluid in 
     the head as I believe was the case with Ms. Stella) draining 
     the fluid from the baby's head to allow a normal delivery are 
     all techniques taught and used by obstetrical providers 
     throughout this country. These are techniques for which we 
     have safety statistics in regards to their impact on the 
     health of both the woman and the child. In contrast, there 
     are no safety statistics on partial-birth abortion, no 
     reference of this technique in the national library of 
     medicine database, and no long term studies published that 
     prove it does not negatively affect a woman's capability of 
     successfully carrying a pregnancy to term in the future. Ms. 
     Stella may have been told this procedure was necessary and 
     safe, but she was sorely misinformed.
       2. Diabetes is a chronic medical condition that tends to 
     get worse over time and that predisposes individuals to 
     infections that can be harder to treat. If Ms. Stella was 
     advised to have an abortion most likely this was secondary to 
     the fact that her child was diagnosed with conditions that 
     were incompatible with life. The fact that Ms. Stella is a 
     diabetic, coupled with the fact that diabetics are prone to 
     infection and the partial-birth abortion procedure requires 
     manipulating a normally contaminated vagina over a course of 
     three days (a technique that invites infection) medically I 
     would contend of all the abortion techniques currently 
     available to her this was the worse one that could have been 
     recommended for her. The others are quicker, cheaper and do 
     not place a diabetic at such extreme risks for life-
     threatening infections.
       3. Partial-birth abortion is, in fact, a public health 
     hazard in regards to women's health in that one employs 
     techniques that have been demonstrated in the scientific 
     literature to place women at increased risks for uterine 
     rupture, infection, hemorrhage, inability to carry 
     pregnancies to term in the future and maternal death. Such 
     risks have even been acknowledged by abortion providers such 
     as Dr. Warren Hern.
       4. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, 
     recently stated in the AMA News that he believes that people, 
     including the President, have been misled as to ``fact and 
     fiction'' in regards to third trimester pregnancy 
     terminations. He said, and I quote, ``in no way can I twist 
     my mind to see that the late term abortion described . . . is 
     a medically necessity for the mother . . . I am opposed to 
     partial-birth abortions.'' He later went on to describe a 
     baby that he operated on who had some of the anomalies that 
     babies of women who had partial-birth abortions had. His 
     particular patient, however, went on to become the head nurse 
     in his intensive care unit years later!
       I realize that abortion continues to be an extremely 
     divisive issue in our society. However, when considering 
     public policy on such a matter that indeed has medical 
     dimensions, it is of the utmost importance that decisions are 
     based on facts as well as emotions and feelings. Banning this 
     dangerous technique will not infringe on a woman's ability to 
     obtain an abortion in the early stage of pregnancy or if a 
     pregnancy truly needs to be ended to preserve the life or 
     health of the mother. What a ban will do is insure that women 
     will not have their lives jeopardized when they seek an 
     abortion procedure.
       Thank you for your time a consideration.
           Sincerely,

                                           Pamela Smith, M.D.,

                          Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
     Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Chicago, IL.
                                                                    ____


             Excerpt From Williams Obstetrics, 19th Edition

       Method of Delivery. In the diabetic woman with an A or B 
     White classification, cesarean section has commonly been used 
     to avoid traumatic delivery of a large infant at or near 
     term. In women with advanced classes of diabetes, especially 
     those associated with vascular disease, the reduced 
     likelihood of inducing labor safety, remote from term also 
     has contributed appreciably to an increased cesarean delivery 
     rate. Labor induction may be attempted when the fetus is not 
     excessively large, and the cervix is considered favorable for 
     induction. In the reports cited above with low perinatal 
     mortality, the cesarean section rate was more than 50 percent 
     in Melbourne (Martin and colleagues, 1987), 55 percent in Los 
     Angeles (Gabbe and colleagues, 1977), 69 percent in Boston 
     (Kitzmiller and associates, 1978), 70 percent in a midwestern 
     multicenter study (Schneider and co-workers, 1980), and 81 
     percent in Dallas (Leveno and associates, 1979). At Parkland 
     Hospital, the cesarean delivery rate for all diabetic women, 
     including class A, was 45 percent from 1988 through 1991, but 
     for overtly diabetic women, it has remained at about 80 
     percent for the past 20 years.

  Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record a letter from Bill and Teresa Heineman who had 
children who had severe abnormalities, fetal abnormalities, went 
through and had the children with abnormalities similar to the ones 
discussed here, and did so healthily and able to have children 
afterward.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                  William J. & Teresa M. Heineman,
                                                    Rockville, MD.
       We have noted with concern statements made by several 
     couples suggesting, from their very personal and very tragic 
     experiences, that the partial birth abortion is the only 
     procedure available to a woman when the child she is carrying 
     is diagnosed with a severe abnormality.
       We have had experiences that were very similar and yet so 
     very different. We have had three children biologically and 
     have adopted three more. Two of our children were born with a 
     genetic abnormality--5-p Trisomy. One also had hydrocephalus. 
     The medical prognosis for these children was that they would 
     have at best a short life with minimal development. Some 
     medical professionals recommended abortion; others were ready 
     to help support their lives. We chose life. That decision 
     carried some hardships. However, God blessed us immeasurably 
     through their short lives.
       Our first child, Elizabeth, was diagnosed after her birth. 
     We were deeply saddened but desired to give her the best life 
     we could. Though she never could say a word and could not sit 
     up on her own, she clearly knew us. She learned to smile, 
     laugh, and clap her hands. She was a joy to us for two and 
     one half years. We clearly saw how many lives she had touched 
     with over 200 people attended her Memorial Mass! One child 
     was touched in a very personal way when he received 
     Elizabeth's donated liver. Two others received sight through 
     her eyes.
       Our third child, Mary Ann, had been diagnosed with 
     hydrocephalus in utero and shortly after birth with the same 
     genetic abnormality that our oldest daughter had. (We could 
     have known this during pregnancy via amniocentesis, but 
     refused the procedure due to the risk to the baby). Terry's 
     obstetrician said that we were fortunate, though, that Mary 
     Ann would have the chance to go home with us. We learned to 
     feed her through a gavage tube as she was unable to suck to 
     receive nourishment. Our son, Andrew, developed a special 
     bond with his sister. We spend the next five months as a 
     family, learning, growing and caring for our children. When 
     our precious daughter died, we celebrated her life at a 
     Memorial Mass with family and friends.
       Our belief in Jesus Christ and His gift of salvation 
     provided comfort for us as our daughters entered their new 
     home in heaven. They remain a part of our family and are 
     always in our hearts. They enriched our lives and touched the 
     lives of many others. Our Creator sent these children to us 
     and we were privileged to love and care for them. What a 
     tremendous loss to all of us who know them to terminate their 
     lives because they were not physically perfect. We look 
     forward to a joyous reunion with them in heaven.
       It is so easy to see the half of the glass that is empty 
     when we face difficult problems; will we have the courage to 
     allow our children to have the half of the glass that is 
     full? We pray for other mothers and fathers who are faced 
     with agonizing decisions that they will remain open to the 
     gift being entrusted to them. God's love is ever-present 
     during our times of joy and sadness. He is with us now as 
     well are parents to Andrew, now nine years old, and three 
     children: Maria, Christina, and Joseph; ages 11, 9 and 7, who 
     joined our family through adoption.

  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield to the Senator from Michigan 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  I had hoped there would be a little more time today for me to address 
the Senate on this issue, but we have so many speakers we are all going 
to have to condense our remarks. I thought I would just highlight more 
of a personal experience of my own and my family's trying to put this 
in perspective and at least outline where my views are on this issue.
  I have sort of an interesting distinction in that of all of the 
Members of this body, I am the parent with the youngest child as of 
this moment, a 3-week-old son who, of course, we are very excited about 
and love very much. He was born 3 weeks ago today. I was there for the 
delivery. While it was happening, my wife and I both thought a lot 
about the birth of our twin daughters who were born 3 years and 3 
months ago.
  They were born prematurely. They had to stay in a hospital for 
several weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit. We experienced 
firsthand the kinds of miracles that go on today all across this 
country with the births, at very early stages, of babies who survive. 
In that neonatal unit there were children who were born weeks and 
weeks, including months, early and had been born with birth weights 
slightly over a pound who were in the hospital for many months who 
survived.
  The fact is, those were babies exactly like the babies who, in a 
partial-birth abortion, do not survive. We, I think, came away from 
that experience even more committed than ever before, both

[[Page S11372]]

my wife and I, to the notion that we cannot allow practices like the 
partial-birth abortion to occur in this country. It is a deplorable, 
deplorable practice. It seems to me that we have to take a stand as a 
matter of our moral faith and beliefs as a nation in opposition to it.
  I have heard a lot of talk from people on all sides of this issue, 
none of which persuaded me in any sense that I should change the vote I 
cast some months ago.
  I also say this in conclusion. For a lot of people who say they 
believe in the pro-choice side of this debate but also are not pro-
abortion, I believe they are sincere in that feeling. But I also hear 
them say so often they want to make abortion rare. I cannot believe 
that if that is the case, if you truly want to make abortion rare, that 
you would stand in the way of this legislation. If you truly believe 
that there should be fewer abortions, it seems to me you begin with the 
ones that are the most deplorable and the least justifiable. Certainly 
partial-birth abortion is the exact definition of that category.
  I hope our colleagues will join us today in overriding this veto. I 
thank you very much. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, before I yield to Senator Lieberman, I 
ask for one moment, 1 minute.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania placed in the Record an analysis of a 
doctor's opinion on Vikki Stella's procedure. I really take offense at 
this. That doctor has never seen Vikki Stella's medical records. Vikki 
Stella never granted permission for her medical records to be seen by 
anyone other than her family and her physician.
  Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Yet you are to base your decision on this? You can't 
have it both ways. You can't argue with any----
  Mrs. BOXER. I will not yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has the floor.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, Madam President.
  Not one of these women who have courageously come forward to tell her 
story----
  Mr. SANTORUM. Is a doctor.
  Mrs. BOXER. To my knowledge, not one of these women who has come 
forward to tell her story has shared her medical records detailing one 
of the greatest tragedies that her family has ever faced with anyone 
other than her family, her God, and her own personal physician. I 
believe that to place in the Record testimony of a physician who never 
saw those records, which implies in many ways that these women are not 
telling the truth about----
  Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. BOXER. No. I will not yield at this time.
  Madam President, we have been debating this for a very long time. I 
think we have kept our emotions under control. I can personally tell 
you that there are emotions on both sides. I hope that we can respect 
each other. We have had hours of debate. We agreed to have hours of 
debate.
  There were days when my colleagues were down here presenting what 
they said was my position, and that was not proper. I did not complain, 
I only asked them to stop it. I would like to make a point and then 
turn to my colleague from Connecticut.
  My point is this, the women who have come forward from all over this 
great Nation of ours to tell their stories are reliving the most 
painful moments of their lives. To place into the Record medical 
opinions of doctors who never saw the women's medical records, I happen 
to think is absolutely wrong. It is one Senator's opinion and I just 
wanted to so state it.
  The important thing, it seems to me, is this: All of us today could 
have a bill, we could have a bill, if we had a true life exception and 
a narrowly drawn health exception. We could pass a bill, we could send 
it to this President, who signed a law in Arkansas to outlaw late-term 
abortions with an exception only for endangerment to the life or health 
of the woman. We could do this together. I hope we would refrain from 
casting aspersions on the character and the truthfulness and the 
integrity of American families like this.
  I yield to my colleague and I appreciate his forbearing.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend and colleague from California.
  Madam President, the bill which is the subject of the Presidential 
veto that is before the Senate is limited to a particular medical 
procedure, but for me, and I guess for many other Members of the 
Senate, it raises once again the most difficult issues in the debate 
over abortion.
  The opponents of this medical procedure have raised facts that all of 
us, whether generally pro-life or generally pro-choice, must 
acknowledge as relevant and troubling.
  In protecting a woman's right to choose, a constitutionally protected 
woman's right to choose, we are for the most part presenting the right 
to have an abortion early in pregnancy. The fact is that over 90 
percent of abortions are performed by the end of the first 12 weeks of 
pregnancy. A small portion of abortions, estimated by at least one 
authority as less than one-half of 1 percent, occur after 26 weeks of 
gestation.
  This debate on this veto of this bill, H.R. 1833, involves an 
abortion procedure that is used later in pregnancies. Questions that 
are settled for the bulk of early-performed abortions, to me, are less 
clear for this small minority of later abortions.
  In particular, I must say since the Senate adopted this legislation 
earlier, I have been reading a number of commentaries, studies, and 
articles, particularly one very long and thoughtful article by David 
Brown, of the Washington Post, who, I gather, is a doctor. Together, 
they call into question such basic facts as the number, timing, and 
motivations for abortions performed using this procedure.
  The controversy over this matter has, of course, not been confined to 
the press. Like most of my colleagues in the Chamber, I have heard from 
many--including many constituents--who have said to me that partial-
birth abortions are only performed in very rare situations where a 
woman's life is in danger. Others have said literally thousands of 
late-term partial-birth abortions are performed on a purely elective 
basis without medical necessity. The medical community itself has 
expressed conflicting opinions about the quantity, safety, and efficacy 
of this particular abortion procedure.
  Madam President, these conflicting opinions and questions are crucial 
to our determination of whether and how we should legislate regarding 
late-term abortions. I, for one, believe, the record before the Senate 
raises sufficient concerns to compel not only further study but another 
attempt to legislate. I know that this effort will not be easy because 
it raises the various difficult questions of whether there are any 
limitations that we believe should be put on late-term abortions.
  In Doe versus Bolton, which was decided together with Roe versus 
Wade, the Supreme Court acknowledged the right of the States to 
``readjust its views and emphases in the light of the advanced 
knowledge and techniques of the day.'' These two historic Supreme Court 
decisions, Doe versus Bolton and Roe versus Wade, together, effectively 
prevented the States from limiting a woman's right to choose before 
fetal viability, but as I read them, permitted State intervention after 
viability.

  The question, then, is whether and how we as lawmakers and our 
colleagues in State legislatures choose to intervene. Procedures that 
involve abortions, late into pregnancy, put our concern with the health 
and freedom of choice of the mother in conflict with the viability of 
the fetus which advances in medical science continue to move earlier in 
pregnancy.
  Madam President, the evidence that some partial-birth abortions are 
being performed not only late in pregnancy but electively--which is to 
say, without medical necessity, let alone without life-threatening 
circumstances to the mother--make a hard case ultimately and profoundly 
unacceptable.
  In the context of these very difficult questions that demand careful 
balancing and the most thoughtful and well-defined legislating, I 
continue to find the wording of the bill before the Senate much too 
broad, particularly since it imposes criminal penalties. It would 
subject doctors to jail for medical decisions they make. It would 
criminalize abortions performed using

[[Page S11373]]

this medical procedure at any time in a pregnancy under all 
circumstances except, ``When a partial-birth abortion * * * is 
necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a 
physical disorder, illness, or injury.''
  Madam President, I repeat, I find that language too broad and too 
absolute to justify criminal penalties in the very difficult and 
complicated circumstances that reality provides in this case.
  I will therefore vote to sustain the President's veto of H.R. 1833, 
the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 1995.
  However, I will do so with a growing personal anxiety that I know I 
share with Members of the Senate that something very wrong is happening 
in our country, that there are abortions being performed later in 
pregnancies that are not medically necessary, and that we all have an 
interest in working together, through the law, to stop this.
  Whether we are pro-choice or pro-life, on this one I think we have to 
all reach for a common ground in the weeks and months ahead where we 
will lower our voices, find our common values and raise our sights so 
that we can find a way to better protect fetal life in the latter 
stages of pregnancy without unfairly denying the constitutional rights 
of pregnant women to choose.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from 
Illinois. And then, after that, I will ask the Senator from 
Pennsylvania to use up as much time as he would like.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I thank the Senator from California. I rise really 
on a point of personal privileges. Vikki Stella, the person in this 
picture, is a constituent of mine. She is in Illinois. I spoke of her 
situation and the trauma that she experienced in having a late-term 
abortion of a child that she very much wanted to have and the trauma 
that it caused her. She, as well as her family, was traumatized. But 
the fact that she was able to preserve her fertility gave them a new 
baby in that family.
  A point I touched on in my remarks this morning had to do with the 
issue of personal liberty and, as a subset of that, one's personal 
privacy. Here we have Vikki Stella, who expressed her own personal 
circumstance, something that happened in real life to her, something 
that wasn't theoretical, hypothetical, or conjecture, it was very real 
and traumatic for her and her family. Yet, we find, as part of this 
debate, her testimony and the privacy around her own health being 
debated by physicians who have never met her or saw her, never examined 
her, and her medical records being challenged on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate. I think that is extraordinary.
  I, frankly, call attention to this notion. As we look at this debate, 
ask yourself if you really want to have the Government going as far as 
to a debate about your own personal medical records, in something as 
traumatic as, no doubt, this situation was for Vikki Stella and her 
family. If there is one thing about which we can have a consensus--and 
I refer to the statement of my colleague from Connecticut--I believe 
there is consensus that one's medical record and condition is about as 
private as you are going to get. That falls within the zone of privacy 
that is constitutionally protected for every American.
  Yet, we have a letter introduced, as I understand it, into the Record 
today taking issue with the medical records and the medical history of 
Vikki Stella. I think that is extraordinary, and I think it falls 
outside of the purview of accepted practice and certainly outside the 
purview of the debate that should be taking place in this Senate.
  I thank the Chair and I thank the Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the Senator from Idaho 2 minutes.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Madam President, a partial-birth abortion is exactly 
what its name implies--a baby that is inches from being born has its 
life terminated.
  Many of the colleagues on the floor have said that in listening to 
the details of how the procedure is rendered, seeing the graphics, they 
find it offensive and grotesque. I agree, but, unfortunately, that is 
the procedure.
  It is hard to recite these facts. I believe this statement made by 
Senator Patrick Moynihan perfectly reflects my own thinking:

       I think this is just too close to infanticide. A child has 
     been born and it has exited the uterus, and what on Earth is 
     this procedure?

