[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H1115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPORT THE PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN

  (Mr. MANZULLO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will vote to outlaw the 
practice known as a partial birth abortion. That procedure is both 
tragic and needless in that there are at least 2,000 such abortions 
performed annually, far more than advocates have initially claimed; 
needless in that we now know, thanks to Mr. Ron Fitzsimmons, executive 
director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, who has 
admitted that he and others misled the American people on the frequency 
and nature of these abortions, that the vast majority of partial-birth 
abortions are performed on normal, unborn babies carried by healthy 
moms.
  President Clinton vetoed this bill last year. A number of pro-choice 
Members of Congress, during consideration of the measure over a year 
ago, voted in support of a ban on the partial birth abortion procedure. 
Said one Member, I am just not going to vote in such a way that I have 
to put my conscience on the shelf.
  Ronald Reagan said it as he discussed the issue of defending 
America's liberty: There is no cause more important for preserving that 
freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human 
beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.
  Mr. Speaker, I implore my colleagues to join with me in voting to ban 
that practice.

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