[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 62 (Tuesday, May 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4383-S4389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to begin the debate on the 
issue of partial-birth abortion. This is an issue that, obviously, has 
garnered a lot of attention over the past couple of years, both in the 
House and Senate and across the country. While the bill is not formally 
before us tonight, the bill will come up tomorrow. I have been informed 
that it will come up approximately at noon tomorrow, when we can 
actually begin debate on the bill itself.
  So the debate on partial-birth abortion will begin tomorrow in the 
U.S. Senate. For those who have been following this issue, the 
questions that I have been asked, and Members are being asked on both 
sides of this issue, is not whether this bill will pass. I believe this 
bill will pass. The question is whether we are going to have sufficient 
votes to override what appears to be an almost certain Presidential 
veto.
  In the House a few weeks ago, the House passed the legislation with 
295 votes, more than the 290 needed to override the President's veto. 
We only need 67 votes in the U.S. Senate to be able to override the 
President's veto.
  At this point, I think by all accounts, we are not there yet. We are 
still several votes short of the 67 votes committed publicly to 
supporting this legislation on final passage and supporting it in the 
face of a Presidential veto.
  I will say we are at least four or five votes short at this time, and 
we are narrowing down the time here in which decisions have to be made.
  So while I am not particularly optimistic of our opportunities at 
this point to get the votes necessary to override the President's veto, 
I think this is an issue that is going to continue to percolate, not 
only from the time that we debate in the Senate over the next few days, 
but also after the vote is taken, during the time that the President is 
considering it, and when the bill comes back here. So there will be 
plenty of opportunities for further debate, further evaluation as to 
whether the votes cast by all the Members are the votes that, in fact, 
will be the votes on the override vote itself.
  What I would like to do in starting the debate is to fill in for 
those Members who may not have been involved in the partial-birth 
abortion debate--and we have a lot of new Members this year--to fill in 
the who, what, when, where, why, how and how many. All of the questions 
that normally would be asked about anything, let's ask them about the 
issue of partial-birth abortion.
  This has been an interesting topic of discussion only because of the 
fabrications that have been built around what this procedure is about, 
when it is used, how often it is used, who it is used on, where it is 
used, how many there are. Those have been the subject of a lot of 
publications and debate about how the people who oppose this 
legislation have constructed a fantasy, if you will, as to what this 
procedure is all about.
  So today, as I tried to in the previous debate, I am going to attempt 
to lay out the truth as we know it. I say as we know it, because a lot 
of the truth is based upon what the opponents of this legislation tell 
us is the truth. An example of that is how many of these abortions are 
performed. The Centers for Disease Control do not track how many 
partial-birth abortions are done. They only track the abortions and 
when they are done. They do not track the procedure that is used to 
perform the abortion. The only people who track that, at least we are 
told the only people who track that, are the abortion clinics 
themselves who oppose this legislation vehemently. They are the ones 
that those of us who have to argue for its passage have to rely upon 
for the number of partial-birth abortions that are done. That is hardly 
a comforting position when you have to rely on your opponent for the 
information that you are to use in challenging the procedure.
  But let me, if I can, walk through first what is a partial-birth 
abortion. I caution those who may be listening, this is a graphic 
description of this procedure. I just want to alert anyone who might be 
watching who might feel uncomfortable with that.
  A partial-birth abortion is, first, an abortion that is used in the 
second and third trimester, principally in the second trimester. It is 
used at 20 weeks gestation and beyond by most practitioners of partial-
birth abortion. So, by definition, it is later term, you are into the 
fifth and sixth month of pregnancy.
  The procedure is done over 3 days. You will hear comments by Members 
who come to the floor of the Senate and suggest this procedure needs to 
remain legal to protect the life and the health of the mother. First, 
there is a life-of-the-mother exception in the bill. Very clear. It 
satisfies any definition of what life-of-the-mother exception needs to 
be.
  Second, health of the mother. I just question anyone, just on its 
face, not as a medical practitioner, which I am not, but on the face of 
it, if the health of the mother is in danger, particularly if there are 
serious health consequences, why would you do a procedure that takes 3 
days? That is what this procedure takes. It is a 3-day procedure. You 
have a mother who is at 20 weeks, or more, gestation, who has to have 
her cervix dilated. In other words, they have to create the opening 
through which the baby can come in the womb, in the uterus. And so it 
takes 2 days of drugs given to the mother. She does not stay at the 
hospital. It is not an inpatient procedure. She takes the drugs and 
goes home. If there are complications they happen at home, not anywhere 
else.

[[Page S4384]]

  The cervix is dilated. When you dilate the cervix, that opens the 
womb up to infection, but for a 2-day period, the cervix is dilated. On 
the third day, after a third day of dilation, the mother comes into the 
abortion clinic. The procedure then proceeds as follows.
  The doctor is guided by an ultrasound, and the abortionist reaches up 
with forceps and grabs the baby, which is normally in a position head 
down, grabs the baby by its foot, turns the baby around in the uterus, 
in the womb, and then pulls the baby out feet first in what is called a 
breech position. You may have heard of breech birth and the danger of 
birthing in a breech position. Here we have a doctor who deliberately 
turns the baby around and delivers it in a breech position.