  ``Just too close to infanticide.'' The truth is that a victim of this 
procedure is a baby who is mere inches, and literally seconds away from 
being born and, if born, would be entitled to all of the legal 
protections that govern the taking of human life.
  What is this procedure and why would it ever be used? Proponents 
claim that it may be needed to protect the life and health of the 
mother. Proponents say that the bill's life-of-the-mother exception 
does not go far enough to protect the health of the mother. On this 
point I found persuasive the views of 300 physicians, most of whom are 
obstetricians, gynecologists, and pediatricians who wrote in their 
September 18 letter to Congress the following:

       There are simply no obstetrical situations which require a 
     partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to protect 
     the life, health, or future fertility of the mother. The 
     partial birth abortion procedure itself can pose both an 
     immediate and significant risk to a woman's health.

  It is also persuasive to me that those who are pro-choice and early 
supporters of partial birth abortions have now reversed their view. 
After reviewing additional facts made available, Washington Post 
Columnist Richard Cohen changed his mind and now urges the Senate to 
override the President's veto. Here is what he now says:

       I was led to believe that these late-term abortions were 
     extremely rare and performed only when the life of the mother 
     was in danger or the fetus irreparably deformed. I was wrong, 
     my Washington Post colleague, David Brown--a physician 
     himself--after interviewing doctors who performed late-term 
     abortions and surveying the literature, wrote: ``These 
     doctors say that while a significant number of their patients 
     have late abortions for medical reasons, many others--perhaps 
     the majority--do not.''

  Richard Cohen concludes with this statement: ``Society has certain 
rights, too, and one of them is to insist that late term abortions--
what seems pretty close to infanticide--are severely restricted.''
  We vote on this issue because majorities of the House and Senate 
approved this legislation. President Clinton vetoed it. The House of 
Representatives voted to override the President's veto.
  The Senate will decide today whether this bill becomes law. The 
Senate will decide if this procedure is ``just too close to 
infanticide'' and should be restricted.
  Because it is ``just too close to infanticide'' I will vote to 
override this veto. I will vote to restrict partial birth abortions out 
of concern that this procedure may adversely affect the health of women 
and out of conviction that we must protect innocent infants whose 
births are and should be imminent. Not their deaths. Death should not 
come seconds before birth.
  On many issues all of us in the Senate must vote on issues of where 
to draw the line, of what is legally and morally right or wrong. In 
this case, my view is this bill draws the line where it should be. My 
vote will be to override the President's veto. My prayer will be for 
this bill to become law.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from 
Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to express my strong support 
for the override of President Bill Clinton's veto of the partial-birth 
abortion bill. Rarely have we seen a President so willing to ignore the 
wishes of the overwhelming majority of the American people. Having 
talked to and listened to the people of Missouri over the last few 
weeks, I can say that there is an overwhelming majority opposed to this 
heinous procedure.
  The President has told us that the procedure is rare and only done to 
save the life of the mother. But that is not true. Surveys of 
practitioners of abortion in several States show that the procedure is 
often elective, not essential. Right in the bill is a provision that 
the procedure can be performed to save the life of the mother. So 
President Clinton cannot hide behind this reason in choosing to veto 
this bill.
  Many reporters have asked me why we are holding a vote on this issue 
in

[[Page S11374]]

the Senate today when we are, unfortunately, likely to fall short of 
what is needed to override the veto.
  Here is the reason: The American people are asking us to override the 
veto.
  I have been home in Missouri these past weekends, and there is no 
issue I have heard more about where the feelings are strong. Since 
July, I have received more than 27,000 cards and letters from 
Missourians who are strongly opposed to this. So we are holding this 
vote because the President made a terrible mistake in vetoing this 
bill, and it is up to Congress, representing the people, to reverse it.
  As has been stated, several Senators who have studied this issue 
since we first voted have already had a change of heart. The people 
want this bad decision by the President overturned. Now is the time to 
do it. It has to be done.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I oppose the override of the veto of 
H.R. 1833, a bill banning emergency late-term abortions.
  This bill is unnecessary. It is an unprecedented intrusion by the 
Federal Government into medical decision-making and it represents a 
direct constitutional challenge to safe and legal abortion as protected 
under the Roe versus Wade Supreme Court decision which has been the law 
of the land for 23 years.
  There are several reasons why this is a flawed bill.
  First, this bill attempts to ban a specific medical procedure, called 
by opponents, partial-birth abortion, but there is no medical 
definition of ``partial-birth abortion.''
  Second, the language in this bill is so vague that it could affect 
far more than the one particular procedure it seeks to ban. As such, it 
undermines Roe versus Wade.
  Third, there is no exception to protect the health of the woman. This 
bill would be a blanket ban on the use of a type of medical procedure 
regardless of whether it is the safest procedure under a particular set 
of circumstances.
  Fourth, this bill presumes guilt on the part of the doctor and forces 
physicians to prove that they did not violate the law.
  Fifth, this bill is unnecessary Federal regulation, since 41 States 
have already outlawed postviability abortions except to save a woman's 
life or health.
  Sixth, this is an ineffective bill because most cases not affected by 
it.


   no medical term for partial-birth abortion; doctors vulnerable to 
                              prosecution

  H.R. 1833 seeks to outlaw a medical procedure called, by the bill, 
partial-birth abortion. This procedure does not appear in medical 
textbooks. It does not appear in the medical records of doctors who are 
said to have performed this procedure.
  The doctors who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee could 
not identify, with any degree of certainty or consistency, what medical 
procedure this legislation refers to.
  For example, when asked to describe in medical terms what a 
``partial-birth abortion'' is, Dr. Pamela Smith, director of ob/gyn 
medical education at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago called it ``* * * a 
perversion of a breech extraction.''
  Dr. Nancy Romer, a practicing ob/gyn and assistant professor at 
Wright State University School of Medicine, who said the doctors at her 
hospital had never performed the procedure, had to quote another doctor 
in describing it as ``a Dilation and Extraction, distinguished from 
dismemberment-type D&Es.''
  When the same question was posed to legal experts in the Judiciary 
Committee hearings--to define exactly what medical procedure would be 
outlawed by this legislation--the responses were equally vague.
  The vagueness of exactly what medical procedures would be 
criminalized under this bill is striking and it may be vague for very 
deliberate reasons.
  By leaving the language vague every doctor that performs even a 
second trimester abortion could face the possibility of prosecution 
under this law.
  Senator Hatch said in our previous debate that every woman testifying 
in the committee who thought they were testifying about a ``partial 
birth abortion,'' were not affected by this legislation.

  This is evidence of the confusing and nonspecific nature of this so-
called partial birth procedure.


             this bill could affect other legal procedures

  The language in this bill is so vague that, far from outlawing just 
one, particular abortion procedure, the way this bill is written 
virtually any abortion procedure could fall within its scope.
  I asked the legal and medical experts who testified at the Judiciary 
Committee hearing if this legislation could affect abortion--not just 
late-term abortions--but earlier abortions of nonviable fetuses as 
well.
  Dr. Louis Seidman, professor of law from Georgetown University, gave 
the following answer:

       As I read the language, in a second trimester pre-viability 
     abortion where the fetus will in any event die, if any 
     portion of the fetus enters the birth canal prior to the 
     technical death of the fetus, then the physician is guilty of 
     a crime and goes to prison for 2 years.

  Dr. Seidman continued his testimony concluding that:

       If I were a lawyer advising a physician who performed 
     abortions, I would tell him to stop because there is just no 
     way to tell whether the procedure will eventuate in some 
     portion of the fetus entering the birth canal before the 
     fetus is technically dead, much less being able to 
     demonstrate that after the fact.

  Dr. Courtland Richardson, associate professor of gynecology and 
obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in testimony 
before a House committee, said,

       [the language] ``partially vaginally delivers'' is vague, 
     not medically oriented, and just not correct.
       In any normal 2nd trimester abortion procedure by any 
     method, you may have a point at which a part, a one inch 
     piece of [umbilical] cord for example, of the fetus passes 
     out of the cervical [opening] before fetal demise has 
     occurred.

  So, contrary to proponents' claims, this bill could affect far more 
than just the few abortions performed in the third trimester, and far 
more than just the one procedure being described.


                  presumes guilt; affirmative defense

  Another troubling aspect of this legislation to me is that it 
violates a fundamental tenet of our legal system--the presumption of 
innocence. This bill does exactly the opposite--it presumes guilt.
  This legislation provides what is known as affirmative defense--
whereby an accused physician could escape liability only by proving 
that he or she ``reasonably believed'' that the banned procedure--
whatever that procedure proves to be--was necessary to save the woman's 
life and that no other procedure would have sufficed.
  It also opens the door to prosecution of doctors for almost any 
abortion by forcing them to prove they did not violate a law that can 
be interpreted in many, many different ways.


                          no health exception

  This legislation has no exemption or protection for the health of the 
mother and, as such, would directly eliminate that protection provided 
by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade and Planned Parenthood versus 
Casey.
  If this legislation were law, a pregnant woman seriously ill with 
diabetes, cardiovascular problems, cancer, stroke, or other health-
threatening illnesses would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term or 
run the risk that the physician could be challenged and have to prove 
in court what procedure he used, and whether or not the abortion 
``partially vaginally-delivered'' a living fetus before death of that 
fetus.

  It is also important to point out that, on the extremely rare 
occasions when a third trimester abortion is performed, it is virtually 
always in cases where there is severe fetal abnormality or a major 
health threat to the mother. This procedure is less risky for the 
mother than other procedures--such as a cesarean delivery, induced 
labor, or a saline abortion--because there is less maternal blood loss, 
less risk of uterine perforation, less operating time--thus cutting 
anesthesia needs--and less trauma to the mother. Trauma, for example, 
can lead to an incompetent cervix which can cause repeated pregnancy 
loss.
  The sad fact is, while our technology allows many genetic disorders 
to be detected early in pregnancies, all cannot be detected.
  While many women undergo sonograms and other routine medical 
examinations in the earliest weeks of pregnancy to monitor fetal 
development, and, if a woman is over 35 years

[[Page S11375]]

of age, she may undergo amniocentesis, these tests are not routine for 
women under 35 because of the potential risk to the fetus with 
amniocentesis, plus the additional cost involved.
  Ultrasound testing would provide further early detection of fetal 
anomalies, but these tests also are not routinely used until late 
pregnancy. As a result, some women carry fetuses with severe birth 
defects late into the pregnancy without knowing it.
  According to obstetricians, some of the severe fetal anomalies that 
would cause a woman to end a pregnancy at this late stage are tragic: 
Cases where the brain forms outside the skull; cases where the stomach 
and intestines form outside the body or do not form at all; fetuses 
with no eyes, ears, mouths, legs, or kidneys--sometimes, tragically, 
unrecognizable as human at all.
  But even with advanced technology, many serious birth defects can 
only be identified later, often in the third trimester or when the 
fetus reaches a certain size.
  Anomalies such as hydrocephaly may not even be detected with an early 
ultrasound examination.
  Other abnormalities such as polyhydramnios--too much amniotic fluid--
does not occur until the third trimester--and may require an abortion.
  The delivery of these babies can often endanger the mother's life.
  The families who face these unexpected tragedies do not make hasty or 
careless decisions about their options.

  In addition to the obstetrician, they seek second and third opinions, 
often consulting specialists, including perinatalogists, genetic 
counselors, pediatric cardiologists, and pediatric neurosurgeons--who 
explore every available option to save this baby that they very much 
want.
  The Federal Government has no place interfering, making this tragic 
situation any more difficult or complicated for these families.


    ROE VERSUS WADE ALREADY ALLOWS STATES TO BAN LATE-TERM ABORTIONS

  Why is this legislation even necessary?
  Roe versus Wade unequivocally allows States to ban all postviability 
abortions unless they are necessary to protect a woman's life or 
health. Forty-one States have already done so.
  The whole focus of this Congress has been to give power and control 
back to the States and getting the Federal Government out of people's 
lives.
  Surely anyone who believes in States' rights must question the logic 
of imposing new Federal regulation on States in a case such as this, in 
areas where States have already legislated.


                        most cases not affected

  As drafted, this bill is meaningless under the Constitution's 
commerce clause, because it would only apply to patients or doctors who 
cross State lines in order to perform an abortion under these 
circumstances.
  The vast majority of cases would even be affected by this law. So 
what is the point?
  The point is that this legislation has little or nothing to do with 
stopping the use of some horrific and unnecessary medical procedure 
being performed by evil or inhumane doctors.
  If that were the case we would all be opposed.


                               conclusion

  This is a vague, poorly constructed, badly intended bill.
  It attempts to ban a medical procedure without properly identifying 
that procedure in medical terms.
  It is so vague that it could affect far more than the procedure it 
seeks to ban.
  It presumes guilt on the part of the doctor.
  And it ignores the vital health interests of women who face tragic 
complications in their pregnancies.
  But the strongest reason to vote against this bill, in my view, is 
that it is not the role of the Federal Government to make medical 
decisions.
  I urge my colleagues to vote to sustain the President's veto.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this is among the most difficult of the 
6,003 votes I have cast in the Senate because it involves a decision of 
life and death on the line between when a woman may choose abortion and 
what constitutes infanticide.
  In my legal judgment, the issue is not over a woman's right to chose 
within the constitutional context of Roe versus Wade or Planned 
Parenthood versus Casey. If it were, Congress could not legislate. 
Congress is neither competent to micromanage doctors' decisions nor 
constitutionally permitted to legislate where the life or health of the 
mother is involved in an abortion.
  In my legal judgment, the medical act or acts of commission or 
omission in interfering with, or not facilitating the completion of a 
live birth after a child is partially out of the mother's womb 
constitute infanticide. The line of the law is drawn, in my legal 
judgment, when the child is partially out of the womb of the mother. It 
is no longer abortion; it is infanticide.
  This vote does not affect my basic views on the pro-choice/pro-life 
issue. While I am personally opposed to abortion, I do not believe it 
can be controlled by the Government. It is a matter for women and 
families with guidance from ministers, priests, and rabbis.
  Having stated my core rationale, I think it appropriate to make a few 
related observations:
  Regrettably, the issue has been badly politicized. It was first 
placed on the calendar for a vote without any hearing and now the vote 
on overriding the President's veto has been delayed until the final 
stages of the Presidential campaign.
  We had only one hearing which was insufficient for consideration of 
the complex issues. After considerable study and reflection on many 
factors including the status of the child partly out of the womb, I 
have decided to vote for the bill and to override the President's veto. 
As I view it, it would have been vastly preferable to have scheduled 
the vote in the regular course of the Senate's business without 
delaying it as close to the election as possible.
  From mail, town meetings and personal contacts, I have found 
widespread revulsion on the procedure on partial-birth abortions. This 
has been voiced by those who are pro-choice as well as pro-life. 
Whatever the specifics of the procedure, if it is permitted to 
continue, it may be sufficiently repugnant to create sufficient public 
pressure to pass a constitutional amendment to reverse Roe.
  It has been hard to make a factual determination because of the 
conflicting medical claims on both sides of the issue.
  Solomon would be hard pressed to decide between two beautiful 
children: First one whose mother had a prior partial-birth abortion and 
says that otherwise she would have been rendered sterile without the 
capability to have her later child; second, one born with a correctable 
birth defect where the mother had been counseled to abort because of 
indications of major abnormalities. Human judgment is incapable of 
saying which is right. We do see many children with significant birth 
defects surviving with a lesser quality and length of life, but with 
much love and affection between parents and children and much meaning 
and value to that life. No one can say how many children are on each 
side of that equation.
  If partial-birth abortions are banned, women will retain the right to 
choose during most of pregnancy and doctors will retain the right to 
act to save the life of the mother.
  After being deeply involved in the pro-life/pro-choice controversy 
for three decades as a district attorney and Senator, I believe we 
should find a better way to resolve these issues than through this 
legislative process.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I will vote to sustain the President's 
veto of H.R. 1833, the late term abortion ban bill. I do so recognizing 
the gravity of the issue.
  I do so for a very basic reason. I believe that women, in 
consultation with their physicians, must make decisions on what is 
medically necessary in reproductive matters. It must be a medical 
decision not a political decision.
  At the very core of this vote is a very basic question. Who decides? 
Who decides whether a difficult pregnancy threatens a woman's life? Who 
decides whether a woman's physical health will be seriously harmed if a 
pregnancy is continued? Who decides what is medically necessary for a 
particular woman in her unique circumstances? Who decides?
  The answer must be that doctors decide. Doctors, not politicians, 
must make these decisions. The women

