[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 25 (Monday, March 3, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1813-S1814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, at this point let me turn to something I 
have talked about on this floor on many occasions in the past 2 years, 
the issue of the banning of partial-birth abortion.
  When the President of the United States justified his veto of the 
partial-birth abortion bill last year, this is what he said. I will 
quote now from President Clinton as he vetoed our bill:

       There are a few hundred women every year who have 
     personally agonizing situations where their children are born 
     or about to be born with terrible deformities, which will 
     cause them to die either just before, during or just after 
     childbirth. And these women, among other things, cannot 
     preserve the ability to have further children. . . .''

  That was a quote from the President, when he vetoed the partial-birth 
abortion bill.
  In light of those remarks by President Clinton, I hope all Americans 
heard the media reports last week about the shocking confession of a 
leader in the abortion rights movement. It turns out that in every 
material detail the President's comments that I have just quoted, the 
comments he made in defense of his veto, are false. And the confession 
of this leader in the abortion rights movement, the confession he made 
last week which I am going to talk about in more detail in just a 
moment, that confession shows the comments made by our President were 
simply not true because the fact is, President Clinton based his veto 
on information that was not true.
  For the last 2 years, a number of us here in the Senate have been 
trying to ban this horrible practice of partial-birth abortion, a 
practice in which a baby is partially removed from the mother, 
partially delivered, and then killed. I believe the horror of this 
practice is so clear, so heinous, it should truly offer some common 
ground for those of us who oppose abortion and those who do, in fact, 
support abortion rights. In my view, one does not have to join the pro-
life side in order to oppose this practice. In fact, if you look to 
some of the Members of the House, for example, who voted with us on 
this issue, who voted to ban the partial-birth abortion, many of them 
by their own definition would be classified as pro-choice.
  So, this should be an area where pro-choice and pro-life come 
together. The sad fact is though, Mr. President, we were not, last 
year, able to get our bill banning partial-birth abortion past 
President Clinton's veto pen, in large measure because of the rationale 
used by the President, which was simply wrong. The American people were 
assured that partial-birth abortion was an extremely rare procedure--
one that occurs only a few hundred times a year--and is only used to 
save mothers whose lives are in extreme danger or where the child has 
been malformed.
  Thomas Jefferson had a good phrase for arguments like this. He called 
them, ``false facts.'' Because these very impressive sounding 
arguments, as many of us suspected, turn out to be wrong.
  For those of my colleagues--and there can't be very many by now--who 
have not heard about the startling revelations by Ron Fitzsimmons, let 
me talk for a moment about them.
  Mr. Fitzsimmons is the national director of the National Coalition of 
Abortion Providers. In 1995, when the Senate was considering the 
partial-birth abortion bill, he was helping lead the fight against it. 
In fact, he went on ``Nightline'' to argue that the procedure ought to 
remain legal.
  At that time, Mr. Fitzsimmons said that the procedure was rare and 
was primarily performed to save the lives or the fertility of the 
mothers.
  Now, as we found out last week, because of Mr. Fitzsimmons' own 
comments, own revelations, own confession, his conscience started 
gnawing him almost immediately after he had appeared on ``Nightline.'' 
He says now that he felt physically ill at the lies that he had told. 
He said to his wife the very next day, according to him, ``I can't do 
this again. I can't do this again.''
  Meanwhile, President Clinton was using Mr. Fitzsimmons' false 
statements to buttress his case for vetoing the partial-birth abortion 
bill. And, as I said last week, Mr. Fitzsimmons at long last came in 
from the cold. He admitted that, to use his own words, he ``lied 
through his teeth.''


                         Lied through his teeth

  The facts, as he now publicly acknowledges them, are clear. Partial-

[[Page S1814]]

birth abortion is not a rare procedure. It happens all the time, and it 
is not limited to mothers and fetuses who are in danger. It is 
performed on healthy women and healthy babies all the time, and that is 
what the facts are.
  Mr. President, it is true that everyone is entitled to his or her own 
opinion, but people are not entitled to their own facts. On partial-
birth abortion, the facts are out, the facts are clear, and I join our 
distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from New York, in hoping, 
as he was quoted this weekend, in light of these facts, that the 
President will reverse his decision to veto this bill.
  Mr. President, it would seem fairly simple that when one makes a 
decision, in this case President Clinton's decision to veto this bill 
that was passed overwhelmingly by the House and overwhelmingly by the 
Senate, that when he made his decision to veto the bill and when he 
publicly stated why he made that decision to veto the bill, when it 
turns out later that the facts are proven to be false, the underlying 
facts, the underlying rationale by which he apparently made his 
decision, it would seem that it would not be too hard for the President 
then to change his mind, based on a new understanding of what the facts 
truly are.
  We will be debating this issue again on the floor, we will be holding 
hearings again in the Judiciary Committee, and we will be back out here 
again talking about this very important matter. I hope that as we do 
that, my friends and colleagues who opposed us on this issue will 
remember what Mr. Fitzsimmons said, what he said when he could no 
longer apparently stand it anymore, that he had, in fact ``lied through 
his teeth,'' that the facts he gave the public, the facts he gave 
Congress, the facts he gave the President were simply not true.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Presiding Officer and appreciate the 
opportunity to come to the floor.

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