  You may want to ask the question, why do they go through the trouble 
of pulling the baby out feet first? Why do they not simply deliver the 
baby head first and do what I will describe later? The reason they pull 
the baby out feet first and deliver the baby, as the next chart will 
show, all but the head--they deliver the baby out of the mother, with 
the exception of the head.
  Why do they leave the head? Why do they not take the head out first, 
which would be a normal delivery, a safer delivery? The reason they do 
not deliver the head first is because once the head exits the mother, 
it has constitutional protection and it cannot be killed, because once 
the head exits the mother, it is considered a live birth and you cannot 
kill the baby. So they take the baby out feet first so they can then 
take a pair of scissors, puncture the back of the baby's skull to 
create a hole, open the scissors up to create a hole large enough for a 
suctioning tube to be put in the baby's head, and the brains suctioned 
out, thereby completing the murder of this baby and then having the 
baby delivered.
  I just remind you the reason they do not do it head first is because 
if they did it head first, which would be safer than reaching in with 
forceps and grabbing the baby out from a breach position, if they did 
it head first, they could not do this, because once the baby is outside 
the mother they could not kill the baby.
  Who is this procedure used on? It is used on fully formed babies from 
20 weeks on. Now, we will discuss what has been said in the past about 
who this has been used on. The abortion industry has made claims that 
this procedure was a rare procedure that was just used--and I will read 
some quotes--quoting from the Feminist Majority Foundation, ``A 
procedure used less than 600 times a year, and in every case, to 
protect the life or health of the woman.'' ``The procedure is used 
only,'' according to the Feminist News, ``600 time a year to save the 
life, health, or future fertility of the woman and in cases of severe 
fetal abnormality.'' Here is another feminist news article, ``used less 
that 500 times a year when necessary to protect the health of the woman 
facing severe problems due to the pregnancy.'' This is the National 
Abortion Federation factsheet on February 26, 1997: ``This particular 
procedure is used in about 500 cases per year, generally after 20 weeks 
of pregnancy, and most often when there is severe fetal anomaly or a 
maternal health problem detected late in pregnancy.''
  The Alan Guttmacher Institute, as well as Planned Parenthood, the 
National Organization for Women [NOW] Zero Population Growth Fund, 
Population Action International, and the National Abortion Federation 
sent a letter October 2, 1995, to the Congress that said, ``This 
surgical procedure is used only in rare cases, fewer than 500 per year. 
It is most often performed in the cases of wanted pregnancy gone 
tragically wrong, when a family learns late in pregnancy of severe 
fetal anomalies or a medical condition that threatens the pregnant 
woman's life or health.''
  Kate Michelman, President of NARAL, on June 2, 1996: ``These are rare 
terminations. They occur very rarely. They occur under the most 
difficult of circumstances. As I said, these are pregnancies that have 
gone awry.''
  Let me tell you what Members of the Congress said. From Pat 
Schroeder, ``There are very, very, very few of these procedures. These 
procedures are heart-break procedures.'' Senator Kennedy, the Senator 
from Massachusetts, said, ``The procedure involved in this case is 
extremely rare. It involved tragic and traumatic circumstances late in 
pregnancy, in cases where the mother's life or health is in danger.'' 
Senator Feingold, ``In fact, these abortions take place only when the 
life or health of the mother is at risk.'' Senator Daschle, ``This is 
an emergency medical procedure reserved for cases where the life and 
health of the mother could be endangered or where severe fetal 
abnormalities are a major factor in the decision made by a woman and 
her physician.'' Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, ``Partial-birth abortion 
is a rare medical procedure used to terminate pregnancies late in the 
term of when the life and health of the mother is at risk or when the 
fetus has severe abnormalities.''

  That is what we were told over and over. That is what the media 
bought. That is exactly how they covered this issue. They covered this 
issue as a very tragic, rare procedure used only in cases of life, 
health, and fetal abnormality--in only a few hundred cases.
  Now, we knew different. I argued it. Check the record from the last 
debate, that this was not as rare as they suggested. In fact, I entered 
into the Record an article written last fall by the Bergen County 
Sunday Record in New Jersey, where a reporter who took the time to do 
something reporters usually do not do on debate, particularly when it 
has to do with checking people in the abortion industry on their facts. 
She actually checked the facts. This reporter checked at an abortion 
clinic in northern New Jersey how many of the procedures were 
performed, and the reporter talked to two doctors, two abortionists, 
who said that they performed 1,500 partial-birth abortions every year, 
and not on fatally defective babies or not on unhealthy mothers or 
unhealthy babies, but usually in the fifth and sixth month for no 
health reasons at all--healthy moms, healthy babies, healthy 
pregnancies.
  We had that article already printed. That did not deter the President 
from saying what he said. We have quotes from the President here. ``I 
came to understand that this is a rarely used procedure, justifiable as 
a last resort when doctors judge it is necessary to save a woman's life 
or to avert serious health consequences to her.''
  Now, the President knew better when he said that. That information 
was available to the President. It is available to him now. But what 
happened between now and then that has caused such a stir? Well, I can 
tell you, unfortunately, the media has not done a very good job of 
exposing this. I do not know of any other reporters who made calls to 
their abortion clinics. They will not tell me or National Right-to-Life 
when they call, but they might. Sometimes they do not. I know of a 
reporter at the Baltimore Sun who tried to contact abortion clinics in 
Baltimore, and at least what she related to me was they would not talk 
to her, they would not tell her. I do not know of any reporters who 
have taken the time to actually check the facts.
  What are the facts as we know them now? Well, thanks to Ron 
Fitzsimmons, who heads up an organization of abortion clinics--let me 
repeat this, a man who runs an association here in the Washington 
area--that represents some 200 abortion clinics all over the country, 
came out just a couple of months ago and said that he had lied through 
his teeth and he could not live with it anymore. He had lied through 
his teeth about what had been said by the abortion industry about the 
issue of partial-birth abortions. He said that this was not, in fact, a 
rare procedure, used only in the late term for unhealthy pregnancies 
and for maternal health reasons or because of a severe fetal 
abnormality, but this was a procedure used principally in the fifth and 
sixth month on healthy babies and healthy mothers. In fact, I think the 
figure 90 percent was used. Then he said, ``We estimate the number of 
these procedures that are done at between 3,000 and 5,000, not 500.'' 
He said, ``We have known this all along.'' He said as soon as the bill 
was introduced he called some of his providers, and he knew this from 
day one of this debate, of, now, I think, 2 or 3 years ago. Yet the 
industry, knowing this, up until literally the day before, and in fact 
on the Web page of some of the abortion rights groups, you still find 
claims that this is a rare procedure used only in the cases of fetal 
abnormality. So they