[[Page S11376]]

themselves must decide. But politicians should not be making these 
medical decisions.
  If this bill is enacted, Congress will be shackling physicians. As 
one witness on this bill testified, Congress will be ``legislating 
malpractice.''
  Doctors will be faced with an impossible choice. They can deny to 
their patients a procedure that they believe to be medically necessary. 
Or they will face criminal prosecution. We should not make criminals 
out of doctors acting in the best interests of their patients.
  There are some significant misunderstandings about what this bill 
provides. Let me speak about two of them.
  First of all, this bill does not provide a true exception for cases 
where the woman's life is endangered. It is not like the Hyde 
amendment, with which most of us are familiar.
  The Hyde amendment, which deals with Federal funding of abortion, 
provides an exception where the life of the woman would be threatened 
if the fetus were carried to term. That is not what this bill does.
  This bill provides an exception only when a woman's life is 
threatened by a physical disorder, illness or injury and no other 
medical procedure would suffice to save the woman's life.
  In other words, where there is a pre-existing condition which the 
pregnancy would aggravate. It does not provide a life exception when it 
is the very pregnancy itself that threatens the woman's life.
  Let me name a few of those conditions. If carrying the fetus to term 
would result in a ruptured cervix, severe hemorrhaging, or the release 
of toxins from the dead fetus, the life exception in this bill would 
not apply.
  But even in the case of a preexisting condition, the life exception 
only applies if no other medical procedure would suffice. This would 
require a physician to use an alternative procedure, so long as the 
woman would survive. Even though a safer procedure--the procedure this 
bill seeks to ban--might be the better medical decision.
  Let me talk about a second misunderstanding about this bill. This 
bill provides no exception for cases where the woman's health would be 
seriously impaired by carrying the fetus to term.
  A health amendment was offered during our debate. It provided an 
exception in cases where the physician acts to avert serious, adverse 
health consequences to the woman. That amendment was rejected.
  And that is a shame. Many of us who oppose this bill would have 
supported it if there were a true life and health exception. President 
Clinton would have signed such a bill.
  We would not be here today debating this if this health exception had 
been adopted. It is too bad that some decided they would rather have a 
political issue than a signable bill.
  Why is this health exception so important? Because there are cases 
where women will suffer serious, long-term, dire consequences to their 
health if the procedure banned by this bill is not available to them.
  Women with diabetes or other kidney related diseases could see their 
condition escalated by being denied the procedure that is medically 
necessary in their case. Women could suffer debilitating impairments of 
their reproductive systems, or the loss of their future fertility.
  These are not minor medical considerations. These are not whims. 
These are cases where a woman's future physical well-being is seriously 
threatened. Where her life could be shortened because a serious medical 
condition like diabetes has been aggravated. The lack of a health 
exception in this bill for these women is unacceptable to me.
  Mr. President, let me speak for a moment about the larger issue of 
abortion. Let me say plainly that I am appalled that there are some 1.5 
million abortions every year. This troubles me. It should trouble every 
Member of this body.
  We have to do a better job in preventing unplanned pregnancies. We 
can do better in educating young people and in teaching them about the 
importance of abstinence. We need to do more to give them a sense of 
hope for their futures, and an understanding of how a teenage pregnancy 
robs them of that future.
  So yes, we should be appalled that there are over a million abortions 
every year. And each of us has an obligation to address that.
  But let me get back to my original point and my original question. 
Who decides? Women, in consultation with their physicians, must make 
the decisions on reproductive matters. Physicians must be free to 
determine what is medically necessary. And politicians should not 
prevent them from acting in the best interests of their patients.
  So I will vote to uphold the President's veto of this legislation.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, it happens I was ill on December 7, 
1995, when the measure before us now was first voted on by the Senate. 
Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the bill, and today 
I will vote to override the President's veto.
  Some while later, I was asked about the matter. I referred to the 
particulars of the medical procedure, as best I understood them. In an 
article in this morning's New York Times, our former Surgeon General C. 
Everett Koop writes:

       In this procedure, a doctor pulls out the baby's feet 
     first, until the baby's head is lodged in the birth canal. 
     Then, the doctor forces scissors through the base of the 
     baby's skull, suctions out the brain, and crushes the skull 
     to make extraction easier. Even some pro-choice advocates 
     wince at this, as when Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan termed 
     it ``close to infanticide.''

  It is the terrible fact of our national debate over abortion that 
there has seemed no possibility of compromise as between opposing 
views; as if we are consigned to unceasing conflict. More than two 
centuries ago--270 years, to be precise--Dean Swift saw this as the 
condition of certain societies--that of the ``Big-Endians'' and the 
``Little-Endians'' engaged in ``a most obstinate War for six and thirty 
Moons past''--and woe it was to them. Dr. Koop, however, argues that 
there are points that those of opposing views can concede without 
surrender of principle, and that there are measures which lend credence 
to those principles which are too often slighted. He writes:

       Both sides in the controversy need to straighten out their 
     stance. The pro-life forces have done little to help prevent 
     unwanted pregnancies, even though that is why most abortions 
     are performed. They have also done little to provide for 
     pregnant women in need.

  I would suggest, for example, that there could be few measures more 
likely to encourage abortion than our decision just last month to 
impose severe time limits on eligibility for what had been title IV-A 
of the Social Security Act, aid to families with dependent children. 
Indeed, we repealed AFDC. It is the sorry fact, then, that of the 285 
Members of the House of Representatives who voted to override the 
President's veto of H.R. 1833, all but 23 also voted to repeal aid to 
families with dependent children.
  Once again, in my view, the honorable stance has been that of 
religious leaders who opposed both the welfare bill we have enacted and 
the procedure that we now seek to ban.
  One notes that the present bill ``shall not apply to a partial-birth 
abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother * * *.'' That 
said, however, the fact is that we are providing by statute for the 
possible imprisonment of medical doctors. This, surely, is deplorable. 
In a great age of medical discovery, far beyond the comprehension of 
all but a very few Members of Congress, it is supremely presumptuous of 
lawmakers to impose their divided judgment on the practice of a sworn 
profession whose first commitment is to preserve life. Can we not stop 
this ugliness before it begins to show on the national countenance? Is 
there no better way to resolve these issues? Surely, this wrenching 
experience should encourage us to seek one--or many.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to vote to 
override President Clinton's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. I 
do not believe this is simply an issue of a woman's right to choose 
whether or not to have a child. It is also an issue of protecting the 
life of an unborn child. It seems to me that, however much we may 
disagree about the issue of when life begins, when it comes to late-
term abortions, we are clearly talking about a baby. And it is entirely 
reasonable to place restrictions on such abortions, especially when the 
procedure in question is as barbaric as

[[Page S11377]]

this one. I agree with my colleague from Pennsylvania that partial-
birth abortion is infanticide.
  The lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal points out:

       ``Up till now the abortion debate, if you'll pardon the 
     metaphor, has managed to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the 
     room. For the first time, people are also talking about the 
     fetus, not about women alone. A fetus may or may not be 
     human, but on the other hand, it's not nothing. At 20 weeks 
     of gestation, when the partial-birth abortion debate begins, 
     a fetus is about nine inches long and is clearly becoming 
     human.''

  Opposition to the effort to ban this procedure has been based largely 
on false claims about the relative safety and medical necessity of this 
procedure. Even former Surgeon General Everett Koop, an authority on 
the subject of fetal abnormalities, has stated in today's New York 
Times that, ``With all that modern medicine has to offer, partial-birth 
abortions are not needed to save the life of the mother * * *.''
  Opponents of the ban have also claimed that this procedure is 
performed only in the rarest of circumstances and only in life-
threatening situations. But those claims, too, have proven to be false. 
In fact, in the State of New Jersey alone, some 1,500 such abortions 
are performed yearly. And the doctor who invented the procedure has 
admitted that 80 percent of these procedures he has performed were 
purely elective.
  Mr. President, the truth is that, in the name of so-called freedom of 
choice we have created a situation in which abortion on demand--at any 
time during pregnancy, for any reason--is the norm. It is time we 
decided where we are going to draw the line. This is a good place to 
draw it. I urge my colleagues to vote to override this veto.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, regardless of the outcome, when the Senate 
votes on the question of whether to override President Clinton's veto 
of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the impact will have grave 
consequences. For those who care deeply about the most innocent and 
helpless human life imaginable, failure to override the Clinton veto 
will border on calamitous. But it will have focused the abortion debate 
on the baby.
  The spotlight will no longer shine on the much-proclaimed right to 
choose. Senators have been required to consider whether an innocent, 
tiny baby--partially-born, just 3 inches from the protection of the 
law--deserves the right to live, and to love and to be loved. The baby 
is the center of debate in this matter.
  On December 7, 1995, the Senate voted, 54 to 44, to outlaw the 
inhuman procedure known as a partial-birth abortion, as the House of 
Representatives had done the previous November 1. But the President, 
taking his cue from the radical feminists and the National Abortion 
Rights Action League, vetoed the bill.
  President Clinton, and other opponents of the Partial-Birth Abortion 
Ban Act, have sought to explain the necessity of a procedure that 
allows a doctor to deliver a baby partially, feet-first from the womb, 
only to have his or her brains brutally removed by the doctor's 
instruments. The procedure has prompted revulsion across the land, even 
among many who previously had supported the freedom-of-choice rhetoric.
  Many Americans view the President's veto in terms of a character 
lapse and a regrettable failure of moral judgment. Now Senators must 
stand up and be counted, for or against the President's veto, with him 
or against him, for or against the destruction of innocent human life 
in such a repugnant way.
  In my view, the President was wrong, sadly wrong. His veto by any 
civilized standards, let alone by any measurement of decency and 
compassion, is wrong, wrong, wrong. The Senate must override the 
President's cruel error of judgment.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a September 24 Washington 
Post column by Richard Cohen, headed ``A New Look at Late-Term 
Abortion,'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. 
Likewise, I ask unanimous consent a Bergen County, NJ, Sunday Record 
article of September 15, 1996, headed ``The Facts on Partial-Birth 
Abortion'' be printed in the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 24, 1996]

                    A New Look at Late-Term Abortion


   a rigid refusal even to consider society's interest in the matter 
                       endangers abortion rights

                           (By Richard Cohen)

       Back in June, I interviewed a woman--a rabbi, as it 
     happens--who had one of those late-term abortions that 
     Congress would have outlawed last spring had not President 
     Clinton vetoed the bill. My reason for interviewing the rabbi 
     was patently obvious: Here was a mature, ethical and 
     religious woman who, because her fetus was deformed, 
     concluded in her 17th week that she had no choice other than 
     to terminate her pregnancy. Who was the government to second-
     guess her?
       Now, though, I must second-guess my own column--although 
     not the rabbi and not her husband (also a rabbi). Her 
     abortion back in 1984 seemed justifiable to me last June, and 
     it does to me now. But back then I also was led to believe 
     that these late-term abortions were extremely rare and 
     performed only when the life of the mother was in danger or 
     the fetus irreparably deformed. I was wrong.
       I didn't know it at the time, of course, and maybe the 
     people who supplied my data--the usual pro-choice groups--
     were giving me what they thought was precise information. And 
     precise I was, I wrote that ``just four one-hundredths of one 
     percent of abortions are performed after 24 weeks'' and that 
     ``most, if not all, are performed because the fetus is found 
     to be severely damaged or because the life of the mother is 
     clearly in danger.''
       It turns out, though, that no one really knows what 
     percentage of abortions are late-term. No one keeps figures. 
     But my Washington Post colleague David Brown looked behind 
     the purported figures and the purported rationale for these 
     abortions and found something other than medical crises of 
     one sort or another. After interviewing doctors who performed 
     late-term abortions and surveying the literature, Brown--a 
     physician himself--wrote: ``These doctors say that while a 
     significant number of their patients have late abortions for 
     medical reasons, many others--perhaps the majority--do not.''
       Brown's findings brought me up short. If, in fact, most 
     women seeking late-term abortions have just come to grips a 
     bit late with their pregnancy, then the word ``choice'' has 
     been stretched past a reasonable point. I realize that many 
     of these women are dazed teenagers or rape victims and that 
     their anguish is real and their decision probably not 
     capricious. But I know, too, that the fetus being destroyed 
     fits my personal definition of life. A 3-inch embryo (under 
     12 weeks) is one thing; but a nearly fully formed infant is 
     something else.
       It's true, of course, that many opponents of what are often 
     called ``partial-birth abortions'' are opposed to any 
     abortions whatever. And it also is true that many of them 
     hope to use popular repugnance over late-term abortions as a 
     foot in the door. First these, then others and then still 
     others. This is the argument made by pro-choice groups: Give 
     the antiabortion forces this one inch, and they'll take the 
     next mile.
       It is instructive to look at two other issues: gun control 
     and welfare. The gun lobby also thinks that if it gives in 
     just a little, its enemies will have it by the throat. That 
     explains such public relations disasters as the fight to 
     retain assault rifles. It also explains why the National 
     Rifle Association has such an image problem. Sometimes it 
     seems just plain nuts.
       Welfare is another area where the indefensible was defended 
     for so long that popular support for the program evaporated. 
     In the 1960s, '70s and even later, it was almost impossible 
     to get welfare advocates to concede that cheating was a 
     problem and that welfare just might be financing generation 
     after generation of households where no one works. This year, 
     the program on the federal level was trashed. It had few 
     defenders.
       This must not happen with abortion. A woman really ought to 
     have the right to choose. But society has certain rights, 
     too, and one of them is to insist that late-term abortions--
     what seems pretty close to infanticide--are severely 
     restricted, limited to women whose health is on the line or 
     who are carrying severely deformed fetuses. In the latter 
     stages of pregnancy, the word abortion does not quite 
     suffice; we are talking about the killing of the fetus--and, 
     too often, not for any urgent medical reason.
       President Clinton, apparently as misinformed as I was about 
     late-term abortions, now ought to look at the new data. So 
     should, the Senate, which has been expected to sustain the 
     president's veto. Late-term abortions once seemed to be the 
     choice of women who, really, had no other choice. The facts 
     now are different. If that's the case, then so should be the 
     law.
                                                                    ____


                [From the Sunday Record, Sept. 15, 1996]

                  The Facts on Partial-Birth Abortion


                   both sides have misled the public

                           (By Ruth Padawer)

       Even by the highly emotional standards of the abortion 
     debate, the rhetoric on so-called ``partial-birth'' abortions 
     has been exceptionally intense. But while indignation has 
     been abundant, facts have not.
       Pro-choice activists categorically insist that only 500 of 
     the 1.5 million abortions performed each year in this country 
     involve the

[[Page S11378]]

     partial-birth method, in which a live fetus is pulled partway 
     into the birth canal before it is aborted. They also contend 
     that the procedure is reserved for pregnancies gone 
     tragically awry, when the mother's life or health is 
     endangered, or when the fetus is so defective that it won't 
     survive after birth anyway.
       The pro-choice claim has been passed on without question in 
     several leading newspapers and by prominent commentators and 
     politicians, including President Clinton.
       But interviews with physicians who use the method reveal 
     that in New Jersey alone, at least 1,500 partial-birth 
     abortions are performed each year--three times the supposed 
     national rate. Moreover, doctors say only a ``minuscule 
     amount'' are for medical reasons.
       Within two weeks, Congress is expected to decide whether to 
     criminalize the procedure. The vote must override Clinton's 
     recent veto. In anticipation of that showdown, lobbyists from 
     both camps have orchestrated aggressive campaigns long on 
     rhetoric and short on accuracy.
       For their part, abortion foes have implied that the method 
     is often used on healthy, full-term fetuses, an almost-born 
     baby delivered whole. In the three years since they began 
     their campaign against the procedure, they have distributed 
     more than 9 million brochures graphically describing how 
     doctors ``deliver'' the fetus except for its head, then 
     puncture the back of the neck and aspirate brain tissue until 
     the skull collapses and slips through the cervix--an image 
     that prompted even pro-choice Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan, D-
     N.Y., to call it ``just too close to infanticide.''
       But the vast majority of partial-birth abortions are not 
     performed on almost-born babies. They occur in the middle of 
     the second trimester, when the fetus is too young to survive 
     outside the womb.
       The reason for the fervor over partial birth is plain: The 
     bill marks the first time the House has ever voted to 
     criminalize an abortion procedure since the landmark Roe vs. 
     Wade ruling. Both sides know an override could open the door 
     to more severe abortion restrictions, a thought that comforts 
     one side and horrifies the other.


