[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1202-H1231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 1997

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 100, 
I call up the bill (H.R. 1122) to amend title 18, United States Code, 
to ban partial-birth abortions, and ask for its immediate consideration 
in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of H.R. 1122 is as follows:

                               H.R. 1122

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Partial-Birth Abortion Ban 
     Act of 1997''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS.

       (a) In General.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after chapter 73 the following:

                 ``CHAPTER 74--PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS

``Sec.
``1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited.

     ``Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited

       ``(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or 
     foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion 
     and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this 
     title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. This 
     paragraph shall not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is 
     necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is 
     endangered by a physical disorder, illness, on injury: 
     Provided, That no other medical procedure would suffice for 
     that purpose. This paragraph shall become effective one day 
     after enactment.
       ``(b)(1) As used in this section, the term `partial-birth 
     abortion' means an abortion in which the person performing 
     the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus 
     before killing the fetus and completing the delivery.
       ``(2) As used in this section, the term `physician' means a 
     doctor of medicine or osteopathy legally authorized to 
     practice medicine and surgery by the State in which the 
     doctor performs such activity, or any other individual 
     legally authorized by the State to perform abortions: 
     Provided, however, That any individual who is not a physician 
     or not otherwise legally authorized by the State to perform 
     abortions, but who nevertheless directly performs a partial-
     birth abortion, shall be subject to the provisions of this 
     section.
       ``(c)(1) The father, if married to the mother at the time 
     she receives a partial-birth abortion procedure, and if the 
     mother has not attained the age of 18 years at the time of 
     the abortion, the maternal grandparents of the fetus, may in 
     a civil action obtain appropriate relief, unless the 
     pregnancy resulted from the plaintiff's criminal conduct or 
     the plaintiff consented to the abortion.
       ``(2) Such relief shall include--
       ``(A) money damages for all injuries, psychological and 
     physical, occasioned by the violation of this section; and
       ``(B) statutory damages equal to three times the cost of 
     the partial-birth abortion.
       ``(d) A woman upon whom a partial-birth abortion is 
     performed may not be prosecuted under this section, for a 
     conspiracy to violate this section, or for an offense under 
     section 2, 3, or 4 of this title based on a violation of this 
     section.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of chapters for part I 
     of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to chapter 73 the following new item:
``74. Partial-birth abortions...................................1531''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 100, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] and the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Conyers] each will control 1 hour.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady].
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. Speaker, today for the fourth time the House considers an issue

[[Page H1203]]

which has provoked discussion around the country and last year brought 
a flood of millions of postcards and calls to Capitol Hill. H.R. 1122, 
the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997, bans a particular type of 
abortion procedure known as partial-birth abortion. A partial-birth 
abortion is any abortion in which a living baby is partially vaginally 
delivered before the abortionist kills the baby and completes the 
delivery. An abortionist who violates the ban would be subject to fines 
or a maximum of 2 years imprisonment or both. The bill also establishes 
a civil cause of action for damages against an abortionist who violates 
the ban. The cause of action can be maintained by the father of the 
child or, if the mother is under 18, the maternal grandparents.
  Thousands of partial-birth abortions are performed each year, 
primarily in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy on the healthy 
babies of healthy mothers. The infants subjected to partial-birth 
abortion are not unborn. Their lives instead are taken away during a 
breech delivery.
  Mr. Speaker, the infants subjected to partial-birth abortion are not 
unborn. Their lives instead are taken away during a breech delivery. 
Thus breech delivery, a procedure which obstetricians use in some 
circumstances to bring healthy children into the world, is perverted 
and made an instrument of death. The physician traditionally trying to 
do everything in his power to assist and protect both mother and child 
during the birth process deliberately kills the child in the birth 
canal.
  While every abortion takes a human life, the partial-birth abortion 
method takes that life during the fifth month of pregnancy or later as 
the baby emerges from the mother's womb, and this procedure bears a 
undeniable resemblance to infanticide. H.R. 1122 would end this cruel 
practice.
  The realities of this practice are truly horrible to contemplate. The 
partial-birth abortion procedure is performed from around 20 weeks to 
full term. It is well documented that a baby is highly sensitive to 
pain stimuli during this period and even earlier.
  In his testimony before the Constitution Subcommittee on June 15, 
1995, Prof. Robert White, director of the Division of Neurosurgery and 
Brain Research Laboratory at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, 
stated, and I quote, ``The fetus within this timeframe of gestation, 20 
weeks and beyond, is fully capable of experiencing pain.'' After 
specifically analyzing the partial-birth abortion procedure, Dr. White 
concluded, and I quote again, ``Without question, all of this is a 
dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a 
surgical procedure.''
  Now, the advocates of abortion have engaged in a furious effort to 
deny the realities of partial-birth abortion. They have repeatedly 
misrepresented the facts on this gruesome procedure. Shortly after H.R. 
1833, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, was introduced in 
104th Congress the National Abortion Federation, the National Abortion 
Rights Action League, and Planned Parenthood began to make a variety of 
false claims about the partial-birth abortion procedure. These claims 
continued into the 105th Congress that continue to this day. Let me 
give just two examples.
  Opponents of the bill argued, and the media accepted, that anesthesia 
administered to the mother during a partial-birth abortion kills the 
infant before the procedure begins, and therefore there is no partial 
delivery of a living fetus. But Dr. Norig Ellison, the President of the 
American Society of Anesthesiologists, says this claim regarding 
anesthesia has, quote, ``absolutely no basis in scientific fact,'' 
close quote.
  Dr. David Birnbach, the president-elect of the Society for Obstetric 
Anesthesia and Perinatology, says it is crazy because anesthesia does 
not kill an infant if one does not kill the mother.
  The American Medical News reported on the controversy in a January 1, 
1996, article which stated, ``Medical experts contend the claim is 
scientifically unsound and irresponsible, unnecessarily worrying 
pregnant women who need anesthesia. But while some abortion proponents 
are now qualifying their assertion that anesthesia induces fetal death, 
they are not backing away from it.''
  The creation of this anesthesia myth by abortion advocates is 
particularly unconscionable because it poses a threat to the health of 
mothers. Dr. Ellison explained that he was deeply concerned that 
widespread publicity may cause pregnant women to delay necessary and 
perhaps lifesaving medical procedures totally related to the birthing 
process due to misinformation regarding the effect of anesthetics on 
the fetus. He also pointed out that annually more than 50,000 pregnant 
women receive anesthesia while undergoing necessary, even lifesaving 
surgical procedures. If the concept that anesthesia could produce 
neurologic demise of the fetus were not refuted, pregnant women might 
refuse to undergo necessary procedures.
  Clearly, anesthesia administered during a partial-birth abortion 
neither kills the unborn child nor alleviates the child's pain. But 
despite the widespread circulation and the egregious nature of the 
falsehood that anesthesia harms unborn children, proabortion 
organizations which purport to care for women's health have taken no 
steps to retract their erroneous statements or to inform women that 
anesthesia administered to a mother does not kill her unborn child.
  Abortion advocates have also claimed that partial-birth abortion is 
rare and used only in difficult circumstances. This has been a claim 
that has been at the center of the debate in opposition to this bill. 
In fact, the National Abortion Federation, the National Abortion Rights 
Action League, and Planned Parenthood have falsely claimed from the 
beginning of the debate over partial-birth abortion that it is a rare 
procedure performed only in extreme cases involving severely 
handicapped children, serious threats to the life or the health of the 
mother or the potential destruction of her future fertility. Once again 
this claim is contradicted by the evidence.

  Dr. Martin Haskell, an Ohio abortionist, told the American Medical 
News that the vast majority of partial-birth abortions he performs are 
elective. He stated, quote, ``And I'll be quite frank: Most of my 
abortions are elective in that 20-to-24 week range. In my particular 
case, probably 20 percent are for genetic reasons. And the other 80 
percent are purely elective,'' close quote.
  Another abortionist, Dr. McMahon of California, used the partial-
birth abortion method through the entire 40 weeks of pregnancy. He sent 
the Constitution Subcommittee a graph which showed the percentage of 
flawed fetuses that he aborted using the partial-birth abortion method. 
The graph shows that even at 26 weeks of gestation half the babies that 
Dr. McMahon aborted were perfectly healthy, and many of the babies he 
described as flawed had conditions that were compatible with long life 
either with or without a disability. For example, Dr. McMahon listed 
nine partial-birth abortions performed because the baby had a cleft 
lip.
  On September 15, 1996, the Sunday Record, a newspaper in Bergen, NJ, 
reported 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.
  This article refuted the abortion advocates' claims that partial-
birth abortion was both rare and only performed in extreme medical 
circumstances. The article quotes an abortionist at the New Jersey 
clinic that annually performs the 1,500 partial-birth abortions as 
describing their patients who come in during the fifth and sixth months 
of pregnancy, quote:
  Most are Medicaid patients, and most are for elective, not medical, 
reasons. People did not realize or did not care how far along they 
were, most are teenagers.
  The evidence is incontrovertible. Thousands of partial-birth 
abortions are performed every year on the healthy babies of healthy 
mothers during the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. However, 
abortion advocates have continued to disseminate false information to 
Congress, the press and the public. As recently as February 25 of this 
year, the home page of the National Abortion Federation informed 
journalists and other Web visitors, quote:
  This procedure is used only in about 500 cases per year, generally 
after 20

[[Page H1204]]

weeks of pregnancy and most often when there is a severe fetal anomaly 
or maternal health problems detected late in pregnancy, close quote.
  The same week the National Abortion Federation Web page misinformed 
the public the New York Times reported that an abortion rights advocate 
admitted that he had lied about partial-birth abortion. Ron 
Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the second largest trade 
association of abortion providers in the country, said that he 
intentionally lied through his teeth. And I am using his words there. 
He said he lied through his teeth when he told a ``Nightline'' camera 
that partial-birth abortion is rare and performed only in extreme 
medical circumstances. The New York Times reported that Mr. Fitzsimmons 
says the procedure is performed far more often than his colleagues have 
acknowledged and on healthy women bearing healthy fetuses. ``The 
abortion rights folks know,'' he said. The Times took some of its 
information from an American Medical News article in which Mr. 
Fitzsimmons was interviewed. Fitzsimmons told the American Medical News 
that proabortion spokespersons should drop their spins and half-truths. 
He explained that their disinformation has hurt the abortionists he 
represents and said:
  ``When you're a doctor who does these abortions and the leaders of 
your movement appear before Congress and go on network news and say 
these procedures are done in only the most tragic of circumstances, how 
do you think it makes you feel? You know they are primarily done on 
healthy women and healthy fetuses, and it makes you feel like a dirty 
little abortionist with a dirty little secret,'' close quote.
  Ron Fitzsimmons' admissions makes clear that the proabortion lobby 
has engaged in a concerted and ongoing effort to deceive the Congress 
and the American people about partial-birth abortion. They attempted to 
hide the truth because they know the American people would be outraged 
by the facts that thousands of partial-birth abortions are performed 
every year, primarily in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, on 
the healthy mothers of healthy babies.
  When President Clinton vetoed H.R. 1833 during the last Congress, he 
relied on information, or I should say misinformation, from abortion 
advocates. He claimed that, unless partial-birth abortion was performed 
in some situations, women would be eviscerated or ripped to shreds so 
they could never have another baby.
  I suggest what is eviscerated and ripped to shreds in this debate by 
the opponents of this bill is the truth.
  The claim that the President made has been proven to be completely 
false. When he was interviewed in the American Medical News, former 
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said: ``In no way can I twist my mind 
to see that the late-term abortion, as described, the partial birth, 
and then the destruction of the unborn child before the head is born, 
is a medical necessity for the mother. It certainly can't be a 
necessity for the baby. So I am opposed to partial-birth abortions,'' 
close quote.
  In addition, a group of over 400 obstetricians, gynecologists and 
maternal fetal specialists have unequivocally stated partial-birth 
abortion is never medically indicated to protect a woman's health or 
her fertility. In fact the opposite is true. The procedure can pose a 
significant and immediate threat to both the pregnant woman's health 
and her fertility.
  Not only are obstetricians, gynecologists and maternal fetal 
specialists concerned that women may be harmed by partial-birth 
abortion, but a leading authority on abortion techniques himself has 
also expressed concern about the safety of the procedure.
  Warren Hern, M.D., an abortionist who wrote the Nation's most widely 
used book on abortion procedures, said quote, ``I have very serious 
reservations about this procedure. You can't really defend it. I'm not 
going to tell somebody else they should not do this procedure, but I'm 
not going to do it.'' He continued:
  I would dispute any statement that this is the safest procedure to 
use. It is clear that there is no need for partial-birth abortion. Look 
at what this procedure is. This is partial-birth abortion.
  Now, I have described this procedure many times in the course of this 
debate. Every time I describe it, I wince. This is something we should 
not have to be talking about here. But this is something that is going 
on in America, and it is something that the American people have a 
right to know about, and it is something which should come to an end.
  In partial-birth abortion, guided by ultrasound, the abortionist 
grabs the live baby's leg with forceps.

                              {time}  1345

  The baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal. The abortionist 
delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head. Then, and this is 
the critical step in this procedure, I hope all of the Members will pay 
particular attention to this step, because in this step the abortionist 
jabs scissors into the baby's skull, the scissors are then opened to 
enlarge the hole made in the baby's skull. Of course, that is the step 
that kills the baby.
  Then, having killed the child, the scissors are removed and a suction 
catheter is inserted into the hole, the baby's brains are sucked out, 
and the delivery is completed.
  Let me ask my colleagues this, particularly those who have claimed 
that this is a procedure necessary to protect the health of women. How 
could jamming scissors into the back of the baby's head be required for 
the health of the mother? If my colleagues look at this procedure, they 
will simply see that the claims make no sense. The claims made by 
supporters of partial-birth abortion about the mother's health, along 
with all of the other falsehoods, are advanced by people who are 
desperate to escape from reality in their quest to defend the 
indefensible.
  In this House many issues come and go. Most of the votes we cast in 
this Chamber are soon forgotten. But today's vote on partial-birth 
abortion will be remembered. The Members of this House will not be able 
to escape their responsibility for the votes they cast on this 
important issue. I appeal to my colleagues, put aside the myths, put 
aside the distortions, put aside all of the misinformation. Look at the 
facts. Consider the truth. Face up to the reality of partial-birth 
abortion. Look at this procedure, look at it, look at what it results 
in. It cannot be defended. Support the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 
and bring this brutal practice to an end.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues of the 105th Congress, we 
assemble again to take up an issue that we have dealt with in the 
previous Congress, the President has dealt with by vetoing it, the 
Congress has dealt with the attempt to override by not being able to 
override, and so we gather today with the same piece of legislation 
attempting to do the same thing. Why?
  Well, it just so happens that notwithstanding my good friend, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], whose desire and commitment to 
this subject matter has led the Congress into this situation for two 
Congresses in a row, we are faced with a constitutional problem.
  Let us spell it out right at the beginning of this debate, shall we?
  It is a constitutional problem that we did not invent, and it is 
embodied in two parts of the Constitution, the 5th amendment and the 
14th amendment, in the parts of those amendments that are known as the 
due process clauses. In the due process clauses, it has been found by 
the U.S. Supreme Court on more than one occasion that a right of 
privacy to the woman that has a reproductive choice is grounded in 
constitutional guarantees.
  Now, that is the state of the American law as we meet here this 
afternoon in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, I say to the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], there is only one way we can 
change that, and that is through a constitutional amendment that would 
alter the Supreme Court's repeated findings on this subject.
  So my colleagues might ask that since we have been through this 
exercise in the 104th Congress, why do we not just introduce a 
constitutional amendment? Good question. Why do we not just amend the 
Constitution if we are trying to stop abortion?

[[Page H1205]]

  Well, the reason I believe is patently clear. Most Americans and 
certainly most women and certainly a far majority of the doctors 
realize that some abortions are necessary, and they also realize that 
some abortions are not necessary. As a matter of fact, most of the 
States have already outlawed the gruesome drawing that was first 
brought forward by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] because that 
is a late-term abortion, banned by statute in 40 States and the 
District of Columbia, prohibited entirely. And so we want to talk about 
not trying to inflame this discussion.
  So I say to my colleagues, we are coming back on a constitutionally 
protected question in which the health and the life of the mother is 
constitutionally protected. Elementary.
  In the Canady proposal before us there is a safeguard of life; there 
is not a safeguard of health. Why will we not put in health?
  Well, ask the gentleman. But because it is not in here, we are not 
able to move this forward as a constitutional proposition, whether 
myself or the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] like it or not. It is 
unconstitutional. Most legal scholars have said that. The President has 
said that. Most of the Congress, in failing to override the veto, have 
conceded that. So why are we doing it again? Why?
  Well, because the only way we can get to this problem if we do not 
want to introduce a constitutional amendment, as we ought to, is to go 
at ending abortion in this country procedure by procedure, and where 
else to start but the inaccurately, politically named partial-birth 
abortion ban. Is there such a term in medical dictionaries? No. Used in 
medical circles? No. Used in political circles? Yes. Invented for the 
purpose of this debate? Yes. So here we are again.
  The fact of the matter is, the health of the mother is what prevents 
the President from supporting a congressional ban. As long as we leave 
that out, President Clinton will veto this bill. He has told us that 
repeatedly, and he is telling us that again today. I am explaining it 
again today. I do not care how many Congresses we use, how many times 
we reintroduce this bill, how many times the House Committee on the 
Judiciary votes this to the floor, it is unconstitutional. Please 
understand that.
  So we are here confronted with whether the health of the mother 
should be overridden or whether it should not. Well, we say that unless 
you put health in, we will have to respectfully oppose this proposition 
as it was in the other Congress. The President will respectfully veto 
this proposition as he did in the other Congress. The override is 
probably going to be as unsuccessful as it was in the other Congress.
  So we gather here today to follow the Canady mission. No matter how 
legal, no matter how constitutional, we are going to do this anyway. We 
are going to get a vote, we are going to debate it, we are going to put 
up inaccurately rendered depictions.
  Of course, there are doctors that agree with the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Canady]. Of course there are doctors, and the Anerican 
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that do not agree with the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], and so here we are to begin the 
debate.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to respond briefly to a point the gentleman made 
about the constitutionality of this legislation. The claim made by 
opponents of the bill is that this is a bill that violates Roe versus 
Wade. There is an important point to understand here. I do not agree 
with Roe. I think the Court was wrong in that decision, and that is a 
debate that will go on.
  However, in that decision the Court dealt with the status of the 
unborn child. In this bill we are not dealing with the unborn child, we 
are dealing with a child that is partially delivered, the child that is 
in effect four-fifths born, and I think that distinguishes this bill 
from the facts in Roe, and actually in that case, which involved a 
Texas statute, there was a particular provision in the Texas statute 
which imposed penalties for killing a child in the process of birth, 
and the Court explicitly withheld a ruling on the constitutionality of 
that provision.
  So I believe that although I find fault with Roe, I do not believe 
that this bill is inconsistent with it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
Missouri [Mrs. Emerson].
  Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my absolute support for 
the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. I thank the gentleman from Florida 
[Mr. Canady] for all of his hard work on this bill, and I join all of 
those who believe in the basic value of human life in working for 
passage of this important legislation.
  The truth of the matter is that partial-birth abortion is a 
horrendous act of murder. It is not a late-term abortion, it is not a 
necessary medical procedure. Such phrases conceal the brutal and 
inhumane reality. The details of a partial-birth abortion are horrible 
beyond words, and the law must not continue to condone so terrible an 
atrocity.
  Today this Congress and this Nation has the opportunity to take an 
affirmative stand for the basic value of human life. We might talk for 
hours about the medical evidence, the detailed studies, and the expert 
testimony, all of which would tell us that the ban on partial-birth 
abortions is the right and just thing.
  However, we must always keep in mind that the fundamental issue is 
the life of an unborn child and the value that our Nation places on 
that life. This is the matter before the Congress, which is why we must 
make certain to pass the ban. To ban the partial-birth abortion is to 
say that America will not tolerate the cruelty and inhumanity that it 
represents.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott].
  Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCOTT. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this is implied from the Federal court 
decision in Ohio that the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] does not 
like on Roe versus Wade. The contention that H.R. 929 falls outside of 
the restriction of Roe because the fetus is ``almost'' born is 
fallacious on its face. The intact D&E procedure targeted by the bill, 
and by the way, D&E procedure is the correct term, the D&E procedure 
targeted by the bill falls within the general understanding of 
abortion. The definitions used in the bill and even the title of the 
bill, repeatedly utilize the term ``abortion.'' To attempt to assert 
that the abortion procedures covered by the bill are somehow exempt 
from the constitutional protections of Roe is to abandon legal 
credibility. Indeed any arguments to such effect have already been 
implicitly rejected by the Federal court in Ohio, which has found 
unconstitutional a State law ban on intact D&E procedures absent an 
adequate health exception.
  Mr. SCOTT. Could the gentleman indicate what he was reading, Mr. 
Speaker?
  We will get the citation on that for the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot support this bill because it is 
unconstitutional. In a full committee debate on a similar bill, the 
proponents have acknowledged that it is in fact unconstitutional under 
the present Supreme Court decisions. Though abortion has always been a 
controversial issue, the fact is that since 1973, in the Supreme Court 
Roe versus Wade, abortion has been legal in this country.
  It is still the law of the land that a woman's right to an abortion 
before fetal viability is a fundamental right, but the Government may 
prohibit postviability abortions absent a substantial threat to the 
life or health of the mother.
  We may agree or disagree on the Supreme Court decisions, but that is 
in fact the law of the land. The Supreme Court has prohibited 
regulations that place an undue burden on women seeking abortions, and 
included in this undue burden concept is a prohibition against 
regulations that jeopardize a woman's health by chilling the 
physician's exercise of discretion in determining which abortion method 
may be used.