[[Page S4385]]

continue to try to perpetrate the lie, and they certainly did until Ron 
Fitzsimmons blew the whistle.
  So what do we know now? I am not too sure we know too much. We know 
from the Abortion Provider Organization that they are willing to admit 
to 3,000 to 5,000. There is no check on what that number is. It could 
be 3,000 to 5,000, 5,000 to 10,000, 10,000 to 20,000, 20,000 to 30,000. 
There is no independent verification of that number, and we have to 
rely on the organization that is here fighting this bill to give us the 
information which we want to fight over. So we know of at least 3,000 
to 5,000, but we also know that in one abortion clinic alone 1,500 were 
performed last year, and the doctors who were interviewed for that 
story in the Bergen County Sunday Record said they had trained other 
abortion doctors in the New York area who also performed the procedure. 
The other people who were known to perform the procedure and teach it 
do not reside in the New York area. And we also have reports from a 
doctor in Nebraska who said that he has performed 1,000 of these 
abortions.

  So I just caution, as we begin the debate here, that we are debating 
on some very soft ground when it comes to how many of these abortions 
are performed, when we make this claim that it is only a few thousand. 
Maybe I am making too much of the fact that it is a few thousand as 
opposed to a few hundred. I guess I make the point because it points 
out the inaccuracy of the opposition's information. Frankly, if it was 
one, it is as much of a crime, in my mind, and I hope in most 
Americans' minds. If we subject one baby unnecessarily to this 
barbarism, is that not enough? Do we need 500? Do we need 1,000? Do we 
need 3,000 to 5,000? Is that the threshold where Americans will look up 
and say maybe we should do something about it? One is not enough. It 
does not stir up moral outrage if it is only 1, 2, 200, or 500.
  Why is this procedure used? As I said before, they suggested that 
this procedure was used to protect the life and health of the mother. 
That was the argument being used. As I said before, 90 percent of the 
abortions, according to the people who oppose this bill, 90 percent of 
the abortions, are performed electively, for no reason other than the 
mother decides late in pregnancy that she does not want to carry the 
baby.
  The question is, is it ever medically necessary to use this? Because 
that is the argument, that we need to keep this procedure legal because 
it is medically necessary to protect, as the amendment from the Senator 
from California, Senator Boxer, which we anticipate being offered, it 
is necessary to keep this procedure legal to protect the life and 
health of the mother. But we have the life-of-the-mother exception in 
the bill. So we have taken care of the first issue. Although, as I said 
before, I cannot imagine--and I have asked on the floor this question, 
and I ask it again--any circumstance where a mother presents herself in 
a life-threatening situation where you would then conduct a procedure 
that takes 3 days in which to abort the child. Again, I am a lay person 
here, not a physician. I have talked to physicians, and they say there 
is no such situation. But as a lay person, you don't have to be a 
doctor to figure this one out. You are rushed and presented to a doctor 
with a life-threatening situation and they say, let me give you 
medicine and come back, and then give you medicine again and come back, 
and they give you more medicine and send you home. That isn't going to 
happen. But to take care of those who have an objection, we put a life-
of-the-mother exception in there.

  Now they want a health-of-the-mother exception. Let's first look at 
whether this would be used to protect the health of the mother. I have 
talked to a lot of physicians, obstetricians who have stated very 
clearly to me that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to 
protect the life or health of a mother. That is a group of more than 
400 obstetricians, principally obstetricians and gynecologists, and 
some other physicians, including C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon 
General of the United States, who, prior to his fame as Surgeon 
General, was a well-respected and well-known pediatric surgeon who 
dealt with children shortly after birth, trying to fix some of the 
problems that they were born with. So we have clear medical judgment 
that this procedure is never necessary to protect the health of the 
mother. In fact, they make the argument that it is contraindicated, 
that it, in fact, threatens the health of the mother for a variety of 
different reasons. So we have doctors who say that this is not 
necessary to protect the health of the mother.
  Now, I will ask--and I have asked Members on the other side of this 
issue--when would this procedure be used to protect the health of the 
mother? Remember, it is a 3-day procedure. I have talked to physicians 
who say there are times when the life of the mother is in danger or the 
health of the mother is in danger and they need to separate the child 
from the mother. But in none of those cases is it necessary to 
deliberately kill the baby. They can induce labor, deliver the child 
vaginally and give it a chance to live. They can do a Cesarean section 
and deliver the child that way and give the child a chance to live. At 
no time is an abortion necessary that kills the baby in order to 
protect the health of the mother. And so why is it performed?
  The answer is very simple. It was given by the person who designed 
the procedure, who is not an obstetrician. He is a family practitioner 
who does abortions. He designed this procedure, very candidly, because 
this was a procedure that he could do on an outpatient basis. The woman 
would present herself after 3 days of having her cervix dilated, and he 
would be able to quickly do this procedure, so that he could do more in 
one day. It is done for the convenience of the abortionist. That is 
why. It is not done to protect anybody's life or health. It is done to 
make it easier on the abortionist. And it is used, again, on healthy 
moms, healthy babies in the fifth and sixth month of pregnancy, in 
almost all cases.
  (Mr. BROWNBACK assumed the chair.)
  Mr. SANTORUM. Where is this procedure done? Will you find this 
procedure done in the finest hospitals in this country? Will you find 
it even described in a medical book? Will you find it taught at any 
school in this country? The answer to all of those questions is ``no.'' 
This is not taught anywhere. This has not been peer-reviewed anywhere. 
This is not used in any major medical center. It is used in abortion 
clinics exclusively. No hospital will get near this procedure. It is 
not a peer-reviewed procedure. It is not an accepted medical procedure. 
It is not in any textbooks or in any kind of educational literature. It 
is a fringe procedure by someone who wanted to make it easy on 
themselves to do more late-term abortions and do more of them in 1 day.

