[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2632-S2634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that was 
talked about at great length today in the House of Representatives and 
voted on. That is the issue of partial-birth abortions, or as the 
Congressman who led the debate on the floor of the House, Congressman 
Henry Hyde, refers to it as partial-birth infanticide where, in fact, 
you have a baby that is at or near viability in the fifth and sixth 
month of pregnancy when most of these abortions are performed, 
delivered completely out of the mother, and all that is left in the 
mother is the head--what we are talking about here is not an abortion. 
What we are talking about is killing a child.
  I think, incredibly, frankly, given the results of the last election 
where the Republicans lost seats in the House, and getting a sufficient 
number of House votes to override a--hopefully not, but probably--
Presidential veto of this bill--we needed 290 votes. We thought going 
in we would be assured of that number. In fact, we thought we would be 
well assured of that number, given the results of the election and what 
we thought was the intention of the Members.
  It turned out that the House passed the partial-birth abortion ban by 
a vote of 295 to, I believe, 136. That is five votes more than the 
required constitutional majority of 67 percent of the House. So they do 
have enough votes in the House of Representatives to override a 
Presidential veto.
  The action now shifts here to the U.S. Senate. We are going into 
recess and will be for the next couple of weeks, but I have had 
conversations with the majority leader, and we anticipate bringing that 
bill up sometime shortly after we reconvene here in the Senate in April 
and hope for a full debate on this issue.
  As to what happened in the House, when we saw the number of votes 
change, resulting in a sufficient number to override the President's 
veto, I hope that same kind of dynamic occurs here in the Senate. Those 
votes changed because of new information that has been brought to light 
about what actually is going on out in America on this issue of 
partial-birth abortions. We were originally told by the advocates of 
the procedure, the industry and those who support the procedure, the 
abortion rights groups, that

[[Page S2633]]