[[Page H1206]]

  Mr. Speaker, this bill will prohibit the use of one procedure that 
may be the safest for women in certain circumstances. The American 
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the largest organization of 
women's doctors, says that this legislation has the potential of 
prohibiting specific medical practices that are critical to the lives 
and health of American women.
  Mr. Speaker, such interference in a physician's exercise of 
discretion jeopardizes the health of women and is as dangerous as it is 
unconstitutional. Although the health of the mother must remain the 
primary interest in order to meet constitutional muster, this bill 
includes no provision which allows an exception from the ban in those 
cases where other methods pose a serious health risk to the mother.
  The Partial-birth Abortion Act will not prevent a single abortion. It 
simply prevents one procedure that in certain circumstances is the most 
appropriate procedure available.
  Mr. Speaker, many of my colleagues and I are open to working with the 
majority on language that would have brought this bill within 
constitutional limits. For example, many of us support a ban, a total 
prohibition, on all abortions not protected by Roe versus Wade; that 
is, all abortions not specifically excepted and prohibited from 
prohibition under Roe versus Wade. This bill only prohibits one 
procedure, not the decision to undergo an abortion.
  Therefore, if this bill passes, some women may be relegated to a more 
dangerous procedure which may well increase their chances of being 
killed, maimed, or sterilized, and I hope my colleagues will work to 
protect the health of the women in America by defeating this bill.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
want to point out to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] that my 
referencing the statement that I read was implied from a Federal court 
decision in Ohio entitled Women's Medical Professional Corporation 
versus Voinovich.


                             general leave

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks on the legislation now being considered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer].
  (Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, this a very difficult issue. It is difficult 
for Members of Congress, it is difficult for America, it traumatizes 
most people to debate this issue. I would hope that we could do it in a 
civil manner, in an intelligent manner, and in a bipartisan manner, 
because if we ban this particular procedure, I think we are doing what 
is right to bring down the number of abortions in this country that I 
think both sides want to accomplish.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that this is difficult because many of my 
colleagues tell me that they are not doctors. Mr. Speaker, we are asked 
every day in this body to be scientists, to vote on the hydrogen 
program; to be road experts, and vote for ISTEA programs for 
construction; to be gun experts and decide whether to ban an AK-47. 
Today we must vote on this particular issue. I would hope my 
colleagues, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, would 
vote to ban this brutal, gruesome, and inhumane procedure.
  When I talk about this procedure, I am not going to describe it. I am 
not going to describe it. I am going to give hopefully the advice that 
I have received from the medical community, because I am not a doctor, 
but I have talked to the medical profession about this.
  What have they said? The American Medical Association's Council on 
Legislation voted unanimously, unanimously, 12 to 0, to prohibit this 
medical procedure, 12 to nothing. They called it basically repulsive. 
Surgeon General, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, very respected 
by both sides of the aisle, has said, and I quote, ``In no way can I 
twist my mind to see that the late-term abortion as described, you 
know, partial-birth and then destruction of the unborn child before the 
head is born, is a medical necessity for the mother.''
  Finally, OB-GYN's that I have talked to and my staff has talked to 
with over 40 years of experience have said that there is absolutely no 
medical need for this gruesome abortion procedure. Mr. Speaker, I would 
hope that we would come together today and ban this procedure.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, in the February 3, 1997 edition of Time 
Magazine, ``How a Child's Brain Develops,'' we are finding that the 
most critical years, based upon cutting edge research, now are 0 to 5 
in children's learning abilities. In 5 years we will probably learn 
that it takes place even earlier, and in this article, it also says 
that a child's capability of learning a second language is best at zero 
to 6.
  As a Democrat that believes in education and will fight for every 
dollar for preschool programs, that believes in the rights of children, 
I would hope that we would start by banning this procedure today to 
help our children, and continue to fight later on to help prevent 
unwanted pregnancies, to help with preventive and abstinence programs, 
and to fund programs for our children in this Nation.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Nita Lowey, the former chair of the 
Congressional Woman's Caucus.
  (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1122. This is a 
highly emotional and personal issue. There are deeply held views on 
both sides of the debate, and I know that my colleagues who oppose a 
woman's right to choose do so sincerely and with great conviction. Mr. 
Speaker, I say to my friends, I respect their beliefs but I oppose this 
bill.
  The legislation before us today is clearly unconstitutional. It 
endangers the lives and health of American women. It would put doctors 
in jail, and it is the first step on the road to the back alley.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill tramples on Roe versus Wade and is a direct 
assault on the constitutionally protected right to choose. The 
legislation bans abortions prior to fetal viability, a prohibition that 
the Supreme Court has repeatedly declared unconstitutional.
  Prior to viability, women have the right to choose without Government 
interference, and although the Supreme Court has consistently ruled 
that abortion restrictions after viability must protect the life and 
health of the pregnant woman, the bill contains only a narrow exception 
to protect a woman's life, and no exception at all to protect her 
health.
  The bill says that the health of the woman does not matter. I say it 
does. Women from around the Nation testified before Congress that this 
procedure protected their lives and health, women like Tammy Watts, 
Claudia Addes, and Maureen Britel, who would have been harmed by this 
bill.
  These women desperately wanted to have children. They had purchased 
baby clothes, they had picked out names. They did not decide to abort 
because of a headache. They did not choose to abort because their prom 
dress did not fit. They chose to become mothers and only terminated 
their pregnancies because of tragic circumstances.
  Mr. Speaker, who in this body stands in judgment of them? Who would 
impose himself in the operating room and circumscribe their options? In 
those tragic cases where family hear the news that their pregnancies 
had gone horribly awry, who should decide? When the couple gets the 
news that their baby's brain is growing outside of its head, that it 
has no spine, who should decide?
  The one thing I know for sure is that this body, this Congress, 
should not be making that decision. At that terrible, tragic moment the 
Government has no place. Yet this ban will put Congress directly in the 
operating room, and impose the Federal Government in the doctor-patient 
relationship. It will force trained physicians to choose between the 
health of their patients and imprisonment.
  We know that women will continue to seek abortions, even if they are

[[Page H1207]]

criminalized. We remember the days before Roe versus Wade. We know that 
thousands of women died undergoing unsafe, illegal abortions, and we 
will not allow this Congress to force American women into the back 
alley ever again. This is just the beginning. The Republicans will not 
stop with one procedure. They want to ban all abortions at any time by 
any method.
  Mr. Speaker, as a mother of three beautiful grown children, as a 
recent grandmother, as one who respects life with every ounce of my 
soul, I urge my colleagues to vote against this ban.

                             {time}  1315.

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith].
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the 
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. America is too good for infanticide. 
Babies have to stay protected by our Constitution. If babies go first, 
who is next?
  I want to take this opportunity to share with you a memo from a pro-
abortion group that I just got, assuming that all women will support 
this gruesome procedure. They gave us instructions on how to debate the 
procedure and they said, and I will quote, Do not talk about the fetus. 
No matter what we call it, this kills an infant. Do not argue about the 
procedure, the partial-birth procedure is gruesome. There is no way to 
make it pleasant to voters or even only distasteful.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to see past the smoke screen that 
has been created by the abortion lobby. Again, America is too good to 
support infanticide.

                                                 National Right to


                                         Life Committee, Inc.,

                                   Washington, DC, March 20, 1997.

 Congressman Hoyer Says the Greenwood-Hoyer ``Motion to Recommit With 
   Instructions'' Allows Even Third-Trimester Abortions for ``Mental 
                 Health'' and ``Psychological Trauma''

       When the House takes up the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 
     (HR 1122) Thursday, March 20, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and 
     Rep. Jim Greeneood (R-Pa.) are expected to offer a ``motion 
     to recommit with instructions'' that will include the 
     substance of the measure that they introduced on March 12 as 
     HR 1032, which they call the ``Late-Term Abortion Restriction 
     Act.''
       The Hoyer-Greenwood measure would:
       Allow all methods of abortion, including partial-birth 
     abortion, on demand until ``viability''; and
       Empower the abortionist himself (``the attending 
     physician'') to define what ``viability'' means; and
       Even after this self-defined ``viability,'' and even in the 
     third-trimester, allow partial-birth abortions to be 
     performed whenever ``in the medical judgment of the attending 
     physician, the abortion is necessary . . . to avert serious 
     adverse health consequences to the woman.'' [emphasis added] 
     [see Hoyer's explanation below]
       At a March 12 press conference in the House Radio-TV 
     Gallery, which was tape-recorded, Congressman Hoyer was asked 
     what the word ``health'' means in his statement. Mr. Hoyer 
     responded as follows:
       [We] included the language ``serious adverse health 
     consequences.'' We're not talking about a hangnail, we're not 
     talking about a headache. Does it include--and this is one of 
     the things that the opponents of this particular legislation, 
     the proponents of the pro-life position, would contend--does 
     it include mental health? Yes, it does. [emphasis added]
       I point out that the overwhelming majority of Americans, 
     and Members who vote on this floor, are for an exception for 
     rape and incest. The exception of rape and incest, of course, 
     is not because a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest 
     causes a physical danger to the woman. It is because it poses 
     a psychological trauma to the woman to carry to term, either 
     because she is very young, impregnated by her father or 
     brother or some other family member, or because she is 
     raped. In the debate some years ago, for example, I used 
     Willy Horton as an example. [End of Hoyer quote. Italics 
     indicates Mr. Hoyer's verbal emphasis]
       Thus, by the explicit statement of its author, the Hoyer-
     Greenwood motion would allow partial-birth abortions (and 
     other abortions) even in the final three months of pregnancy, 
     whenever an abortionist simply affirms that this would 
     prevent ``serious'' ``mental health'' ``consequences.'' 
     Further, Mr. Hoyer's own interpretation of ``mental health'' 
     is not limited to women who are, say, severely psychotic. 
     Rather, Mr. Hoyer explicitly acknowledged that ``serious . . 
     . health'' covers ``psychological trauma.'' Legally, the 
     language is all-encompassing.
       Morever, under the Hoyer-Greenwood measure, the abortionist 
     himself decides what ``viability'' means. This is like 
     Congress passing a bill to ``ban'' so-called ``assault 
     weapons,'' with a provision to allow each gundealer to define 
     ``assault weapon.'' The Hoyer-Greenwood bill does not 
     ``regulate'' the abortionist; rather, it empowers the 
     abortionist to regulate himself.
       In real medical practice, ``viability'' begins at 23 weeks, 
     when the baby's lung development is sufficient to allow 
     survival in about one case in four. But late-term 
     abortionists often have their own idiosyncratic notions of 
     when ``viability'' occurs, which may have no relationship to 
     neonatal medicine or to the babies' actual survival 
     prospects.
       In short, the Hoyer-Greenwood bill does not ``restrict'' 
     abortions after viability, nor does it ``restrict'' third-
     trimester abortions. Indeed, the Hoyer measure would be an 
     empowerment by Congress for abortionists to perform third-
     trimester abortions with complete impunity.
       Under the Hoyer-Greenwood measure, Congress would confer on 
     the abortionist himself explicit authority to judge, by his 
     own standards and immune from review by any other authority: 
     (1) what ``viability'' means, and (2) whether an abortion 
     would prevent ``serious'' harm to ``health,'' including 
     ``mental health'' or ``psychological trauma,'' in Mr. Hoyer's 
     words.
       Thus, under the Hoyer-Greenwood bill, it is impossible for 
     an abortionist to perform an ``illegal'' third-trimester 
     abortion, because he alone decides what is legal. Such a law 
     would be a mere facade--it would not prevent a single 
     partial-birth abortion, nor would it prevent a single third-
     trimester abortion.
       For further documentation on partial-birth abortions, the 
     Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and the Clinton-Hoyer-Daschle 
     ``phony bans,'' contact the National Right to Life 
     Committee's Federal Legislative Office at (202) 626-8820, fax 
     (202) 347-3668, or see the NRLC Homepage at www.nrlc.org.
 ____


       [From the Washington Post Health Section, Sept. 17, 1996]

                         Viability and the Law

                         (By David Brown, M.D.)

       The normal length of human gestation is 266 days, or 38 
     weeks. This is roughly 40 weeks from a woman's last menstrual 
     period.
       Pregnancy is often divided into three parts, or 
     ``trimesters.'' Both legally and medically, however, this 
     division has little meaning. For one thing, there is little 
     precise agreement about when one trimester ends and another 
     begins. Some authorities describe the first trimester as 
     going through the end of the 12th week of gestation. Others 
     say the 13th week. Often the third trimester is defined as 
     beginning after 24 weeks of fetal development.
       Nevertheless, the trimester concept--and particularly the 
     division between the second and third ones--commonly arises 
     in discussion of late-stage abortion.
       Contrary to a widely held public impression, third-
     trimester abortion is not outlawed in the United States. The 
     landmark Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. 
     Bolton, decided together in 1973, permit abortion on demand 
     up until the time of fetal ``viability.'' After that point, 
     states can limit a woman's access to abortion. The court did 
     not specify when viability begins.
       In Doe v. Bolton the court ruled that abortion could be 
     performed after fetal viability if the operating physician 
     judged the procedure necessary to protect the life or health 
     of the woman. ``Health'' was broadly defined.
       ``Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all 
     factors--physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the 
     woman's age--relevant to the well-being of the patient,'' the 
     court wrote. ``All these factors may relate to health. This 
     allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his 
     best medical judgment.''
       Because of this definition, life-threatening conditions 
     need not exist in order for a woman to get a third-trimester 
     abortion.
       For most of the century, however, viability was confined to 
     the third trimester because neonatal intensive-care medicine 
     was unable to keep fetuses younger than that alive. This is 
     no longer the case.
       In an article published in the journal Pediatrics in 1991, 
     physicians reported the experience of 1,765 infants born with 
     a very low birth weight at seven hospitals. About 20 percent 
     of those babies were considered to be at 25 weeks' gestation 
     or less. Of those that had completed 23 weeks' development, 
     23 percent survived. At 24 weeks, 34 percent survived. None 
     of those infants was yet in the third trimester.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] the ranking member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank our senior member 
for yielding me the time. I appreciate the skill with which he is 
managing our side of this very difficult issue.
  I want to call attention to an amendment which the majority refused 
to allow. When Members have come forward, as the gentlewoman from New 
York just did, with an eloquence and passion that is a model of how 
issues ought to be discussed, and talk about threats to the health of 
women and talk about how this bill does not allow a doctor to take into 
account serious adverse health consequences, some of my friends on the 
other side said, well,

[[Page H1208]]

health is too vague. Health could mean severe mental health problems. 
We want to rule that out.
  But what they do not say is that they do not only want to rule out 
mental health, which seems to be a valid consideration, they would deny 
the use of this procedure to a woman even if the doctor could show that 
it was necessary to avoid serious physical damage to her health. And I 
have offered an amendment that says only that, that we will not 
preclude this if a doctor finds it necessary to avoid long-term serious 
adverse physical health damage. They will not allow that amendment. 
They will not allow even a vote on that.
  The chairman of the full committee, a man of great intellectual 
integrity who was against abortion in any form or shape, says the 
reason he voted against that amendment was that if it is a choice 
between the life of the fetus and severe physical health damage to the 
mother, then the mother must incur that damage and not only that, we in 
Congress will decide that the mother must incur that damage.
  I think the failure to allow a vote on serious physical health 
adverse consequences in the first place deprives them the right to 
argue about mental health because they will not allow any health 
requirement.
  We are not talking about whether or not you have an abortion at all 
but about the procedure. And what they are trying to do is to force a 
vote which would, and let us be very clear, the vote would make it 
impossible for a doctor to even try to show that it was necessary to 
use this procedure to avoid serious long-term physical damage.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I think the point is there is not ever a 
case, never a case where this procedure is needed to protect the life 
of a woman.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has made his 
point.
  Let me say this, if in fact Members were confident of that, then the 
amendment would be harmless because this bill does not say, I do not 
like this bill, but I am dealing with the framework you put forward, 
the bill does not say, if in the opinion of the physician, it says you 
can have such an exception for life if it is necessary. My amendment 
tracks that language. My amendment says, the doctor would have to show 
that it was necessary to prevent long-term physical health.
  The gentleman at the microphone, a doctor, is convinced that never, 
ever, ever in the whole history of the world would it be physically 
possible. That is a judgment he is qualified to make.
  But I do not believe we as a Congress ought to legislate that it is 
never possible. The fact is that if it is never possible, the exception 
will not be a very large one because it is not a subjective amendment.
  I will go back to what the chairman of the full committee said, as I 
said, a man of great integrity, he said, if there is a choice between 
physical damage to the mother, serious adverse physical damage, and the 
life of the fetus, even if we are talking about a fetus with the brain 
on the outside, as the gentlewoman from New York pointed out, that 
tragic situation, this would not be allowed.
  I want to make it clear, I do not believe you should restrict into 
physical health in general, but here we have an unusual bill. This bill 
concededly by its sponsors does not try to stop abortions. It would 
allow all manner of abortion except this procedure.
  Now, your mental health would be relevant, and it still would be as 
to whether or not you could have an abortion. A severely depressive 
situation would be a justification for an abortion, as the exception. 
When we are talking only about this procedure versus that procedure, 
then it seems to me it is relevant to talk only about physical. But 
again the assertion that it is never, ever going to be physical, and we 
have had women and doctors who disagree, the doctors do disagree, the 
question is, Should the Congress adopt the view that it is never valid 
to try to avoid serious physical health damage to the mother if that 
means this particular abortion procedure?
  That, I wanted to point out, is the amendment that they would not 
even let us vote on. That is the choice. I think it is unfortunately 
indicative of some Members who might rather have an issue to take to 
the country than a piece of legislation.
  I believe the adoption of this legislation, of this amendment, even 
though I might not like it, could lead to a signed bill. The failure 
even to allow a vote on this and the insistence on defeating it, it 
seems to me, shows a preference for an issue over a piece of 
legislation.
  I thank my ranking member for yielding me the time.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn].
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important, first of all, 
having delivered greater than 3,100 babies and cared for over 10,000 
women in my medical experience, I want to again reemphasize, there is 
no medical indication ever for this procedure.
  To answer the gentleman from Massachusetts' question, why would you, 
if in fact there is a reason to do this procedure, why would you do it 
to a live baby? Why would not the doctor kill the baby first, which in 
fact is what they do.
  The very false arguments, false arguments that are put forward is 
that the baby, with the encephalocele or the externalized brain, the 
people that do this procedure actually kill the children first. There 
is no reason to use that as an argument. That sets up my second point.
  This argument is about whether or not we are going to talk about the 
truth of the procedure. You will not find in any medical textbook, you 
will not find in any residency training program where they teach 
doctors to care for women's health, you will never find where this 
procedure is taught or is shown as an indicated procedure. Why not? 
Very simple reason: It is not ever indicated. It is not indicated in 
the medical literature. It has been abhorred.
  There was a statement earlier that said that the ACOG was worried 
about this because it had the potential of inhibiting. They said, they 
do not like this procedure either. What they said is the Congress 
dealing with these issues have the potential of inhibiting care. 
Potential is very much different than changing or affecting care.
  We were told that this was done on a small number of infants and that 
it was always done or most always done on infants with severe 
deformities. That was an out-and-out lie. I stood on this floor last 
year and said that was untrue. I will tell Members today, it is untrue, 
absolutely, without question that this is ever needed to take care of a 
woman's health.
  Second point, it was said that a woman's fertility can only be 
protected sometimes by using this. That is exactly the opposite of the 
truth. I can give you cases where women's fertility because of this 
procedure has been ruined forever. It goes against everything we are 
taught in the medical community to preserve fertility and to preserve a 
woman's health.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding time to me.
  First, I would say, I think the gentleman from Oklahoma's comments 
help focus this. He said that as far as this legislation is concerned, 
if the fetus was killed earlier in the procedure, then this bill would 
not have any affect. I think that shows, we are not here talking about 
not having the abortion or not bringing an end to the potential life. I 
think that ought to be clear.
  I think we have heard arguments on the other side that suggested that 
this is opposition to abortion. That underlines the point that has been 
made here. This is not a bill about stopping abortions in any 
circumstances, mental health, whatever the reason. It is saying, well, 
you did not perform the fatal act early enough.
  I think that is a great distinction with very little difference. I 
think that it undercuts the arguments they have been making. I think 
people have been led to believe that this was going to prevent late 
term abortion. We have the acknowledgment that it does no such thing 
and does not even try to.

[[Page H1209]]

  Second, as to the medical argument, I do not think Congress ought to 
arbitrate disagreements among doctors. There are doctors who have said 
they would find this procedure useful in some particular circumstances. 
For Congress to legislate that it would never ever be useful physically 
to use this particular procedure rather than another is, it seems to 
me, a great overreach.
  Again, I want to underline, as the gentleman from Oklahoma made 
clear, we are not talking about stopping abortions. We are not talking 
about stopping abortions even late in pregnancy. We are talking about 
dictating particular procedures to doctors even if they think the 
physical health of their patient would be better served otherwise.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of the Chair 
concerning the amount of time remaining on each side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis]. The gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Conyers] has 34\3/4\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Canady] has 34\3/4\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Indiana [Mr. Buyer], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this measure to ban the 
partial-birth abortion procedure. The procedure is defined in the bill 
as the partial delivery of a living fetus which is then destroyed prior 
to the completion of delivery. This is a particularly appalling 
procedure in which the difference between complete birth and abortion 
is a matter of a few inches in the birth canal.
  The bill applies only to the procedure in which the living fetus is 
partially delivered prior to the abortion act being completed. There is 
the exception in the bill for the instances in which the life of the 
mother is at risk. It is amazing for me to listen to people here say we 
are not going to let Congress get involved in this issue. They should 
stay out of the operating room, when in fact Congress does get involved 
with prohibiting certain drugs to be used, overnight stays for 
mastectomy, prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.
  We have got mandates. I heard a gentlewoman from New York standing 
here who is an advocate of the overnight stays for Medicaid births, and 
I agree with her. But yet she wants the Government to get involved in 
certain things but not certain things--drawing the line.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey].
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. 
Make no mistake about it, this vote with all the emotional rhetoric and 
the exaggerated testimony is a frontal attack on Roe versus Wade, plain 
and simple.
  The majority leadership wants to do away with Roe, the radical right 
wants to do away with Roe, and this bill is the first step. So let us 
be honest about this. This bill, which the President vetoed last year, 
will outlaw medical technique which is rarely used but is sometimes 
required in extreme and tragic cases.