  So that sort of sums up the who, what, when, why, where, and how many 
of this procedure. Now, why do we think it is important to outlaw this 
procedure? Well, there are lots of reasons why I think we should outlaw 
this procedure. No. 1, because it is a barbaric procedure. I hope that 
it would shock the consciousness of every Member of the Senate that we 
would allow innocent human life to be treated in such a deplorable 
fashion, to be manhandled and destroyed, as we would not even allow a 
dog to be destroyed. So, on the surface of it, the obvious reason is 
that this goes beyond the pale of what should be acceptable in our 
society. I can't imagine a Senator from the United States of America 
standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate 30 years ago with these charts 
and having to argue--argue--that this should be illegal in our country. 
Absolutely incomprehensible. Yet, 30 years later, as a result of Roe 
versus Wade, we have become so desensitized to the humanity of a baby 
inside the mother that we will allow this to occur--and defend it, 
defend it, vehemently defend it as a right.
  The abortion debate in this country since Roe versus Wade has focused 
on the issue of rights, of choice. The reason I think the abortion 
industry and abortion rights advocates are so upset about this debate 
is because, in a partial-birth abortion, you can't miss what is at 
stake here. This is not about a right. It is about a baby. You can't 
miss the baby here. It is right here before your eyes. It is right 
there where you can see it. It is outside of the mother and you can't 
avoid it. That is why they just cringe when this bill