this was ``a rare procedure.'' That phrase was used over and over 
again, ``A rare procedure.'' The President of the United States used 
``a rare procedure, done only in the third trimester, in cases where 
the mother's life or health was in danger or where there was a severe 
fetal deformity.''
  That was the argument and the reason the President vetoed it, and 
that is why many Members of the Senate stood here and said they could 
not find themselves in a position where if someone was in this kind of 
dire consequence that they would limit a person's option.
  We had plenty of medical testimony at the time, and even more has 
come in since, that says that this is never an indicated procedure to 
protect the life or health of the mother, never an indicated procedure. 
It is not in any textbook on obstetrics. You will not find it in any of 
the medical literature. I am quoting lots of obstetricians who have 
testified before Congress, including an obstetrician in the House of 
Representatives, Dr. Tom Coburn, a Member of the House, and C. Everett 
Koop, the former Surgeon General, who worked with small premature 
babies. So we have overwhelming medical authority that this procedure 
is never indicated to protect the life and health of the mother.
  But we also found out new information, that in fact this is not a 
rare procedure. This is a procedure that is done thousands upon 
thousands of times. The estimate given by the abortion providers is 
3,000 to 5,000 times a year. The only independent evidence we have been 
able to gather is by a press reporter in Bergen County, NJ, who 
surveyed a clinic in her community, and in that one clinic in northern 
New Jersey there were 1,500 partial-birth abortions performed every 
year. Now, if there are 1,500 in one clinic, and we have another doctor 
who has testified in Nebraska, Bellevue, NE--no offense to my 
colleagues from Nebraska, but hardly a large metropolitan area--where 
this doctor said in the last 2 years he has done 1,000 partial-birth 
abortions, if you just take those two isolated instances and the fact, 
as the reporter from Bergen County said, that this procedure, according 
to the doctors there, is done in other places in the New York 
metropolitan area, but if you just take those two sites alone, it is 
very hard to say we only have 3,000 to 5,000 of these being performed 
nationwide.
  There is no way to check because the people who provide the 
statistics are the advocates for the procedure. So, of course, they are 
not going to give us the real numbers. They know that their Achilles 
heel in this debate, in the debate not just on partial-birth abortions 
but, frankly, on all abortions, is late-term abortion. This is not 
something the American public feels comfortable with, but in fact, 
something the American public overwhelmingly rejects. They think that 
goes too far. So there is really no reason for them to give us accurate 
information. When I say there is no reason for them to give us accurate 
information, it is because there is no way to check whether that 
information is accurate. The Government keeps no statistics on the 
number of partial-birth abortions. So there is no way for anybody to 
independently verify this.
  Now, I have asked many reporters who have covered this issue, ``How 
about doing a little reporting? How about verifying your story instead 
of taking what the Alan Guttmacher Institute,'' which is an arm of the 
abortion advocacy group and is always cited in literature and in the 
press as this ``independent source.'' That is just ludicrous. They are 
an advocate, a zealous advocate of the absolute right to choose. So 
using their information is as bad as using the providers themselves who 
are advocates of the procedure.
  Now, some reporters have actually gone through the process of calling 
their clinics. We have gotten a variety of different feedback. I talked 
to a reporter from the Baltimore Sun who said she called some of the 
hospitals and clinics in Baltimore that do abortions, and they hung up 
the phone on her. They didn't want to talk to the press. It is none of 
their business. Others have said they have called and had nice 
conversations and were told, ``We don't do that here.'' They very well 
may not do it, but we have no way of checking. The press has no way of 
checking because they are not going to make their records available. It 
is confidentiality, and I understand that. But there is no way for us 
to know how many abortions are done, partial-birth or late-term 
abortions. You will have advocates get up for this procedure on the 
Senate floor and talk about this as being ``very rare,'' or ``only a 
few thousand.'' Just imagine, put yourself in the context of children--
children are used a lot on this floor as a defense for a lot of 
Government programs.
  Imagine if you were talking about 3,000 to 5,000 children who we 
would let starve to death in this country; what would we do about it 
here? Would we say it is only 3,000 or 5,000 who we are going to let 
die because we don't want to take any action? I am not too sure that we 
would do that. But, in fact, that is what we are doing. We are 
accepting their numbers, which I don't accept. I don't think, frankly, 
the press should accept them. I think throwing this number out of 3,000 
to 5,000, quoting an advocate of the procedure as the authority for the 
statistical information as a basis for the debate--I mean, I will throw 
a number out--let's say 50,000, which is probably as credible as the 
number you are going to get from the other side. It is probably as 
credible, and probably even more credible because I am just pulling it 
out of a hat; they are deliberately throwing a number out that they 
know is well below what the actual number is.
  So I hope that when we have this debate, we realize, number one, that 
it is not a rare procedure. And, frankly, we don't know how rare it is. 
What we do know is that the numbers given out in the past were lies. 
Let's call it what they were--lies, a deliberate attempt by the 
abortion industry and advocates to mislead the Congress. They sent 
people up here and they testified to that lie. So now we are going to 
believe them and give them a second chance to lie to us.
  I am sorry. Fool me twice, shame on me. They are not going to fool me 
twice. I am not going to accept their number, and I don't think anybody 
should. They have no credibility because they have lied once and, 
number two, there is no independent verification of that number, 
because they will not open up their books. They won't even let 
reporters talk to them. So I encourage the press covering this debate 
now, and who covered it in the past, not to use a phony number. As 
horrible as that number is, my goodness we are talking of an admission 
of at least 3,000 to 5,000--3,000 to 5,000 innocent children, at least 
90 percent of which--according to their industry--are healthy babies 
and healthy mothers.

  Frankly, even if it were 300 to 500, or just 30 to 50, it should 
outrage every Member of the Senate that we allow that to happen in such 
a barbaric way. But 3,000 to 5,000--maybe it's 30,000 to 50,000; who 
knows? But it is not a rare procedure, and it is not done just on 
mothers who have severe health complications or life-threatening 
ailments. We know that. One reason is obvious that we know it. We know 
it by understanding what the procedure is. The other reason we know is 
because we have all the medical experts testifying that this procedure 
is never indicated to protect the health or the life of the mother. But 
the other reason we know that this procedure would not be used is just 
by knowing what the procedure is. Take a case. We have a mother whose 
life is in danger. Now, I will add that we have a provision in this 
bill to protect the life of the mother. If this procedure is ever 
needed to protect the life of the mother, it can be used. But let me 
suggest that that would never happen. We have it in there, frankly, for 
cosmetic reasons. It would never happen, because if a mother's life is 
in imminent danger, would any physician use a procedure that takes 3 
days to perform? If the woman presents herself to the hospital in a 
life-threatening condition, would you say, ``We have this great 
procedure that takes 3 days to do; we will give you medication, come 
back in 2 days''? You would if you want to kill the mother, or if you 
want malpractice, but not if you want to provide competent medical 
services to a woman in need. So it would not be used in that situation.
  Let's talk about the health condition. Again, if somebody presents 
herself with a severe health consequence,