                              {time}  1330

  For example, when the life of the mother is in danger or a fetus is 
so malformed that it has no chance for survival. When a woman is forced 
to carry a malformed fetus to term, they are in danger of chronic 
hemorrhaging, permanent infertility or death.
  Friends, I have a personal story. My life has been touched by these 
extreme and tragic cases. In the early 1900's, when my grandmother was 
in the late stages of her first pregnancy, a terrible complication 
arose. At a critical moment they knew that my grandmother would die 
unless a late-term abortion was performed. Because of my grandmother's 
life and health and because her life and health were saved, my mother 
was born a few years later. A late-term abortion made my life possible.
  Let me read my colleagues a brief list of organizations that oppose 
this bill: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the 
American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, 
the list goes on and on. Doctors and nurses oppose this bill because 
they see tragic cases like my grandparents all the time. They know that 
H.R. 1122 will cost women their lives or reproductive health.
  The majority party in this House has proved time and again its 
resolve to make Roe versus Wade ring hollow for most American women. We 
cannot let this happen. Protect a woman's right to choose, protect 
women's lives and women's health, leave medical decisions up to the 
patient and the physician, not the Congress. Vote ``no'' on this bill.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Tennessee, [Mr. Bryant] a member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Mr. BRYANT. Mr. Speaker, I guess we have moved from the spirit of 
Hershey and our bipartisan retreat and we are now talking about the 
radical right and calling names.
  I would remind the gentlewoman from California that this radical 
right that opposed this procedure voted in record numbers last year, 
288 Members of the House, which showed a bipartisan spirit. Both 
Democrats and Republicans supported this ban. If they are all radical 
right, then more power to the radical right.
  I want to talk very quickly on this issue of health. I sat on the 
floor last year and heard the arguments from the other side, maybe it 
is the radical left, I do not know, using numbers: There are only 500 
of the procedures done a year and it is only in the most grossly 
abnormal cases. However, Mr. Fitzsimmons cleared that up when he came 
out and said no, that is an absolute lie.
  We have seen reports out of a New Jersey newspaper where there are 
1,500 procedures like this done in one hospital. Are there that many 
abnormalities in one hospital that they do 1,500 of these? No. I 
suggest to my colleagues that these are being done for the convenience 
of the doctors.
  It is a grossly inhumane procedure. If it were a criminal penalty, it 
would be outlawed by the eighth amendment to the Constitution which 
prevents cruel and inhuman treatment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York [Mrs. McCarthy].
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I have only been here 3 
months, and what I hear today upsets me greatly. I am against late-term 
abortion. I am against any kind of abortion. I am also a nurse. We have 
435 Members in this Congress. Two, I believe, are doctors; two, I 
believe, are nurses; and yet here we are making decisions on women's 
health and lives and the children.
  I am sorry, there is not one person in this Chamber that wants to see 
a child die, but I feel we are hypocrites.
  I am on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities and I 
am fighting for every dollar to certainly take care of those children 
that have severe disabilities. I am on the Juvenile Task Force trying 
to protect the children that are alive. If we cannot take care of the 
children that are chosen to be born in this country, because women do 
want children, who are we to have the right to have that decision?
  Further down the road we will have bills here that we are going to be 
voting on so doctors can have the choice of saying what is good for a 
patient that has breast cancer, and yet here we stand making these 
choices.
  No one wants to take a child's life. Nobody. Who are we to make a 
decision for that woman? We cannot make that decision for the woman. We 
are not in her shoes.
  And as it seems we are going to make those choices, I am not even 
allowed to vote on a bill that would certainly take away late-term 
abortions. I am being forced to vote for a bill that I do not want. 
Those are the choices that I am being given here. I think that is 
terrible.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson].
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, during this debate we have heard a great 
deal about exceptions, about medical judgment and about statistics. I 
believe this debate goes much deeper. This debate searches out the soul 
of our culture. It is ultimately a question of how we are willing to 
define ourselves as a civilization.
  We must ask ourselves, are we so self-indulgent in our Nation that 
all

[[Page H1210]]

notions of right and wrong can be summarily reduced to a matter of 
choice? Is there no point at which we can agree that the sanctity of 
human life takes precedence over the lure of choice?
  A recent editorial writer in Arkansas defined the true debate that we 
face today. He said partial-birth abortion has long since ceased to be 
a medical question. It is a political question. It is about competing 
values. It is about whether we should be able to destroy human life in 
order to shape ours in a way that we would prefer. It is about what we 
hold sacred in our Nation. It is about our culture.
  Mr. Speaker, let us reaffirm America as a culture of hope, a culture 
of life.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Oregon [Ms. Furse].
  Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, I think many people here will have noticed 
that there are very few women in this body, but I want to speak to the 
women of America:
  You are the ones that this bill will harm. Ask yourself this 
question. What will it be like if this bill passes? When you go to your 
doctor's office, who will make the medical decisions? Will you and your 
physician or will the politicians in this room make the decision?
  I want to tell my colleagues about somebody who went to her doctor's 
office with a terrible decision: Coreen Costello from California. They 
had a much-wanted pregnancy but they found that the fetus had become 
dreadfully damaged. What her physician said was, ``We want you to have 
this surgery because it will save your opportunity to have another 
child.''
  They were opposed to abortion, this family, but this was a medical 
decision. They went ahead with the procedure. And just 2 years later, 
Coreen was delivered of a healthy baby.
  But let me tell you, make no mistake, women of America, that the next 
time, if this bill passes, that you go to your doctor's office, you 
will not get all the options. You will not get the best medical advice. 
You will get the advice of a great number of politicians.
  I am going to vote ``no'' on this bill. I am going to vote for women, 
I am going to vote for doctors, and I encourage my colleagues to do the 
same.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Barcia].
  Mr. BARCIA. Mr. Speaker, today I am wearing a pin given to me by one 
of my constituents, Luella Britton, from Bay City, Michigan.
  These tiny feet that are fully formed are the exact size of an unborn 
baby's feet at 10 weeks after conception, the first trimester. The 
procedure we are debating is most often performed during the second or 
third trimester. In some cases, the baby is fully developed and could 
survive outside the womb.
  If modern medical science considers a child delivered at 24 weeks 
viable, how can we consider his or her counterpart expendable?
  I agree that individuals should have the right to make decisions that 
affect their lives. I also strongly believe in the sanctity of life. If 
80 percent of abortions in this country are elective, we have to 
reevaluate the value that our society places on human life.
  If this decision is not made in the case of rape or of incest, or if 
the mother's life is not in danger, then this is a selfish decision. At 
10 weeks an unborn child's feet are perfectly formed. I ask my 
colleagues to think of an unborn child at 4 months or 8 months. That 
child is whole, alive, and in many cases can survive outside the womb.
  A vote for House Resolution 1122 will protect children. A vote 
against House Resolution 1122 will end thousands of children's lives.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Delahunt], a distinguished member of the Committee 
on the Judiciary.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, this legislation infringes on the 
constitutional right of a woman to elect a medical procedure which may, 
in the judgment of her physician, be the best means of preserving her 
life and her health. This bill is not about procedure, it is about 
women's lives.
  At the Committee on the Judiciary markup I read into the record a 
portion of the testimony of Maureen Britell, a constituent of mine from 
Sandwich, MA. She is also a woman of remarkable courage who came 
forward to tell her story because of her concern that the procedure 
performed on her would be illegal if this bill becomes law. She 
describes herself as a textbook case of why this legislation is 
dangerous.
  Mrs. Britell discovered in the sixth month of her pregnancy that her 
unborn daughter had a fatal anomaly in which the fetal brain fails to 
develop. Her doctors advised her to induce labor and end the pregnancy 
immediately for the sake of her health. As a devout Catholic, she was 
extremely reluctant to do this, but ultimately decided, with the 
support of her family and her priest, to have the abortion.
  During the delivery, the fetus became lodged in the birth canal. The 
doctors had to cut the umbilical cord, ending the baby's life in order 
to complete the delivery and avoid serious health consequences to Mrs. 
Britell.
  In her testimony she said, ``Although the delivery did not proceed as 
expected, the doctors acted in a medically appropriate way and I 
recovered well. At the hospital we were able to hold our baby and say 
our goodbyes. Our parish priest performed a small Catholic funeral for 
the family and a few close friends. Our baby was buried at Otis Air 
Force Base on Cape Cod. My husband and I are still mourning the loss of 
our daughter.''
  One might have hoped that, confronted with a story such as this, the 
authors of this legislation would think again; that they would try to 
modify their bill. Unfortunately, nearly all amendments offered in 
committee were rejected and the bill we are considering excludes even 
the few that were agreed to.
  As we heard, my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank], 
offered an amendment to confine the constitutionally mandated health 
exception to situations in which the abortion is necessary to avert 
serious adverse physical health consequences to the mother. The 
proponents defeated that amendment and they have refused to allow a 
similar amendment to come to the floor today.
  Supporters of this bill have expressed a concern that a health 
exception could mean anything and would allow a woman to have abortions 
for frivolous reasons.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith].
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for 
yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, the leadership of the pro-abortion movement are highly 
skilled and extraordinarily savvy in masking the violence and cruelty 
to baby girls and boys killed by abortion and the harmful effects to 
women. Nobody muddies the water like they do. That leadership has now 
been exposed once again by one of its own as a fraud. And to think they 
almost got away with it again.
  Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of 
Abortion Providers, has publicly confessed that he, ``Lied through his 
teeth'' when he told a TV interviewer, according to the New York Times, 
that partial-birth abortion was used rarely and only on women whose 
lives were in danger or whose fetuses were damaged.

                              {time}  1345

  It seems I heard a lot of my colleagues say that in the last debate 
on this matter. According to the AMA News and the New York Times, Mr. 
Fitzsimmons now says that his party line defense of this method of 
abortion was a deliberate lie and that in the vast majority of cases 
the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus 
that is 20 weeks or more along.
  Mr. Fitzsimmons says that the abortion folks knew it, which means the 
whole antibaby gang deliberately tried to deceive us all and the 
Nation. And they almost got away with it.
  Interestingly, he also said the antiabortion people, the pro-lifers, 
we knew it as well, and we did, and we said it on this floor. 
Unfortunately, there were very few who listened when we pointed out 
these facts.
  As a matter of fact, most in the media believed and amplified as true 
the falsehoods and lies put out by Planned Parenthood Federation of 
America, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the ACLU, NARAL, the National 
Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, NOW, the National

[[Page H1211]]

Republican Coalition for Choice, People for the American Way, 
Population Action International, Zero Population Growth and others who 
signed letters that went to my office and yours, one of them on October 
25, 1995 that said, ``This surgical procedure is used only in rare 
cases, fewer than 500 per year, and most often performed in the case of 
wanted pregnancies gone tragically wrong.''
  We know that is not true. It is a lie. We know that these groups have 
lied to us, and it is not the first time, Mr. Speaker, that these 
groups have lied to us.
  Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the former abortionist who did thousands of 
abortions and one of the founders of NARAL, has said that lying and 
junk science were and continue to be commonplace in the pro-abortion 
movement. It is the way they sell abortion to a gullible public. Dr. 
Nathanson has said that in the early days they absolutely lied about 
maternal mortality, they lied about the number of illegal abortions, 
they lied and said that there is no link between abortion and breast 
cancer, and there is a link, and they lie about the so-called safety of 
abortion, and of course, the big lie on partial-birth abortion has been 
exposed for everybody in this Chamber to see. The procedure is not 
rare. It is common. It is common, and it is used with devastating 
consequences on both the mothers as well as on the babies.

  Remember last year several of you took to the floor and said that 
anesthesia caused fetal demise. That falsehood was blown right out of 
the water as well as another big lie that was used by my friends on the 
other side of the aisle and on this side of the aisle and spoon fed to 
you in fact sheets and talking points by the pro-abortion lobby. The 
president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Dr. Noring 
Ellison came forward and testified before the Senate Judiciary 
Committee on November 17, 1995 and said:

       I believe this . . . to be entirely inaccurate. I am deeply 
     concerned, moreover, that the widespread publicity given to 
     Dr. McMahon's testimony may cause pregnant women to delay 
     necessary and perhaps life-saving medical procedures, totally 
     unrelated to the birthing process, due to misinformation 
     regarding the effect of anesthetics on the fetus.
       In my medical judgment, it would be necessary--in order to 
     achieve neurological demise of the fetus in a partial-birth 
     abortion--to anesthetize the mother to such a degree as to 
     place her own health in serious jeopardy.
       I have not spoken with one anesthesiologist who agrees with 
     Dr. McMahon's conclusion, and in my judgment, it is contrary 
     to scientific fact. It simply must not be allowed to stand.

  Remember all this when Planned Parenthood, which performs or refers 
for 230,000 abortions each year, lobbies you and plies you with talking 
points and fact sheets. They simply are not to be trusted--even their 
ideological soulmates in the government and media should have serious 
doubts about these groups' credibility.
  These same pro-abortion groups--many of which get huge Federal, 
State, and local government subsidies--also wrote us that, ``lawmakers 
. . . have no place . . . in the operating room.''
  But unless you construe an unborn baby to be a disease or tumor, it 
is the abortionists who have turned the operating room into an 
execution chamber.
  Like some deranged horror movie doctor who dresses well and looks 
respectable on the outside, the abortionist in these execution rooms 
partially delivers a helpless child, only to thrust a pair of scissors 
into the baby's head so a suction device can vacuum out his or her 
brains.
  This is madness. This is inhumane. And lawmakers should not shrink 
from our moral responsibility to stop it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman from New Jersey be 
reminded that we do not call each other liars in the course of the 
debate?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Will the gentleman yield?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. McInnis]. The request of the gentleman 
from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] is denied.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado [Ms. DeGette] and remind our membership that she is replacing 
Pat Schroeder, our distinguished ranking member on the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote 
no on this resolution. There has been a great deal of distortion spread 
about this so-called partial-birth ban. First of all, this bill does 
not ban abortions, even post viability. It would still allow post 
viability abortions.
  What it does do is outlaw an ill-defined medical procedure. It stops 
a procedure which is so vaguely defined that it is not even recognized 
in medical literature because partial-birth is not a medical term at 
all.
  Tragically, deliberate confusion has driven this debate out of 
control to a point where rational people are ignoring the facts, their 
own principles and even their own hearts. We have just heard rhetoric 
today that the pro-choice community has distorted the facts on this 
procedure. Quite to the contrary. Neither side has concrete national or 
State statistics on the number of intact D&E procedures that are 
performed.
  Let us focus on what we do know and not on what we do not know. In 
1992, the last year for which we have statistics, only .04 percent of 
all abortions even took place after 26 weeks when this procedure may 
become necessary. At this stage, every single one of these women were 
facing threats to their life or health or were carrying a fetus with 
severe abnormalities.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to think rationally. To assume that 
any woman would choose this tragic procedure after carrying a healthy 
fetus for 8 or 9 months is offensive to the women who are facing this 
gruesome decision and it is offensive to all women.
  I think if my colleagues had had the opportunity to hear Eileen 
Sullivan testify before the Committee on the Judiciary last week, they 
would understand how frightening and dangerous this proposed ban is to 
women.
  Eileen is 1 of 11 children in an Irish Catholic family. She faced 
this tragedy in the eighth month. She stated to the committee: We wept. 
We discussed what to do, what was best and safest, and in the end she, 
her husband, and her doctor made this tragic choice.
  Eileen Sullivan chose this procedure as a last resort. She and her 
husband desperately wanted this baby, but the pregnancy had gone awry. 
To ban this procedure for women like Ms. Sullivan who face no other 
option will deprive them of their lives or their future ability to have 
children.
  Let me be clear to those who are unsure of the serious ramifications 
of this bill or the meaning of their vote today. In the 24 years since 
Roe versus Wade, American women have never been in more danger of 
losing their right to choose their own health decisions than they are 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Chabot].
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, partial-birth abortions should not be a 
partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans who share a fundamental 
belief that life is precious are in agreement: The partial-birth 
abortion procedure is gruesome, it is hideous, and it is unnecessary. 
We believe that life should be protected, not cut short by a pair of 
scissors in the hands of an abortionist.
  If there is one good thing that we can do this year, one thing that 
would save the lives of children who are being brutally killed, it is 
the passage of legislation that would outlaw this terrible procedure. 
Members on both sides of the aisle know how atrocious it is, and we 
have all heard the grisly details, because we know the truth, that 
thousands of partial-birth abortions are performed each year on healthy 
mothers with healthy babies. We must act now to ban this terrible 
procedure.
  Mr. Speaker, the choice is simple. We can either turn our backs and 
allow thousands of babies to be killed at the very moment of birth, or 
we can vote to preserve life, protect innocent children and ban 
partial-birth abortions once and for all. I urge passage of this 
important legislation.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California [Ms. Lofgren], a distinguished member of the Committee 
on the Judiciary.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, about 2 weeks ago, Members of this body 
went to Hershey, PA, to learn how we might disagree in a civilized 
manner, and I think this issue is challenging and testing the 
commitments we made at

[[Page H1212]]

that time to deal and disagree with each other in a way that is 
respectful and civilized. This is an issue that American people have 
very strong feelings about, and those strong feelings are shared by 
Members of this body.
  I think it is important that we state where we agree and where we 
disagree because there are some agreements. I do not believe there is a 
single Member of this body, and I definitely include myself, who 
believes that abortion ought to be an elective procedure post 
viability, and to the extent that any of us have suggested otherwise, 
we should stop doing that because we do not believe that. That is not 
where our disagreement is.
  There are those of us in this Chamber who believe, and oftentimes it 
is a matter of religious belief, that abortions should be made illegal 
in all cases. I am not among those who believe that. But I respect the 
Members of this body who do. The disagreement is over who should make 
the decision to terminate a pregnancy post viability, when a woman's 
life is in danger or she is facing a serious health consequence, and 
then prior to viability who should make the decision in every case.
  There has been a lot of discussion about numbers and who said what 
when. The issue is this, simply this. If there is even a single woman, 
and I know one, Vickie Wilson, who needs access to this procedure in 
order to protect against a very serious health ramification, then in my 
judgment she and her family, not the Congress of the United States, 
ought to make that decision.
  That is what this issue is about. We have an alternative that would 
prohibit abortions post viability on an elective basis. I think we 
ought to adopt this alternative and I think we ought to allow the woman 
and her family to decide when serious health consequences and her life 
are at risk.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Alabama [Mr. Aderholt].
  (Mr. ADERHOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ADERHOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am not here to reiterate what has 
already been said about the partial-birth abortion procedure. We all 
know it is a gruesome and horrific way to end a life. We have heard the 
testimony of Brenda Pratt Shafer, a pro-choice nurse who wrote that 
witnessing this procedure was the ``most horrible experience of my 
life,'' and Mr. Ron Fitzsimmons admitting that we had been lied to 
about the frequency of abortions on healthy fetuses. We have been told 
that this procedure is used rarely, in dire circumstances and only to 
protect the health and life of the mother. But it is just not true.
  If we were to begin executing criminals by stabbing scissors in the 
back of their skulls and then sucking out their brains until the body 
goes limp, we would have every human rights group in this country 
screaming.
  I ask my colleagues to remember that over 400 doctors, including C. 
Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, has stated that it is never 
medically necessary to have a partial-birth abortion. In fact, in many 
cases the health of the mother is highly at risk and jeopardized by 
this procedure.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Capps].
  Mr. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, today is the first day of spring, but I 
believe that we are continuing to be surrounded by darkness. I ask, Mr. 
Speaker, will the vote we are taking today help us reach what I believe 
are our twin goals, to preserve the dignity of a woman's right to 
choose and to decrease and diminish the need for abortions? Sadly, this 
vote will not.
  Does the discussion we are having today create more civility in 
Congress? Will it create a more resilient bond of trust between 
ourselves and the people we represent? The answer once again, Mr. 
Speaker, is not at all.
  Abortion is a terribly tragic consequence, but we will not take away 
the tragedy of abortion by banning it legislatively or by placing 
extreme restrictions on its availability. In my judgment, exceptions 
must always be sustained in the event that the life of the mother, the 
health of the mother, or the future reproductive capacity of the 
mother, are placed in jeopardy.
  I wish to add, Mr. Speaker, that those who are touting this issue as 
a religious issue, in my humble judgment, should be a bit more 
cautious. Search the New Testament through and through. There are no 
references to abortion. For that matter examine the teachings of Jesus 
and see if you can find one, even one comment on abortion. I submit, 
Mr. Speaker, that a matter deemed so central to the faith would have 
drawn at least one comment from the founder of the faith who did say, 
``He who is without sin cast the first stone,'' who did say ``I have 
come that you might have life and have life more abundantly.''
  Tout this issue as a religious issue if you will, but please do not 
forget that, created in the image of God, we humans are endowed with 
the ability as well as the responsibility to make responsible human 
choices and to live with the consequences. We in the Congress, still 
predominantly white males, have not been given authority to usurp 
choice for the women who must face these terrible life defining 
decisions, nor are we assigned the task of being moral arbiters of a 
situation that defies the imposition of moral, religious, and spiritual 
absolutes.
  The challenge that abortion presents to the well-being of this 
country will not go away because Congress acts on legislation whose 
primary purpose is to exercise excessively sanctimonious, righteous 
indignation.

                              {time}  1400

  Let us not substitute the real work we have to do in this Congress 
and in the country with intrusive and restrictive governmental decree 
or with questionable dogmatic fiat. I am voting against this divisive 
bill, Mr. Speaker, because of its dehumanizing quality and demeaning 
spirit that is part of it.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Georgia [Mr. Barr], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, there are certain common themes 
that seem to be repeating themselves by the pro-abortion arguments on 
the other side, over and over and over again. There is a very good 
reason for that. The strategy, including the precise words to use, are 
well laid out in a memorandum that lays out the blueprint for the pro-
abortionist in this argument in order to disguise what is really at 
stake here. I read from a memo dated September 17, 1996, from Lake 
Research:
  Do not talk about the health and condition of the fetus. Voters 
believe that this procedure, no matter what we call it, kills an 
infant.
  Truer words were never spoken.
  Do not argue about how often this procedure is used. Voters believe 
that even one time is too many.
  Truer words were never spoken.
  Do not argue about the procedure. The partial-birth procedure is 
gruesome. There is no way to make it pleasant to voters or even only 
distasteful.
  Turer words were never spoken.
  Yet those on the other side that keep arguing for this horrible, 
gruesome procedure would have us believe that it is just commonplace, 
that there is nothing wrong with it, that it is simply a matter of 
choice. It is not simply a matter of choice, it is a matter of life. 
They know it, and American voters know it.

                              [Memorandum]

                                               September 17, 1996.
     To: Clients and friends.
     From: Lake Research.
     Subject: Positioning on so-called ``partial birth'' abortion.

