[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 11, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E202-E204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LONG TIME DEMOCRAT JOINS REPUBLICAN RANKS
______
HON. BOB LIVINGSTON
of louisiana
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, February 11, 1997
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on December 19, 1996, the mayor of
Slidell, LA, the Honorable Salvatore A. ``Sam'' Caruso, left the
Democratic party for the Republican Party. I commend Mayor Caruso on
his decision and welcome him to the Republican Party.
Like other conservative Democrats, mayor Caruso found it difficult to
be a member of a party whose philosophy blatantly contradicted his own
deeply held beliefs. I recommend that my House colleagues take a moment
and read Mayor Caruso's remarks.
Some Reflections Upon the Occasion of Changing My Political Party
Affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party
(By Salvatore A. Caruso)
Thank you for coming here today.
The fact that we have had sleet, and rain and snow here in
south Louisiana over the past few days was merely what
Congressman Livingston predicted would happen whenever I
would change political parties. Except that he predicted both
events for July 32nd.
Bob Livingston has been trying to persuade me to make this
change for at least ten (10) years now. In a desperate
attempt about a year ago, he added one new reason. Bob told
me that I look more like an elephant than a jackass. I was
not sure if that was a compliment or an insult. Although he
added that if I became a Republican I could ride the elephant
into an unlimited political future. I told him that if the
elephant could fit on my shoulders I would do it.
A lot of people have a right to a serious explanation
regarding this change in my Party affiliation.
Because I have been a Democrat for all of my life and
because I have been correctly identified as a proponent of a
few issues which some people call ``liberal'', there has been
an obscuring of the fact that upon several other issues I
have always been strongly conservative and correctly
identified with what might be called the Republican position.
Let me give you three examples:
(1) There is currently a popularly used word to describe
the divesting of power by the Federal Government from itself,
and the passing of that power on to Stat and Local
governments. The word is ``devolution.''
For me, that is simply a newly popular word to replace the
more traditional word ``subsidiarity.'' Subsidiarity is a
word and a concept that have been available to us for a very
long time. The word has a proper place in philosophy,
economics, political science, management and other areas of
human endeavor. Put simply, it means this: Nothing should be
done at a higher level of organization than is necessary to
accomplish the purpose involved. Or, conversely, whatever
needs to be done should be done at the lowest level of
organization that is possible. In governmental terms:
Whatever needs to be done by the government should be done by
the government closest to the people.
(2) I am a fiscal conservative and I always have been. That
strong fiscal conservatism has been consistently reflected in
my speech, in my actions, and in my decisions as a public
official for over eighteen (18) years now. No one turns
around a public hospital from a three and one-half million
dollar debt to a thriving enterprise by using financially
liberal practices. No one leads a city to $55,000,000 worth
of capital improvements while finishing eleven (11) years of
operations with a financial surplus by being profligate with
public money.
(3) I believe strongly in environmental protection. But, I
do not believe that business people ought to be, in effect,
deprived of the use of their land because it holds a puddle
of water for two weeks out of the year. I believe even less
that local governments, struggling to keep their people from
flooding, ought to have to obtain permission from the Federal
Government to build the necessary structures on land where
some exotic grasses are growing. I like plants, but like
people more.
And, it is my love for people that brings me to the central
reason for this change in political parties.
Before I expand upon that, I want to insert here a very
personal note. I began this speech with a couple of humorous
comments about Congressman Livingston. Now I want to tell you
something that is very serious. No one should ever change
political parties simply because of a personal friendship.
And, over the years, I have resisted any temptation to do
that. The issue is simply too important to be decided at that
level. But, if there are other matters that are compelling or
nearly compelling, then certainly it is honorable to allow
personal considerations to top-off the decision-making
process.
And, that is, in fact, happening in this case. As almost
everyone knows by now, Bob Livingston and I were classmates
at Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School in New Orleans. He has
survived the publication of that fact until now, and I expect
that he will continue to manage after this. What yet may be
unclear is the extent to which Bob has been a friend to me
and to the City which I lead. Over all of these years and
throughout all of his success at the national level, he has
never been any different in personal attitude than he was
when we were both boys. And, during all of that time no one
could have been a better friend to a former classmate than
Bob Livingston has been to me. No one could have been a
better friend to the City I lead than Bob Livingston has been
to the City of Slidell. Federal money that is at work right
now in the City of Slidell came here largely through Bob
Livingston. Federal money to control flooding, and for which
we have only recently become eligible, will come to us almost
solely because of Bob Livingston, if only we have the sense
to take it.
What all of us owe to my grammar school classmate is more
than I can cover in this speech. And, so, for now, in this
setting, the only thing more that needs to be said is: Thank
you, Bob.
Now, let me return to my comment about my love for people.
I come from a family which always struggled for a
reasonable level of existence, which was occasionally near
the poverty level, and in which both parents died at age
fifty-three (53), and died bankrupt for the
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crime of having cancer but no health insurance.