[[Page S2634]]

they could use their fertility or--to be honest with you, I don't know 
why someone would suggest that we want to protect ourselves from losing 
our fertility by killing a healthy baby. I don't understand that. If 
you want to protect your fertility to have children, why would you kill 
a healthy baby to do that? This is something that strikes me as an 
argument that I have not heard a sufficient answer to on the other 
side. Why would you kill one child so you could have more children? As 
far as I know, there is no guarantee of being able to get pregnant 
again. Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of 
thousands of couples who are trying to have children and can't. If you 
have been blessed with a healthy baby and a healthy pregnancy, I don't 
know why you would do this procedure. But the point is, you would not 
go through this 3-day procedure if there was an imminent health risk to 
the mother. It is just not logical.
  This procedure was not designed by a physician who was looking out 
for the health and life of the mother. This was designed by a 
physician, in his own words, as a more efficient way to do abortions 
for the abortionist, not for the mother. It is efficient in that the 
mother can come in and do it on an outpatient basis. Late-term 
abortions are much more complicated. It is much more involved. This 
basically prepares the woman for a shorter visit to the clinic and a 
more convenient way for this abortionist to perform the abortion and to 
be able to do more of them in one day. That is the reason this 
procedure was developed.
  You will hear testimony of people who have written textbooks on 
abortion, who said they would never use this, and they do late-term 
abortions. So I just ask my colleagues to listen to all of the facts. 
We had, I think, last year--and it was unfortunate, and I will not 
point blame at anybody. I am not too sure there is blame. We had a 
situation where the vote came up in an election year, in an election 
climate. Members are people, too. They feel a comfort zone on issues. 
It is very hard for them to sort of break out of this comfort zone into 
unknown territories, particularly around a very politically charged 
environment, even though the facts were there; many of the facts were 
available for the override vote. Certainly, a lot of them were not 
given credibility in the mainstream media. Now they have been.
  So I ask many of my colleagues who have already cast a vote more than 
once on this issue to have an open mind, to step back and look at the 
reality of partial-birth infanticide and recognize your obligation to 
those children, recognize your obligation to your constituents in 
trying to ascertain the truth, and make a decision that is in the best 
interest for America and for your State, not for the interest group 
that supports you in your election, not for the advocates who you may 
have good relationships with. We are in our comfort zone with people 
who agree with us. It is very easy for us to sort of hang around those 
people and sort of feed off each other. I understand that. But 
sometimes you have to step back from all of that. You have to step out 
in the cold and look at the cold, hard facts and make a decision using 
your mind and using your heart on what is right--not what is right 
politically for me, not what is right for my friend, but what is right 
for our culture and what is right for our whole existence as a country.

  I think when we do that, I think when Members take time to do that, 
we will see something very special happen here, which is what happened 
in the House today. Members will have stepped out of that comfort zone, 
which I know is very hard to do, will take an honest look at the facts 
and make a decision that is right for America. That is my hope.
  I am going to be working very diligently, and I know other Members 
are, in making sure that this information is disseminated.
  I again encourage the press to do your job, fact-check your stories 
before you write them, and ascertain the truth. Do not just report what 
people say. I know some people think that is their job. If that is the 
job of a reporter, then reporting has sunk to a new low in this country 
if all we do is run around and report what people say. That is not 
journalism, in my book. At least make an attempt to find out the truth. 
At least check. This is serious stuff. We are not talking about how the 
Senate buys paper here. It is important. It takes taxpayer dollars. We 
have a system. We are talking about very weighty issues. We are talking 
about the issues of life and death, about a barbaric procedure that 
just goes beyond any vision that I can imagine that people in this 
country have of what our civilization and what humanity is.
  So take that responsibility seriously on your side. We take it 
seriously here. I think, if you do your job and if Members of the 
Senate do their job, which is to honestly face the facts, allow those 
facts to rebound off your sense of judgment, your sense of right and 
wrong, then I think what will bounce back is a vote to end this 
barbarism in this country by an overwhelming vote.

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