       Many of you have asked for research on the best way to 
     frame a vote against legislation to ban the so-called 
     ``partial birth'' abortion procedure. We have developed the 
     following guidelines from a range of research we have done 
     this fall that has touched on the issue. Overall, we believe 
     that our strongest message is that late abortion is a 
     medically necessary procedure to save the life and health of 
     the mother.
       Do talk about the life and the health of mothers.
       Voters take the health of women, of mothers especially, 
     very seriously. Importantly, many women who are more 
     traditional (homemakers, for example), who tend to be anti-
     choice, also believe that motherhood tends to be undervalued, 
     and they are responsive to a message that makes the health of 
     mothers, and protecting their ability to bear children and 
     care for them in the future, a high priority.
       Don't talk about the health and condition of the fetus.
       Voters believe that this procedures, no matter what we call 
     it, kills an infant. We cannot get around this basic belief. 
     When we

[[Page H1213]]

     start to talk about cases where the fetus is not viable, we 
     risk sliding down a slippery slope that leads voters to 
     conclude that we should risk subjective judgments about which 
     babies live and which die. However, being sure to use the 
     language of ``severely deformed fetuses'' helps counter this, 
     by making clear that the infant would not be close to being 
     viable.
       Do talk about this procedure as medically necessary.
       This communicates to voters that having this procedure is 
     not a ``choice,'' and certainly not a decision that is made 
     casually or lightly. On the contrary, these abortions happen 
     only in the most tragic and dire of health circumstances, and 
     only when it is medically necessary. This language also 
     implies that a doctor is involved, and voters believe that 
     politicians should stay out of this decision.
       Don't argue about how often this procedure is used.
       The absolute number of times this procedure is used is 
     irrelevant. Voters believe that even one time is too many. 
     What we can say is that we wish this procedure was never 
     necessary, but that when it is necessary to save the life and 
     health of the mother, it should not be illegal and it should 
     not be something that involves politicians. Instead, it 
     should be a decision made by a woman, her family, her doctor, 
     and her clergy.
       Do put a very human face on the issue.
       The other side would like voters to believe that this 
     procedure is chosen by heartless and irresponsible people who 
     are murdering children because it is more convenient. We know 
     that this is not true. The women who undergo this procedure 
     are often mothers with families. This is something tragic 
     that happens to families, and something they would have done 
     almost anything to avoid. President Clinton's veto message 
     was affective in large part because he introduced America to 
     the real women who have suffered through this.
       Don't argue about the procedure.
       The ``partial-birth'' procedure is gruesome. There is no 
     way to make it pleasant to voters, or even only distasteful. 
     Absolutely do not try to point out inaccuracies in the other 
     side's descriptions. It gets us nowhere.
       Note that the message used by many in the pro-choice 
     community that this legislation is just the first chip in Roe 
     versus Wade, a foot-in-the-door strategy towards the ultimate 
     goal of eliminating reproductive rights, works only among 
     pro-choice activist. It is not effective among voters 
     broadly. In addition, the message used by some that this bill 
     is wrong because it is the first time that a specific medical 
     procedure has been the subject of legislation is also 
     ineffective among voters broadly. Remember that, no matter 
     what we say, we cannot make voters think that late-term 
     abortions are a good thing. The public is by-and-large pro-
     choice, but this mainly means that they think that abortion 
     is an issue the government and politicians should pretty much 
     stay out of, not that they view abortion as a positive 
     choice. Most Americans would agree with President Clinton's 
     framework of ``abortion should be safe, legal, and rare,'' 
     and they are comfortable with many types of regulation, 
     including substantial restrictions on abortion after the 
     first trimester.
       In sum, there are many reasons that this legislation 
     appalls us, but voters are most likely to agree with us when 
     we focus on a single argument: that this is a medically 
     necessary procedure to save the life and health of the 
     mother, and that making it illegal is just the wrong thing to 
     do.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the deputy whip 
of the minority, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis].
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, this is not a debate that should 
be occurring in the Congress today. This is not a decision for us, for 
legislators, for policymakers. We are not men and women of medicine, of 
science. I am not a doctor; I did not go to medical school. We have no 
business telling doctors how to practice medicine.
  No government, Federal, State or local, should tell a woman what she 
can or cannot do with her body. Decisions about health, decisions about 
medicine, decisions about conscience, are not for us to make. These 
decisions should be left in the homes, churches, and synagogues of 
women facing these hard, wrenching decisions.
  This is an issue between a woman and her family, a woman and her 
doctor, a woman and her conscience, a woman and her God. Let us not 
invade the homes of American women, the hospital, and the health care 
centers. Let us not attempt to play doctor. Let us not attempt to play 
God. Let us say no to politicians in the bedrooms, the family rooms, 
and the operating rooms.
  Mr. Speaker, let us say no to this ill-conceived bill.
  Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] a gentleman who does 
not play at being a doctor, who is a medical doctor.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding this time to me, and I rise in strong support of this 
legislation. I would like to reference my comments to some comments 
made earlier about not lying or calling each other liars. And there has 
been a lot of debate today with claims that this procedure is rare and 
only used in the setting of fetal deformities, and there is an abundant 
amount of information out there that shows that it is not rare. We have 
one clinic that is reported doing 1,500 in one clinic, and then there 
is also abundant evidence that in the vast majority of cases there are 
no fetal deformities. These are done on healthy infants, and the debate 
is involving are we going to respect the sanctity of the life of the 
child?
  It is not a decision just between a woman and her God. There is a 
third party involved in this. In many cases it is a fully developed 
normal child, and to repeat over and over again that it is rare and to 
repeat over and over again that the children, the babies, have fetal 
deformities is just wrong.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to ask the 
distinguished doctor and Member of Congress a question.
  If we add a doctor, the health exception, we would agree with the 
gentleman, and this bill could possibly become law. Would the gentleman 
have any objection to that?
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would be willing to accept that 
if the gentleman from Michigan will define ``health'' in terms of the 
physical health of the woman. Now the Supreme Court has decided----
  Mr. CONYERS. Exactly right.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Has to include mental health.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, before I yield back to the gentleman I just 
want to remind him, and I thank him for his agreement, that the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] tried to offer a physical 
health limitation amendment and was precluded by the gentleman's 
party's leadership. That is why we cannot come to closure on this 
issue. And the gentleman will have on the chance for recommittal to 
vote for precisely that provision that he has articulated, and I yield 
to the doctor.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have looked into this.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Time of the gentleman from Michigan has 
expired.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from New York [Mrs. Maloney].
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, today we face yet another 
attempt by the new majority to roll back a woman's right to choose. Let 
me place this vote today in perspective.
  Last Congress there were 52 antichoice votes on the floor of 
Congress. My colleagues who support this bill are barely trying to 
disguise their agenda. They mean to attack Roe versus Wade procedure by 
procedure. They mean to attack the right of women to control their 
decisions about their health, their families, and their life. 
Eliminating late-term abortion is just their first step toward sending 
the debate back more than 20 years back before the Supreme Court.
  Congress can outlaw procedures, but they can never outlaw the 
circumstances that lead some women to need abortions late in pregnancy. 
No matter how good the technology gets, tragic discoveries are 
sometimes made late in pregnancies, and for these women we need to have 
the best and safest medical care available.
  This new bill would have a woman die if her life were threatened by 
the pregnancy itself. Again instead of allowing a doctor, a woman, and 
her family to make this decision, they would have the woman die.
  This bill also allows abusive and absent husbands to sue doctors who 
perform procedures that are sometimes necessary in tragic situations. 
So now we care more about abusive husbands than we do about a woman's 
health.
  How odd that the new majority calls itself family friendly. How odd 
that the new majority says that they want to get government off our 
backs. Yet they are trying to dictate, procedure by procedure, the most 
intimate decisions that a woman has to make in her life about her own 
life, about her health, and about the future of her family.

[[Page H1214]]

  Congress has no place in women's decisions and no place in women's 
tragedies.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. 
Maloney] an additional 30 seconds and I ask her to yield to me.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. The gentlewoman could not be more correct. The 
Republican platform of 1996 reads that the constitutional protection of 
women's right to choice should be revoked by constitutional amendment. 
Here are bills that are pending in the Committee on the Judiciary for 
doing it, at least the legitimately correct way, through a 
constitutional amendment. But here they are coming through the back 
door again with Canady's partial-birth abortion bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair advises that the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Conyers] has 12 minutes remaining and the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Canady] has 23 minutes remaining.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran].
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues know that I do not 
support the Republican agenda on abortion or constitutional amendments 
to preclude it. In fact I have fought for a woman's right to choose. 
But this is an extremist amendment. This is an extremist procedure, and 
it is not about a woman's right to choose; it is about a baby's right 
to life.
  That is what this is about. We have protected a woman's right to 
choose. That is why more than 99 percent of all the abortions performed 
in this country are performed before the third trimester. but if we 
asked the doctors who performed this procedure, they will tell us that 
the vast majority of these procedures are performed on young, healthy 
women with healthy fetuses, and it is wrong.
  I spoke to a group of junior high students this morning. They asked 
me about this issue. I told them my position. They disagreed, and one 
of the women, young girls; these were 13- and 14-year-old girls; she 
said ``But what if a girl has a baby and then she decides when that 
baby is almost due to be delivered that she has a lot of other things 
in her life and the baby is going to get in her way?'' Hard to 
understand, but hard to sanction, hard to support.
  The fact is that we discredit the credibility of the pro-choice 
movement, the right of a woman to control her life when we support this 
kind of extremist position.
  I support this bill. The Democratic Party and the pro-choice movement 
ought to as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been committed throughout my career to making 
reproductive choice a right for women as proscribed by the Supreme 
Court of the United States. I have fought to uphold the principle that 
no government should tell women that such an important decision is not 
her own.
  And this is what the Supreme Court has said repeatedly. They said in 
Roe versus Wade that the Government has no right to limit a woman's 
right to choose to have an abortion in the first trimester of 
pregnancy. In the second trimester they said that the Government may 
make some restrictions and in the third they may restrict it entirely 
except to save her life or health.
  With advances in medical technology the Supreme Court updated this 
decision. In 1992 they reformed the trimester framework in deciding 
Casey versus Planned Parenthood and said that States may make 
restrictions only after fetal viability. Recent studies suggest that 
this occurs around the 24th week of gestation.
  The procedure in this bill defined as partial-birth abortion is not a 
procedure protected by the Supreme Court. It occurs after fetal 
viability, and despite the lack of recorded information as to its 
prevalence, recent revelations of several members of the pro-choice 
community lead us to believe that it occurs on normal fetuses and 
healthy mothers.
  According to the Center for Disease Control, only 1.5 percent of all 
abortions performed in the United States are performed after 21 weeks 
gestation. This argument over the number of these procedures performed 
is irrelevant. This procedure should not be performed on healthy viable 
fetuses and healthy mothers. Even if it is only once a year, but 
certainly not 5,000 times a year.
  Let me address briefly the controversy surrounding Ron Fitzsimmons, 
the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.
  Mr. Fitzsimmons is a constituent of mine, and I have been acquainted 
with him for many years.
  Mr. Fitzsimmons has been the object of criticism from many within the 
pro-choice community because he made the decision to confirm what had 
already been reported in the Washington Post and other publications. 
This was that late term abortions were bring performed more frequently 
than we were being told, and that they were being performed on normal 
fetuses. He also confirmed that these facts were plainly inconsistent 
with previous statements he made.
  But this episode is not about Ron Fitzsimmons. It is about the 
obligation of the pro-choice movement to be candid and forthcoming to 
members of the public, the President, and Members of this House. I hope 
that the pro-choice community will learn from this episode and use it 
as an occasion to re-channel its efforts toward a reaffirmation of the 
truth in public discourse and a reasonable sense of balance between the 
freedom to choose and taking responsibility for our actions.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time. We have 
a lot less than the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady].
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Poshard].
  Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, those of us who are pro-life are concerned 
about the health of the mother, and I believe those in this body who 
are pro-choice are concerned about the life of the child. We cannot 
reduce this debate to simple accusations which demagog rather than try 
to embrace the whole of our separate concerns, whichever side of this 
debate on which we fall. The dividing line here is the exception of 
health of the mother, which some want to incorporate into in bill. No 
one argues about the need to save the life of the mother.
  I have listened to statements by the AMA and Dr. Koop, and I would 
like to offer a statement by Dr. Bernard Nathanson who has spent a 
great part of his professional life dealing with these issues. Dr. 
Nathanson, when he made this statement, was a visiting scholar at the 
Center for Clinical and Research Ethics at Vanderbilt University. He 
says and I quote:

       With respect to late-term abortions for women who suffer 
     serious health consequences as a result of the pregnancy, let 
     me assure you that this operation, partial-birth abortion, is 
     so fraught with significant surgical hazards and 
     complications that it is more likely to tip the health scales 
     and kill the pregnant woman than it is to save her life. As 
     the hazards and complications of the procedure, I have yet to 
     see in the conventional peer review medical literature a 
     well-controlled, thoroughly documented study of the procedure 
     in question.

                              {time}  1415

  But given my own extensive experience with abortion, I would venture 
with reasonable certainty that the short- and long-term consequences of 
this procedure are, to be charitable, formidable.
  Mr. Speaker, I support this bill and I feel it offers the protection 
necessary for vulnerable children who have no voice in this matter.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Inglis], a member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Mr. INGLIS of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time.
  I am particularly happy to follow the two colleagues that have just 
spoken, because I think that it shows that this truly is an issue on 
which Republicans and Democrats can agree, and particularly it shows 
that even people like the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], who is a 
pro-choice Member, see this procedure as on the other side of the 
acceptable line. I think it is very nice to follow both of my 
colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, I insert in the Record an article from the Sunday Record 
that talks about some of the facts of this procedure and some of the 
implications of it. I think it is very important that we speak the 
truth here and that we get to the bottom of this.
  Basically, what we are talking about is a procedure that I believe, 
and I hope most of our colleagues believe, should not be countenanced 
in a civilized society. It is something really that we cannot tolerate 
in a civilized society, and therefore something that I hope we can all 
vote, Republicans and Democrats and yes, even some pro-choice Members, 
can vote to ban today.

[[Page H1215]]

  The article referred to is as follows:

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

        Review and Outlook: The Facts on Partial-Birth Abortion

                           (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 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 for 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 
     practitioners]'', 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 a 
     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 expansive definition.''


                             Why it's done

       Abortion rights advocates have consistently argued that 
     intact D&Es are used under only the most compelling 
     circumstances. In 1995, 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 fetal abnormality.''
       In February, the National 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 amino 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

[[Page H1216]]

     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 he 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 were ``purely elective.''
       The federation's other leading provider, Dr. McMahon, 
     released a chart to the House 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 fetal 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 procedure, 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 matter 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 America's attention.
       Congress is expected to call for the override vote this 
     week or next, once again turning up the heat 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.
                                                                    ____


  [From the Management of Metropolitan Medical Associates, Englewood, 
                               Sept. 23]

                      Abortion Numbers Questioned

       We, the physicians and administration of Metropolitan 
     Medical Associates, are deeply concerned about the many 
     inaccuracies in the article printed on Sept. 15 titled, ``The 
     facts on partial-birth abortions.''
       The article incorrectly asserts that MMA ``performs 3,000 
     abortions a year on fetuses between 20 and 24 weeks, of which 
     at least half are by intact dilation and evacuation.''
       This claim is false, as is shown in reports to the N.J. 
     Department of Health and documents submitted semiannually to 
     the state Board of Medical Examiners. These statistics show 
     that the total annual number of abortions for the period 
     between 12 and 23.3 weeks is about 4,000, with the majority 
     of these procedures being between 12 and 16 weeks.
       The intact D&E procedure (erroneously labeled by abortion 
     opponents as ``partial-birth abortion'') is used only in a 
     small percentage of cases between 20 and 23.3 weeks, when a 
     physician determines that it is the safest method available 
     for the woman.
       Certainly, the number of intact D&E procedures performed is 
     nowhere near the 1,500 estimated in your article. MMA 
     performs no third-trimester abortions, which the state is 
     permitted to ban except where life and health are endangered.
       Second, the article erroneously states that most women 
     undergoing intact D&E procedures have no medical reason for 
     termination. The article then misquotes a physician from our 
     clinic as stating that ``most are Medicaid patients . . . and 
     most are for elective, not medical, reasons . . . Most are 
     teenagers.''
       This is a misrepresentation of the information provided to 
     the reporter. Consistent with Roe vs. Wade and state law, we 
     do not record a woman's specific reason for having an 
     abortion. However, all procedures for our Medicaid patients 
     are certified as medically necessary, as required by the New 
     Jersey Department of Human Services.
       Because of the sensitive and controversial nature of the 
     abortion issue, we feel that it is critically important to 
     set the record straight.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Inglis, SC, Record, Oct. 2, 1996]

                         Letters to the Editor

       The Record's response:
       The editor replies: The Record stands behind the story and 
     rebuts the claims in Metropolitan Medical's unsigned letter. 
     Company officials subsequently declined through an attorney 
     to have their names appear on the letter.
       Metropolitan Medical's letter contradicts what two 
     prominent staff physicians at the clinic--one of whom is also 
     a high-ranking administrator--told Staff Writer Ruth Padawer 
     independently of each other. The first physician said the 
     clinic each week performs 60 to 100 abortions at 20 weeks 
     gestation or later, or 3,000 to 5,000 a year. The second 
     physician told Padawer that the clinic handles 3,000 such 
     cases a year.
       Both physicians also independently told Padawer that at 
     least half the post-20 week abortions performed at the clinic 
     were by the intact D&E method.
       Metropolitan Medical asserts that it performs no third-
     trimester abortions. The Record never said otherwise; we 
     referred only to abortions between weeks 20 and 24.
       As for the Metropolitan Medical's claim that a quotation by 
     one of its doctors was ``erroneous'': Padawer read back to 
     him all of his quotations, including the one about the 
     Medicaid patients. She also read him the paragraph preceding 
     the following the quotations. He confirmed the accuracy and 
     context of each quotation. He also said he had no problem 
     with their publication, as long as his name was not revealed. 
     We stood by that promise.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Pappas].
  Mr. PAPPAS. Mr. Speaker, when something is wrong, we as a Congress 
are compelled to address the situation. The last Congress moved the 
ball forward and raised awareness that it is time for us to finish the 
job.
  I urge this debate to remain focused on the truth. There are those 
that claim that this procedure is rare, yet one clinic in my home State 
of New Jersey admitted to performing over 1,500 of these abortions that 
occur while the baby's heart is still beating.
  The number of these procedures, which is nothing less than 
infanticide, is too many in New Jersey and far too many in our Nation.
  Day after day, issue after issue, Members take to the floor of the 
House and talk about legislation in terms of how much better it will 
make the lives of the American people. But before we continue on issues 
that might make life better, we must show a greater commitment to life 
itself. We must give life a chance before we can make it better.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
New York [Mrs. Lowey].
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I just would like to clarify several 
statements that we heard from our colleagues. The American College of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists states, and I quote, ``D&X may be the 
best and most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to 
save the life or preserve the health of a woman.''
  My colleagues, do we want to compromise that physician's judgment in 
the delivery room and perhaps cause hazard to the health or life of a 
woman? Let us think carefully.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Arizona [Mr. Salmon].

[[Page H1217]]

  Mr. SALMON. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to stand up here and rant and 
rave or accuse the other side of being evilminded, because frankly, I 
think there are a lot of people over there that strongly believe in 
their position, but I believe they are really misguided. I think 
instead of using their heads, maybe it is time to use their hearts.
  This issue is divided between whether we should save the life of the 
mother or save the life of the child. Life is life. It is important no 
matter whose life it is. It really saddens me that we cannot stand up 
for the most innocent of life.
  We have detailed how gruesome and how disgusting this procedure is. 
Many would stand up when we talk about China, when a baby girl has her 
back snapped when she is born because the people want a baby boy 
instead of a baby girl and they have a one-child policy. We say that is 
disgusting. We say that is infanticide. If this is not infanticide, 
then what is?
  I would think that our God goes to the outer edges of our universe 
and weeps bitterly that a people could do this to the most innocent in 
a society. Let us stand up for all life, be it the life of the mother 
or the life of the baby. Let us stop this heinous practice.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], a distinguished member of the Committee 
on the Judiciary.
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we 
take this solemn occasion in the manner that it should be taken, and 
that is that we are discussing life and death and we are discussing the 
opportunity for the future life and the fertility of a woman.
  I think that this discussion also suggests very clearly that there is 
much disagreement with how we preserve the life and health of the 
mother that then preserves the life and health of the child.
  Doctors disagree, and therefore, it is important to note that we here 
on this floor should not take it upon ourselves to interfere with a 
very important, delicate and personal decision. The American College of 
Gynecologists and Obstetricians says that the best and the most 
appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or 
preserve the health of a woman, can only be decided by the doctor, in 
consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular 
circumstance.
  Why are the Republicans trying to first put upon the floor of the 
House this bill, and then replacing it with last term's bill, and 
refuse to allow any consideration of real legislation that would 
preserve the health of the mother in order to preserve the future 
fertility of a woman.
  What about Vicki Stellar? Vicki wanted a child, however, it was 
determined by her physicians that she had a fetus that did not have a 
brain, whose cranium was filled with water. They wanted this child. 
They named him Anthony. But with her God and the physician and her 
family, they decided that this procedure was the best procedure for 
Vicki to remain fertile. And because of the procedure, it preserved her 
fertility, and she was able to get pregnant again and able to give 
birth to a healthy boy named Nicholas in 1995.
  This Congress had a choice that would have helped more women like 
Vicki. We had a bipartisan approach. We had the Greenwood-Hoyer 
amendment or substitute that my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle could have simply accepted, that would have this Congress to 
preserve the life and health of the mother. This provision, to preserve 
the life and health, was rejected and late into the night the 
Republicans came with an undisclosed piece of legislation.
  King Solomon had this choice, one baby and two women, and he 
represented the government; and King Solomon, in his wisdom, in his 
Biblical wisdom, knew that the women should decide. He took away 
government. The women decided, a life was preserved, the baby survived. 
Leave the choice to the woman, her physician, her family, and her 
spiritual leader.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to voice my opposition to H.R. 1122. 
H.R. 1122 as it is written now presents us with a moral issue, a 
religious issue, and, as Members of Congress who have sworn to uphold 
the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional issue. I admit today that I am 
pro-preserving life over the tragedy of having to abort at late term. 
However, I am also for preserving the life and health of the woman. 
Sadly, we do not do that today.
  Partial birth abortions are performed because a physician, with the 
benefit of his expertise and experience, determines that, given a 
woman's particular circumstances, this procedure is the safest 
available to her; that this is the procedure most likely to preserve 
her health and her future fertility. Only a doctor can make this 
determination. We, in Congress, should not interfere with the close 
relationship that exists between a doctor and patient; but more 
importantly her spiritual leader and her God.
  It is a tragic fact that sometimes a mother's health is threatened by 
the abnormalities of the fetus that she is carrying. When this occurs 
the mother is faced with a terrible decision of whether to carry a 
fetus suffering from fatal anomalies to term and in so doing jeopardize 
her own health and future fertility or whether to abort the fetus and 
preserve her chances of bringing a later healthy life into the world.
  When a woman is faced with this type of painful circumstance, it is 
one that she should face free from government interference. This is too 
intimate, too personal, and too fragile a decision to be a choice made 
by the government. We should protect the sanctity of the woman's right 
to privacy and of the home by letting this choice remain in her hands. 
Families and their physicians, not politicians, should make these 
difficult decisions. It is a decision that should be between a woman, 
her physician, and her God. This legislation criminalizes the legal 
decision of physicians and potentially makes the woman liable.
  I am reminded of the story of King Solomon. In that story Solomon is 
faced with deciding between two women who claim that a certain male 
child is their own. The power and authority to determine to whom that 
child belongs rests only with King Solomon, but in his wisdom this man 
gave those mothers the power to choose the child's fate. In his wisdom, 
King Solomon realized that the relationship between a mother and child 
is one with which the State should not interfere.
  I believe that anti-abortion activists are truly committed to 
preserving the sanctity of life. However, those Members in their 
wisdom, should accept the Greenwood-Hoyer compromise amendment that 
would protect the health and life of the mother. I intend to vote for 
that legislation today. With such an exception this legislation would 
have been made law last year and many of these procedures could have 
been averted. I believe Republicans do not want bipartisan legislation 
to save lives. They simply want a crucifixion.
  In addition, we cannot ignore the fact that H.R. 1122 is 
unconstitutional. We in Congress should not attempt to undercut the law 
of the land as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade. 
In Roe the Supreme Court held that women had a privacy interest in 
electing to have an abortion. This right is qualified, however, and so 
most be balanced against the State's interest in protecting prenatal 
life. The Roe Court determined that post-viability the State has a 
compelling interest in protecting prenatal life and may ban abortion, 
except when necessary to preserve the woman's life or health. In line 
with this decision, 41 States have already passed bans on late-term 
abortions, except where the life or health of the mother is involved.
  In Planned Parenthood versus Casey, the Court held that the States 
may not limit a woman's right to an abortion prior to viability when it 
places an ``undue burden'' on that right. An undue burden is one that 
has ``the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the 
path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.'' Let's not 
try to overturn the law of the land.
  H.R. 1122 in its current form interferes with a woman's access to the 
abortion procedure that her doctor has determined to be safest for her, 
and so unduly burdens her right to choose. It is therefore inconsistent 
with the principles outlined in Roe and Casey, which has been 
reaffirmed by every subsequent Supreme Court decision on this issue, 
and so is unconstitutional.
  I ask my colleagues to vote against H.R. 1122 and in so doing signal 
their commitment to preserving the health and future fertility of 
American women and to upholding the U.S. Constitution.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Wyoming [Mrs. Cubin].
  (Mrs. CUBIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. CUBIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Canady] for his hard work and diligence on this issue.
  I am proud to say that I am an original cosponsor of the ban on 
partial-