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comes to the floor, because now we are talking about the dirty little 
secret we have had in this country for a long, long time, that 
abortion--and I will use the words of Ron Fitzsimmons--``One of the 
facts of abortion is that women enter abortion clinics to kill their 
fetuses. It is a form of killing. You're ending a life.'' Bravo for Mr. 
Fitzsimmons for stating the obvious. But that is something that the 
abortion industry has steadfastly avoided. He is talking about what 
abortion really is. It is about ending a life. And in this case, you 
can't miss the life. It is right here, right before your eyes, fully 
formed. The argument about just a blob of tissue or some protoplasm 
doesn't hold up at this late stage of a pregnancy. This is a baby. It 
is a fully-formed little baby. In many cases, it's a viable little 
baby.
  I mentioned Roe versus Wade. There are some people who will argue 
that this goes over the line, that this violates the provisions of Roe 
versus Wade. Let me address that issue very briefly and I will refer 
not only to the committee report in the House, the House Judiciary 
Committee report, but also the remarks made by my colleague from 
Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, on this issue. It was one of the reasons 
he supports the ban. When the baby is here in the mother's uterus, Roe 
versus Wade applies. Roe versus Wade says that, basically, for the 
first two trimesters, the woman has the right to do whatever she wants 
to do with that child in her womb. That is what Roe versus Wade says. 
They said, in the third trimester--it is definitely implied if not 
stated--because of the fetus', the baby's, potential viability, the 
rights of the baby come into play and there are limitations on 
abortion.
  Well, see, we have an interesting case here because this procedure 
takes the baby outside. The baby is not only outside of the uterus, 
except for the head, but outside of the mother almost completely, and 
is in the process of being born. In fact, the baby is almost completely 
born, hence the procedure's name, ``partial birth.'' So the baby is no 
longer completely within the domain of the uterus and then ruled by Roe 
versus Wade. By leaving the uterus, the baby gains rights that it 
didn't have inside.
  As an aside, don't you find it an interesting irony that inside the 
mother's womb this little baby, surrounded by fluid and warmth, is the 
most vulnerable to be killed and has no protection against someone who 
wants to kill it. Once it leaves what would be seen by the baby as a 
safe environment, then it could be protected. But in the place where 
you would think that the baby would be most secure is the one place 
where it is the most vulnerable to being killed, and only because this 
procedure involves partial birth, only because the baby leaves the 
mother does Roe versus Wade not apply. And so those who argue that we 
banned second-trimester abortions by banning this procedure--and we 
would because most do take place in the second trimester--that we 
violate Roe versus Wade, they don't understand Roe versus Wade. That 
child is no longer in the uterus and that child, now that it is born 
and still alive, still feeling, able to feel pain, cannot be killed; or 
at least we can ban it under Roe versus Wade because it has rights. The 
baby has rights.
  So we very strongly believe that these spurious arguments that 
somehow or another Roe versus Wade is being violated--by the way, there 
is nothing more I would rather see than Roe versus Wade being violated, 
but it doesn't do it here. This procedure does not do it. This 
procedure falls well within the constitutional boundaries of Roe versus 
Wade and Doe versus Bolton.
  Another issue that is being charged against this procedure--or it 
comes out in favor of this procedure--is the issue of a fetal 
abnormality. I am going to have a lot to say about the issue of fetal 
abnormality. But let me just say this for now. We have had Members of 
the U.S. Senate stand here in some of the finest hours of the U.S. 
Senate, and argue forcefully, gallantly, to protect the rights, the 
health, the safety, the security of disabled children. We passed the 
Americans With Disabilities Act. We are debating ironically--the irony 
is not lost--IDEA, which has the rights of disabled children in our 
discussion today. That bill is actually the bill before us as I speak. 
You will hear such passion. You should listen to some of the debate--
those of you who did not--the passion of the Senators defending the 
right for children with disabilities to have access to educational 
opportunities so they can maximize their human potential. Yet, 
unfortunately some of the most passionate speakers on that issue--turn 
around and passionately argue that because of their disability we 
should be able to kill them before they are born.
  Abraham Lincoln used a Biblical verse. ``A house divided against 
itself cannot stand.'' How can you with any kind of reflective 
conscience argue that the right to be so that children with 
disabilities have the ability to maximize their human potential and the 
Government should be there to ensure that their rights are not trampled 
upon and then not be willing to give them the most precious of all 
rights, the right to live in the first instance? How can you be a 
champion of the disabled when you will use fetal abnormality as an 
excuse to kill them in the first place?
  It is a shocking realism in this country that goes back to what I 
suggested before, which is we have become so desensitized to human life 
to kill a little baby, that unseen, unborn child, that because it is 
unseen you can just put it out of your mind, it is not really seen. 
That desensitization has consequences. We are seeing the consequence 
right now. We are debating this procedure. It is incredible to me that 
we even have to debate this. But it is here because people just have 
forgotten what life is all about, and what life means.
  We have across the street, at the Supreme Court, the issue of doctor-
assisted suicide. We have had lower courts say that doctor-assisted 
suicides are OK. We have massive organizations --I do not know how 
massive--at least organized organizations that advocate for allowing 
people to kill themselves and to have doctors help them. Again, I look 
back at 20 or 30 years ago and wonder whether that debate could have 
occurred at this time. But do not be surprised, particularly if this 
bill is unsuccessful, if we send the message out to the country that 
says human life isn't really that valuable, that we can in fact 
brutalize the most innocent children who have done nothing wrong to 
anybody.
  It is amazing. You can describe this procedure. I saw a television 
commercial put out by one of the groups who showed a prisoner shackled, 
both arms and legs, walking down death row and being put in a chair. 
While he was walking and he was led to the chair, what if a voice 
describes the procedure, describes taking the scissors and puncturing 
the base of the skull and sticking a vacuum tube in the base of the 
skull and suctioning the brain out? The courts would clearly find that 
cruel and unusual punishment and violative of the Constitution. But you 
can do that to a little baby who hasn't killed anybody. It hasn't 
robbed, raped, stolen, nor harmed a soul. And then we wonder what is 
happening to our culture. We wonder, as we sit at home and we listen to 
the news, and we listen and we read the papers, and we see the young 
people out there, and we wonder. Why have they gone astray? What is 
happened to the fabric of our culture? Why don't they have respect for 
our country, for people's goods, for other people's lives? Why, indeed? 
You need to look only this far: 1.5 million abortions a year, as 
public, and as customary, and as usual, and, as a matter of fact, as 
any number you will hear on the U.S. floor--1.5 million abortions.
  OK, what is next? You will hear it discussed in the news: Abortion. 
It is a matter of choice. It is someone else's decision. I do not want 
to get involved. It has nothing to do with me. Look around you. Things 
are coming to roost in this country. When you have such disdain for 
human life that we are seeing exemplified, magnified, by allowing this 
procedure to go forward, by allowing this innocent little baby to be 
mutilated, butchered in such a way. People who vote for this to remain 
legal have answered their own question as to why our culture is the way 
it is, because the great, great leaders of our country, the role 
models--that is what we are, whether we like it or not. Every Senator 
who goes into a school--and I go into a lot of them--particularly young 
kids. I am sure the Presiding Officer now sees this as a new Member of 
the Senate. Oh, they would love

[[Page S4387]]

to have your autograph. They want to have your picture taken with them 
because you are someone to look up to. You are someone who has achieved 
a level of excellence that we admire in this country. You are in a 
position of authority. What you say and think matters. And they look up 
to us.