For the past twenty-four (24) years, as a licensed
psychiatric social worker, I have heard more than I ever
expected to hear about the endless ways in which human
suffering comes to people, about how they cope or do not cope
with that suffering, about what kind of help they have needed
from me, from others, and sometimes from the whole community.
No one needs to tell me about such things. I have lived
them. I have heard them. I have, hopefully, helped people
through them.
I love people.
But, within that love for people I have a peculiar feeling
and a peculiar notion.
I also love people who already exist but are not yet born.
Those people are called by different names: tissue, zygote,
embryo, fetus, baby, human, child of God.
I confess to another strange, peculiar notion. It is this:
No one has the right to kill another human being except to
save his or her own life or the life of another innocent
human being. And, if I have not stretched your patience too
far already, please listen to yet one more strange peculiar
belief. I also believe that the same nearly universally
accepted rule which forbids such killing also applies to our
fellow human beings who already exist but are not yet born.
I think it is unacceptable and barbaric to kill unborn
babies. And, in an even more retrogressive concept, I hold
that society has something to say about this, that the
community has something to say about this. I deny and deny
emphatically that this is a purely private matter.
There are, indeed, issues and behaviors that are or should
be beyond the reach of the society, the community, or the
State. There are behaviors that are or should be purely
personal, private matters. These are behaviors that, for the
most part, involve only one person or freely consenting
adults. Generally, sexual preferences and practices are or
should be covered by a veil which excludes everyone but the
consenting adult participants. For example, a decision to use
contraception is or should be a purely personal matter in
which no outsider has a right to interfere. There are other
examples, in other aspects of life, which carry and should
carry a sign saying: PRIVATE, NO ENTRY.
But abortion is not one of them: Abortion is different.
Abortion involves two different human beings--one of them is
neither an adult nor consenting. Abortion involves the
killing of one human being by another with or without
accomplices. Where else in this culture do we say that such
behavior is a purely private matter? Where else do we say
that in such circumstances the society, the community, and
the State itself have no rights at all? No where.
It is obvious, of course, that the circumstances of
pregnancy are unique. But in western civilization we purport
to value life more than any of the conditions of life. But,
not if it is an unborn life. In that circumstance, any
condition at all is held to be good enough, heavy enough, to
outweigh even the basic right to life itself.
I suggest to you that this is insane, that we are a nation
that has lost our collective mind over this issue.
And, even some people who are pro-choice seem to know this.
There seems to be a psychological need for denial, for
euphemism, for semantics, and for general self-deception in
order to make the psyche accept that which it could otherwise
not accept.
Listen to a few examples:
(1) ``The fetus is not human.''
By now, this is hardly worth the effort to refute it. On
the basis of science, not religion, we know that from the
moment of conception, the fetus has its own full set of
chromosomes, an absolutely unique genetic pattern, and 100%
of the material necessary to develop into a fully grown human
being. The mother, who has already provided fifty percent
(50%) of the building materials, now also provides a site and
nourishment for the event. Nothing less but nothing more.
(2) ``But, this is part of the mother's body.''
By now, this is almost ludicrous. There is enough
biological information available even to the general public
to expose the lie in this claim. From the moment of
conception, the fetus is immunologically foreign to the
mother. It may have a different blood type. And, in about
fifty percent (50%) of all cases it has a different gender
than the mother.
How, by any standard, can this be a part of the mother?
(3) ``But a woman has a right to control her own
reproduction.''
Yes, she does. She has the right to abstain from sexual
intercourse. She has the right to engage in sexual
intercourse and to use contraception.
But abortion is not contraception. It has nothing to do
with reproductive rights. It has to do with killing that
which has already been reproduced.
No amount of euphemism will change that.
Do we use the words ``vaccine'' and ``antibiotic''
interchangeably? If so, then let's begin to use the words
``contraception'' and ``abortion'' interchangeably. Until
then, I think the clarity of distinction could be helpful.
(4) ``This is a religious issue and no one has a right to
impose his or her religious beliefs on anyone else.''
Indeed we have no such right! But, at its most common
denominator, abortion involves not theology, but humanity.
One does not need to believe in God to be opposed to
abortion. One needs only to believe in humanity. One needs
only to believe that we do not kill each other except to save
ourselves or another one of us. A creed is not needed to
abhor abortion for convenience.
I never want to live in a community where a majority of
Catholics can forbid the sale of contraceptives, or where a
majority of Baptists can forbid the sale of liquor, or where
a majority of Jews can forbid the sale of pork. But, it is a
source of horror to live in a country where any number of
people can forbid protection to a group of innocent human
beings targeted for killing.
In addition to the horrors generally associated with
abortion, there has now been added to the lexicon a phrase
that should go down in history along side the terms ``The
Inquisition'', ``The Witch Burnings'', ``The Camps'', ``The
Ovens'', ``The Holocaust'', and ``The Final Solution.'' That
phrase is ``Partial Birth Abortion.''
This phrase refers to an absolutely barbaric act in which
an abortion is performed late in the second trimester and
through the entire third trimester of a woman's pregnancy.
In September, 1993, a pro-choice nurse, Brenda Pratt
Shafer, witnessed her first partial birth abortion.