[[Page H1218]]

birth abortions. This bill, which is identical to last year's 
legislation, prohibits medical doctors who perform abortions from 
utilizing partial-birth abortion procedures.
  I am married to a physician, and we have discussed this a lot of 
times throughout our married life and just through our intimate lives. 
Taking a life, a viable life, at any stage is not acceptable. One time 
my son said to me, ``Mom, you know, I do not believe there is such a 
thing as an unwanted child.'' I believe there is such a thing as 
unwanted pregnancies, but not an unwanted child, and especially when 
that life could be viable outside the womb and when the life could go 
on.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 929 imposes fines or potential imprisonment of up 
to 2 years for abortionists who perform partial-birth abortion, and it 
allows the father or maternal grandparents to file a civil lawsuit 
against the doctor for monetary damages. The bill, however, does 
include an exception to save the life of the mother.
  Since the beginning of the debate over this legislation, it has 
become evident that there is still a great deal of misinformation about 
how often this procedure is actually utilized. In the last few weeks, 
much has been made of the abortion rights lobbyist, Ron Fitzsimmons, 
who admitted, and I quote, ``lying through his teeth'' when he said the 
procedure was rare and invoked almost exclusively to protect the 
mother's health. He was lying through his teeth when he said that.
  A national organization of over 400 physicians who specialize in 
obstetrics, gynecology, fetal medicine, and pediatrics recently stated 
that, ``Never is the partial-birth procedure medically indicated. 
Rather, such infants are regularly and safely delivered alive with no 
threat to the mother's health or fertility.''
  Mr. Speaker I ask my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Texas, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
admit that I am not pro-abortion. My roots consist of growing up in the 
Catholic church and being educated at a Catholic college. I am a nurse, 
and I am pro-choice.
  A woman's decision to undergo an abortion procedure is one of the 
most personally agonizing decisions she will have to make. In late term 
abortions, women have had the opportunity to choose abortion and did 
not because they wanted the child. But because of some untoward turn of 
health events, sometimes this procedure becomes necessary.
  To the maximum extent possible, the Government should avoid any 
intrusion into this painful process. The Government cannot and should 
not replace family, friends, clergy, and physicians. These are not the 
kind of issues that any woman comes to this body to ask for an answer. 
This is not where they seek that advice.
  We have been guaranteed by our Constitution a right to privacy and a 
freedom of religion. This is not the proper body to discuss life and 
death issues that licensed physicians and families should be making 
without the intrusion of this body.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Nebraska [Mr. Christensen].
  Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot about the life of the 
mother, but that is in this bill, right here. It says, ``it is 
necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a 
physical disorder, illness or injury.''
  Mr. Speaker, in the name of compassion, in the name of mercy, what 
about the choice of the unborn child? Hear her scream, hear his scream. 
How can we continue to defend something as gruesome as this? Have mercy 
on this body.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton].

                              {time}  1430

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, the results of this debate are a foregone conclusion, 
yet this matter is too serious to have been treated as it has been, as 
a setup. There was a better way.
  We have questions that need answering: Why a bill that is 
unconstitutional on its face in defiance of Roe versus Wade? Why a bill 
that was never considered in committee? Why a bill that trades off 
mother for fetus? Why a bill that is sure to be vetoed? Why a bill that 
lower Federal courts have already indicated was unconstitutional? Why a 
bill that makes a tragic necessity for a late-term abortion even more 
tragic?
  This is very serious. It deserved to be treated seriously. It 
deserved the bipartisan solution that was indeed available. We have 
compounded the tragedy of late-term abortions here today.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Mica].
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, for many of us as Christians we begin to 
celebrate Easter this week. Easter, for our faith, represents the 
triumph of life over death. This legislation today could represent the 
triumph of life over death for thousands of the unborn.
  How ironic it is for our President to surround himself with children 
and many photo opportunities, and submit legislation to this Congress 
to provide health coverage to our children, and then to veto 
legislation banning the slaughter of innocent unborn.
  This great Nation really is separated from other nations not just by 
a standard of material wealth, but rather, and most exclusively, by our 
standards of justice. I ask the Members, how can we claim that justice 
prevails in our Nation when we allow this barbaric procedure to 
continue unchecked? How can we as a Congress and a nation continue to 
ignore the health and life of children?
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
  Ms. DeLauro. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a letter which I 
received yesterday from a constituent in Hamden, CT:

       Dear Congresswoman DeLauro: I am writing to implore you to 
     vote against the bill banning late-term dilation and 
     evacuation, more commonly known as ``partial-birth 
     abortions''. The bill would ban this abortion when a mother's 
     or the fetus' health is the reason for this choice. This is a 
     very personal issue to me since I am one of the women who 
     opted to undergo this procedure.
       We had been trying to conceive a child for more than a year 
     and were in the process of undergoing infertility testing 
     when, to our surprise and utter joy, we discovered that I was 
     pregnant. I spent many hours talking and singing to my child, 
     and dreaming of her future; dreams which all shattered when a 
     routine blood test at 16 weeks revealed abnormalities.
       I was urged to undergo amnio- centesis and ultrasound. I 
     found myself lying on that table praying. I knew in my heart 
     that something was terribly wrong.
       The 2 weeks that followed were among the longest of my 
     life. At one point I awakened from a nightmare sobbing. Ten 
     days later, my husband came home early from work. He sat down 
     on our bed and told me that our doctor had called him and the 
     news was not good. He burst into tears.
       We met with our Rabbi and a genetics counselor from the 
     hospital. Our baby had a very rare chromosomal abnormality, 
     so rare it did not have a name. The genetic counselor came to 
     our home with all the case studies she could find relating to 
     this disorder, fewer than ten. Perhaps there were so few 
     cases because most died young or died in utero.
       On December 7, 1992, I chose to end this much-desired and 
     sought-after pregnancy. More than 4 years later I still mourn 
     the loss of this child, a little girl. I know that our 
     decision was the right one for all concerned and I am 
     thankful that we have the right to make it. I feel certain 
     that it was a decision that no woman wants to make, but one 
     which in some situations is the least horrific of truly 
     horrendous alternatives.
       After more struggles with infertility, we were finally 
     blessed with a wonderful, happy baby girl. She turned 2 years 
     old last month and has been an endless source of joy and 
     comfort to us. . . . There really are extenuating 
     circumstances that require truly horrible measures to be 
     taken. Thank you. Please continue in your efforts to keep 
     abortion legal, even late in a pregnancy.

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Kansas [Mr. Ryun].
  Mr. RYUN. Mr. Speaker, the Lord has blessed my wife and me with four 
precious children. When they were babies I held them, I fed them, I 
took care of them, and I even helped change their diapers. I knew then 
that if anyone would really try and hurt them, that I would do whatever 
I could to defend them, and as I know all the Members would here with 
their children.
  This is the time to stand up and to defend the innocent, the children 
of our

[[Page H1219]]

country. We in this Chamber have been elected to defend the truths of 
our country, one of which is we believe in the rights of the 
individual, the pursuit of life and liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness.
  Have we as citizens allowed our minds and hearts to be seared in such 
a way that the crushing of the skull that was described earlier and the 
sucking out of the brains of a head that is still in the mother's womb 
is really be considered a defensible act? This is a gruesome act, and 
if Members winch when I talk about that, then they should. How can we 
allow this to continue? We must stop this. A Nation cannot long endure 
which condones participation in such brutality and uncivilized acts.
  Mr. Speaker, I challenge my colleagues that are here today and will 
vote later that we end this uncivilized and brutal act of partial-birth 
abortions.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New York, Jerry Nadler, the ranking member of our 
subcommittee.
  (Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, this bill says very clearly that a fetus is 
more important than the physical health of the mother. But this bill is 
not about abortion. We all have different views. Some people view 
abortion as murder. Some think it is perfectly permissible. Some think 
it permissible up to a certain stage, others to a later stage. The 
Supreme Court says the constitutionally guaranteed right to choose is 
until viability.
  But this bill is not about abortion, it is about electoral politics. 
If an abortion is permitted under our law at 20 weeks or at 23 weeks or 
at 24 weeks, what moral distinction, what moral distinction is there 
between whether the fetus is killed in the uterus and then extracted or 
partially extracted and then killed? The fetus is still dead, it is an 
abortion. An abortion involves killing a fetus.
  We have different views on abortion here, but the Supreme Court, the 
Constitution guarantees the right to abortion. There is no moral 
distinction. It is purely electoral politics, an electoral politics in 
which the majority wishes to put the health of the mother at risk.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly oppose this unprecedented and mean-
spirited assault on the constitutional right to choose.
  What this bill says very clearly is that a fetus is more important 
than the physical health of the mother.
  So, let us say a woman becomes pregnant, and while she's pregnant the 
father rapes her, and beats her to a pulp, and throws her down the 
stairs.
  This abuse then causes severe damage to her and to the fetus, and the 
doctor tells her that, because of her injuries, carrying the pregnancy 
to term will probably result in permanent severe physical injury, 
perhaps leaving her sterilized or paralyzed for life. Maybe the fetus 
is so severely damaged that it has no chance at life.
  Even if the doctor determines that the best abortion procedure to 
protect her life and health is the one that would be banned by this 
bill, this woman cannot have that procedure.
  This woman, who is now severely traumatized, who is injured by the 
battering, would be forced to have another procedure that could leave 
her sterile, or paralyzed. The bill supporters seem to believe that it 
is OK.
  How dare any Member, have the arrogance to step in at this critical 
moment and say they know best, that they have the right to make this 
difficult decision.
  If she decides to have the abortion anyway, this bill would allow the 
father to sue her and her doctor. My amendments, which were accepted by 
the committee and included in the bill up until last night, would have 
prevented abusive fathers, or fathers who abandon women, from suing for 
damages. But this provision has been taken out.
  Some Members of this House may believe that women have abortions for 
trivial reasons. Some have even suggested that a woman who has had a 
fight with her boyfriend might have a late term abortion. That is a 
vile slander against every woman in America today. In fact, women who 
choose to have abortions do not do so lightly. Some Members of Congress 
may not see women as rational and moral individuals, but the 
Constitution still recognizes their moral and individual autonomy. That 
is why it prohibits governmental intrusions like this bill.
  But this is not about abortion. It is about electoral politics.
  How dare a bunch of Washington politicians presume to dictate to 
American women faced with a difficult situation--in many cases, with a 
fetus that will not be able to survive and grow--children without 
brains, or with brains growing on the outside of their heads--women who 
are faced with the prospect of death or sterility from a ruptured 
uterus if they don't have this procedure. These are wrenching, life-
altering moments. These women have in many instances named their 
babies, furnished nurseries, notified grandparents, and then, in an 
instant, their dreams are wiped out by tragedy.
  Do we really want to make this situation the subject of a criminal 
prosecution or a law suit? Do we really want to see doctors in 
handcuffs? Do we really want to put doctors behind bars for doing what 
they believe is in the best interest of their patients? Do we really 
want to make women and their medical providers go to court to prove in 
lengthy litigation that death would have occurred in any event? Can 
this always be proved, and if so, how certain do you have to be? Is a 
50 percent chance of death tolerable under this law? Twenty-five 
percent? And a threat to a woman's health or to her ability to try to 
have more children doesn't even rate consideration in this bill.
  By refusing to add an exception in order to avoid serious health 
consequences to the woman, the proponents of this bill are admitting 
that they would rather argue this issue, than ban this procedure.
  Shame on this House for having the arrogance to judge people in this 
most vulnerable and tragic of circumstances. Shame on this House for 
playing politics with the lives of American families.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time 
for the purpose of closing.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Pelosi]
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Canady legislation, because 
this bill would force doctors to choose between their best medical 
judgment and a prison sentence. The bill is an unprecedented intrusion 
by Congress into medical decisionmaking, and in fact, indeed, lacks 
respect for women.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation, and heed the 
words of Vicky Wilson, who said, ``I strongly believe this decision 
should be left within the intimacy of the family unit. We are the ones 
who have to live with the decision.'' Indeed, Vicky had to do that when 
she was faced with carrying a fetus who had a fatal condition, and 
carrying it to term would have imperiled her life and her health.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Canady legislation.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I have not listened to all of the debate, but I know the 
substance of I think all the debate. There has been some discussion 
about dishonesty, misrepresentation that existed on the pro-choice 
side, and I suggest to Members that exists on the pro-life side of this 
issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this bill, and will offer at the 
appropriate time legislation which will in fact speak to stopping late-
term abortions.
  Will it have exceptions? Yes, it will. I think the overwhelming 
majority of Americans support exceptions. In fact, the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Hyde] supports exceptions, rape and incest. As I have 
pointed out to the Committee on Rules, rape and incest is not a 
physical competition, it is a mental health exception.
  I think, in fairness to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], he 
intellectually does not believe that ought to be accepted. I think he 
is intellectually honest in that position. We have legitimate 
differences.
  This bill deals with one procedure, as if to say that this procedure 
ought to be eliminated. My good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Smith], for whom I have great respect and affection, will tell us, 
I think, that none of the alternative procedures are humane, are 
appropriate, are anything but murder. I think that is his position.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I would yield.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Will the gentleman yield?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
  The gentleman will suspend.

[[Page H1220]]

  The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Conyers] has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas, Mr. Chet Edwards.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards] is 
recognized for 1 minute.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, when I first voted on this bill in November 
of 1995, I agonized about it, because my wife was pregnant, 8 months 
pregnant with our first child, a child that I had prayed and hoped for.
  Fortunately, that baby was born and is today the joy of our life. But 
I voted against this bill at that time because I felt no one, no one in 
this House had the right to tell my wife or me what we should do if her 
health or her fertility had been at risk.
  Today I am voting against this bill with another person in mind, the 
child by the name of Nicholas Stella, born 1 week before our first 
blessed child came into this world. Had this bill been law 3 years ago, 
Nicholas Stella would not be alive today. What right does any Member of 
this House to tell Vicky Stella that she should have been denied the 
joy of having her son, just as we have had the joy, so many of us, of 
having children ourselves?
  I am voting pro-life. I am voting for the lives of Nicholas Stella 
and all the other children who would not be alive today had this bill 
been the law of the land.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield the balance 
of my time to the gentleman from from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], chairman of 
the Committee on the Judiciary.
  (Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I beg of my colleagues the courtesy of not 
asking me to yield. I do not intend to yield. I have much to say and 
little time to say it in.
  Mr. Speaker, when you have a theme as large and as profound as ours 
is today, you need the help of great literature to describe the 
magnitude of the horror of partial-birth abortion. I suppose Edgar 
Allen Poe could describe it, but it is startling how the words of the 
ghost of Hamlet's father seem to anticipate our debate today:

       I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up 
     thy soul, freeze thy young blood; make thy two eyes, like 
     stars, start from their spheres; thy knotted and combined 
     locks to part; and each particular hair to stand on end, like 
     quills upon the fretful porcupine.

  There is no Member of this House who does not know in excruciating 
detail what is done to a human being in a partial-birth abortion. A 
living human creature is brought to the threshold of birth. She is 
four-fifths born, her tiny arms and legs squirming and struggling to 
live. Her skull is punctured. The wound is deliberately widened. Her 
brains are sucked out. The remains of the deceased are extracted. In 
the words of the abortion lobby, the baby undergoes demise. What a 
creative addition to the lexicon of dehumanization.
  If calling an infant a fetus helps you, if calling this obscene act 
intact dilation and evacuation assuages your conscience, by all means 
do so. Anything is better than a troubling conscience. But you must 
know the only thing intact in this procedure is the baby, before, of 
course, the abortionist plunges his scissors, his assault weapon, into 
her tiny neck. Then she is not very intact.
  Something was rotten in the state of Denmark in Shakespeare's great 
drama. Something is rotten in the United States when this barbarity is 
not only legally sanctioned but declared a fundamental constitutional 
right.
  While we are on Hamlet, who can forget the most famous question in 
all literature: ``To be or not to be?'' Every abortion asks that 
question, but forbids an answer from the tiny defenseless victim 
struggling to live.
  When this issue was debated in the last Congress, the President and 
the defenders of partial-birth abortion claimed that the procedure was, 
in the President's now familiar euphemism, rare, and that it was used 
only in times of grave medical necessity. All of us know now, as many 
of us knew then, that those claims were lies. They were lies. The 
executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers 
admitted on national television that he and others in the pro-abortion 
camp simply flatly lied about the incidence of partial-birth abortion.
  It is not the case that these abortions are rare. It is not the case 
that this procedure is used only reluctantly and in extremis. It is not 
the case that this procedure is used only in instances of medical 
emergency. Partial-birth abortion, infanticide in plain English, is 
business as usual in the abortion industry. That is what the executive 
director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers told us.
  Is this House prepared to defend the proposition that infanticide is 
a fundamental constitutional right?
  Partial-birth abortion is not about saving life. Partial-birth 
abortion is about killing. Killing is an old story in the human drama, 
fratricide scarred the first human family, according to Genesis, but 
the moral prohibition on killing is as old as the temptation to kill. 
Most of the familiar translations of the Bible render the commandment, 
Thou shalt not kill. A more accurate translation of the Hebrew text 
would read, Thou shalt not do murder. That is to say, Thou shalt not 
take a life wantonly for the purposes of convenience or problem solving 
or economic benefit, nor trade a human life for any lesser value.
  The commandment in the Decalogue against doing murder is not 
sectarian dogma. Its parallel is found in every moral code in human 
history. Why? Because it has been understood for millennia that the 
prohibition against wanton killing is the foundation of civilization.
  There can be no civilized life in a society that sanctions wanton 
killing. There can be no civil society when the law makes the weak, the 
defenseless and the inconvenient expendable. There can be no real 
democracy if the law denies the sanctity of every human life. The 
founders of our Republic knew this. That is why they pledged their 
lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor to the proposition that every 
human being has an inalienable right to life.
  Our Constitution promises equal protection under the law. Our daily 
pledge is for liberty and justice for all. Where is the protection, 
where is the justice in partial-birth infanticide?

  Over more than two centuries of our national history, we Americans 
have been a people who struggled to widen the circle of those for whom 
we acknowledge a common responsibility. Slaves were freed, women were 
even franchised, civil rights and voting rights acts were passed. Our 
public spaces made accessible to the handicaped, Social Security 
mandated for the elderly, all in the name of widening the circle of 
inclusion and protection.
  This great trajectory in our national experience, that of inclusion, 
has been shattered by Roe versus Wade and its progeny. By denying an 
entire class of human beings the protection of the laws, we have 
betrayed the best in our tradition. We have also put at risk every life 
which someone, some day, somehow might find inconvenient. ``No man is 
an island,'' preached the Dean of St. Paul's in Elizabethan times. He 
also said, ``Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in 
mankind.''
  We cannot today repair all the damage done to the fabric of our 
culture by Roe versus Wade. We cannot undo the injustice that has been 
done to 35 million tiny members of the human family who have been 
summarily killed since the Supreme Court, strip-mining the 
Constitution, discovered therein a fundamental right to abortion. But 
we can stop the barbarity of partial-birth abortion. We can stop it. We 
must stop it, and we diminish our own humanity if we fail.
  Historians tell us we live in the bloodiest century in human history. 
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, the mountain of corpses reaches to 
the heavens and hundreds of millions of innocents cry out for justice.
  We cannot undo the horrors inflicted on the human spirit. We cannot 
repair the wounds already sustained by civilization. We can only say, 
never again.
  But in saying never again, we commit ourselves to defend the sanctity 
of life. In saying no to the horrors of 20th century slaughter, we 
solemnly pledge

[[Page H1221]]

not to do murder, because the honoring of that pledge is all that 
stands between us and the moral jungle.
  Mr. Speaker, we have had enough of the killing. The constitutional 
fabric has been shredded by an unenumerated abortion license which, sad 
to say, includes the vicious cruelty of partial-birth abortion. The 
moral culture of our country is eroding when we tolerate a cruelty so 
great that its proponents do not even wish us to learn the truth about 
this procedure.
  This Congress has been blatantly, willfully, maliciously lied to by 
proponents of the abortion license.
  Enough. Enough of the lies, enough of the cruelty, enough of the 
distortion of the Constitution. There is no constitutional right to 
commit this barbarity. That is what we are being asked to affirm.
  In the name of humanity, let us do so, and in the words of St. Paul, 
``Now is the acceptable time.''


                ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). The Chair would remind 
visitors in the gallery that they are not allowed to express approval 
or disapproval. The Chair asks that they respect that rule.
  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago, a national journalist 
asked, ``What kind of nation are we that would allow a procedure known 
as the partial birth abortion?''
  I am proud to be an original cosponsor of H.R. 929--the Partial-Birth 
Abortion Ban Act of 1997. Currently, thousands of these types of 
abortions are performed annually from the fifth and sixth months of 
pregnancy through the full term on healthy mothers carrying healthy 
babies--babies that have reached the point of viability.
  The partial birth abortion is so gruesome, even some supporters of 
abortion are opposed to it. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan refers to 
this heinous procedure as infanticide. In 1995, the American Medical 
Association's Legislative Council--a panel consisting of 12 doctors--
unanimously voted to recommend banning partial birth abortions. One of 
these doctors described the procedure as ``basically repulsive.'' More 
than 300 physicians and medical specialists joined former U.S. Surgeon 
General C. Everett Koop last year in saying that this procedure is 
never medically necessary to protect a mother's life or her future 
fertility.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate and disturbing that President Clinton, 
even when presented with clear medical evidence, refuses to support a 
ban on partial birth abortions. Opponents of the ban on this type of 
abortion characterized the procedure, in previous congressional 
debates, as a rare technique seldom used for anything but protection of 
the life of the mother or in cases of extreme fetal abnormality. But 
then, Mr. Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition 
of Abortion Providers, a pro-abortion group, admitted that he ``lied 
through his teeth'' last year when he said that this procedure is rare 
and only performed about 500 times a year under extreme circumstances. 
Mr. Fitzsimmons now says that thousands upon thousands of these 
procedures are performed every year, on primarily healthy women with 
healthy babies.
  Mr. Speaker, I have four young children. During each of my wife's 
pregnancies, modern technology allowed me to hear our babies' 
heartbeats. Sonograms allowed me to see inside the womb as my children 
kicked and moved. I watched their heartbeats and counted their fingers 
and toes. In later stages, I touched and felt their movements inside 
their mother. These experiences presented clear and unmistakable 
evidence that there is life before birth.
  Through recent technological advances, we now know many things about 
child development prior to birth. Sonograms and other technologies make 
it possible for all parents to hear, see, and touch our children before 
actual delivery. With this new knowledge, we cannot turn our backs on 
our responsibility to protect the lives of innocent children.
  We must ask ourselves the same question as the journalist, ``What 
kind of nation are we that would allow partial birth abortions?'' An 
early observer of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, said ``America is 
great because America is good.'' If this is to continue to be true, we 
must act now to stop this grisly procedure that opponents and 
supporters of abortion alike refer to as infanticide.
  Mr. Speaker, it's time to call on our Nation's conscience and the 
``better angels of our nature.'' It's time to stop partial birth 
abortions and pass this bill for our children. We are a better Nation 
than one that allows such practices to exist. We can start here to 
renew and reaffirm that we hold certain truths as self-evident--that 
life and liberty are inseparable and both should be held as sacred.
  Ms. McCARTHY of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, when Congress considers issues 
as critical as those debated today involving the life and health of 
American women, public policy considerations should take precedence 
over partisan politics. I am disappointed that we were unable to engage 
in such a discussion on this difficult issue.
  The procedural maneuvers of the majority party removed all hope of 
having meaningful consideration of the late term abortion issue. The 
original language proposed in H.R. 929 was dropped by the Rules 
Committee last night and the consideration of the bipartisan Hoyer-
Greenwood measure prohibited. The Frank motion would have allowed the 
House to reflect further on language which would provide necessary 
safeguards for women who might have no other option but to use this 
procedure.
  I firmly support the current law of the land regarding a woman's 
right to privacy. I believe that viable pregnancies dictate more 
protection and that adopting the Frank language is a reasonable 
solution. Unfortunately, political gamesmanship has thwarted thoughtful 
policymakers who want to meaningfully address this issue.
  I have wrestled with this difficult vote in terms of balancing my 
concern associated with this specific procedure and the need to observe 
the Roe decision which reflects the mainstream in Congress and in 
America. I will continue to work for a more thoughtful deliberation by 
the House of Representatives on this divisive issue.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this important 
subject.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I do not favor late-term abortions and feel 
they should only be allowed when necessary to preserve the life of or 
prevent serious health consequences to the mother. The bill we are 
considering today, like the similar bill I opposed last year, does not 
protect a woman from serious threats to her health--from serious 
threats to her future ability to have children.
  Unfortunately, the leadership did not allow us to consider an 
alternative today that does provide an exception to preserve the life 
of the mother or to prevent serious health consequences to the mother. 
I support the Greenwood-Hoyer legislation that would ban all late-term 
abortions--not just those considered ``partial-birth'' abortions in 
H.R. 1122--except in cases when necessary to preserve the life of or to 
prevent serious health consequences to the mother, as required by the 
Supreme Court.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in earnest support of the 
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. I thank the chairman of the 
Constitution Subcommittee, Mr. Candy, for yielding and for his 
dedication to this cause. It is regrettable the President vetoed this 
bill, but thankfully, Mr. Candy, along with Chairman Hyde, have 
continued the fight and today we again have the opportunity to present 
our case to the American people and to appeal directly to the President 
to reconsider his misguided position.
  The President's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is 
indefensible and his reason for vetoing the bill does not hold up under 
scrutiny. The President claims this abortion procedures is the ``only 
way,'' for women with certain prenatal complications to avoid serious 
physical damage, including the ability to bear further children. If 
this is accurate, then why is partial-birth abortion not taught in a 
single medical residency program anywhere in the United States? Why has 
no peer-reviewed medical research ever endorsed it?
  The fact is a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve 
the health or future fertility of the mother. However, you do not have 
to take my word for it. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has 
stated he believes the President was ``mislead by his medical advisors 
on what is fact and what is fiction in reference to late-term 
abortions.'' Dr. Koop concluded that there was no way he could twist 
his mind to see that a partial-birth abortion is a medical necessity 
for the mother. Hundreds of other doctors have come forward to 
reiterate Dr. Koop's position. The sad and dangerous fact is the 
partial-birth abortion procedure itself is very risky and poses a 
significant threat to the pregnant woman's health and fertility.
  The difference between a partial-birth abortion and homicide is a 
mere 3 inches. A Congress, President, and society that strives for 
civility and decency should not tolerate such barbarism.
  Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to late-term abortions except in 
cases where it is absolutely necessary to preserve the life or the 
health of the mother. Accordingly, I am opposed to H.R. 929 because it 
does not provide for the serious health concerns of the mother when she 
and her doctor believe that her health is in jeopardy.
  This procedure should only be used in cases where there is a serious 
risk to a woman's life or health, and I believe that H.R. 929

[[Page H1222]]

could have been drafted to allow a limited exception for those cases in 
which it is truly necessary.
  Currently the 40 States--including Pennsylvania--that prohibit 
postviability abortions must provide exceptions for the life and health 
of the mother. Surely the supporters of H.R. 929 could have written 
exceptions that would prohibit the procedure in most cases but that 
would allow women and their physicians, in the most limited and serious 
of cases, access to a procedure that will preserve both the life and 
health of the women involved.
  Further, I believe that H.R. 929 is inconsistent with Supreme Court 
precedent set forth in Roe versus Wade and upheld in Planned Parenthood 
versus Casey. Even those Justices who dissented in Roe asserted that 
life and health exceptions in abortion laws could not constitutionally 
be forbidden. Further, the Supreme Court has consistently held--in both 
Roe and Casey--that States cannot prohibit abortions before fetal 
viability. Because H.R. 929 does not provide an exception for threats 
to the mother's health, and because it prohibits some previability 
abortions, I believe that the legislation is unconstitutional and would 
be declared so by the current Supreme Court.
  I believe that H.R. 929 is a tragedy. It is a tragedy not only 
because of the terrible consequences it will have for women facing 
devastating circumstances, but also because of the manner in which the 
bill has been moved through the legislative process. The legislation's 
proponents fully realize the constitutional infirmities of H.R. 929 and 
they fully realize the likelihood that the Supreme Court will declare 
the legislation unconstitutional. They have nevertheless persisted in 
refusing to incorporate changes in the legislation that would allow it 
to become law and thereby consistent with Supreme Court decisions. 
Because of the bill's supporters' intransigence, the good that could 
come from limiting the number of late-term abortions--with the 
appropriate constitutional protections--may never be realized. I can 
only conclude that this legislation is being exploited for political 
gain. That is a tragedy.
  For these reasons, I cannot support H.R. 929.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of the Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban Act, I wish to express my support for outlawing the 
troublesome practice of partial-birth abortions. I cosponsored and 
supported this legislation during the last session of Congress and 
voted to override the President's unfortunate veto of the bill.
  As my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Mr. Hyde, so eloquently 
pointed out earlier, partial-birth abortion is, in many respects, a 
polite term for infanticide. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I ask you: What will 
future generations think of a society that allows this practice? For 
the moral health of our country, and for future generations, we should 
take action today to ban partial birth abortions.
  Opponents of the ban suggest that partial-birth abortions are needed 
to protect mothers with pregnancy-related complications, but this 
argument simply does not hold up to the testimony of abortion providers 
and medical experts. Indeed, the executive director of the National 
Coalition of Abortion Providers has admitted that, in most cases, the 
partial-birth abortion procedure is performed on a healthy mother with 
a healthy fetus more than 20 weeks old. Former Surgeon General of the 
United States C. Everett Koop has said that there is ``no way'' he can 
see a medical necessity for this barbaric procedure. The American 
American Medical Association's legislative council has unanimously 
supported the partial-birth abortion ban.
  Congress has the opportunity today to do the right thing by banning 
partial-birth abortions. We have a duty to protect the unborn from this 
horrific procedure. I hope my colleagues will listen to their 
consciences and vote to make partial-birth abortions illegal once and 
for all.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 
1122, the late-term abortion ban, which represents a direct challenge 
to Roe versus Wade and a woman's right to choose. I cannot support 
legislation which takes choices about a woman's health from her, her 
family, and her doctor, and places them in the hands of legislators.
  And make no mistake about it: that's exactly what this bill is 
designed to do. With no exception for the health of the mother, this 
bill is not about families and children; it's about laying the 
groundwork for an assault on reproductive choice.
  Since the initial introduction of this bill, I have met with a number 
of women who had the procedure this bill attempts to ban, and in each 
case the story was the same. These were wanted children but, to each 
woman's horror, it was learned at 30 weeks or more of pregnancy that 
the baby had such severe deformities--no internal organs, a brain 
outside the head, no brain--as to prevent its survival outside the 
womb. As Coreen Costello told me:

       In my 30th week of my third pregnancy, I had a procedure 
     that would have been banned by [H.R. 1122]. Our daughter, 
     Katherine Grace, was diagnosed with a lethal neurological 
     disorder that left her unable to move any part of her tiny 
     body for almost two months. Her muscles had stopped growing 
     and her vital organs were failing. Her head was swollen with 
     fluid, her little body was stiff and rigid and excess fluid 
     was puddling in my uterus. Our doctors--some of the best 
     medical experts in the world--told us there was no hope for 
     our daughter. Because of our strong pro-life views, we 
     rejected having an abortion. But when it became apparent that 
     the pregnancy was affecting my health and might ruin my 
     fertility, we knew we had to act and an intact D&E was the 
     best option for my circumstances.

  For women like Coreen Costello, the ability to bear children in the 
future will be jeopardized if they do not have the medical option that 
H.R. 1122 bans. This is a tremendously difficult, painful, and above 
all personal choice, and legislators should not force their will on 
women or medical professionals in this situation.
  Mr. Speaker, there is simply no reason not to include an exemption in 
this bill for a woman's health. The fact that there is no such 
exemption in the bill's language points to the political nature of this 
legislation. I urge my colleagues to consider the importance of 
protecting women, and to vote against this bill.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, once again we are on the 
floor of the House to discuss the partial birth abortion. Because of 
the political debate surrounding this important issue, advocates have 
been able to take a truly horrific procedure and whittle it down to a 
5-second soundbite, a paragraph in type, and a few diagrams and charts; 
none of which can truly capture this gruesome operation. Gruesome as it 
is, however, the debate should not be about the operation itself, but 
rather its victim.
  We are often quick to forget in this age of convenience, that as a 
result of each one of these procedures, a single, special, unique human 
life is lost. Each time, a life is stolen along with all of its 
potential and promise and we will never know how many future 
astronauts, fathers, teachers, counselors have been lost in the 
mechanical movement of those metzenbaum scissors.
  As recent information has shown, most of the lives snuffed out are 
those of healthy, viable children whose only crime is temporary 
inconvenience. Each one is a hope, a future, and a promise that is lost 
and can never be recovered.
  Mr. Speaker, today we have the opportunity to make a difference, to 
protect the lives and futures of these victims. For their future, I 
urge my colleagues to vote for this bill and I will look forward to the 
Senate and President joining us in our important work.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker I rise today in strong support of the 
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, just as I did a year ago. I would like 
to insert into the Record the following column by Charles Krauthammer, 
which destroys many of the myths surrounding this issue.

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 14, 1997]

                      Saving the Mother? Nonsense

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       Even by Washington standards, the debate on partial-birth 
     abortion has been remarkably dishonest.
       First, there were the phony facts spun by opponents of the 
     ban on partial-birth abortion. For months, they had been 
     claiming that this grotesque procedure occurs (1) very 
     rarely, perhaps only 500 times a year in the United States, 
     (2) only in cases of severe fetal abnormality, and (3) to 
     save the life or the health of the mother.
       These claims are false. The deception received enormous 
     attention when Ron Fitzsimmons, an abortion-rights advocate 
     admitted that he had ``lied through his teeth'' in making up 
     facts about the number of and rationale for partial-birth 
     abortions.
       The number of cases is many times higher--in the multiple 
     thousands. And the majority of cases involve healthy mothers 
     aborting perfectly healthy babies. As a doctor at a New 
     Jersey clinic that performs (by its own doctors' estimate) at 
     least 1,500 partial-birth abortions a year told the Bergen 
     Record: ``Most are for elective, not medical, reasons: people 
     who didn't realize, or didn't care, how far along they 
     were.''
       Yet when confronted with these falsehoods, pro-abortion 
     advocates are aggressively unapologetic. Numbers are a 
     ``tactic to distract Congress,'' charges Vicki Saporta, 
     executive director of the National Abortion Federation. ``The 
     numbers don't matter.'' Well, sure, now that hers have been 
     exposed as false and the new ones are inconvenient to her 
     case.
       Then, the defenders of partial-birth abortion--led by 
     President Clinton--repaired to their fall-back position: the 
     heart-tugging claim that they are merely protecting a small 
     number of women who, in Clinton's words, would be 
     ``eviscerated'' and their bodies ``ripped . . . to shreds and 
     you could never have another baby'' if they did not have this 
     procedure.
       At his nationally televised press conference last Friday, 
     Clinton explained why this is so: ``These women, among other 
     things, cannot preserve the ability to have

[[Page H1223]]

     further children unless the enormity--the enormous size--of 
     the baby's head is reduced before being extracted from their 
     bodies.''
       Dr. Clinton is presumably talking about hydrocephalus, a 
     condition in which an excess of fluid on the baby's brain 
     creates an enlarged skull that presumably would damage the 
     mother's cervix and birth canal if delivered normally.
       Clinton seems to think that unless you pull the baby out 
     feet first leaving in just the head, jam a sharp scissors 
     into the baby's skull to crack it open, such out the brains, 
     collapse the skull and deliver what is left--this is partial-
     birth abortion--you cannot preserve the future fertility of 
     the mother.
       This is utter nonsense. Clinton is either seriously 
     misinformed or stunningly cynical. A cursory talk with 
     obstetricians reveals that there are two routine procedures 
     for delivering a hydrocephalic infant that involve none of 
     this barbarity. One is simple to tap the excess (cerebral 
     spinal)fluid (draw it out by means of a small tube while the 
     baby is still in utero) to decompress (reduce) the skull to 
     more normal size and deliver the baby alive. The other 
     alternative is Caesarean section.
       Clinton repeatedly insists that these women, including five 
     he paraded at his ceremony vetoing the partial-birth abortion 
     ban last year, had ``no choice'' but partial-birth abortion. 
     Why, even the American College of Obstetricians and 
     Gynecologists, which supports Clinton's veto, concedes that 
     there are ``no circumstances under which this procedure would 
     be the only option to save the life of the mother and 
     preserve the health of the women''--flatly contradicting 
     Clinton.
       Moreover, not only is the partial-birth procedure not the 
     only option. It may be a riskier option than conventional 
     methods of delivery.
       It is not hard to understand that inserting a sharp 
     scissors to penetrate the baby's brain and collapse her skull 
     risks tearing the mother's uterus or cervix with either the 
     instrument or bone fragments from the skull. Few laymen, 
     however, are aware that partial-birth abortion is preceded by 
     two days of inserting up to 25 dilators at one time into the 
     mother's cervix to stretch it open. That in itself could very 
     much compromise the cervix, leaving it permanently 
     incompetent, unable to retain a baby in future pregnancies. 
     In fact, one of the five women at Clinton's veto ceremony had 
     five miscarriages after her partial-birth abortion.
       Why do any partial-birth abortions, then? ``The only 
     possible advantage of partial-birth abortion if you can call 
     it that,'' Dr. Curtis Cook, a specialist in high-risk 
     obstetrics, observes mordantly, ``is that it guarantees a 
     dead baby at time of delivery.''
       Hyperbole? Dr. Martin Haskell, the country's leading 
     partial-birth abortion practitioner, was asked (by American 
     Medical News) why he didn't just dilate the woman's uterus a 
     little bit more and allow a live baby to come out. Answer: 
     ``The point is here you're attempting to do an abortion . . . 
     not to see how do I manipulate the situation so that I get a 
     live birth instead.''
       We mustn't have that.
  Mr. LARGENT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the following 
article from the American Medical News into the Record.

             [From the American Medical News, Mar. 3, 1997]

             Medicine Adds to Debate on Late-Term Abortion

                         [By Diane M. Gianelli]

       Washington.--Breaking ranks with his colleagues in the 
     abortion rights movement, the leader of one prominent 
     abortion provider group is calling for a more truthful debate 
     in the ongoing battle over whether to ban a controversial 
     late-term abortion procedure.
       In fact, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the 
     National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said he would 
     rather not spend his political capital defending the 
     procedure at all. There is precious little popular support 
     for it, he says, and a federal ban would have almost no real-
     world impact on the physicians who perform late-term 
     abortions or patients who seek them.
       ``The pro-choice movement has lost a lot of credibility 
     during this debate, not just with the general public, but 
     with our pro-choice friends in Congress,'' Fitzsimmons said. 
     ``Even the White House is now questioning the accuracy of 
     some of the information given to it on this issue.''
       He cited prominent abortion rights supporters such as the 
     Washington Post's Richard Cohen, who took the movement to 
     task for providing inaccurate information on the procedure. 
     Those pressing to ban the method call it ``partial birth'' 
     abortion, while those who perform it refer to it as 
     ``intact'' dilation and extraction (D&X) or dilation and 
     evacuation (D&E).
       What abortion rights supporters failed to acknowledge, 
     Fitzsimmons said, is that the vast majority of these 
     abortions are performed in the 20-plus week range on healthy 
     fetuses and healthy mothers. ``The abortion rights folks know 
     it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does 
     everyone else,'' he said.
       He knows it, he says, because when the bill to ban it came 
     down the pike, he called around until he found doctors who 
     did them.
       ``I learned right away that this was being done for the 
     most part in cases that did not involve those extreme 
     circumstances,'' he said.
       The National Abortion Federation's Vicki Saporta 
     acknowledged that ``the numbers are greater than we initially 
     estimated.''
       As for the reasons, Saporta said, ``Women have abortions 
     pre-viability for reasons that they deem appropriate. And 
     Congress should not be determining what are appropriate 
     reasons in that period of time. Those decisions can only be 
     made by women in consultation with their doctors.''


                     Bill's reintroduction expected

       Rep. Charles Canady (R, Fla.) is expected to reintroduce 
     legislation this month to ban the procedure.
       Those supporting the bill, which was also introduced in the 
     Senate, inevitably evoke winces by graphically describing the 
     procedure, which usually involves the extraction of an intact 
     fetus, feet first, through the birth canal, with all but the 
     head delivered. The physician then forces a sharp instrument 
     into the base of the skull and uses suction to remove the 
     brain. The procedure is usually done in the 20- to 24-week 
     range, though some providers do them at later gestations.
       Abortion rights activists tried to combat the images with 
     those of their own, showing the faces and telling the stories 
     of particularly vulnerable women who have had the procedure. 
     They have consistently claimed it is done only when the 
     woman's life is at risk or the fetus has a condition 
     incompatible with life. And the numbers are small, they said, 
     only 500 to 600 a year.
       Furthermore, they said, the fetus doesn't die violently 
     from the trauma to the skull or the suctioning of the brain, 
     but peacefully from the anesthesia given to the mother before 
     the extraction even begins.
       The American Society of Anesthesiologists debunked the 
     latter claim, calling it ``entirely inaccurate.'' And 
     activists' claims about the numbers and reasons have been 
     discredited by the very doctors who do the procedures. In 
     published interviews with such newspapers as American Medical 
     News, The Washington Post and The Record, a Bergen County, 
     N.J., newspaper, doctors who use the technique acknowledged 
     doing thousands of such procedures a year. They also said the 
     majority are done on healthy fetuses and healthy women.
       The New Jersey paper reported last fall that physicians at 
     one facility perform an estimated 3,000 abortions a year on 
     fetuses between 20 and 24 weeks, of which at least half are 
     by intact D&E. One of the doctors was quoted as saying, ``We 
     have an occasional amino abnormality, but it's a minuscule 
     amount. Most are Medicaid patients . . . and most are for 
     elective, not medical reasons: people who didn't realize, or 
     didn't care, how far along they were.''
       A Washington Post investigation turned up similar findings.