                          How often it's done

       No one keeps statistics on how many partial-birth abortions 
     are done, but pro-choice advocates have argued that intact 
     ``dilation and evacuation''--a common name for the method, 
     for which no standard medical term exists--is very rare, ``an 
     obstetrical non-entity,'' as one put it. And indeed, less 
     than 1.5 percent of abortions occur after 20 weeks gestation, 
     the earliest point at which this method can be used, 
     according to estimates by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of 
     New York, a respected source of data on reproductive health.
       The National Abortion Federation, the professional 
     association of abortion providers and the source of data and 
     case histories of this pro-choice fight, estimates that the 
     number of intact cases in the second and third trimesters is 
     about 500 nationwide. The National Abortion and Reproductive 
     Rights Action League says ``450 to 600'' are done annually.
       But those estimates are belied by reports from abortion 
     providers who use the method. Doctors at Metropolitan Medical 
     in Englewood estimate that their clinic alone performs 3,000 
     abortions a year on fetuses between 20 and 24 weeks, of which 
     at least half are by intact dilation and evacuation. They are 
     the only physicians in the state authorized to perform 
     abortions that late, according to the state Board of Medical 
     Examiners, which governs physicians' practice.
       The physicians' estimates jibe with state figures from the 
     federal Centers for Disease Control, which collects data on 
     the number of abortions performed.
       ``I always try an intact D&E first,'' said a Metropolitan 
     Medical gynecologist, who, like every other provider 
     interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity 
     for fear of retribution. If the fetus isn't breech, or if 
     the cervix isn't dilated enough, providers switch to 
     traditional, or ``classic,'' D&E--in utero dismemberment.
       Another metropolitan area doctor who works outside New 
     Jersey said he does about 260 post-20-week abortions a year, 
     of which half are by intact D&E. The doctor, who is also a 
     professor at two prestigious teaching hospitals, said he has 
     been teaching intact D&E since 1981, and he said he knows of 
     two former students on Long Island and two in New York City 
     who use the procedure. ``I do an intact D&E whenever I can, 
     because it's far safer,'' he said.
       The National Abortion Federation said 40 of its 300 member 
     clinics perform abortions as late as 26 weeks, and although 
     no one knows how many of them rely on intact D&E, the number 
     performed nationwide is clearly more than the 500 estimated 
     by pro-choice groups like the federation.
       The federation's executive director, Vicki Saporta, said 
     the group drew its 500-abortion estimate from the two doctors 
     best known for using intact D&E, Dr. Martin Haskell in Ohio, 
     who Saporta said does about 125 a year, and Dr. James McMahon 
     in California, who did about 375 annually and has since died. 
     Saporta said the federation has heard of more and more 
     doctors using intact D&E, but never revised its estimate, 
     figuring those doctors just picked up the slack following 
     McMahon's death.
       ``We've made umpteen phone calls [to find intact D&E 
     practioners],'' said Saporta, who said she was surprised by 
     The Record's findings. ``We've been looking for spokespeople 
     on this issue. . . . People do not want to come forward [to 
     us] because they're concerned they'll become targets of 
     violence and harassment.''


                             when it's done

       The pro-choice camp is not the only one promulgating 
     misleading information. A key component of The National Right 
     to Life Committee's campaign against the procedure is widely 
     distributed illustration of a well-formed fetus being 
     aborted by the partial-birth method. The committee's 
     literature calls the aborted fetuses ``babies'' and 
     asserts that the partial-birth method has ``often been 
     performed'' in the third trimester.
       The National Right to Life Committee and the National 
     Conference of Catholic Bishops have highlighted cases in 
     which the procedure has been performed well into the third 
     trimester, and overlaid that on instances in which women have 
     had less-than-compelling reasons for abortion. In a full-page 
     ad in the Washington Post in March, the bishops' conference 
     illustrated the procedure and said women would use it for 
     reasons as frivolous as ``hates being fat,'' ``can't afford a 
     baby and a new car,'' and ``won't fit into prom dress.''
       ``We were very concerned that if partial-birth abortion 
     were allowed to continue, you could kill not just an unborn, 
     but a mostly born. And that's not far from legitimizing 
     actual infanticide,'' said Helen Alvare, the bishops' 
     spokeswoman.
       Forty-one states restrict third-trimester abortions, and 
     even states that don't--such as New Jersey--may have no 
     physicians or hospitals willing to do them for any reason. 
     Metropolitan Medical's staff won't do abortions after 24 
     weeks of gestation. ``The nurses would stage a war,'' said a 
     provider there. ``The law is one thing. Real life is 
     something else.''
       In reality, only about 600--or 0.04 percent--of abortions 
     of any type are performed after 26 weeks, according to the 
     latest figures from Guttmacher. Physicians who use the 
     procedure say the vast majority are done in the second 
     trimester, prior to fetal viability, generally thought to be 
     24 weeks. Full term is 40 weeks.
       Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson denied 
     that his group had focused on third-trimester abortions, 
     adding, ``Even if our drawings did show a more developed 
     baby, that would be defensible because 30-week fetuses have 
     been aborted frequently by this method, and many of those 
     were not flawed, even by-an expensive defintion.''


                             why it's done

       Abortion rights advocates have consistently argued that 
     intact D&Es are used under only the most compelling 
     circumstances. In 1985, the Planned Parenthood Federation of 
     America issued a press release asserting that the procedure 
     ``is extremely rare and done only in cases when the woman's 
     life is in danger or in cases of extreme fatal abnormality.''
       In February, the Nation Abortion Federation issued a 
     release saying, ``This procedure is most often performed when 
     women discover late in wanted pregnancies that they are 
     carrying fetuses with anomalies incompatible with life.''
       Clinton offered the same message when he vetoed the 
     Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in April, and surrounded 
     himself with women who had wrenching testimony about why they 
     needed abortions. One was an antiabortion marcher whose 
     health was compromised by her 7-month-old fetus' 
     neuromuscular disorder.
       The woman, Coreen Costello, wanted desperately to give 
     birth naturally, even knowing her child would not survive. 
     But because the fetus was paralyzed, her doctors told her a 
     live vaginal delivery was impossible. Costello had two 
     options, they said: abortion or a type of Caesarean section 
     that might ruin her chances of ever having another child. She 
     chose an intact D&E.
       But most intact D&E cases are not like Coreen Costello's. 
     Although many third-trimester abortions are for heart-
     wrenching medical reasons, most intact D&E patients have 
     their abortions in the middle of the second trimester. And 
     unlike Coreen Costello, they have no medical reason for 
     termination.
       ``We have an occasional amnio abnormality, but it's a 
     minuscule amount,'' said one of the doctors at Metropolitan 
     Medical, an assessment confirmed by another doctor there. 
     ``Most are Medicaid patients, black and white, and most are 
     for elective, not medical, reasons; people who didn't 
     realize, or didn't care, how far along they were. Most are 
     teenagers.''
       The physician who teaches said: ``In my private practice, 
     90 to 95 percent are medically indicated. Three of them today 
     are Trisomy-21 [Down syndrome] with heart disease, and in 
     another, the mother has brain cancer and needs chemo. But in 
     the population I see at the teaching hospitals, which is 
     mostly a clinic population, many, many fewer are medically 
     indicated.''
       Even the Abortion Federation's two prominent providers of 
     intact D&E have showed documents that publicly contradict the 
     federation's claims.
       In a 1992 presentation at an Abortion Federation seminar, 
     Haskell described intact D&E in detail and said be routinely 
     used it on patients 20 to 24 weeks pregnant. Haskell went on 
     to tell the American Medical News, the official paper of the 
     American Medical Association, that 80 percent of those 
     abortions wre ``purely elective.''
       The federation's other leading provider, Dr. McMahon, 
     released a chart to the House

[[Page S11379]]

     Judiciary Committee listing ``depression'' as the most common 
     maternal reason for his late-term non-elective abortions, and 
     listing ``cleft lip'' several times as the fatal indication. 
     Saporta said 85 percent of McMahon's abortions were for 
     severe medical reasons.
       Even using Saporta's figures, simple math shows 56 of 
     McMahon's abortions and 100 of Haskell's each year were not 
     associated with medical need. Thus, even if they were the 
     only two doctors performing the procedures, more than 30 
     percent of their cases were not associated with health 
     concerns.
       Asked about the disparity, Saporta said the pro-choice 
     movement focused on the compelling cases because those were 
     the majority of McMahon's practice, which was mostly third-
     trimester abortions. Besides, Saporta said, ``When the 
     Catholic bishops and Right to Life debate us on TV and radio, 
     they say a woman at 40 weeks can walk in and get an abortion 
     even if she and the fetus are healthy.'' Saporta said that 
     claim is not true. ``That has been their focus, and we've 
     been playing defense ever since.''


                       where lobbying has left us

       Doctors who rely on the procedure say the way the debate 
     has been framed obscures what they believe is the real issue. 
     Banning the partial-birth method will not reduce the number 
     of abortions performed. Instead, it will remove one of the 
     safest options for mid-pregnancy termination.
       ``Look, abortion is abortion. Does it really matter if the 
     fetus dies in utero or when half of it's already out? said 
     one of the five doctors who regularly uses the method at 
     Metropolitan Medical in Englewood. ``What matters is what's 
     safest for the woman,'' and this procedure, he said, is 
     safest for abortion patients 20 weeks pregnant or more. 
     There is less risk of uterine perforation from sharp 
     broken bones and destructive instruments, one reason the 
     American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has 
     opposed the ban.
       Pro-choice activists have emphasized that nine of 10 
     abortions in the United States occur in the first trimester, 
     and that these have nothing to do with the procedure abortion 
     foes have drawn so much attention to. That's true, physicians 
     say, but it ducks the broader issue.
       By highlighting the tragic Coreen Costellos, they say, pro-
     choice forces have obscured the fact that criminalizing 
     intact D&E would jettison the safest abortion not only for 
     women like Costello, but for the far more common patient: a 
     woman 4\1/2\ to 5 months pregnant with a less compelling 
     reason--but still a legal right--to abort.
       That strategy is no surprise, given Americans' queasiness 
     about later-term abortions. Why reargue the morality of or 
     the right to a second-trimester abortion when anguishing 
     examples like Costello's can more compellingly make the case 
     for intact D&E?
       To get around the bill, abortion providers say they could 
     inject poison into the amniotic fluid or fetal heart to 
     induce death in utero, but that adds another level of 
     complication and risk to the pregnant woman. Or they could 
     use induction--poisoning the fetus and then ``delivering'' it 
     dead after 12 to 48 hours of painful labor. That method is 
     clearly more dangerous, and if it doesn't work, the patient 
     must have a Caesarean section, major surgery with far more 
     risks.
       Ironically, the most likely response to the ban is that 
     doctors will return to classic D&Es, arguably a far more 
     gruesome method than the one currently under fire. And, pro-
     choice advocates now wonder how safe from attack that is, now 
     that abortion foes have American's attention.
       Congress is expected to call for the override vote this 
     week or next, once again turning up the beat on Clinton, 
     barely seven weeks from the election.
       Legislative observers from both camps predict that the vote 
     in the House will be close. If the override succeeds--a two-
     thirds majority is required--the measure will be sent to the 
     Senate, where an override is less likely, given that the 
     initial bill passed by 54 to 44, well short of the 67 votes 
     needed.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, some time ago, the Congress passed a ban 
on the procedure known as the partial-birth abortion.
  The President vetoed the bill on the grounds that it would threaten 
the lives and health of American women.
  This, despite clear language in the bill allowing the procedure when 
the life of the mother was in danger.
  Many voted against the ban because they thought the data showed that 
the partial-birth procedure was used sparingly, when no other procedure 
would suffice, and almost exclusively when the child was severely 
malformed or the life of the mother was in danger.
  We heard that this procedure was used only in the most crucial and 
desperate situations, and should therefore be allowed to continue.
  Since the veto, however, we have acquired much more data, and much 
more accurate data.
  What we are finding is that this procedure is vastly more common than 
once thought--in fact, hundreds and perhaps thousands are performed 
each year.
  In New Jersey alone, at least 1,500 of these are done each year.
  The vast majority of these procedures are done electively, on normal 
fetuses--they are not performed to protect the life of the mother or 
because the fetus is profoundly disabled.
  The doctors performing this procedure report that only a minuscule 
amount of these procedures are done for medical reasons--i.e. fetal 
malformation or concerns about a threat to the mother.
  A group of physicians who state emphatically that the partial-birth 
procedure is never medically necessary.
  Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was quoted as saying 
``partial-birth abortion is never necessary to protect a mother's 
health or her future fertility.''
  This procedure may actually increase the chances of harm to the 
mother, such as perforation of the uterus or long-term damage to the 
cervix.
  So even though the bill still contains the exception for the life of 
the mother, it is highly doubtful this procedure is ever needed for 
medical reasons.
  Had the Senate had this information, I believe the result of the vote 
might have been different.
  Some in this body have come to reconsider their position in light of 
these facts.
  My friend from New York, Senator Moynihan, said ``I think this is 
just too close to infanticide. A child has been born and it has exited 
the uterus and, what on earth is this procedure?''
  I share his opinion of this procedure, and I believe, in light of 
these facts, the proper and decent thing to do to override the 
President's veto.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the issue of abortion and the sanctity 
of life are matters of conscience for me. My views are well known, and 
deeply held, although I am not an individual known to wear my heart on 
my sleeve, as the saying goes. However, the vote we will soon take--on 
overriding the President's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban--
presents a very compelling case for restricting a particular kind of 
abortion that offends our sensibilities as a civilized society.
  I won't dwell on the kind of procedure it is. There are others who 
have described it in its horrific detail. I won't repeat it, but it is 
important that it be said. So, I commend Senator Smith, as well as 
Senator Santorum and Senator Nickles for their leadership in shining 
the bright light of public debate on the partial-birth abortion issue.
  But I would like to speak briefly to explain the significance of this 
issue. In the Senate, we devote a great deal of time, energy and effort 
to debating and protecting the rights of those who are at the margins 
of society, the less fortunate, and the powerless. We do this because 
we are a caring nation of individuals, families and communities. And, 
we do this because we have a strong history and tradition of giving 
opportunity to the weakest in the world: the persecuted, the oppressed 
and the down-trodden. This uniquely American heritage has made us a 
strong and successful nation. And, it is the hallmark of our civilized 
society.
  Now, we have before us a bill that would give protection to the most 
fragile and defenseless among us--the almost-born. What could be more 
American, than protecting those who have no voice or power?
  Abortion steals human potential and possibility, the very definition 
of what America has meant to so many. On the eve of birth, this theft 
of the potential and possibility of life seems particularly cruel, 
inhumane, and even barbaric. It is the antithesis of what this Nation 
represents and what it stands for.
  This is, no doubt, a matter of conscience for each Member of the 
Senate. But as we look into the depths of our souls, we should 
understand that unless we speak up on their behalf, those yet-to-be 
born, and all of the possibilities they represent, will be deprived--in 
a most inhumane way--of the basic right to begin life.
  How many have come to this land, from every corner of the Earth, to 
begin their lives? Should we not now afford that same opportunity to 
the almost-born?
  I will vote to override the President's veto, and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the American College of Obstetricians and 
Gynecologists have urged Congress to oppose the so-called partial birth 
abortion bill and the Michigan Section of the American College of 
Obstetricians

[[Page S11380]]

and Gynecologists has also written me to express their opposition to 
this bill and their support of President Clinton's veto.
  The Michigan section's letter states that they ``find it very 
disturbing that Congress would take any action that would supersede the 
medical judgement of trained physicians and criminalize medical 
procedures that may be necessary to save the life of a woman.'' I ask 
unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                           The American College of


                              Obstetricians and Gynecologists,

                             Grand Rapids, MI, September 23, 1996.
     Senator Carl Levin,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Levin: The Michigan Section of the American 
     College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is made up of over 
     1200 physicians dedicated to improving women's health care. 
     The Advisory Council for the Michigan Section met on 
     September 10, 1996, and discussed H.R. 1833, the Partial-
     Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995. The Council does not support 
     this bill, and does support President Clinton's veto. We find 
     it very disturbing that Congress would take any action that 
     would supersede the medical judgment of trained physicians 
     and criminalize medical procedures that may be necessary to 
     save the life of a woman. Moreover, in defining what medical 
     procedures doctors may or may not perform, H.R. 1833 employs 
     terminology that is not even recognized in the medical 
     community.
       Thank you for considering our views on this important 
     matter.
           Sincerely,
                                            Charles W. Newton, MD,
                                          Chair, Michigan Section.