  Is this what you want them to see? Is this what you want to teach the 
next generation, that this kind of brutality is OK, and then you wonder 
why you see random acts of violence and you wonder why you see no 
respect for human life? The consequences are real. They are here. We 
don't have to speculate as to what the consequences of this are. They 
are here, and we are living with it.
  All we want to do here is to take one little step in creating some 
decency again, one meek little message for the people in this country 
that life should be respected, that children should not be brutalized 
unnecessarily. That is what this procedure does.
  You will hear arguments that this will not stop abortions. It may be 
true. I wish I could say this would stop hundreds and thousands of 
abortions. But I am not too sure that it will.
  What I am sure of is that this brutality will stop and we will send a 
very clear, positive message to Americans and to the world that this 
kind of barbarism has no place in American culture, certainly no place 
in the laws of our country.
  So I hope that as Members come tomorrow and we begin the formal 
debate on this bill that they will come with open minds and open 
hearts, that they will seek the truth. This debate has been surrounded 
by lies from those defending the procedure. Hopefully those admissions 
of lies will give people the opportunity to look anew at what the facts 
are, not just the facts of when this is used, but how it is used. I 
went through all of those things--but what the ramifications are for 
this country and for our society.
  The abortionists are probably right. We are not going to stop a lot 
of abortions. There are other methods of abortion available if we 
outlaw this. Abortions unfortunately on babies this age will continue. 
But we send a signal, as small as it is.
  That is why I guess I am so shocked at the vehemence of the 
opposition, the opposition that says this will not stop abortions, the 
opposition that admits that this is rare and that this is a fringe 
procedure. They admit it is not a commonly used procedure, that it is 
not in the medical literature. They know all of that. Yet, they stand 
here, backs to the wall, fighting for every last inch of not defendable 
territory. Folks, this is not defendable territory.
  We may not win this time. I don't know what God has planned for this 
debate. But we may not win this time. That is OK. We will be back.
  This is wrong. So when people in the U.S. Senate who believe 
something is wrong don't stand up and fight to overturn that wrong, we 
will be in for very serious, even more serious, consequences for this 
country.
  So I hope that my colleagues, enough of my colleagues, would share my 
concern, would look at the new evidence. There are new facts that are 
accurate to the degree they can be accurate relying on the other side. 
There are more accurate facts available now on this debate. There is 
ample reason to reconsider this vote.
  I hope that they would be led by both their hearts and their minds 
because on both scores we win. There is no medical reason for this 
procedure to occur. You will not find any physician anywhere describing 
any condition where this procedure is necessary and is the only one 
available to be used for whatever situation. In fact, as I said before 
and I will say over and over again, this is a 3-day procedure. Why 
would it ever be used in a life-threatening situation when there is 
imminent health damage? It would not be used. We have hundreds of 
physicians who have testified via letters that this procedure is never 
medically indicated.
  So on the facts, on the medical facts, using their brain only, this 
is not only unnecessary, unwarranted, but unhealthy.
  I will share one other statistic from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 
one of the signatories of the letter I referred to earlier with NOW and 
NARAL. This is an organization which is very much proabortion. This is 
a very, very radical group. And here is what their numbers say. After 
20 weeks gestation, after roughly 4 and a half months, abortion is 
twice as dangerous to maternal health as delivering a baby. So to even 
suggest that abortion is necessary in cases of whatever, fetal 
abnormality or just because you do not want to have the child, that 
that is safer for the mother than delivering the baby either via 
Cesarean section or by vaginal delivery, the pro-choice institute, Alan 
Guttmacher Institute, says that it is twice as dangerous to the life of 
the mother to have an abortion after 20 weeks as it is to deliver the 
baby.
  So if you are really wrapped up on this issue of health, abortions 
are more dangerous than delivering the baby. There is no health reason 
to do this procedure. In fact, because it is a blind procedure--the 
abortionist cannot see the base of the skull, and so they have to 
feel--as you see, they have to feel with their hands and then take a 
blunt instrument and puncture the base of the skull, which can cause 
bone fragments. This is a very blood-rich area, a lot of veins exposed. 
There can be damage done by doing this blind procedure. This is not a 
procedure that protects the health of the mother.
  So using your brain, looking at the facts, this is a no. We should 
not allow this. This is dangerous. This is wrong. And I would think--I 
cannot speak to the heart, but I would think that your heart and that 
your conscience and the reason that so many Members have struggled so 
hard with this--and I know they have, people who I know believe deeply 
in this right of privacy and the right to abortion as enumerated in Roe 
versus Wade, that they have made their moral judgment that this is OK, 
but even to those Members this stirs a disquiet. This stirs some 
uncomfortableness in them. Follow your heart. Your brain is there. If 
you look at the facts, the brain is going to be there. The only thing 
stopping you is your heart. Open your heart to these babies. Do not let 
this kind of barbarism continue. Stop the murder, stop the infanticide, 
and you will not be violating Roe versus Wade, not one word of it.
  So as we start this debate tomorrow, I intend to debate the facts. I 
intend to stand up and go through all of the arguments not only on this 
procedure but on Senator Daschle's amendment, Senator Boxer's 
amendment, and talk about why those two amendments, particularly the 
Daschle amendment, I might add, not only is a sham in the sense it is 
just political cover, which is exactly what it is, it does not 
accomplish anything. The Daschle amendment which we will debate, I am 
sure, tomorrow will not stop one partial birth abortion, not one. The 
Daschle amendment will not stop any abortion. In fact, I will argue 
tomorrow, and I think I can point out clearly from the language of the 
text, the Daschle amendment expands Roe versus Wade. Yes, this 
amendment which is supposed to be a compromise--interesting we use the 
term ``compromise'' when the Democratic leader never talked to anybody 
on our side of the issue. You would think when you are trying to 
compromise with someone you would talk to the other side in reaching a 
compromise.
  That did not happen. I did not receive one phone call or even the 
hint of a phone call. No one else that I know of who supports the 
bill--of the 42 cosponsors of the bill, it is my understanding none of 
them received a phone call. And so this compromise, which was drafted 
by people who oppose this bill to give political cover by saying things 
like, well, we are going to ban all postviability abortion, then leaves 
it to the abortionist to decide what is viable and what is a health 
exception because they have a health exception--we will ban all 
postviability abortions except for life and health. Who determines 
health? The person performing the abortion.

  Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You have someone performing 
an abortion. They are doing it. They are performing an abortion on a 
client. They are killing a baby. After they finish killing the baby, 
then they have to certify whether this baby was either viable or there 
was an exception for the life or health of the mother.
  Put yourself in the position of the abortionist. Are you going to say 
the baby was viable and I killed it? There

[[Page S4388]]

was no health exception and I went ahead and killed the baby. Raise 
your hands. How many people think that the abortionist is going to 
claim that they violated the law? Because they are the only ones who 
certify to it. No one else can. Many times I have seen in the paper 
this debate has been analogized to the debate on the second amendment, 
the right to bear arms.
  Let me give you this analogy. It is like passing a piece of 
legislation on assault weapons. That was a very popular topic. It is 
like passing a piece of legislation on assault weapons and saying that 
the gun dealer will define what an assault weapon is for purposes of 
whether they break the law.
  That is exactly what this bill does. It allows the doctor to define 
what the law is, in other words, what the exceptions to the law are, 
and no mentally competent abortionist who has just aborted a baby is 
going to claim they broke the law, just like no mentally competent arms 
dealer is going to sell a howitzer and say it is an assault weapon. 
They are not going to say it is an assault weapon. I broke the law. You 
let me certify it. A howitzer is not an assault weapon. And under the 
Daschle bill, if we could apply it to guns, the arms dealer is OK. Wait 
a minute. We have the certification here. No problem. He certified it 
is not a howitzer. He said it is not an assault weapon. He said it is 
something else.
  Again, just remember the people offering this amendment have a 100 
percent voting record against pro-life issues. They have vehemently 
opposed this bill from day one. You can always tell the validity of 
this kind of legislation by who supports and who opposes.
  Now, you would think that an industry--and that is what abortion, 
unfortunately, has turned into with 1.5 million a year. It is an 
industry. You would think that an industry that has gone to tremendous 
lengths and expense to oppose a ban on a procedure which they admit is 
infrequent, that does not happen very often, that is only an 
alternative and others could be done in place of it, that they argue is 
not going to stop one abortion, that they would fight vehemently 
against this that will not, in their own words, stop one abortion, they 
argue against this, yet they support Senator Daschle's proposed 
amendment.
  Now, wait a minute. If Senator Daschle's proposal actually stopped 
abortion, do you think they would support it? I think you can answer 
that for yourself. The people who oppose it are people like myself who 
understand what it is. It is a sham. The proposal does nothing except 
one potentially very dangerous thing. By giving the abortionist the 
right to determine what health and viability is, you expand Roe versus 
Wade because under Roe versus Wade at least third-trimester babies are 
somewhat protected. Under the Daschle proposal, there is no protection, 
none. It is whatever the abortionist wants to do and the mother agrees 
to do at any time. Oh, you can probably string the viability issue 
along to 35 or 36 weeks and you probably have to admit that after 35 
weeks that baby is viable. But the health, there is all sorts of health 
things that can go on even at that late time.

  So I would just caution my colleagues who are considering this 
legislation that this is a real change in the law. This will have an 
impact on stopping a procedure that has no place in American society. 
The Daschle proposal not only does not change the face as far as the 
existing rights of abortionists and abortion, I have argued and will 
continue to argue that it expands the right to abortion. Anyone voting 
for the amendment of the Senator from South Dakota will vote to strike 
this procedure--in other words, vote against this procedure because his 
amendment which will be offered tomorrow strikes this procedure from 
the bill. In other words, cuts it, amends it out and replaces it, 
substitutes it with his phony ban which not only does not ban anything 
but expands the right to an abortion.
  So I would just caution Members when they vote on Senator Daschle's 
amendment that they are doing two things, one of which they will admit 
they are doing. They are getting rid of this legislation. That is No. 
1. So they will be voting against this procedure being banned. And No. 
2, they will be expanding the rights of abortionists and abortion 
beyond what Roe versus Wade currently does by allowing the abortionist 
to have complete authority over what is a health exception, what is 
viability.
  So, this is really a very clear debate, and we will commence tomorrow 
in formality between those who want to at least take a procedure and 
say this goes too far, that the right to an abortion is not so absolute 
as to allow this kind of barbarism to occur, and others who believe 
that Roe versus Wade did not go far enough. In spite of all the 
rhetoric we will hear tomorrow, the bottom line, with the amendment of 
the Senator from South Dakota, is that he will be arguing in fact--not 
by his words, because I am sure he will not agree with that--but in 
fact--read the language, his amendment will loudly say that Roe versus 
Wade is not broad enough, that we need more access to abortion than we 
have today.
  I think, of anything that I have learned in dealing with this issue, 
particularly when it comes to children who are in utero, with 
disabilities, that the issue is not the ability to get an abortion in 
this country. If you have a child with a disability, and it is 
diagnosed in utero, I guarantee not only will the abortion option be 
made available to you, because they are legally required to do that, 
but if they see a badly deformed baby, they will do everything, most of 
the physicians, most genetic counselors, will do everything to 
encourage you to have an abortion.
  I will talk about one such instance tomorrow. For those Members I 
spoke about earlier who can come to terms with this debate on the 
intellectual level and have trouble crossing the threshold of the 
heart, I will put a face on partial-birth abortion. It will put a face 
on what is going on out in our country, with doctors who are so afraid 
of malpractice, so afraid of difficult and complicated deliveries that 
they choose the easy way out. ``Let's get her to abort the baby now so 
we don't have to deal with this.''
  Many of you are thinking, ``Oh, I can't believe that.'' Believe it. 
Believe it. It happens every day. You do not see any wrongful death 
suits, do you, against abortionists for terminating a pregnancy? I am 
not aware of any. But you will see wrongful birth suits for children 
born, and their parents, incredibly, believe that their child was 
better off dead than born.
  So, for doctors, as normal human beings, risk averse, it is easier to 
abort. You can't get sued when you abort. They sign all these waivers 
and consents. We will be fine. But they can sue us if we do not do 
everything we can to get them to abort beforehand and we have a 
complicated delivery and things happen, or the baby is deformed and we 
did not explain maybe well enough how deformed the baby was.
  I would argue it is easier to get an abortion in this country when 
you are carrying a child with a fetal abnormality than it is to find a 
doctor who will deliver it. I will tell you a story tomorrow of exactly 
that case. I am sure there are other cases out there. In fact, I know 
there are other cases out there.
  It goes back to the point I was making. Not only do we as a society, 
but unfortunately the people who are most responsible for delivering 
our children become so callous, many of them--not all of them. 
Certainly not all of them. I hope most would understand the 
significance of a human life and protect it and honor it and dignify 
it. But, sadly, that is not the case in far too many instances with the 
professionals in the field of genetics counseling.
  My father-in-law, Dr. Kenneth Garver, went into genetic counseling 
when he was a pediatrician in Penn Hills, PA. He decided to go into 
genetic counseling and medical genetics. I know one of the reasons that 
drove him to do so was not only the fascinating developments in medical 
genetics, which were certainly a lure to someone as bright as he and as 
interested as he was in the subject, but a fear, that has been borne 
out to be a legitimate fear, that the people who have been drawn to 
that field are people who do not believe that that baby has a right to 
life, who very much believe in abortion and counsel for it and, in far 
too many cases, encourage it. It is a field that he got into because he 
wanted at least someone--someone--where men and women who are going 
through a difficult pregnancy could come and not be browbeaten into 
having an abortion.