                        `spins and half-truths'

       Fitzsimmons says it's time for his movement to back away 
     from the ``spins'' and ``half-truths.'' He does not think 
     abortion rights advocates should ever apologize for 
     performing the procedure, which is what he thinks they are 
     doing by highlighting only the extreme cases.
       ``I think we should tell them the truth, let them vote and 
     move on,'' he said.
       Charlotte Taft, the former director of a Dallas abortion 
     clinic who provides abortion counseling near Santa Fe, N.M., 
     is one of several abortion rights activists who share many of 
     Fitzsimmons' concerns.
       ``We're in a culture where two of the most frightening 
     things for Americans are sexuality and death. And here's 
     abortion. It combines the two,'' Taft said.
       She agrees with Fitzsimmons that a debate on the issue 
     should be straightforward. ``I think we should put it on the 
     table and say, `OK, this is what we're talking about: When is 
     it OK to end these lives? When is it not? Who's in charge? 
     How do we do it?' These are hard questions, and yet if we 
     don't face them in that kind of a responsible way, then we're 
     still having the same conversations we were having 20 years 
     ago.''
       Fitzsimmons thinks his colleagues in the movement shouldn't 
     have taken on the fight in the first place. A better bet, he 
     said, would have been ``to roll over and play dead, the way 
     the right-to-lifers do with rape and incest.'' Federal 
     legislation barring Medicaid abortion funding makes 
     exceptions to save the life of the mother and in those two 
     cases.
       Fitzsimmons cites both political and practical reasons for 
     ducking the fight. ``We're fighting a bill that has the 
     support of, what, 78% of the public? That tells me that we 
     have a PR problem,'' he said, pointing out that several 
     members of Congress who normally support abortion rights 
     voted to ban the procedure the last time the measure was 
     considered.
       From a practical point of view, it also ``wasn't worth 
     going to the mat on. . . . I don't recall talking to any 
     doctor who said, `Ron you've got to save us on this one. They 
     can't outlaw this. It'd be terrible.'' No one said that.''
       He added that ``the real-world impact on doctors and 
     patients is virtually nil.'' Doctors would continue to see 
     the same patients, using an alternative abortion method.
       In fact, many of them already do a variation on the intact 
     D&E that would be completely legal, even if the bill to 
     outlaw ``partial birth'' abortions passed. In that variation, 
     the physician makes sure the fetus is dead before extracting 
     it from the birth canal. The bill would ban only those 
     procedures in which a live fetus is partially vaginally 
     delivered.
       Lee Carhart, MD, a Bellevue, Neb., physician, said last 
     year that he had done about 5,000 intact D&Es, about 1,000 
     during the past

[[Page H1224]]

     two years. He induces fetal death by injecting digoxin or 
     lidocaine into the fetal sac 72 hours before the fetus is 
     extracted.


                             damage control

       Fitzsimmons also questions whether a ban on an abortion 
     procedure would survive constitutional challenge. In any 
     event, he concludes that the way the debate was fought by his 
     side ``did serious harm'' to the image of abortion providers.
       ``When you're a doctor who does these abortions and the 
     leaders of your movement appear before Congress and go on 
     network news and say these procedures are done in only the 
     most tragic of circumstances, how do you think it makes you 
     feel? You know they're primarily done on healthy women and 
     healthy fetuses, and it makes you feel like a dirty little 
     abortionist with a dirty little secret.''
       Saporta says her groups never intended to send this message 
     to doctors.
       ``We believe that abortion providers are in fact maligned 
     and we work 24 hours a day to try to make the public and 
     others understand that these are heroes who are saving 
     women's lives on a daily basis,'' she said.
       When Fitzsimmons criticizes his movement for its handling 
     of this issue, he points the finger at himself first. In 
     November 1995, he was interviewed by ``Nightline'' and, in 
     his own words, ``lied,'' telling the reporter that women had 
     these abortions only in the most extreme circumstances of 
     life endangerment or fetal anomaly.
       Although much of his interview landed on the cutting room 
     floor, ``it was not a shining moment for me personally,'' he 
     said.
       After that, he stayed out of the debate.


                  don't get `sidetracked' by specifics

       While Fitzsimmons is one of the few abortion rights 
     activists openly questioning how the debate played out, it is 
     clear he was not alone in knowing the facts that surround the 
     procedure.
       At a National Abortion Federation meeting held in San 
     Francisco last year, Kathryn Kohlbert, one of the chief 
     architects of the movement's opposition to the bill, 
     discussed it candidly.
       Kohlbert, vice president of the New York-based Center for 
     Reproductive Law and Policy, urged those attending the 
     session not to get ``sidetracked'' by their opponent's 
     efforts to get them to discuss the specifics of the 
     procedure.
       ``I urge incredible restraint here, to focus on your 
     message and stick to it, because otherwise we'll get 
     creamed,'' Kohlbert told the group.
       ``If the debate is whether the fetus feels pain, we lose. 
     If the debate in the public arena is what's the effect of 
     anesthesia, we'll lose. If the debate is whether or not women 
     ought to be entitled to late abortion, we probably will lose.
       ``But if the debate is on the circumstances of individual 
     women . . . and the government shouldn't be making those 
     decisions, then I think we can win these fights,'' she said.


                            public reaction

       The abortion rights movement's newest strategy in fighting 
     efforts to ban the procedure is to try to narrow the focus of 
     the debate to third-trimester abortions, which are far fewer 
     in number than those done in the late second trimester and 
     more frequently done for reasons of fetal anomaly.
       When the debate shifts back to ``elective'' abortions done 
     in the 20- to 24-week range, the movement's response has been 
     to assert that those abortions are completely legal and the 
     fetuses are considered ``pre-viable.''
       In keeping with this strategy, Sen. Thomas Daschle (D, 
     S.D.), plans to introduce a bill banning third-trimester 
     abortions. Clinton, who received an enormous amount of heat 
     for vetoing the ``partial birth'' abortion ban, has already 
     indicated he would support such a bill.
       But critics counter that Daschle's proposed ban--with its 
     ``health'' exception--would stop few, if any, abortions.
       ``The Clinton-Daschle proposal is constructed to protect 
     pro-choice politicians, not to save any babies,'' said 
     Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right 
     to Life Committee.
       Given the broad, bipartisan congressional support for the 
     bill to ban ``partial birth'' abortions last year, it's 
     unlikely Daschle's proposal would diminish support for the 
     bill this session--particularly when Republicans control both 
     houses and therefore, the agenda.
       And given the public reaction to the ``partial birth'' 
     procedure--polls indicate a large majority want to ban it--
     some questions occur: Is the public reaction really to the 
     procedure, or to late-term abortions in general? And does the 
     public really make a distinction between late second- and 
     third-trimester abortions?
       Ethicists George Annas, a health law professor at Boston 
     University, and Carol A. Tauer, PhD, a philosophy professor 
     at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn., say they 
     think the public's intense reaction to the ``partial birth'' 
     abortion issue is probably due more to the public's 
     discomfort with late abortions in general, whether they occur 
     in the second or third trimesters, rather than to just 
     discomfort with a particular technique.
       If Congress decided to pass a bill banning dismemberment or 
     saline abortions, the public would probably react the same 
     way, Dr. Tauer said. ``The idea of a second-trimester fetus 
     being dismembered in the womb sounds just about as bad.''
       Abortions don't have to occur in the third trimester to 
     make people uncomfortable, Annas said. In fact, he said, most 
     Americans see ``a distinction between first-trimester and 
     second-trimester abortions. The law doesn't but people do. 
     And rightfully so.''
       After 20 weeks or so, he added, the American public sees a 
     baby.
       ``The American public's vision of this may be much clearer 
     than [that of] the physicians involved,'' Annas said.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1122, 
the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, as an original cosponsor of similar 
legislation, H.R. 929.
  This important legislation will bring to an end the common practice 
of a most mean and extreme procedure. As we know, Congress adopted the 
Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 1995-96, only to see President 
Clinton veto the measure. The House overrode the President's veto, but 
it was sustained in the Senate. Thus, this grotesque procedure remains 
in place today.
  Partial birth abortion is obviously strongly opposed by Americans who 
are pro-life. But it is so outrageous and so extreme that a respected 
Member of the other body--a member of the President's political party--
said that partial birth abortion is just too close to infanticide. 
Thus, many Americans who are pro-choice also oppose partial birth 
abortion. I expect that many pro-choice Representatives will vote to 
ban partial birth abortion today.
  Unfortunately, supporters of this procedure have gone to every length 
to continue to protect partial birth abortion for every purpose. The 
President justified his veto based on facts which have since been 
debunked.
  The Washington Post editorialized in a piece titled ``Lies and Late-
Term Abortions,'' on March 4, 1997, that ``Ron Fitzsimmons, executive 
director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, has admitted 
. . . that he, and by implication other pro-choice groups, lied about 
the real reasons women seek this particular kind [partial-birth] of 
abortion . . . Mr. Clinton will be hard-pressed to justify a veto on 
the basis of the misinformation on which he rested his case last 
time.'' Mr. Fitzsimmons said he ``lied through his teeth'' about the 
nature and frequency of partial birth abortion in the United States. 
Furthermore, according to Dr. Pamela Smith, the Director of Medical 
Education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mt. Sinai 
Hospital in Chicago, ``there are absolutely no obstetrical situations 
encountered in this country which require a partially-delivered human 
fetus to be destroyed to preserve the health of the mother.''
  I believe all sides of this issue should base their case on the 
truth. And the truth is that partial birth abortion is barbaric. This 
measure represents simple mainstream common sense. I urge support of 
the bill.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. CANADY of Florida and 
I congratulate him on his leadership on this critical issue.
  Let us not fool ourselves about what we are voting on here today. The 
partial-birth abortion procedure inflicts a terrible violence on the 
body of a helpless child. This is not a point of debate--everyone 
acknowledges the medical details of what the abortionist does during a 
partial-birth abortion. It is a violent and horrific procedure.
  And let us be clear. A partial-birth abortion is never medically 
necessary to protect a mother's health or her future fertility. In 
fact, the procedure can significantly threaten a mother's health or 
ability to carry future children to term.
  So how can we--the citizens of a supposedly civilized society--how 
can we say that abortion is a procedure that will be unrestrained and 
unrestricted--that there will be absolutely no limits and no parameters 
placed on this procedure that does such terrible violence to its 
victim.
  Who will speak for the victim--the unborn child, or in this case the 
partially-born child--who has no voice--unless we are their voice, 
unless we speak for them.
  My colleagues, I urge you to speak for these voiceless victims today 
by voting to ban this brutal abortion procedure.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1122, the 
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. This legislation constitutes an 
unprecedented intrusion by Congress into medical decisionmaking, and 
poses a significant risk to women's health. In addition, this 
legislation fails to meet clearly established constitutional standards.
  H.R. 1122, introduced by Congressman Solomon, is identical to the 
partial-birth abortion ban legislation vetoed by President Clinton 
during the 104th Congress. I voted against this measure during the last 
Congress, and will continue to oppose a ban on certain abortion 
procedures that does not provide an exception to protect a woman's life 
or health.
  Moreover, since partial-birth abortion is not a medically recognized 
term, H.R. 1122 uses extremely vague and nonmedical terminology to 
indicate exactly what is outlawed. As a result, the measure could be 
interpreted to prohibit a wide range of medical procedures. 
Furthermore, there are no accepted medical or

[[Page H1225]]

legal guidelines to help doctors determine whether procedures they 
perform may fall within the prohibitions of this bill.
  This would have a devastating impact on a medical community already 
intimidated by murders, threats, and violent blockades of medical 
facilities. Doctors would now fear imprisonment for performing late-
term abortions where a fetus will not survive, or where a woman's life, 
health, or future reproductive capacity may be severely threatened.
  The intact D&E, one of the procedures this bill appears designed to 
outlaw, is used by some physicians who have stated that, in their 
judgment, it best protects their patient's health. In these situations, 
these doctors report that the intact D&E procedure causes less trauma 
to the woman, lowers the risk of unnecessary bleeding and reduces 
complications, including enhancing a woman's prospect for success in 
future pregnancies. In this regard, H.R. 1122 unethically forbids 
doctors from exercising their best professional judgment on behalf of 
their patients.
  Mr. Speaker, a law banning a specific surgical technique would be an 
unprecedented intrusion by Congress into the practice of medicine, and 
an intrusion that has no basis under the Constitution. By banning the 
use of certain abortion procedures before fetal viability, H.R. 1122 is 
a clear violation of the Roe versus Wade decision which affirmed that, 
before viability, a woman has the right to choose to terminate her 
pregnancy without interference by Government.
  Furthermore, without an exception to protect a woman's health or 
life, H.R. 1122 also violates the Supreme Court's 1992 Planned 
Parenthood versus Casey decision. This ruling asserted that, after 
viability, the Government may restrict abortion, but only if the law 
contains exceptions for pregnancies that, if carried to term, would 
endanger the woman's life or health. I support the Court's decision and 
will continue to oppose efforts that would take this right away from 
the individual.
  Mr. Speaker, it is ill-advised and potentially harmful to any 
individual seeking medical attention for Congress to interfere with 
professional medical judgments and outlaw treatment options that may 
best preserve a patient's health. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
opposing H.R. 1122.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Subcommittee on the 
Constitution and an original cosponsor of this important legislation. I 
rise in strong support of H.R. 929, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 
of 1997.
  Partial-birth abortions are gruesome procedures. They are something I 
wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Only the most calloused among us can 
hear a description of this procedure and not wince. To borrow from John 
Wesley, it is the ``sum of all villainies''--infancticide in its rawest 
form.
  A greater tragedy occurred last year, however, than the several 
thousand partial-birth abortions that were performed in the fifth and 
sixth months of pregnancy on the healthy babies of healthy mothers. 
That tragedy occurred when President Clinton vetoed our attempt to stop 
this horrific procedure.
  During the debate over partial-birth abortions in the 104th Congress, 
the pro-abortion camp asserted that this procedure is rarely performed. 
Those of us who supported a ban on partial-birth abortions took serious 
exception to this allegation, arguing that they are performed with 
alarming frequency. In vetoing the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act last 
year, President Clinton obviously bought into the arguments of the pro-
abortion lobby.
  In the last few weeks, Ron Fitzsimmons--the executive director of the 
National Coalition of Abortion Providers--has admitted that he ``lied 
through his teeth'' about the nature and number of partial-birth 
abortions. As we argued last year, Mr. Fitzsimmons is now admitting 
that thousands of partial-birth abortions are performed every year, in 
the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy or later, on healthy babies 
with healthy mothers. Clearly, the pro-abortion lobby engaged in a 
pattern of deception regarding this issue--only time will tell whether 
President Clinton was an ignorant victim or a knowing perpetrator of 
this terrible cover-up.
  With the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997, Congress is giving 
President Clinton an opportunity to atone for last year's sinful veto. 
The President still has time to do the right thing. I hope he will.
  I was asked recently why, since we failed in our attempt to ban this 
procedure last year and Bill Clinton is still the President, the 105th 
Congress believes it will succeed where the 104th Congress failed. 
Leaving the recently-exposed lies of the abortion industry aside for a 
moment, the answer is that regardless of the odds, we have a duty to 
end injustice where we find it, and a solemn responsibility to protect 
those who cannot protect themselves.
  At a recent subcommittee hearing, representatives from the pro-
abortion lobby repeated time and again that Congress should not involve 
itself with this issue. However, the pro-abortion lobby needs to 
remember that Congress consists of the people's representatives. What 
these people are really saying, therefore, is that the American people 
should not be allowed to debate this issue through their duly elected 
representatives. I strongly disagree--a civilized society cannot afford 
to abandon its standards of morality.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress will continue the fight to protect and preserve 
innocent children. I urge all of my colleagues, whatever their position 
on abortion, to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 929. I yield back the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1122. 
This deeply personal and private decision is between a woman, her 
family, her physician and her beliefs, not the Federal Government. 
Without providing protection for the health and life of the mother, 
legislation that prevents doctors from providing patients with the most 
appropriate medical care is unacceptable. My position on this most 
sensitive of personal decisions is very simple. When the life or health 
of a woman is at stake, the Federal Government should not tell the 
family and their doctor what to do. Regrettably, the alternate bill 
introduced by Representatives Greenwood and Hoyer that provided an 
exception for severe health consequences will not be considered today. 
Instead, with this legislation, Congress is once again promoting an 
indifference to the health of women instead of rendering a serious 
policy determination on a matter of grave consequence.
  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Partial-Birth 
Abortion Ban Act of 1997 which would put an end to the barbaric 
procedure known as the partial-birth abortion.
   Mr. Speaker, it is now a matter of public record that this type of 
abortion is performed at least several thousand times a year, usually 
in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy.
  I want to be clear on one point. We have heard time and again from 
the other side today that we must protect the life of the mother.
  Hundreds of medical doctors including former Surgeon General C. 
Everett Koop have come forward and stated without reservation that the 
``partial birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a 
mothers health or her future fertility.''
  Let me repeat that, ``partial birth abortion is never medically 
necessary * * *''
  So let's stop playing politics and using fear and scare tactics. 
Let's honestly debate the issue at hand.
  Partial birth abortion is a horrifying procedure that must be ended. 
We have a moral obligation to stand up for the sanctity of life.
  I urge my colleagues to join in this bi-partisan effort to protect 
those who cannot protect themselves.
  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
929, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
  Last year--apologists for this abominable practice raised a fog of 
mendacity during our deliberations. Today that fog has been pierced.
  What everyone can clearly see today, Mr. Speaker, is that partial-
birth abortion is a practice that exposes abortion for what it truly 
is--the killing of an infant.
  This debate is not about when life begins--for the infants targeted 
by this procedure are most certainly alive. This debate is over a 
matter of inches.
  And Mr. Speaker--I submit that the constitutional right to life has 
jurisdiction over those inches.
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I rise in opposition to 
the final passage of legislation in this form. As a life-long pro-
choice elected official, I would normally reject this legislation as a 
matter of principle. However, my opposition to this legislation is also 
based on several specific reasons that, if implemented by this 
legislation, would have a chilling effect upon the lives and safety of 
women and for the respect of precedents established by the Supreme 
Court.
  This legislation is constitutionally unsound. This legislation 
directly opposes the precedents established in the Supreme Court under 
Roe versus Wade, in that it bans a particular procedure during the pre-
viability stage of pregnancy.
  This legislation handcuffs health care options for physicians. While 
I am not a medical doctor, a lot of the procedures that doctors 
perform--gynecological examinations, emergency tracheotomies, setting 
broken bones--are not pretty and can seem downright gruesome. However, 
sometimes, procedures that are needed to absolutely, positively save 
someone's life is necessary. For example, I am sure that many of us 
recall the person who had to have her leg amputated while trapped in 
the rubble of the Oklahoma City bomb blast. This operation was the only 
way that this person's life would have been spared. If we ban