  Mr. LEVIN. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution allows 
States to prohibit abortions during the third trimester, except to 
protect the life or health of the woman.
  Many States have banned late term abortions, by whatever method, and 
included the constitutionally required exception allowing a physician 
to consider threats to a woman's life or health.
  The vetoed bill prohibits one type of rarely used abortion procedure. 
But the bill doesn't allow consideration of serious health impairment. 
When this bill came before the Senate for consideration, I supported an 
amendment to the bill which would have banned this procedure except 
when a physician determines that a woman's life is at risk or is 
necessary to prevent serious adverse health consequences to the woman.
  The amendment failed. And with it the chance of acting 
constitutionally and in accordance with the medical judgement of the 
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
  Under these circumstances I will vote to sustain the President's veto 
of H.R. 1833.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I speak today with a very heavy heart about 
the vote on whether to override the President's veto of H.R. 1833, 
known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
  First let me say, Mr. President, that the blatantly political nature 
of this bill during this year, and specifically this override vote at 
this time, escapes no one. It is very clear that we are having this 
debate at this time for purely political purposes.
  Mr. President, I am deeply upset and greatly disturbed by this late-
term abortion procedure. But the President has made clear, and I have 
made clear, that if this bill contained an appropriate, narrowly 
tailored exception for both the life and health of the mother, it would 
not be objectionable.
  I am extremely distressed by the possibility that this procedure is 
not always performed to protect the health or life of the mother. In my 
view, when this late-term abortion procedure is performed for reasons 
other than to save the mother's life or avert serious health effects, 
it is inappropriate. And it is not just the method employed in this 
procedure that disturbs me. It is also the fact that it is often a 
third trimester abortion. I must say that I am bothered by any third 
trimester abortion that is not performed to save the life of the mother 
or to avert serious, adverse health consequences.
  I am not one of those who believes, Mr. President, that abortions 
should be available at any time for any reason. I also don't think that 
all abortions should be banned. I have a long record supporting a 
woman's right, in consultation with her doctor, to choose. But I do 
believe that it is reasonable to restrict third trimester abortions to 
those necessary to save the mother's life or to avert serious health 
effects. This bill would allow third trimester abortions conducted by 
other methods to continue.
  For the millions of Americans who neither favor abortion under all 
circumstances nor want to totally remove a woman's right to choose, we 
should be working together in a non-political way, along with the 
administration and the medical profession, to narrowly tailor medical 
exceptions to third trimester abortions. But we are not doing that in 
this political year, making the political motives of this bill's 
proponents crystal clear.
  Still, Mr. President, sometimes this procedure is necessary to 
protect a woman's life or to avert serious health consequences, and an 
exception must be made for those cases. The Senate voted on such an 
exception--it was an exception for the life of the mother and for 
serious, adverse health consequences, only. I voted for that exception 
along with 46 other Senators, and if that exception had passed, I would 
have voted for the bill, and the President would have signed it. We 
would not be having this debate at all if that appropriate exception 
had been included.
  Mr. President, there are some cases in which this is the safest, and 
in other cases only, medical procedure that will avert serious health 
consequences to a woman or even save her life. I sympathize with the 
women who find themselves in such tragic circumstances, I realize that 
their decisions are painful ones to have to make, and I believe that 
Congress must not supersede the medical judgement of the doctors who 
believe that this is the best way to treat these patients.
  So I believe Mr. President, that there must be an exception to save a 
woman's life or avert serious health consequences. It must be a limited 
exception geared only toward serious medical circumstances, but a true 
exception nonetheless. And it is my hope that Congress and the 
administration, working with the medical profession, can work together 
to find a limited way to allow this procedure only to protect the life 
and health of the mother.
  Mr. President, I say again that I am deeply disturbed by this 
procedure. And so Mr. President, this is not an easy vote for me to 
cast. But I remain hopeful that a limited exception for this and all 
third trimester abortions can be developed, and that we can come 
together and find some unity in this terribly troubling and divisive 
issue.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I will support the President in his 
veto of the late-term abortion bill. But I want to make several points 
about this debate.
  Mr. President, this bill does not clearly define which procedures 
would be banned because the term ``partial birth'' is not a medical 
term. The bill defines ``partial birth'' abortion as ``an abortion in 
which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a 
living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery.'' 
This vague definition in the bill would, for the first time, impose 
limits on the Roe versus Wade right of a woman to choose an abortion. 
This language easily could be interpreted to ban other medical 
procedures used in the second trimester which are--and should remain--
completely legal. The bill would also ban procedures used in the third 
trimester to save the health or future fertility of the mother. This 
would overturn the Supreme Court ruling in Roe versus Wade that states 
in the third trimester can ban abortion procedures except those saving 
the life or protecting the health of the mother.
  Mr. President, I am personally opposed to abortion in the third 
trimester--except when the life or health of the woman is at risk. But 
that is the law of the land today. There is no question that late-term 
abortion procedures are gruesome. But this procedure is considered 
safer and less traumatic in some cases than alternative late-term 
procedures. The bill that I voted against and the President vetoed 
failed to provide exceptions for cases in which a woman's health or 
future fertility are at risk. To ban a medical procedure that a trained 
physician concludes will best preserve a woman's chance to have a 
healthy pregnancy in the future is wrong.

[[Page S11381]]

  Mr. President, there are only 600 third-term abortions performed in 
the entire country each year, according to the best statistics we have 
available from the Alan Guttmacher Institute. In fact, there are only 
two doctors in the entire United States, located in Colorado and 
Kansas, who are known to perform abortions during the last 3 months of 
pregnancy.
  In April, President Clinton was joined by five women who had required 
late-term abortions. One of them described the serious risks to her 
health that she faced before she had the abortion: ``Our little boy had 
. . . hydrocephaly. All the doctors told us there was no hope. We asked 
about in utero surgery, about shunts to remove the fluid, but there was 
absolutely nothing we could do. I cannot express the pain we still 
feel.'' But she went on to say that having the late-term abortion ``was 
not our choice, for not only was our son going to die, but the 
complications of the pregnancy put my health in danger as well.'' In 
the haste of some in this chamber to substitute their medical judgement 
for that of licenced physicians, it appears to me that the anguished 
circumstances of women such as this and their families are being 
cavalierly shoved aside.
  I support Roe versus Wade's ban of third trimester abortions except 
where a woman faces real, serious risks to her health. Although there 
is no evidence that this procedure is used in situations where a 
woman's health is not seriously at risk, I oppose this procedure if 
used in circumstances that do not meet that standard and would support 
appropriate legislation to ban them. At the same time, I believe it 
would be unacceptable to ban a procedure which competent medical 
doctors in some cases conclude represents the best hope for a woman to 
avoid serious risks to her health.
  I will uphold the President's veto of this bill. I believe that it 
would be a major mistake for the Federal Government to try to practice 
medicine in order to make an ideological point. Trained doctors, after 
consulting with their patients, should make these decisions. I urge my 
colleagues to support the President on this difficult issue.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to this 
effort to override the President's veto of H.R. 1833.
  Mr. President, this is our very last chance to ensure that this 
punitive legislation does not have the effect of putting women's lives 
and health on the line. For that is exactly what will happen if we 
override the President's veto today. Women's lives and health will be 
put at tragic risk. And Congress will be substituting its judgment for 
that of doctors, by outlawing a medical procedure for the first time 
since Roe versus Wade.
  There is no question that any abortion is an emotional, wrenching 
decision for a woman. When a woman must confront this decision during 
the later stages of a pregnancy because she knows that the pregnancy 
presents a direct threat to her own life or health, such a decision 
becomes a nightmare.
  Mr. President, 22 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a landmark 
decision in Roe versus Wade, carefully crafted to be both balanced and 
responsible while holding the rights of women in America paramount in 
reproductive decisions.
  This decision held that women have a constitutional right to an 
abortion, but after viability, States could ban abortions as long as 
they allowed exceptions for cases in which a woman's life or health is 
endangered.
  Let me repeat--as long as they allowed exceptions for cases in which 
a woman's life or health is endangered.
  The Supreme Court has reaffirmed this decision time and time and time 
again. And to date, 41 States--including my home State of Maine--have 
exercised their right to impose restrictions on post-viability 
abortions. All, of course, provide exceptions for the life or health of 
the mother, as constitutionally required by Roe.
  This legislation, as drafted, does not provide an exception for the 
health of the mother, and provides only a very narrow life exception. 
It is narrow because it only allows a doctor to perform this late term 
procedure to save a woman's life, and I quote, `if no other procedure 
would suffice.'' So this means that if another procedure carries 4 
times the risk of this procedure, but it might suffice, the doctor will 
be compelled to perform the more risky procedure. If a hysterectomy, 
rather than this procedure, will suffice, the doctor will be compelled 
to perform it instead.
  Above all, both the Constitution and the health of women across this 
Nation demand that we add a health exception. But this Chamber rejected 
an amendment to do just that.
  Without such a health exception, this legislation represents a 
direct, frontal assault on Roe and on the reproductive rights of women 
everywhere. And make no mistake, innocent women will suffer. We learned 
this at the Judiciary Committee hearing from women who underwent the 
procedure.
  Make no mistake--this procedure is extremely rare, and, when 
performed in the third trimester, only when it is absolutely necessary 
to preserve the life or health of the woman, or when a fetus is 
incompatible with life. In his September 24, 1996, letter to Congress, 
Dr. Warren Hern of the Boulder Abortion Clinic said: ``I know of no 
physician who will provide an abortion in the seventh, eighth or ninth 
month of pregnancy, by any method, for any reason except when there is 
a risk to the woman's life or health, or a severe fetal anomaly.
  Not since prior to Roe v. Wade have there been efforts to criminalize 
a medical procedure in this country. But that's exactly what this bill 
does.
  This legislation is an unprecedented expansion of Government 
regulation of women's health care. Never before has Congress intruded 
directly into the practice of medicine by banning a safe and legal 
medical procedure that is absolutely vital in some cases to protect the 
health or life of women.
  The supporters of this bill are substituting political judgment 
for that of a medical doctor regarding the appropriateness of a medical 
procedure. Regrettably, politicians are second-guessing medical 
science.

  Mr. President, who are we here on this floor to say what a doctor 
should and should not do to save a woman's life or preserve her health? 
Who are we to legislate medicine?
  The proponents of this legislation are willing to risk the lives and 
health of women facing medical emergencies. According to physicians--
not politicians--this procedure is actually the safest and most 
appropriate alternative for women whose lives and health are endangered 
by a pregnancy. As Dr. Robinson testified during the hearing before the 
Judiciary Committee, telling a doctor that it is illegal for him or her 
to perform a procedure that is safest for a patient is tantamount to 
legislating malpractice.
  I oppose this bill because I believe in protecting women's health and 
upholding the Constitution. For central to both Roe and Casey is the 
premise that the determination whether an abortion is necessary to 
preserve a woman's health must be made by a physician in consultation 
with his patient.
  Without an exception which allows these late term procedures in order 
to save the health of the mother, doctors will be unwilling to take the 
safest and most appropriate steps to protect a woman's health.
  As today's editorial in the New York Times states:

       The bill should be rejected as an unwarranted intrusion 
     into the practice of medicine. It would mark the first time 
     that Congress has outlawed a specific abortion procedure, 
     thus usurping decisions about the best method to use that 
     should properly be made by doctor and patient. The bill would 
     actually force doctors to abandon a procedure that might be 
     the safest for the patient and resort to a more risky 
     technique.

  We must never overlook the fact that women's lives and health are at 
stake. They hang in the balance. Women who undergo these procedures 
face the terrible tragedy of a later-stage pregnancy that has through 
no fault of their own gone terribly, tragically wrong. These women will 
face the horrible truth that carrying their pregnancy to term may 
actually threaten their own life and their own health.
  Now, I want to say something in response to some of the graphics that 
you have seen on the floor today and in previous debates in this 
Chamber--graphics that my colleagues have displayed about this 
traumatic and difficult procedure.
  They say a ``picture paints a thousand words.'' But the truth is, 
these pictures just don't tell the whole story.
  They don't tell you the story of the mothers involved. They don't 
tell you

[[Page S11382]]

the woman's side of the story. They certainly don't tell you her 
family's story.

  They don't show you the faces of the mothers who are devastated 
because they must undergo this procedure in order to save their own 
lives and health.
  These pictures don't tell the story of Vikki Stella, who learned 32 
weeks into her pregnancy that her fetus had nine severe abnormalities, 
including a fluid-filled skull with no brain tissue at all. However, 
Vikki is a diabetic, and this procedure was the safest option to 
protect her life and health. Without it, she could have died.
  These pictures don't tell the story of Viki Wilson--a nurse who 
testified that she found out in her 8th month of pregnancy that her 
fetus suffered a fatal condition causing two-thirds of the brains to 
grow outside of the skull. Viki testified that carrying the pregnancy 
to term would have imperiled her life and health. The fetus' 
malformation would have caused her cervix or uterus to rupture if she 
went into labor. She described this legislation as a ``cruelty to 
families act''.
  And let us not forget the poignant testimony of Colleen Costello, who 
described herself as a conservative pro-life Republican, and who found 
out when she was 7 months pregnant that her baby had a fatal 
neurological disorder, was rigid, and had been unable to move for 2 
months. Although she wanted to carry the baby to term, it was stuck 
sideways in her uterus. Her doctors did not want to perform a C-
section, because the risks to her health and life were too great. Due 
to the safety of this procedure, Ms. Costello has recently given birth 
to a healthy son.

  And these pictures certainly don't show you the pictures of women who 
died in back alleys in the dark days before Roe versus Wade. They don't 
show what the consequences will be for women if this legislation is 
signed into law, for that very small group of women each year who 
desperately need a late-term abortion in order to save their own lives 
and health.
  Congress should not be in the position of forcing doctors to perform 
more dangerous procedures on women than necessary. As Dr. Campbell 
testified, the alternatives are significantly more dangerous for women 
and far more traumatic. Dr. Campbell, an OBGYN, listed these 
alternatives, which include:

       C-sections, which cause twice as much bleeding and carry 
     four times the risk of death as a vaginal delivery. In fact, 
     a woman is 14 times more likely to die from a C-section than 
     from the procedure that this legislation seeks to outlaw. . .
       Induced labor, which carries its own potentially life-
     threatening risks and threatens the future fertility of women 
     by potentially causing cervical lacerations. . .
       And hysterectomies, which leave women unable to have any 
     children for the rest of their lives. . .
  In the end, this legislation would order doctors to set aside the 
paramount interests of the woman's health, and to trade-off her health 
and future fertility in order to avoid the possibility of criminal 
prosecution.
  As Professor Seidman, a constitutional expert at Georgetown 
University, testified during the hearing, the only thing that this 
procedure does is to channel women from one less risky abortion 
procedure to another more risky abortion procedure. He argued that the 
Government does not have a legitimate interest in trying to discourage 
women from having abortions by deliberately risking their health. This 
view is supported by Dr. Allan Rosenfield, Dean of the Columbia School 
of Public Health, who stated the following in a September 25 letter to 
the Editor of the Washington Post:

       [The bill's] only effect will be to prohibit doctors from 
     using what they determine, in their best medical judgment, to 
     be the safest method available for the women involved. * * * 
     In sum, this bill is bad medicine.

  Is this the legacy that the 104th Congress will bequeath to American 
women?
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this effort to override the 
President's veto. It is necessary not only to uphold the Constitution, 
but first and foremost, it is critical to actually save women's lives 
and protect their health.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes of the 
Senate's time to speak on this most contentious and divisive issue. I 
was one of the 44 Members of this body who voted ``no'' when the Senate 
approved the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act back on December 7.
  As a longtime supporter of the ``right to choose,'' I do not believe 
either the Congress or the Federal Government should interfere with the 
deeply personal and private decisions that women sometimes face 
regarding unintended or crisis pregnancies. In fact, I have always 
questioned why men in the legislative bodies even vote on these 
terribly anguishing and intimate issues.
  I am deeply troubled that this legislation does not provide an 
exception from the proposed ban in situations where the health of a 
woman is ``at risk.'' It is perplexing to me that this Senate rejected 
an amendment last December that would have granted an exception when a 
woman's health is endangered. If it was really true--as so many of the 
anti-choice activists claim--that this procedure is ``hardly ever 
used'' for health-related reasons, I believe my colleagues would have 
been much more receptive to such an exception.
  The reality is that women's health is at the very core of this issue. 
I was present when the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on this 
legislation last November. I entered that hearing room with an open 
mind, and I listened carefully to witnesses who spoke both for and 
against the bill. What I found most compelling was the testimony of two 
women who had been faced with the heart-wrenching decision to have 
late-term abortions because their own health and well-being was 
imperiled by severely deformed fetuses that had no possible chance of 
surviving. In both cases, their doctors used the procedures that would 
be banned by this legislation.
  These women were devastated when they learned that the fetuses they 
carried had no ability to live outside the womb. They agonized and even 
grieved over their decisions. One of them--who spoke poignantly about 
her ``deeply held Christian beliefs''--went on to give birth to a 
healthy baby boy just 14 months later. Anyone who ever listened to her 
testimony would know that she was not someone who simply decided that 
having a baby would be inconvenient or ``too much trouble.''