Here is her description of what she saw:
``I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a
partial birth abortion on a woman who was six months
pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the
ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and
arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was
moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was
kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and
inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the
baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like
a baby does when he thinks he might fall. The doctor opened
the scissors up. Then he stuck the high powered suction tube
into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby
was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But, I
am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the
most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen.''
Doctor Pamela E. Smith, Director of Medical Education,
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at Mount Sinai
Hospital in Chicago testified to a committee of the United
States Congress:
``There are absolutely no obstetrical situations
encountered in this country which require a partially
delivered human fetus to be dstroyed to preserve the life or
health of the mother.''
Doctor Harlan R. Giles, a ``high-risk'' obstetrician,
gynecologist, and perinatologist at the Medical College of
Pennsylvania agreed with her. So did Doctor C. Everett Koop.
Now, on the other side, President Clinton says that even
partial birth abortion acceptable. By now he has given at
least three different reasons for his veto of the bill passed
by Congress to outlaw partial birth abortion. I will not give
you those reasons because by tomorrow they may be obsolete.
Upon an attempt to override the President's veto, the
necessary majority of the Congress voted to sustain the veto.
Most of the votes to sustain were democratic votes.
I can no longer belong to a party which says that this sort
of absolutely needless barbarism is acceptable national
policy.
I read the newspapers, and late at night, I watch CNN. I
have read and heard the rumors that the Republican Party is
not perfect. I even suspect that those rumors might be true.
But, I will tell you this: The Republican Party has
consistently stood up and said that, except to save the life
of the mother, it is not O.K. to have a national policy of
killing our urborn babies. Most recently, as a Party, the
Republicans have stood up and said that, ``Well excuse us,
but we do not agree that it is alright to stab a baby in the
back of her head, open a hole there, insert a vacuum cleaner,
and suck out her brains.''
It is without hesitation and without personal regret that
today I leave the Democratic Party and join the Republican
Party.
I know there are other important issues. I have alluded to
them in the beginning of this speech. On some of those issues
I may disagree with my new Republican colleagues.
But, let me tell you this: Over my 18 years as a public
official I have had far more success in sensitizing
Republican leaders to various human needs than I have had in
sensitizing Democratic leaders to the moral outrage of
abortion.
Let me tell you something else. This issue of abortion is
no ordinary issue. It cannot be put into line with any number
of issues on one side and weighed against all of the issues
on the other side. No. This issue is different in kind. This
issue is the slavery issue of the Twentieth Century. No moral
person could have decided for or against the Civil War on the
basis of the exportation of cotton, or upon the cultural
differences between the North and the South. No. All that
mattered. But there was one issue that riveted the attention
of the nation, one issue that screamed for moral judgment,
one issue that finally called for the ``terrible swift
sword.'' That issue was human slavery. Today that issue is
human life itself.
Although it would be untrue, accuse me if you will of
deciding this on the basis of one issue. I stand then with
Abraham Lincoln. I stand with William Lloyd Garrison. I stand
with all of the abolitionists from both centuries, and on
both issues.
I want to close this speech with a different kind of
thought. For years now I have said
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that opposition to abortion should not be based primarily
upon religious beliefs. But certainly once we have
established our opposition upon broader grounds, we need not
be embarrassed to add to those grounds our own religious
considerations.
All of us in this room, Christian and non-Christian, all of
us who believe in God at all, have got to also believe that
that God is still howling across the centuries: ``Where is
your brother...? What have you done? Listen! Your brother's
blood is crying out to me from the ground.'' Genesis 4:10-11
Where are our brothers? Where are our sisters? Gone into
the bucket. Gone into the ground. Victims of the idolatry of
absolute free choice. Victims of the idolatry of unlimited
ambition for public office.
Allow me, please, to reflect my own Catholic Christianity.
The Second Vatican Council closed on December 8, 1965. That
was 8 years before Roe v. Wade in this country. Even without
that stimulus, the Council Fathers addressed abortion
directly. They said:
``From the moment of conception, life must be guarded with
the greatest of care, while abortion and infanticide are
unspeakable crimes.''
On March 25, 1995, in his Encyclical, ``Evangelium Vitae,''
(The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II said:
``I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed
as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral
disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent
human being.''
And now in closing I want to return to our common Christian
heritage. By happy coincidence or by the grace of God, this
event is occurring just five days before Christmas.
My own favorite Christmas story is one that is,
comparatively, unfamiliar.
It begins in the mind of God before all of the millennia.
St. John the Evangelist brings it to us in some of the most
majestic language in the history of Christianity. I first
came to love it when our Church recited it in Latin at the
end of every Mass. And, if you will indulge my love for the
sheer beauty of the language, I will repeat a part of it here
for you, first in those sounds that I once so loved to hear.
St. John closes the Prologue in this Gospel with these
words:
And the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us;
and we saw His glory,
the glory of the only begotten of the Father
full of grace and of truth.
--John 1:1-14.
Maranatha. And Merry Christmas.
____________________