[[Page H1226]]

this procedure, what will be next? Congress has no business telling a 
well-trained and intelligent physician what is or is not acceptable 
medical procedures.
  This legislation does not allow an exception for the utilization of 
this procedure to spare the life or the health of the mother. 
Physicians often have to make life or death decisions. While it is my 
hope that this procedure is performed during those infinitesimal 
instances in which it is absolutely necessary, we should not eliminate 
the possibility that it might be needed to save the life or preserve 
the health of the mother. Like you, we have all heard the different 
statistics on how often this procedure is used. But statistics do not 
mean a thing if that is your mother, your wife, your sister, or your 
daughter on the gurney and the choice is this procedure or the death of 
your loved one.
  The decision to have or not have a child is a very difficult one. 
This is a decision that should remain among a woman, a man, and a 
doctor--not the Federal Government. It is my hope and desire that as 
individuals of the family of humanity, we will do all that we can to 
proactively provide the education and support to our Nation's women so 
that abortion is a choice that fewer and fewer women have to make.
  The doctors of our Nation deserve to be able to fully implement their 
Hippocratic oath--``I will use treatment to help the sick according to 
my ability and judgment''--without governmental intervention. I urge my 
colleagues to support our Nation's doctors, the lives and health of 
women, and the Supreme Court, and ask for a ``nay'' vote on final 
passage of this legislation.
  Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to discuss a procedure that I 
find--and an overwhelming number of Americans find--absolutely 
abhorrent, partial birth abortion. It is brutal and inhumane. It is not 
necessary and should not be permitted.
  Last year, when we brought a bill to the floor to ban the practice, 
abortion advocates falsely claimed the procedure was both rare and a 
necessary late term procedure. The President vetoed our bill based on 
this misrepresentation. Finally, the media got wind of the lie.
  Ron Fitzsimmons, leader of the National Coalition of Abortion 
Providers, in a March 3, 1997, interview with the American Medical 
News, said that he ``lied through [his] teeth'' when he said the 
procedure was rarely used. He now admits that pro-life groups are 
accurate in saying that the procedure is more common.
  To add insult to injury, Mr. Fitzsimmons also admitted that, in the 
vast majority of cases, the partial-birth abortion procedure is 
performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 or more 
weeks along.
  Americans overwhelmingly oppose this form of elective infanticide. It 
has no place in our society. This practice is indefensible, and I 
challenge my colleagues to give the President another chance to ban the 
procedure. The President can no longer hide behind pro-abortion 
falsehoods. He should admit he was wrong and show the moral courage 
Americans expect from their President.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to discuss the Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban, H.R. 1122 that was introduced yesterday and which 
we are voting on today. This measure is supposed to be a new improved 
version of Representative Canady's bill, H.R. 929. However, it is more 
draconian, offensive and degrading to women. This newly introduced 
bill, like the one we were supposed to debate, still tears apart the 
principle that women have reproductive rights which was set in Roe 
versus Wade (1973) and reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern 
Pennsylvania versus Casey (1992). H.R. 1122 also still uses the same 
vague, nonmedical terms as Representative Canady's bill. However, H.R. 
1122 does include two provisions that were not in Representative 
Canady's bill, H.R. 929. First of all, a ``partial-birth abortion,'' 
whatever that means, can not be performed to save the life of the 
mother even if her very life was endangered by the pregnancy itself. 
Secondly it allows would-be fathers who had abused or abandoned the 
mother to sue and collect monetary damages from the physician who 
performed the improperly defined medical procedure. I find this 
provision one of the hardest to comprehend--why allow a person that has 
abused a woman repeatedly to be able to gain monetarily if he gets her 
pregnant and something goes tragically awry to her fetus after 
viability?
  If supporters of H.R. 1122 are concerned about abortions being 
performed after viability, they would support Representative Hoyer and 
Greenwood's bill, H.R. 1032, which bans all abortions after viability 
except in cases when ``the abortion is necessary to preserve the life 
of the woman or to avert serious adverse health consequences to the 
woman.'' But, as my colleagues well know, we can not even debate that 
bill today under this closed rule. This bill takes away a woman's right 
to choose. H.R. 1122 says to American women: Your health and fertility 
are not an issue. It demotes women to second class citizenry.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to re-read the testimony given last 
year by women like Coreen Costello and Mary-Dorothy Line. These women 
wanted their babies. However, once they realized that their babies 
could not survive outside of the womb, they had to make a soul 
searching decision. That was a very difficult decision made by the 
women and their husbands, but because they chose to have an intact 
dilation and evacuation they saved their lives and preserved their 
ability to have more children.
  In addition, proponents still do not understand that no matter what 
has been said about the number of abortions performed using the intact 
dilation and evacuation procedure before and after viability, the law 
of the land already grants individual States the right to ban abortion 
after fetal viability except when necessary to preserve a woman's life 
or health. Forty States and the District of Columbia, ban post-
viability abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck a balance 
between a woman's right to choose and the protection of potential life. 
I fully support a woman's right to choose as upheld by the U.S. Supreme 
Court.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 1122.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1122, a bill to 
ban the late-term abortion practice known as partial birth abortion.
  While I will vote in favor of this legislation, as I did last year, I 
regret that the bill is being considered under a closed rule that will 
not allow the House to debate and vote on amendments proposed by my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. That is why I voted against the 
rule, and why I will vote in favor of motions that provide Members the 
opportunity to offer amendments to this legislation. In my view, the 
House ought to uphold a standard of democratic and open debate that 
allows alternative proposals to receive a fair hearing.
  Second, as my colleagues know, the legislation before us is identical 
to the bill that was passed last year and vetoed by the President. In 
the interests of enacting legislation that will bring an end to this 
abhorrent procedure, I believe it advisable to support amendments that 
address the concerns stated by the President. Therefore, if the motion 
to recommit H.R. 1122 contains instructions to include an exception 
where the physical health of the mother is severely at risk, I will 
support the motion.
  Mr. Speaker, in the final analysis, it is my position that the 
partial birth abortion is an inhumane and unnecessary procedure that 
should be outlawed. I believe that Congress ought to pass legislation 
that will gain the President's signature and achieve that end.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I wish we were debating the best way to 
reduce the number of late term abortions. That is a goal we all can 
share.
  Instead, under the terms of debate imposed on this bill, we are able 
to consider only a text drafted to make a political statement and keep 
an issue alive rather than to solve a problem.
  The question, that the advocates of this bill haven't, and can't 
answer, is this: Why should the Congress prohibit this particular 
medical procedure when a physician has determined: First, that a late 
term abortion is medically necessary to preserve the health of the 
mother and second, that this procedure is the one that is medically 
prudent?
  The bill would substitute the political judgment of the Congress for 
the medical judgment of a woman's physician. The bill provides no 
exception for medical circumstances involving grave physical risks to 
the health of the mother, no matter what the circumstance nor how 
tragic the circumstance may be.
  As we debate this issue, we need to remember how the Supreme Court 
has interpreted the Constitution. In Roe versus Wade the Court stated: 
``For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its 
interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, 
regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in 
appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or 
health of the mother.''
  That decision is the law of the land. Its language is clear and 
unambiguous. States may not proscribe late term abortions that are 
medically necessary to preserve a mother's life or health. Nor may the 
Congress.
  What Roe versus Wade does permit, however, is the Government's 
restriction on or prohibition of late term abortions that are not 
necessary to protect the mother's life or health. Unfortunately, this 
bill would do nothing to reduce the number of such late term abortions. 
That should be our common goal.
  In considering this bill, the Congress is attempting to set itself up 
as a national board of medical examiners. The country and professional 
medical practice won't be well-served if we become the arbiter of which 
medical judgments should be respected and which medical procedures 
should be performed.
  If there is a medical need for an abortion to protect a woman's 
health and if this particular

[[Page H1227]]

procedure is determined by a woman's physician to be medically 
warranted under the circumstances, then the Congress should respect 
that judgment not criminalize it. We should not substitute our 
political judgment for professional medical judgment grounded in the 
particular circumstances of real cases.
  This bill should be defeated.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 100, the bill is considered as having 
been read for amendment and the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.


                motion to recommit offered by mr. hoyer

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. HOYER. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Hoyer moves to recommit the bill H.R. 1122 to the 
     Committee on the Judiciary with instructions to report the 
     same back to the House forthwith with the following 
     amendments:
       Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Late Term Abortion 
     Restriction Act''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN ABORTIONS.

       (a) In General.--It shall be unlawful, in or affecting 
     interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly to perform an 
     abortion after the fetus has become viable.
       (b) Exception.--This section does not prohibit any abortion 
     if, in the medical judgment of the attending physician, the 
     abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the woman or to 
     avert serious adverse health consequences to the woman.
       (c) Civil Penalty.--A physician who violates this section 
     shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000. 
     The civil penalty provided by this subsection is the 
     exclusive remedy for a violation of this section.

                             Point of Order

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order that 
the motion to recommit is not germane to the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the fundamental purpose of the 
underlying bill, H.R. 1122, deals with a very limited class of 
abortions, specifically partial-birth abortions. This is one specific 
type of procedure as defined in the bill.
  The fundamental purpose of the motion to recommit amendment deals 
with any abortion procedure done post-viability. It purports to cover a 
much broader class of procedures than the one procedure specifically 
prohibited in this bill.
  Therefore, since the fundamental purpose of the motion to recommit 
purports to deal with a class of procedures that is broader than the 
one procedure in the underlying bill, a proposition on a subject 
different from that under consideration, it is not germane to the bill 
and I insist on the point of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] 
wish to be heard on the point of order?
  Mr. HOYER. I do, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for recognizing me on the 
point of order.
  Mr. Speaker, this amendment is offered for the purpose, as it says, 
of limiting all late-term abortions, of prohibiting all late-term 
abortions, including abortions to which the gentleman spoke. We believe 
it does in fact expand upon but is inclusive of the procedures to which 
the gentleman's bill speaks. We believe it is an effort and an 
opportunity for the Congress to say that not only the late-term partial 
birth to which the bill speaks but that all procedures to effect late-
term abortions ought to be prohibited. They ought to be prohibited as 
the policy of the United States of America.
  It does provide, as does the underlying bill, with certain 
exceptions: The life of the mother, as is consistent with the bill on 
the floor. It also expands upon that to say serious adverse health 
consequences as well.
  We believe in that context and, frankly, got an initial judgment as 
it was offered in the Committee on the Judiciary that this amendment 
was believed initially to be in order.
  We believed that initial judgment was in fact correct. We believed 
this gives an opportunity for Members not only to speak to the instant 
issue raised by the particular 1122 bill, but also importantly gives to 
Members the opportunity to express their view that all late-term 
abortions, not just one procedure, but that procedure and all 
procedures to effect post-viability abortions be outlawed, be illegal, 
be against the policy of the United States of America, except in very 
limited circumstances.
  Because of that, Mr. Speaker, Members will have the opportunity to 
express themselves as being against late-term abortions, which is the 
context, I suggest to the Speaker, in which this debate has occurred 
and proceeded.
  Because of that, this gives Members the opportunity to particularly 
but more broadly, as Mr. Canady did in fact correctly observe, express 
themselves on limiting all procedures for late-term abortions.
  For that reason, we think it expands upon, he is correct, expands 
upon and makes more broad the prohibition on late-term abortions. It is 
for that reason that we think it critically important that the Chair 
rule that this is in fact in order so that Members can appropriately--
because we believe it to be in order--express themselves in opposition 
to late-term abortions.

                              {time}  1500

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). The gentleman from Florida has 
made a point of order that the amendment proposed----
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida stated his point 
of order very rapidly and I want to be clear on this.
  Is the parliamentary point of order on the point that the bill before 
the House only prohibits one type of abortion procedure, but the motion 
of the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] would actually prohibit more 
types, in fact all types of late-term abortion procedures?
  Is that the point of order that the gentleman from Florida is trying 
to make and objecting to letting the measure of the gentleman from 
Maryland up on the floor?
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. EDWARDS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlemen will suspend. The Chair will 
recognize Members to argue the point of order. Does the gentleman from 
Florida seek that recognition?
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I seek the opportunity to respond 
to the question posed by the gentleman from Texas.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will hear argument confined to the 
point of order. The gentleman may proceed, confined to the point of 
order.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the point of order is the 
fundamental purpose of the underlying bill, H.R. 1122, deals with a 
very limited class of abortion, specifically partial-birth abortions.
  One specific type of procedure in the bill is what is dealt with in 
H.R. 1122. The fundamental purpose of the motion to recommit, in 
contrast to that, deals with any abortion procedure done post 
viability. It, therefore, purports to cover a much broader class of 
procedures.
  I believe that the impact of the motion to recommit would essentially 
be nil, because although it purports to affect a broader class of 
procedures, due to the exceptions contained in the motion to recommit, 
it is essentially meaningless.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I guess going back to my original question 
to the Speaker, the point of order is being made on the basis that the 
bill before the House simply outlaws one type of abortion procedure, 
the motion made by the gentleman from Maryland would actually ban many 
other types of late-term-abortion procedures, and the gentleman from 
Florida objects to that being voted upon in the House; is that correct, 
Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair hopes to clarify this point in the 
Chair's ruling. The Chair is now prepared to rule.

[[Page H1228]]

  The gentleman from Florida makes a point of order that the amendment 
proposed in the instructions with the motion to recommit offered by the 
gentleman from Maryland is not germane.
  The pending bill prohibits a certain class of abortion procedures.
  The amendment proposed in the motion to recommit prohibits any or all 
abortion procedures in certain stages of pregnancy. It differentiates 
between the stages of pregnancy on the basis of fetal viability. In so 
doing, the amendment arguably addresses a subset of the category of 
pregnancies addressed by the bill. Still, by addressing any or all 
abortion procedures, the prohibition in the amendment exceeds the scope 
of the prohibition in the bill.
  The bill confines its sweep to a single, defined class of abortion 
procedures. Thus, even though the amendment differentiates between 
pregnancies on narrower bases than does the bill, the amendment also, 
by addressing any or all abortion procedures, broadens the prohibition 
in the bill.
  One of the basic lines of precedent under clause 7 of rule 16, the 
germaneness rule, holds that a proposition addressing a specific 
subject may not be amended by a proposition more general in nature. As 
noted in section 798f of the House Rules and Manual, this principle 
applies even when both propositions address a common topic.
  Thus, on March 23, 1960, the Chair held that an amendment to 
criminalize the obstruction of any court order was not germane to a 
bill to criminalize only the obstruction of court orders relating to 
the desegregation of public schools.
  On the reasoning reflected in this line of precedent, the Chair holds 
that the amendment proposed in the motion to recommit is not germane to 
the bill. Accordingly, the point of order is sustained and the motion 
to recommit is not in order.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it is with great reluctance, because I 
believe very strongly that the Chair's rulings ought to be upheld, but 
in this instance, Mr. Speaker, I am compelled, because of the 
importance of the issue and the closed rule that prevented any 
amendments, and because I believe, Mr. Speaker, in your ruling you 
correctly indicated that the Hoyer and Greenwood bill broadens the 
scope of this bill and broadens the application to procedures beyond 
what the bill refers to, and for that reason held it not to be germane, 
I am compelled to appeal the ruling of the Chair.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the 
table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. First of all, the question is, Shall the 
decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House?
  Now, the Chair will recognize the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Canady].


            Motion to Table Offered by Mr. CANADY of Florida

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the 
table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] to lay on the table the appeal of 
the ruling of the Chair.
  The question was taken; and the Chair announced that the ayes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 265, 
nays 165, not voting 2, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 63]

                               YEAS--265

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Borski
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Mascara
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--165

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Nadler
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kaptur
     Oxley
       

                              {time}  1525

  Messrs. BASS, KINGSTON, and RAMSTAD, and Mrs. KELLY changed their 
vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to table was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                              {time}  1530


        motion to recommit offered by mr. frank of massachusetts

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to 
recommit.

[[Page H1229]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). Is the gentleman opposed to 
the bill?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I am in its form, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Frank of Massachusetts moves to recommit the bill H.R. 
     1122 to the Committee on the Judiciary with instructions to 
     report the same back to the House forthwith with the 
     following amendments:
       Page 2, line 10, insert after the words ``or injury'' the 
     following:
       ``, including a life endangering physical condition caused 
     by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or to avert serious 
     adverse longterm physical health consequences to the mother''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank) 
is recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion to recommit.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, after the Committee on Rules 
tried to keep this from being heard, I appreciate your helping make 
sure that it is.
  This is an amendment that would in its most important form add one 
more exception. Remember we had the bill that does not prevent the 
abortions, as the gentleman from Florida acknowledged, but bans a 
particular procedure.
  Mr. Speaker, the bill bans a specific procedure. The sponsors said in 
opposition to the amendment that we just voted on that was ruled 
nongermane when it came up before, well, we do not like health as an 
exception. I do. I wanted health as an exception. That was voted down, 
and I regret it. But now I am offering a narrower one that meets some 
of the arguments we heard.
  Health broadly defined by the Supreme Court when there is no other 
reference, and it is just health when there is no modifier, the Supreme 
Court has said that includes mental health, et cetera, as I think it 
should. But in this case where we are talking about one procedure where 
we have already voted down health, I have a further amendment. This 
says, ``You can have an exception if it is necessary to avert serious 
adverse long-term physical health consequences.'' This, Mr. Speaker, is 
what the House is about to vote on.
  I ask my colleagues, ``Are you prepared to say to a doctor if you 
believe in your best medical judgment that it is necessary to avert 
serious physical long-term adverse health consequences, and the only 
way to avert them is to use this procedure, this amendment says to a 
doctor, because it follows the language of the bill, if it is 
necessary, not if it's in your subjective opinion, but if it's 
necessary, and you can show in a judicial proceeding that it was 
necessary to avert serious long-term adverse physical health 
consequences you can perform the procedure.'' And the majority is going 
to say no apparently.
  Well, some say it is never possible. If my colleagues really believe 
that, then the amendment would do no harm. But is the House ready to 
tell every doctor in America that never under any circumstances can he 
or she use a medical judgment to say this procedure? Because again we 
are not talking about whether or not there can be an abortion. There 
can be an abortion. It may be on mental health grounds, it may be on 
physical health grounds. Then the question is what is the procedure. 
And we are asking for a vote that says if it is necessary so that a 
woman does not lose her fertility so that there is not permanent damage 
to her organs, if she is not in horrible pain for a prolonged period.
  Is that not likely to happen? I do not know; along with almost 
everybody in the House, I do not know. And therefore I am not prepared 
to legislate it. I am prepared to say that the physicians can decide 
that.
  How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 2 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly).
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Speaker, in all my years in the House I have never 
been more disturbed by a vote, but yet what happened in the Committee 
on Rules last night and on the floor here today, my concerns have not 
been allayed. Mr. Speaker, let me talk about those concerns.
  I do not think the State should interject itself before viability and 
that women should have the right to protect their life and their health 
as under Roe versus Wade. I am concerned about viability of 
pregnancies, and I know health has been broadly interpretated, but 
under Frank it will be interpretated as the serious, serious physical 
health of the mother.
  I am concerned about this, and it is before us, this method. It is 
brutal, it is inhuman, and it should never be used. However, may I say 
that is not my decision. Under Roe versus Wade the law of the land aids 
the decision of the mother and the doctor.
  Mr. Speaker, I am so concerned about this body today. We have let 
political considerations and efforts do away with Roe versus Wade take 
over this and not let us resolve this situation.
  Forty States, Mr. Speaker, have resolved this situation. We can 
resolve it by putting the serious health of the mother into this mix.
  Mr. Speaker, we can do better.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me anticipate. Members on the other side have said, 
``Well, when you say health, the Supreme Court reads a broader 
version.'' Yes, I have that opinion right here. When it only said 
health, the Supreme Court interpreted a statute referring to health 
more broadly. The Supreme Court has never said that health always--that 
physical health does not just mean physical health. There is no 
argument for that, and the Supreme Court has never interpreted a 
statute on physical health. That is the key issue here.
  I also add a language point that others have brought up making it 
clear that, if life is endangered by a condition arising from the 
pregnancy itself, that is also an exception. And that is not in the 
bill explicitly, and it ought to be, but this key point is before us 
now: ``Do you believe as the chairman of the committee said, and the 
chairman of the committee in his intellectual integrity said if the 
choice is serious long-term physical health damage to the mother or the 
life of the fetus, apparently even a severely damaged fetus that could 
not live long, the woman's health must suffer.''
  I hope the House will not vote that way.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from Florida opposed to the 
motion to recommit?
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. I am, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Canady] for 5 minutes in opposition to the motion to 
recommit.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, regarding the life exception 
language contained in the gentleman's proposal, it is already covered 
in H.R. 1122. The language in the amendment simply restates what is 
obvious in the language in the bill. The life exception in H.R. 1122 
states, and I will read it; it is on page 2 beginning on line 7:
  This paragraph shall not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is 
necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by 
physical disorder, illness, or injury.
  That very statement is made on the floor today that this bill does 
not provide an exception for the life of the mother. It is clearly 
right here in the bill. I have asked the Members to read it, look at it 
with their own eyes.
  Regarding the health exception, partial-birth abortion is never 
necessary for a mother's health or future fertility. Hundreds of 
obstetricians, gynecologists, and maternal fetal specialists, along 
with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, have come forward to 
unequivocally state that, quote, ``Partial-birth abortion is never 
medically necessary to protect the mother's health or her future 
fertility. On the contrary, this procedure can pose a significant 
threat to both,'' close quote.
  Furthermore, in an American Medical News article Dr. Warren Hern, a 
late-term abortionist, disputed the safety of the partial-birth 
abortion procedure. I want to quote directly from this article. Now, 
this is Dr. Hern, M.D., one of the leading experts on abortion 
procedures in this country. This is what he said:
  I have very serious reservations about this procedure, said Dr. Hern, 
the

[[Page H1230]]

author of Abortion Practice, the Nation's most widely used textbook on 
abortion standards and procedures. He specializes in late-term 
procedures. He opposes the bill, he said, because he thinks Congress 
has no business dabbling in the practice of medicine. But of the 
procedure in question he says this: ``You really can't defend it. I'm 
not going to tell someone else that they should not do this procedure, 
but I'm not going to do it.''
  Now, Dr. Hern's concern centers around claims that the procedure in 
late-term pregnancy can be safest for the pregnant woman and that 
without this procedure women would have died, and this is what Dr. Hern 
says: ``I would dispute any statement that this is the safest procedure 
to use,'' close quote. ``Turning the fetus to a breech position is 
potentially dangerous.'' He added, ``You have to be concerned about 
causing amniotic fluid embolism or placental abruption if you do 
that.''
  Pamela Smith, M.D., director of medical education in the department 
of obstetrics and gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital of Chicago added two 
more concerns. Cervical incompetence and subsequent pregnancy caused by 
3 days of forceful dilation of the cervix and uterine rupture caused by 
rotating the fetus within the womb. Partial-birth abortion is used by 
some abortionists for their own convenience. It is never necessary to 
partially deliver a live child and jam scissors into the back of his or 
her head to preserve the mother's health. Just consider what is 
involved in this procedure.
  I would ask my colleagues to consider what is involved in this 
procedure. A living human child is partially delivered. With the child 
three-fourths out of the mother, with only the head remaining in the 
mother, the child is stabbed in the back of the head.
  I hate describing this, but this is what goes on.
  Explain to me how stabbing the child in the back of the head in this 
gruesome procedure protects the mother's health. It is nonsense; it 
does not. It is not necessary. What we are seeing here is an effort by 
people who believe that abortion should be permitted under any 
circumstance at any time during pregnancy for any reason, an attempt to 
derail this bill, put in amendments that will create loopholes and will 
render the bill meaningless.
  I urge my colleagues who are serious about addressing this procedure 
to oppose this motion to recommit and support the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn].
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, we once again deal with deception. There is 
no serious adverse long-term physical health consequence to the mother 
that can be best treated by this procedure. It does not exist, it has 
never existed, it will never exist. It is a falsehood, it is an 
untruth. Partial-birth abortion, D&E on the live baby is done for the 
convenience of an abortionist. It is never done for any other reason. 
It is done for the convenience of an abortionist.
  This is a deceptive way to confuse the issue. There is no truth that 
this allowance needs to be there, because it never exists. It is a 
falsehood. It is something that was set up so that we can create a 
false climate.
  I will repeat. It never happens. It never is indicated.

                              {time}  1545

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McInnis). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 149, 
noes 282, not voting 2, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 64]

                               AYES--149

     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Campbell
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Fattah
     Filner
     Flake
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gilchrest
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Greenwood
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hooley
     Horn
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klug
     Kolbe
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Moakley
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Neal
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Skaggs
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Vento
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--282

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeGette
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dingell
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Foglietta
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gillmor
     Gingrich
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kildee
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klink
     Knollenberg
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Mink
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Ortiz
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Weygand
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kaptur
     Oxley
       
  Mr. FOGLIETTA changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.

[[Page H1231]]

  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. McInnis]. The question is on the passage 
of the bill.
  The question was taken.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 295, 
noes 136, not voting 2, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 65]

                               AYES--295

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dingell
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrich
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kim
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Maloney (CT)
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reyes
     Riggs
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Visclosky
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--136

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baldacci
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Campbell
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennelly
     Kilpatrick
     Kolbe
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Mink
     Morella
     Nadler
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Rivers
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stokes
     Tauscher
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kaptur
     Oxley
       

                              {time}  1618

  Mr. BENTSEN changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________