  Unfortunately, the bill before us would limit the options a woman has 
for dealing with a crisis pregnancy. It is a classic example of 
heavyhanded government intrusiveness. This legislation sharply collides 
with the rhetoric of those who continually profess a fierce commitment 
to making the government less meddlesome and less intrusive. It is the 
ultimate irony, in my mind, that this legislation is being advanced by 
a Congress that has distinguished itself again and again by rejecting 
the misguided notion that ``Government Knows Best.''
  I am very proud to be a Member of the 104th Congress. Collectively, 
we have taken some gutsy and courageous stands on a wide range of 
issues. Sadly, on the singular issue of abortion, many of my good 
friends in both the Senate and the House seem to be taking the attitude 
that Government does know best and that individual Americans are 
somehow incapable of thinking and deciding for themselves. I do not 
share this attitude in any way.
  I am well aware that the antiabortion ``groups'' are fully energized 
on this issue. They have done a remarkable job of mobilizing their 
members to write letters and place phone calls in support of the bill. 
The flow of postcards and form letters is truly dizzying.
  Yet, I am not convinced that the other 99 percent of the public I do 
not hear from would embrace this bill and its ``Government Knows Best'' 
mentality. Perhaps that is because I still have vivid memories of what 
occurred just 2 years ago when Wyoming voters were given the 
opportunity to vote on an anti-choice Ballot Initiative in the 1994 
election.

  On that particular Ballot Initiative, which would have criminalized 
most abortions, over 60 percent of Wyoming voters said ``no'' to this 
misguided proposal. The final vote tally was 78,978 voting ``yes'' and 
118,760 voting ``no.'' Let me emphasize that this was not a ``poll'' or 
a ``focus group'' or the sentiment of some narrowly targeted group of 
respondents. We all know that polls can be cleverly structured to 
achieve the desired result--and there is certainly no shortage of polls 
with respect

[[Page S11383]]

to this issue. What I am talking about, however, was a statewide vote. 
Voters from all of Wyoming's 23 counties participated. Every single 
registered voter in Wyoming had the opportunity to cast a vote on this 
issue. No one was excluded.
  In this same election in 1994, these same Wyoming voters elected 
conservative Republicans in every single statewide race and they 
elected an overwhelming majority of Republicans to the Wyoming State 
Legislature. So, at the same time Wyoming voters were voting decisively 
against a Ballot Initiative that would have restricted their individual 
freedoms, they were further expressing their distaste for ``Big 
Government'' by voting in large numbers for candidates--at the local, 
State and Federal levels--who reject the ``Government Knows Best'' 
philosophy.
  I share this information with my colleagues not because I believe our 
actions should be driven solely by public sentiment; I just think we 
ought to pay clear attention to all of our constituents--and not just 
to a narrow group of those who seem ever determined to impose their own 
idea of ``moral purity'' on their fellow human beings. I have found 
that it is often true in life that those who demand perfection of 
others--or who try to control other people's lives--sometimes do so 
because of their own imperfections or because they are somehow often 
incapable of controlling their own lives. I do not direct this 
statement at any of my fine and able colleagues. I simply offer it as 
an observation.
  Finally, I am reminded that last year I said this was a divisive bill 
that would only increase and elevate tensions between those who hold 
differing views on abortion. Those words ring true today because, 
regrettably, that is exactly what this legislation has accomplished. 
The dialog on abortion--on both sides--outside of this Chamber is 
increasingly ugly and uncivil. This legislation does nothing to reverse 
that. I urge my colleagues to reject it.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Democratic leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania controls 15 
minutes 34 seconds. The Senator from California controls 8 minutes 22 
seconds.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will use my leader time for the 
statement I am about to make.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The leader has that right.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will not be long. I know a number of 
others wish to be heard on this issue. I haven't had the opportunity to 
listen to all of the debate, but I know that it is a matter of great 
weight, great concern for each one of our colleagues.
  I, frankly, question why we are debating and voting on this bill so 
close to the election. I would have hoped that we could have 
depoliticized this issue. But, obviously, it has taken on very major 
political overtones. Being this close to an election, I think it is 
probably impossible to keep it from being politicized. But it is a very 
important question that ultimately has to be resolved.
  So much of the debate, in my view, was unnecessary. So much of the 
debate that I have heard on the Senate floor over the last couple of 
days has dealt with whether or not we can support the procedure that 
has been so graphically described, with depictions of all kinds, from 
charts to the language on the Senate floor, whether in some way we can 
condone that particular practice. Mr. President, I don't know of 
anybody in this Chamber that condones the practice. I am sure that my 
colleagues on this side of the aisle, and perhaps some on the other 
side, have made this point: No one condones the practice. No one stands 
here to defend the practice. No one, in any way, would want to 
encourage the practice. And so all of the talk and all of the graphic 
descriptions, in this Senator's view, are unnecessary, because we all 
know how abhorrent it is. We all know how extraordinarily detestable it 
is. The question is, as abhorrent and as difficult to witness it is, to 
hear described, is there ever a time when the procedure, regardless of 
whether it has been accurately described or not, should be used?
  I am told that physicians differ substantially about that question. I 
am told that there are occasions, as rare as we might find them, that a 
mother's life and-or permanent health could be impaired if this 
procedure is not used.
  I am lucky enough to be a husband and a father. I have had the good 
fortune to have a healthy wife and healthy daughters. Mr. President, I 
cannot tell my wife and I cannot tell my daughters that I am going to 
condemn you to permanent impairment, that I am going to condemn you to 
a life of permanent poor health, that I am going to condemn you because 
I find this procedure so wrenching, that you are going to have to 
subject yourself to permanent paralysis, or to a life that may never 
allow for another child as long as you live.
  Mr. President, I cannot ask my daughter to do that. I cannot ask my 
wife to do that.
  That is what this issue is about, Mr. President. It isn't whether or 
not we abhor the procedure. We do. It isn't whether or not we should 
allow this to be elective. It should not be elective. The question is: 
Are there occasions when, in order to save our daughter's health or our 
daughter's life, we find it necessary?
  We ought to be reasonable people and able to come together to find 
some compromise in allowing for a lasting solution outlawing elective 
procedures, outlawing this detestable practice whenever it is done for 
convenience but recognizing at the same time that a daughter's life and 
a daughter's health is worth giving her the opportunity to use whatever 
measure necessary to protect her.
  I have heard the argument that it is never necessary; that it is not 
necessary to do this. Well, if it is never necessary, this procedure 
will never be used. That is the logical conclusion one could make. If 
it is not necessary, don't worry. It will not be used.
  Mr. President, I hope that once this veto is sustained, that we can 
sit down quietly without politics, without emotion, and recognize that 
somehow we have to come together on this issue. We have to deal with 
those rare circumstances that are not elective that allow us to save 
the life and the health of young women involved. I think we can do 
that. Unfortunately, it is not now possible this afternoon. But 
someday, somehow, working together it must happen.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, will the Senator from South Dakota yield 
for a question?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I have yielded the floor. But I would be happy to 
participate in a colloquy with my distinguished colleague.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The question I have asked other Members who have argued 
your position--I have to ask it again--is that if this procedure were 
being done on a 24-week-old baby, which is often done, the procedure 
were done correctly, the baby was not taken out with the exception of 
the head, and for some reason the head slipped out and the baby was 
born, will the doctor and mother have a choice to kill the baby?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will say this, as I have said on many 
occasions. We abhor the practice. If we can save the life of a baby, we 
should do so. If in any way, as graphic as the distinguished Senator 
from Pennsylvania chooses to be with regard to this procedure, it 
impairs his wife, his daughter, my wife, my daughter, he and I would 
come to the same conclusion, I guarantee it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of overriding 
President Clinton's veto of the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act.
  First, this legislation bans a gruesome, deadly procedure. When 
performing a partial-birth abortion, the abortionist first grabs the 
live baby's leg with forceps and pulls the baby's legs into the birth 
canal. He then delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head; 
jams scissors into the baby's skull and opens them to enlarge the hole.
  Finally, the scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted 
to suck the baby's brains out. This causes the skull to collapse, at 
which point the

[[Page S11384]]

dead baby is delivered and discarded. No one interested in the welfare 
of children could ever approve of such a heinous act. President Clinton 
has put politics above life by trying to keep this procedure legal.
  Second, his veto is extreme because this procedure has questionable 
medical value. In fact, the American Medical Association's Council on 
Legislation--which unanimously supports banning this procedure--stated 
that a partial-birth abortion is ``not a recognized medical technique'' 
and concluded that the procedure is basically repulsive.
  Third, even though this procedure is not used to save the life of the 
mother, there is an explicit provision in the bill to protect any 
physician who feels that this procedure is necessary to save the life 
of the mother. Despite this safeguard, President Clinton continues to 
raise false arguments in bowing to the liberal wing of his party.
  Mr. President, the President's own wife has written a book about the 
value of children, entitled ``It Takes a Village.'' I don't know what 
type of village the Clinton's believe children should be raised in, but 
it should not be a village where it is a crime to disturb the habitat 
of a kangaroo rat but it is perfectly acceptable to suck out the brains 
of a baby. That is barbaric. It should no longer be tolerated in our 
society, and I urge my colleagues to join me in standing up for 
helpless children by overriding the President's blatantly political 
veto.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Tennessee, Dr. Frist.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FRIST. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise to strongly support the override of the 
President's veto. Why? Because as a physician, as someone who has 
delivered babies, as someone who is a board-certified surgeon, as 
someone who has gone back to read and study the original literature 
describing this procedure, I know that there are no instances where 
this particular procedure would save the life of a daughter, of a 
spouse, or of a mother. It is a strong statement. But it is a statement 
that I feel strongly about.
  Two nights ago I stood on this floor and went through a number of the 
myths that circulate, because it is hard, because most people in this 
body are lawyers or small business people or accountants, and people 
have come forward trying to interpret a specific medical procedure. I 
went through the myths because there is a lot of misinformation. But I 
come back and say that there are no instances where the life of a 
daughter, of a spouse, or of a mother would be saved by this procedure 
that could not be saved by another mainstream procedure today.
  No. 1, this procedure is brutal, it is cruel, it is inhumane, and it 
offends the sensibilities we have heard on both sides of the U.S. 
Senate, of the Congress, and of our constituents of Americans.
  No. 2, an issue that is a little more difficult--it really is not the 
one we have been talking about now--is that there are times during the 
third trimester that either an accelerated delivery or a termination of 
a pregnancy is necessary. Putting all the pro-life and pro-choice 
aside, there are probably some times--there are some times--when that 
is indicated.
  So you need to push that aside. You need to look at the really 
fundamental question. You boil everything down, and is this specific 
procedure as described in literature, as described by its proponents, 
medically necessary? The answer is no, it is not medically necessary.
  What does ``medically necessary'' mean? Does it mean that all late 
abortions need to be banned; should be? Again, that needs to be debated 
at another place another day. It has been debated here. But let us put 
that aside. What it means today in our argumentation is, are there 
alternative procedures that are accepted, that are safe, and I would 
argue safer, that are effective, and I would argue equally effective, 
that preserves the reproductive health? I would argue absolutely, yes, 
there are other mainstream procedures, which means this procedure is 
not to be used.
  So why is this procedure used at all? Why are we even talking about 
this procedure? Why would doctors come forth and look people in the eye 
and say this is the proper procedure? We have to go back to the medical 
literature where it is prescribed. If you go back to the original paper 
of Martin Haskell on ``Dilation and Extraction for Late Second 
Trimester Abortion,'' which was entered into the Record three nights 
ago, when you look at the last page, he says regarding this procedure, 
``In conclusion, dilation and extraction is an alternative method''-- 
an alternative method. It is not even a definitive method. It is a 
fringe method. He said it is ``an alternative method for achieving late 
second trimester abortions to 26 weeks. It can be used in the third 
trimester.''

  This is an alternative, as the original author, the proponent, says.
  What is even more interesting is that he says in the next sentence--
Why? What are the indications? Is it medically necessary? Basically he 
says, ``Among its advantages are that it is a quick, surgical, 
outpatient method that can be performed on a scheduled basis under 
local anesthesia.''
  So the reason this procedure is used is not to preserve reproductive 
health--not for the many other reasons as if it is the only procedure--
it is that it is a matter of convenience. You can do it quickly. You 
can do it as an outpatient. Is ``quick,'' ``outpatient,'' and 
``convenient'' the sort of issues that we should use as indications for 
this procedure? I would say absolutely not.
  This is a fringe procedure. It is not taught in our medical schools 
today to residents. It is a procedure that is not indicated for the 
hydrocephaly, nor trisomy, nor polyhydramnios. It is never indicated. 
There are alternative procedures.
  In closing, I am hesitant to recommend that any medical procedure 
should be banned. Yet, for a procedure that is medically unnecessary 
for which there are alternatives that are used in mainstream medicine 
today, I support this ban and hope that we can override the President's 
veto.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, after consulting with the majority 
leader, I ask unanimous consent to use 5 minutes of the majority 
leader's time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I rise today, first, to congratulate and 
compliment a couple of my colleagues who I think have performed 
extraordinary service to the Senate. First, Senator Smith, from New 
Hampshire, who brought this issue to our attention.
  I will readily admit I have been involved in this abortion debate for 
16 years, but I did not know this procedure happened--I am shocked by 
it, saddened by it, disturbed by it. And for some of our colleagues who 
insinuated that, well, the males in the Senate really should not be 
arguing on this because they have not been in the business of 
delivering babies, I have talked to my wife about it and she feels 
stronger about it even than I do. She thinks President Clinton was 
absolutely, totally, completely wrong in vetoing a bill that would have 
protected the lives of young babies that are three-fourths of the way 
delivered from their mother's birth canal. So I congratulate Senator 
Smith for bringing this to the attention of the Senate.
  I also congratulate Senator Santorum for his leadership as well.
  President Clinton was wrong in vetoing this bill. Two-thirds of the 
House said that he was wrong. I hope that today two-thirds of the 
Senate will say he made a mistake. Maybe he had bad information. I 
notice in his veto message he said this is necessary in order to 
protect the health of the mother, but that is not true.
  Dr. Koop--I think a lot of us, Democrat and Republican, give him a 
lot of credibility--said, and I quote--and this is Dr. Koop and also 
300 medical specialists who are specialists in obstetrics and health 
care and delivery:

       Partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to 
     protect a mother's health or her fertility.

  That is a quote. They said ``never.'' Dr. Tom Coburn, my colleague 
from the House, who has delivered over 3,000 babies, said it is never, 
never medically necessary. There are other alternatives. There are 
better, safer alternatives.

[[Page S11385]]

  What is this? What is partial-birth abortion? This child is seconds 
away, is inches away from total birth--total birth. In some cases, the 
arms and the legs are kicking and moving, the fingers are squeezing. It 
is a live human being. This procedure is infanticide.
  Dr. Pamela Smith, an obstetrician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago, 
points out, and this is a quote:

       Partial-birth abortion is a surgical technique devised by 
     abortionists in the unregulated abortion industry to save 
     them the trouble of counting body parts that are produced in 
     dismemberment procedures.

  This quote is in a letter written to Senators on November 4, 1995. 
She says in the same letter:

       Opponents have said that aborting a living human fetus is 
     sometimes necessary to preserve the reproductive potential 
     and/or the life of the mother. Such an assertion is 
     deceptively and patently untrue.

  Mr. President, lots of people, real experts who have studied this 
issue have said it is not necessary to protect the health of the mother 
and it is certainly not necessary to protect the health of the baby. 
This is destroying a baby.
  Yes, this moves the abortion debate away from theoretical rights into 
talking about lives. We are talking about the life of an innocent, 
unborn human being. I know I heard my colleague, the minority leader of 
the Senate, say it is rare. How can it be rare when originally the 
proponents of maintaining the legality of this procedure said a few 
hundred are performed a year and then we find out in one city in New 
Jersey there were 1,500 done in 1 year. This was not discovered by the 
National Right to Life Committee; this was discovered by investigative 
writers at the Washington Post--1,500 in one clinic in New Jersey. 
There are thousands of these procedures performed annually now--
thousands.

  Mr. President, some of our colleagues made all kinds of remarks that 
people who are opposed to this procedure, they are just opposed to 
abortion. Yes; I am opposed to abortion, but I cannot remember ever 
having to vote on banning all abortions. Somebody said Republicans 
would like to ban all abortions; that is in your platform. It is not in 
our platform. It says, yes; we want to protect the sanctity of human 
life. I have only voted on one constitutional amendment that dealt with 
abortion in my 16 years in the Senate. That was not to ban abortion. So 
some people have tried to move this all over the field.
  What we are trying to do is protect the lives of thousands of babies 
when they are three-fourths born, when they are three-fourths 
delivered, when they are a few inches away from being totally 
delivered, a few seconds away from their first breath. And it is 
particularly gruesome when you realize that some of these babies' heads 
are held in the mother, held in the mother so the brains can be sucked 
out and the baby killed while part of the baby is still in the mother, 
because they know if there is a couple inches' movement, then the 
abortionist would be liable for murder. Then there is no question that 
it is the taking of life. That is how close we are. What does that say 
about America's society today?
  This is one of those defining moments that we have in the Senate. 
Will we stand up and say, enough is enough; this procedure is terrible; 
it is outlandish; it should be stopped? Are we going to allow this type 
of procedure to go on and on and say, no, we believe in abortion at any 
time for any reason at any cost?
  Dr. Martin Haskell, one of the leading proponents of abortion, who 
has performed 1,000 of these, has stated that some 80 percent of those 
he performed were for purely elective reasons, purely elective reasons.
  That alone is enough. We need to override the President's veto. He 
was wrong. We need to protect the lives of innocent, unborn children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent that we have 10 additional 
minutes equally divided. I am swamped with speakers and do not have 
enough time to even get my own statement in.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Indiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized for up 
to 5 minutes.