  You say, ``Oh, Senator, you are being extreme here.'' I will tell you 
the story

[[Page S4389]]

of little Donna Joy Watts and you tell me how extreme I am. And I will 
tell the stories of people who have written to me and talked to me and 
called me and e-mailed me about situation after situation where those 
same set of facts have come forward. What have we come to when we 
encourage people who desperately want to hold onto their children that 
this is the only way?
  Some will say it is by ignorance. I suggest in many cases it is 
ignorance, but in many cases it is ignorance of convenience that a lot 
of these physicians would just rather not have to deal with the 
situation. So the first knee-jerk reaction is, ``Well, the baby is not 
going to live long. Abort it.'' Or, ``The baby is going to have all 
sorts of complications. Abort it.''
  All we are trying to do here is to say stop the infanticide. That is 
the term used by the Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan, and I 
believe the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter--both of whom 
are generally on the opposite side of the issue on the issue of 
abortion. But they recognize that when a baby is outside the mother's 
womb and, as nurse Brenda Shafer said, moving its arms and legs, in the 
case that she described, the partial-birth abortion she described, the 
baby had the face of an angel. It was a perfectly healthy, normal baby.
  It thought--and yes, thought, because babies have brains; they are 
human beings--thought as it was leaving this environment that was so 
warm and protected, little did it know that it would meet with this 
kind of brutality. Folks, it's not just once, or twice, or 10, or 20, 
or 100, or 500--thousands. Untold thousands.
  I am hopeful that, as a result of all the things that were discussed 
for the past several months as a result of the statements by Ron 
Fitzsimmons, Members of this Senate will look again, look at this 
procedure, look at the consequences, real consequences of what the U.S. 
Senate and the Government of the United States will convey to the young 
people of our country, to any person in our country, that we will allow 
these innocent babies to be murdered like this.
  If we send that kind of message, I guarantee I will be down here when 
one of the Senators who did not support this stands up and beats his 
breast, complaining about why the crime rate is so high, why there is 
no respect for property, why there is no respect for life, why there is 
no respect for--you name it.
  Kids aren't dumb. They pay attention. I have a 6-year-old and a 4-
year-old and a 1-year-old. It frightens me how much they pay attention 
to everything you do, whether you know it or not. They pick up so much.
  You see yourself. You know. You see yourself in your kids so much you 
just don't even realize all the little things that you do that they 
see. They will see this. They will understand what this means. They 
will understand that life is not important, that, unless you are big, 
strong, healthy, able to protect yourself, there is no protection. It 
is survival of the fittest. We wonder why we have a cynical generation 
X; everyone believes they are out for themselves, that everyone does 
things in their own self-interest. What could be more in self-interest 
than this? What can be more selfish than this? What kind of message are 
we conveying? This is ultimate selfishness. It was not convenient. I 
was not ready. I--I--I--I.
  This is a baby. It is not ``I,'' it is ``we.'' But we have told the 
message to the young people, only ``I'' matters. Then we wonder why 
they feel the way they do. We wonder why they act the way they do. We 
wonder what has happened to our culture, what has happened to our 
society. You need only look this far. You need only look at the 
selfishness, the individual self-centeredness of this procedure. A 
procedure we would not do on Jeffrey Dahmer, a procedure we would not 
do on the worst criminal in America, we will do on a healthy little 
baby.
  I hope the Senate says no. I hope the Senate can just muster the 
moral courage to say no and live up to the dignity of this place. It is 
an impressive place. Great men and great women have stood in this hall 
and fought for noble causes. I cannot think of any more noble a cause 
than protecting a helpless, beautiful--whether deformed or not, in the 
eyes of God, beautiful baby.
  I ask everyone within the sound of my voice to pray that that 
happens, that the Senate says no more, this is where we begin to draw 
the line. I ask you not only to contact your Senators by e-mail or 
write or call or drop by their offices, I ask you to pray that somehow 
their eyes will open to what the consequences of our actions are, what 
it means to us as a society, as a culture. What the reporters are 
writing today is this bill will fall short of the 67 votes needed to 
override the President's veto. If you do, those things I have asked, 
who knows?
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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