  Mr. COATS. I thank my friend for yielding. I thank him for his 
tireless work on what I think is one of the most defining issues of our 
time.
  I am pleased to see the Senator from West Virginia in the Chamber. He 
is always in the Chamber during important debates. I regret that many 
others are not in the Chamber.
  Mr. President, I had the opportunity to call a good friend of ours, 
Senator Campbell, who, as we all know, was in a serious motorcycle 
accident just a few days ago in Colorado, and is hospitalized in a 
hospital in Cortez, CO. I called to ask his condition, and he told me 
he had undergone some 15 to 18 hours of surgery, but he was hoping to 
recover. He asked me, however, if I would deliver a message to our 
colleagues. I take the opportunity to read that message:
       Mr. President, I take this opportunity to thank my friend 
     and colleague, Senator Coats, for submitting this statement 
     on my behalf while I am absent from the Senate due to my 
     accident. During this important debate on the override of the 
     President's veto of the partial-birth abortion bill, I felt 
     compelled to share my personal thoughts with my colleagues on 
     this extremely emotional issue.
       During the past month, I have listened carefully to those 
     who hold strong views on both sides of this difficult issue, 
     and I have learned a great deal more about this procedure and 
     its implications. I also have consulted with doctors and 
     others in the medical profession who have discussed this 
     procedure in graphic detail. It became clear to me the 
     procedure which would be banned is an atrocity which is 
     inflicted on a fetus so far along in its development, it is 
     nearly an infant.
       Since last Saturday, I have spent the last six days 
     straight in a hospital bed in Cortez, Colorado. Part of my 
     decision-making process is based on watching the dedicated 
     health professionals here in this hospital working so hard, 
     day in and day out, to save lives. As the days went by, it 
     became increasingly clear to me that a vote to override the 
     veto also represents an effort to save lives, and not take 
     lives. Those who know me, know that I am not one to bend with 
     the political breeze.
       As my colleagues and my constituents will know, I am pro-
     choice! I always have been pro-choice, and will continue to 
     be pro-choice. In fact, 1 have a 100 percent voting record 
     with NARAL and other pro-choice organizations. However, in 
     light of the medical evidence, I do not consider this 
     specific vote to be a choice issue.
       Therefore, based on the compelling medical evidence and the 
     insights I've gained, I would vote to override the 
     President's veto were I able to be on the Senate floor today.

  Mr. President, this is not just another skirmish in the running 
debate between left and right. This debate raises the most basic 
questions asked in any democracy: Who is my neighbor? Who is my 
brother? Who do I define as inferior, cast beyond my sympathy and 
protection? Who do I embrace and value, both embrace in law and embrace 
in love? It is not a matter of ideology; it is a matter of humanity. It 
is not a matter of what constituency we should side with; it is a 
matter of living with ourselves and sleeping at night. This is not just 
a matter of our Nation's politics, but it is a matter of our Nation's 
soul, and how this Nation will be judged by God and by history.

  In this body, we can agree and disagree on many matters of social 
policy. Yet, surely we must agree on this, that a born child should not 
be subjected to violence and death. I believe that protection should be 
extended to the unborn as well. But at least in this body, should we 
not reject infanticide? At least can we refuse to cross that line.
  Mr. President, I fear that we are sliding into a culture of death 
instead of a culture of life, a society that begins to retreat from 
inclusion, an ever widening circle of inclusion, to include people 
previously excluded on the basis of race, of ethnic background, of 
gender--the great civil rights battles to bring people into this 
wonderful American experiment of democracy, equality, and justice. I 
fear we are retreating from that with this vote, that we are beginning 
a differentiation between the healthy and the unhealthy, between the 
perfect and the not so perfect, between the beautiful and the not so 
beautiful.
  So, today we have a choice, a choice between the beauty of life or 
the horror of death. I am pleading with my colleagues to reach out in 
love and compassion for the most innocent and the most defenseless in 
our society. God has imbued all of us with a capacity to love. 
Unfortunately, the great human

[[Page S11386]]

tendency is to turn that love inward and think of and love only 
ourselves, our possessions, our careers, our achievements; not to think 
of others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. COATS. I ask for 1 additional minute.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the Senator 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 1 additional 
minute.
  Mr. COATS. But that is misdirected love. True love goes beyond 
ourselves. It reaches out in love of others.
  This vote is an appeal to a higher purpose, what Lincoln said ``is 
the better angels of our nature.'' I appeal to my colleagues, for the 
sake of a larger question, of a higher purpose, to reach to the better 
angels, to the larger questions--life, liberty, equality, justice--for 
the sake of the future of this great experiment in democracy, to 
support us in this effort, to say that we will not promote a culture of 
death. We will not embrace the culture of death. We will embrace a 
culture of life. We will keep extending the circle of equality, 
justice, passion, and love for the least among us.
  Clearly, today, at this defining moment, that issue is in great 
peril.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his efforts 
and for the time he yielded, and yield back the remaining time I have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, may I inquire as to how much time each 
side has left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California controls 13 
minutes, 25 seconds; the Senator from Pennsylvania, 6 minutes, 48 
seconds.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. President, we are winding down this debate. It has been a hard 
debate. In some ways, it has been a harsh debate.
  I think the most important thing that I would like to do--if I do 
this, I will feel that I have done my best--is to put a family's face 
on this issue, put a woman's face on this issue, to make sure that the 
American people understand that when President Clinton vetoed this 
bill, he vetoed it with compassion in his heart for the families who 
had to face the kind of tragic circumstances I have discussed 
throughout this debate.
  I think there has been some effort on the part of those who take an 
opposite view, there has been some effort to try and undermine or 
undercut some of these families, some of these women who have gone 
through this tragic experience. I hope that effort has failed.

  I want to talk about Mary-Dorothy Line, a devoted Catholic who was 5 
months pregnant with her first child when she learned her baby might 
have a very serious genetic problem. Mary-Dorothy writes:

       My husband and I talked about what we would do if there was 
     something wrong. We quickly decided that we are strong people 
     and that, while having a disabled child would be hard, it 
     would not be too hard for us. We are Catholic, [she writes] 
     we go to church every week. So we prayed, as did our parents 
     and our grandparents.
       We sat there and watched as the doctor examined our baby 
     and then told us that, in addition to the brain fluid 
     problem, the baby's stomach had not developed and he could 
     not swallow.

  After being told that in-utero surgery would not help, Mary-Dorothy 
Line and her husband decided to use the procedure that is outlawed in 
this bill, because they were told it was the safest.
  Mary-Dorothy says to us:

       The doctors knew that the late-term abortion was not easy 
     for us, since we really wanted to have children in the 
     future. This is the hardest thing I have ever been through. I 
     pray that this will never happen to anyone again, but it 
     will. And those of us unfortunate enough to have to live 
     through this nightmare need a procedure that will give us 
     hope for the future.

  That is one story. Viki Wilson is another story. There are many more 
stories.
  I thank the women who came forward to tell their stories. There are 
women standing outside this Chamber. I went out to see them--and they 
are crying. They are crying because they do not understand how Senators 
could take away an option that their doctor needed to save their lives. 
They are crying because they do not believe that those Senators truly 
understand what this meant for their families and what it meant to 
them--women and men and families who so wanted these babies, so wanted 
to hold them, so wanted to birth them, so wanted to love them, so 
wanted to raise them. But, because in science today sometimes serious 
abnormalities cannot always be known in the early stages, they did not 
learn until very late in the pregnancy.
  They wanted those babies. They named those babies, Mr. President. 
They buried those babies with love. And they are crying because they 
cannot understand how a majority of Senators could put themselves 
inside the hospital room and tell them that they cannot have a 
procedure that could save their lives.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. President, I look and see the Senator from West Virginia, who 
represents as much the U.S. Senate to this country as probably any 
individual here, the dignity of this institution as the greatest 
deliberative body in the world. I have been saying for the last few 
days that I have tremendous faith that this body, as a deliberative 
body, will listen to the facts and live up to its reputation as a body 
that, when presented with all the evidence, can judge not only about 
this procedure, which is important, but what the consequence are of 
this action on the future of the nation, on the future of a 
civilization.
  And so I ask Members, before they come down, to think and look 
inwardly as to their own conscience. Yes, to look outwardly around to 
this Chamber and remember that we have a standard to uphold and that 
today we are going to be making the decision about whether in this 
country it will be legal to allow a viable baby to be delivered outside 
of the mother and then killed inches before its first breath.
  I have asked the question of almost every person who spoke on this 
issue opposing my position: What would be the case if the baby's head 
was to, for some reason, slip out? Would the doctor and the mother then 
have the right, the choice to kill that baby?
  No one has ever answered that question. The Senator from Wisconsin 
came the closest. He said, ``I don't think we should interfere with 
that,'' which I guess means yes. How far do we go? Where do we draw the 
line? Have we stopped saying here in this body that there are no more 
lines, that everything is OK for anyone to do as long as you feel it's 
right, it's your right to do whatever you feel is right?
  Don't we have any more lines? What are the facts? That is a factually 
accurate description of the procedure, as so stated by the person who 
performs it. Some have likened this chart to a depiction of an 
appendicitis operation. My God. Appendicitis. That is not an appendix. 
That is not a blob of tissue. It is a baby. It's a baby.
  Did you ever really think that this could actually be happening on 
the floor of the U.S. Senate? When you came here, the people in the 
audience--maybe you are just visiting Washington or just wandered in--
did you actually believe that we could be actually contemplating 
allowing thousands of these kinds of procedures to continue? I 
sometimes just have to sit here and pinch myself and wonder whether 
this is all real, whether this really is the United States of America.
  The Senator from California said she hears the cries of the women 
outside this Chamber. We would be deafened by the cries of the children 
who are not here to cry because of this procedure.
  I cry with these women. This is a difficult decision to make, but 
there are alternative measures available. No woman will be denied 
access to abortion, late-term as they are, if we ban this procedure. 
That is a fact. The leading writer on abortions, Dr. Hern from 
Colorado, says that he thinks this is a dangerous procedure and should 
not be done.
  The Senator from Colorado--and my best wishes go out to him in his 
hospital bed in Colorado--made the most poignant statement today when 
he said he has been in a hospital looking at all that is being done to 
preserve life.
  I have to hearken back to another Lincoln quote which is: ``A house 
divided against itself cannot stand.''
  In one operating room when there is a baby being delivered and 
everything

[[Page S11387]]

is being done to save that baby; in the next room, one is being 
delivered to be killed. That cannot continue to happen in this country.
  The Senator from Colorado is right. What are we to become? What will 
we be like if we allow this, and then maybe if the baby is born and it 
is not quite perfect enough for us, maybe it has some problems, that it 
won't live as long as we would like.
  Cardinal Bevilacqua spoke today, and there are many religious leaders 
here. The cardinal is up in the gallery, and he said, ``If this 
procedure is allowed to continue, I fear that legal infanticide will 
not be far behind. If partial-birth abortion is allowed to continue, 
surely it will mark the beginning of the end of our Nation, of our 
civilization. No Nation, no civilization that abandons its moral 
foundations, its spiritual beliefs by legally destroying its own unborn 
children in this barbaric procedure can possibly survive.''
  Please, I ask my colleagues, I plead with my colleagues, don't let 
this happen on our watch.
  Mr. President, I have a series of newspaper articles and letters. I 
ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Statement at Press Conference on Partial Birth Abortion, Thursday, 
   September 26, 1996, by Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of 
                              Philadelphia

       I know that God will be present today in the U.S. Senate 
     when it discusses and votes on an over-ride of the 
     President's veto. I pray that the Senators will be conscious 
     of God's presence among them and vote in accordance with His 
     will which is will for human life.
       I appeal to the Senators to override the veto on partial 
     birth abortion. I pray that they will vote on principle. A 
     vote for the over-ride is a vote for human life. A vote 
     against the over-ride is a vote for the death of human beings 
     made to the image and likeness of God.
       This vote is critical for the preservation of this nation, 
     of our civilization. Partial birth abortion is \4/5\ birth 
     and \1/5\ abortion. The baby is but a few seconds, 2-3 inches 
     from full birth. In this procedure, therefore, it is only a 
     few seconds, 2-3 inches from being legal infanticide. If this 
     procedure is allowed to continue, I fear that legal 
     infanticide will not be far behind.
       If partial birth abortion is allowed to continue, surely it 
     will mark the beginning of the end of our nation, of our 
     civilization. No nation, no civilization that abandons its 
     moral foundations, its spiritual beliefs by legally 
     destroying its own unborn children in this barbaric procedure 
     can possibly survive.
       This vote is not a vote for choice. It is a vote for the 
     culture of life instead of a culture of death.
                                                                    ____



                                               Pittsburgh, PA,

                                                    June 30, 1996.
     Hon. Rick Santorum,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator: I am a practicing Obstetrician-Gynecologist. 
     I urge you to vote for the ``ban of partial birth abortion''.
       I believe this to be the most cruel procedure of 
     infanticide. During the last trimester of pregnancy, the 
     infant is partially delivered and is alive and moving. At 
     this time the infant is killed by stabbing it at the base of 
     the skull. Then the brains are removed by suction. In a short 
     period of time, a normal delivery of this infant could have 
     ensued. Therefore, it cannot be stated ``the abortion is 
     being done because the pregnancy is a threat to the Mother's 
     life.''
       I disapprove of this gross procedure for two additional 
     reasons. This is not a routine practice in the field of 
     obstetrics. Secondly, the forceful dilation of the cervix to 
     make possible the premature delivery can tear the cervix. 
     This creates a site for infection and excessive bleeding. 
     Since the placenta is not ready for delivery it may deem 
     necessary to manually deliver it (which is not a normal 
     procedure). This may cause even more bleeding. Because of the 
     forceful dilation, the cervix may be incompetent to hold 
     future pregnancies.
       Stated simply, the primary and strongest objection is the 
     burden of a live infant. PLEASE, vote for the ``ban of 
     partial birth abortion.''
       Respectfully,
     Albert W. Corcoran, M.D.
                                                                    ____



                                               Pittsburgh, PA,

                                                    June 24, 1996.
     Senator Richard Santorum,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Santorum: I have never written anyone in the 
     Congress a letter such as this one. However, I feel as a 
     board certified obstetrician, who has practiced obstetrics 
     and gynecology for 35 years, I must bring closure to my 
     problem.
       The words ``rip open a woman'' have disturbed me since they 
     were uttered by our President. In all my years in the 
     operating room, I have never seen even the weakest surgeon 
     ``rip open'' any patient.
       I would plead for you to urge your fellow Senators to 
     override the President's veto of third trimester termination 
     of a human being.
       There are several reasons for doing this aside from an 
     unprovoked attack on a human being. Namely, any of the six 
     women he paraded before the American public on television 
     could have been cared for by c-section. More importantly, 
     since these women were all willing to have their pregnancies 
     terminated in the third trimester, all could have resolved 
     their personal dilemma with greater studies in the first 
     trimester. Finally, this procedure is just another form of 
     euthanasia.
       I hope there are some fellow Senators who will divorce 
     themselves from politics and truly vote their conscious.
       Kindest regards,
                                     E.A. Scioscia, MD FACOG FACS,
         Asst. Clinical Prof. of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Medical 
           College of Pennsylvania.
                                                                    ____



                                       Hilton Head Island, SC,

                                                    June 21, 1996.
      Senator Rick Santorum,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Santorum: I am writing to you as an 
     Obstetrician of thirty seven years and subsequently as 
     Medical Director of Forbes Health System. During all that 
     time my efforts were dedicated to the delivery of healthy 
     born infants and on maintenance of good health by their 
     mothers. The abortion deaths of more than a million a year in 
     the richest country in the world will one day be looked on by 
     history as the greatest slaughter of innocents in world 
     history to date.
       In the past the pro-abortionists hid from what they were 
     doing by claiming that what was being aborted were non 
     persons--simply protoplasm! How they can rationalize this is 
     not understandable to me. It seems to me that a person is a 
     human living, individual. Certainly the fetus is an 
     ``individual''--no one exactly like him or her will be born 
     again.--its genes are distinct. It is ``human'' not canine, 
     or bovine or equine--it is ``human.'' And it is certainly 
     ``living'' and there would be no need to abort it.
       Nevertheless, the pro-abortionists do not wish to have the 
     early fetus recognized as a person. But surely there can be 
     no denying of the person of a 32 week fetus when greater than 
     90% if normal will survive if born at that gestation. The 
     bill which was vetoed by President Clinton recognized that 
     this forcing of the labor of an abnormal infant and then its 
     destruction by invading its skull and collapsing the brain 
     while it was still alive; in order to complete delivery is 
     not only murder but unjustified. It is possible that the 
     mother's reproductive organs may be permanently damaged in 
     this rush to termination. However; if allowed to deliver in 
     normal labor the grossly abnormal infant would probably not 
     survive more than a matter of hours. This process of 
     craneocleisis which was employed when cesarean section was so 
     dangerous in the 19th century was done to save the life of 
     the mother and still it was abhorrent even to those who did 
     the procedure. Once cesarean section reached an improved 
     degree of safety by the 1920's it was abandoned--now to be 
     resurrected to force the premature delivery of an abnormal 
     baby. I am not unmindful of the emotional stress that 
     carrying such a baby, can cause a mother if she knows that it 
     is not normal! But is the abrupt termination of the pregnancy 
     worth the possible damage to the mothers reproductive 
     capacity by this assault on a living human individual?
       My best wishes for your success in addressing the 
     presidential veto.
           Sincerely yours,
     Richard McGarvey.
                                                                    ____

                                                  Chevy Chase, MD.
       During the weeks and months Congress was considering 
     legislation to end partial birth abortion, I heard and read 
     many news stories featuring women who said they had undergone 
     the procedure because it was the only option they had to save 
     their health and future fertility as a result of a pregnancy 
     gone tragically wrong.
       But based on my own personal experience, I am convinced 
     that women and their families are tragically misled when they 
     are informed that partial birth abortion is their only 
     option. I believe many more women and their families would 
     choose to give birth to their fatally ill babies and love and 
     care for them as long as their short and meaningful lives 
     might endure, if they were fully informed that they could let 
     their babies live rather than aborting them.
       Dr. James McMahon, who performed the partial birth 
     abortions upon many of the women I heard about in the news, 
     would have targeted our first child, Gerard, because he had 
     Trisomy 18, a chromosomal abnormality incompatible with more 
     than a few hours or weeks of life outside the uterus.
       My husband, a pediatric neurologist and I, a pediatric 
     nurse, learned via a routine sonogram halfway through our 
     first pregnancy that our baby had a large abdominal defect. 
     Our OB suggested an amniocentesis to confirm whether our son 
     had Trisomy 18, since abdominal defects this large are 
     frequently associated with Trisomy 18. If he did not have 
     Trisomy 18, we would begin to research our son's need for 
     abdominal surgery and the best pediatric surgeon available to 
     us. The second half of the pregnancy was extremely painful 
     emotionally. I felt that perhaps our hopes of having a large 
     family were dying with Gerard.
       We had a supportive OB and at each visit we also met with 
     the OB clinical nurse specialist. She helped us with our 
     grief and she

[[Page S11388]]

     also helped us plan for Gerard's birth and death. We also met 
     the neonatologist prior to birth who informed us about what 
     to expect about Gerard's condition and we let him know that 
     we didn't want Gerard to have any painful procedures.
       We did not once consider an abortion, for this was our 
     beloved child for whom we would do anything. We prayed that 
     he would be born alive and live at least for a short period 
     of time. My husband and I were drawn very close as we 
     comforted each other and talked about our grief and our 
     evolving plans for our child. At 40 weeks our OB decided he 
     would induce labor; on the eve of the second day of 
     induction, Gerard was delivered alive. We held him and gently 
     talked to him. The priest who had married us ten months 
     earlier was there to baptize him. Gradually, his vital signs 
     slowed until he died 45 minutes after we met him in person. 
     We took many beautiful pictures of him that are among our 
     most cherished possessions.
       We have since been blessed with 5 additional children, all 
     healthy. Number 6 was 11\1/2\ lbs and the hospital staff 
     marveled at how easily I delivered her. Delivering Gerard 
     alive and giving him even a brief period of life in no way 
     impaired my future fertility, as these 5 wonderful children 
     can attest to. Our children have internalized our love and 
     respect for Gerard and babies and others with disabilities.
       We have never had any regrets about carrying Gerard to 
     term, giving birth to him and loving him until he died 
     naturally. In fact, it is the event I am most proud of in my 
     life. Our only regret is that he did not live longer.
       My hope is that since there is no medical reason for a 
     woman to undergo a partial birth abortion, that each woman 
     listen to her heart and her strong desire to protect her 
     child and love him or her until that child's natural death.
     Margaret Sheridan.
                                                                    ____

                                                     Oak Park, IL.
       My name is Jeannie Wallace French. I am a 34 year old 
     healthcare professional who holds a masters degree in public 
     health. I am a diplomate of the American College of 
     Healthcare Executives, and a member of the Chicago Health 
     Executives Forum.
       In the spring of 1993, my husband Paul and I were delighted 
     to learn that we would be parents of twins. The pregnancy was 
     the answer to many prayers and we excitedly prepared for our 
     babies.
       In June, five months into the pregnancy, doctors confirmed 
     that one of our twins, our daughter Mary, was suffering form 
     occipital encephalocele--a condition in which the majority of 
     the brain develops outside of the skull. As she grew, 
     sonograms revealed the progression of tissue maturing in the 
     sack protruding from Mary's head.
       We were devastated. Mary's prognosis for life was slim, and 
     her chance for normal development nonexistent. Additionally, 
     if Mary died in utero, it would threaten the life of her 
     brother, Will.
       Doctors recommended aborting Mary. But my husband and I 
     felt that our baby girl was a member of our family, 
     regardless of how ``imperfect'' she might be. We felt she was 
     entitled to her God-given right to live her life, however 
     short or difficult it might be, and if she was to leave this 
     life, to leave it peacefully.
       When we learned our daughter could not survive normal 
     labor, we decided to go through with a cesarean delivery. 
     Mary and her healthy brother Will were born a minute apart on 
     December 13, 1993. Little Will let out a hearty cry and was 
     moved to the nursery. Our quiet little Mary remained with us, 
     cradled in my Paul's arms. Six hours later, wrapped in her 
     delivery blanket, Mary Bernadette French slipped peacefully 
     away.
       Blessedly, our story does not end there. Three days after 
     Mary died, on the day of her interment at the cemetery, Paul 
     and I were notified that Mary's heart valves were a match for 
     two Chicago infants in critical condition. We have learned 
     that even anacephalic and meningomyelocele children like our 
     Mary can give life, sight or strength to others. Her ability 
     to save the lives of two other children proved to others that 
     her life had value--far beyond what any of us could ever have 
     imagined.
       Mary's life lasted a total of 37 weeks 3 days and 6 hours. 
     In effect, like a small percentage of children conceived in 
     our country every year, Mary was born dying. What can partial 
     birth abortion possibly do for children like Mary? This 
     procedure is intended to hasten a dying baby's death. We do 
     not need to help a dying child die. Not one moment of grief 
     is circumvented by this procedure.
       In Mary's memory, as a voice for severely disabled children 
     now growing in the comfort of their mother's wombs, and for 
     the parents whose dying children are relying on the donation 
     of organs from other babies, I make this plea: Some children 
     by their nature cannot live. If we are to call ourselves a 
     civilized culture, we must allow that their deaths be 
     natural, peaceful, and painless. And if other preborn 
     children face a life of disability, let us welcome them into 
     this society, with arms open in love. Who could possible need 
     us more?
     Jeannie W. French.
                                                                    ____


             [From Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth]

                      The Case of Coreen Costello


Partial-birth abortion was not a medical necessity for the most visible 
               ``personal case'' proponent of procedure.

       Coreen Costello is one of five women who appeared with 
     President Clinton when he vetoed the Partial-Birth Abortion 
     Ban Act (4/10/96). She has probably been the most active and 
     the most visible of those women who have chosen to share with 
     the public the very tragic circumstances of their pregnancies 
     which, they say, made the partial-birth abortion procedure 
     their only medical option to protect their health and future 
     fertility.
       But based on what Ms. Costello has publicly said so far, 
     her abortion was not, in fact, medically necessary.
       In addition to appearing with the President at the veto 
     ceremony, Ms. Costello has twice recounted her story in 
     testimony before both the House and Senate; the New York 
     Times published an op-ed by Ms. Costello based on this 
     testimony; she was featured in a full page ad in the 
     Washington Post sponsored by several abortion advocacy 
     groups; and, most recently (7/29/96) she has recounted her 
     story for a ``Dear Colleague'' letter being circulated to 
     House members by Rep. Peter Deutsch (FL).
       Unless she were to decide otherwise, Ms. Costello's full 
     medical records remain, of course, unavailable to the public, 
     being a matter between her and her doctors. However, Ms. 
     Costello has voluntarily chosen to share significant parts of 
     her very tragic story with the general public and in very 
     highly visible venues. Based on what Ms. Costello has 
     revealed of her medical history--of her own accord and for 
     the stated purpose of defeating the Partial-Birth Abortion 
     Ban Act--doctors with PHACT can only conclude that Ms. 
     Costello and others who have publicly acknowledged undergoing 
     this procedure ``are honest women who were sadly misinformed 
     and whose decision to have a partial-birth abortion was based 
     on a great deal of misinformation'' (Dr. Joseph DeCook, Ob/
     Gyn, PHACT Congressional Briefing, 7/24/96). Ms. Costello's 
     experience does not change the reality that a partial birth 
     abortion is never medically indicated--in fact, there are 
     available several alternative, standard medical procedures to 
     treat women confronting unfortunate situations like Ms. 
     Costello had to face.
       The following analysis is based on Ms. Costello's public 
     statements regarding events leading up to her abortion 
     performed by the late Dr. James McMahon. This analysis was 
     done by Dr. Curtis Cook, a perinatologist with the Michigan 
     State College of Human Medicine and member of PHACT.
       ``Ms. Costello's child suffered from `polyhydramnios 
     secondary to fetal swallowing defect.' In other words, the 
     child could not swallow the amniotic fluid, and an excess of 
     the fluid therefore collected in the mother's uterus. Because 
     of the swallowing defect, the child's lungs were not properly 
     stimulated, and an underdevelopment of the lungs would likely 
     be the cause of death if abortion had not intervened. The 
     child had no significant chance of survival, but also would 
     not likely die as soon as the umbilical cord was cut.
       ``The usual approach in such a case would be to reduce the 
     amount of amniotic fluid collecting in the mother's uterus by 
     serial amniocentesis. Excess fluid in the fetal ventricles 
     could also be drained. Ordinarily, the draining would occur 
     `transabdominally.' Then the child would be vaginally 
     delivered, after attempts were made to move the child into 
     the usual, head-down position. Dr. McMahon, who performed the 
     draining of cerebral fluid on Ms. Costello's child, did so 
     `transvaginally,' most likely because he had no significant 
     expertise in obstetrics/gynecology. In other words, he would 
     not be able to do it well transabdominally--the standard 
     method used by ob/gyns--because that takes a degree of 
     expertise he did not possess.
       Ms. Costello's statement that she was unable to have a 
     vaginal delivery, or, as she called it, `natural birth or an 
     induced labor,' is contradicted by the fact that she did 
     indeed have a vaginal delivery, conducted by Dr. McMahon. 
     What Ms. Costello had was a breech vaginal delivery for 
     purposes of aborting the child, however, as opposed to a 
     vaginal delivery intended to result in a live birth. A 
     caesarean section in this case would not be medically 
     indicated--not because of any inherent danger--but because 
     the baby could be safely delivered vaginally.''
       The Physicians' Ad-hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT), with 
     over three hundred members drawn from the medical community 
     nationwide, exists to bring the medical facts to bear on the 
     public policy debate regarding partial birth abortions. 
     Members of the coalition are available to speak to public 
     policy makers and the media. If you would like to speak with 
     a member of PHACT, please contact Gene Tarne or Michelle 
     Powers at 703-683-5004.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time of the Senator from Pennsylvania has 
expired. Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mr. BYRD. I ask the Senator to give me 30 seconds.
  Mrs. BOXER. I yield 30 seconds to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I call attention to the rules of the Senate 
which preclude any reference to people

[[Page S11389]]

in the galleries, and one cannot, even by unanimous consent, change 
that rule, and the Chair is not even to entertain a unanimous-consent 
request that the rule be waived.
  I hope Senators will abide by the rules regardless of what side of 
the question they are on.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If the Senator will yield, I apologize for making such 
an error, and I appreciate the Senator pointing that out.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, thank you very much. I understand I have 8 
minutes remaining, or a little less than that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Approximately 7 minutes remaining.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask I be yielded 4 minutes of that time. 
At that time, I am going to turn to another Senator to close our 
debate.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending veto 
message and proceed immediately to a bill that allows this procedure 
only in cases where the mother's life is at stake or she would suffer 
serious adverse health consequences without this procedure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Reserving the right to object.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for regular order and just ask if 
there is objection this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Regular order, the Senator must object.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the reason I asserted my parliamentary 
rights is because time is a wasting.
  I would like to ask Senators to do me one favor as a colleague, and 
that favor is this: to simply visualize yourself in a circumstance 
where a person who you love maybe more than anyone else in the world, 
comes to you--it could be your wife, it could be your daughter, it 
could be a niece, it could be a grandchild, a granddaughter--and that 
woman who has been flushed with the thrill of a pregnancy, who was 
waiting with great anticipation with her family for the most blessed 
event any woman can have, and God has blessed me with two such events, 
and that loving woman looks in your eyes and says, ``Daddy,'' or 
``Brother,'' or ``Mother, I have horrible news. I've been told by my 
doctor that there's a horrible turn of events that has happened in this 
pregnancy that we could not learn until the very late stages. And if I 
don't have this procedure''--the one that is outlawed in this bill, may 
I say--``my doctor says I might die or I might never be able to have 
another baby or I might be paralyzed for life. What should I do? Will 
you support me?''

  I really think, if we are totally honest, as the distinguished 
Democratic leader has tried to put forward in his eloquence, I think 
every one of us would reach inside, and that love would overwhelm us 
and we would save that child, that wife, that granddaughter, and we 
would face this together with her doctor and our God, and we would not 
call a U.S. Senator, no matter how dignified, no matter how 
intelligent, no matter how popular at the moment, into that room. We 
would want to decide it with our family.
  I beg my colleagues, I know this is such a difficult vote, but I 
believe in my heart when the American people understand that we have 
offered to ban this procedure but for life and serious health 
consequences and we were turned down by the other side, they will 
understand that not one of us is for a late-term abortion of a healthy 
pregnancy. Who could be? No one could be.
  What we are talking about is preserving this procedure for cases like 
Viki Wilson and Vikki Stella and the women who have the courage to come 
forward and tell us their stories. I urge my colleagues, please, 
sustain the President's veto. I yield the balance of my time to the 
Senator from West Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized 
for 2 minutes, 40 seconds.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair, and I thank the distinguished Senator 
from California.
  This is a very, very difficult question. I have been greatly troubled 
by it, as I am sure other Senators have been. Napoleon--who is not 
particularly one of my idols--and Josephine had a child on March 20, 
1811. And when he was told by the doctors that the infant or the mother 
might have to be sacrificed, he revealed all the warmth of the human 
instincts and the instincts of family when he answered, ``Save the 
mother.''
  Mr. President, as a father and as a grandfather, I would never want 
to be cast into that excruciating position. But if I were, I would 
answer as did Napoleon: ``Save the mother.''
  Mr. COATS. Would the Senator yield at this time his time remaining?
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has 34 seconds 
remaining. That is the extent of all further debate.
  Mr. COATS. May I ask the Senator from California if she would yield 
me--give me a chance to just make a 10-second response to the Senator 
from West Virginia?
  Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I yield back all the time. We have debated this. I think 
it is time to vote. I ask that we go to the regular business and vote 
at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time having been yielded back, the 
question is, Shall the bill pass, the objections of the President of 
the United States to the contrary notwithstanding? The yeas and nays 
are required. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Maine [Mr. Cohen] is 
necessarily absent.
  I also announce that the Senator from Colorado [Mr. Campbell] is 
absent due to illness.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 57, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 301 Leg.]

                                YEAS--57

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brown
     Burns
     Coats
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Ford
     Frahm
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Leahy
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pressler
     Reid
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--41

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Murray
     Pell
     Pryor
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Simpson
     Snowe
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Campbell
     Cohen
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would like to remind the visitors in 
gallery that demonstrations of approval or disapproval are prohibited 
under Senate rules and I ask the Sergeant at Arms to assist in 
maintaining order in the gallery. We appreciate your cooperation.
  On this vote the ayes are 57, the nays are 41.
  Two-thirds of the Senators present and voting not having voted in the 
affirmative, the bill, on reconsideration, fails of passage.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I previously voted ``aye.'' I changed my 
vote to ``no.'' I now enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which 
the veto message was sustained.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion has been received.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this is a matter of such great 
importance that we will raise it again and again for votes until we 
prevail. In fact, we may even bring it up again for a vote this year.

                          ____________________