[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 66 (Monday, May 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4664-S4665]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 1997

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a topic which is 
going to be voted on here in the U.S. Senate tomorrow, the topic of 
partial-birth abortion. This is an issue which I think is 
understandable by virtually every American who has given it any 
consideration. They understand this is a brutal technique which 
inflicts pain and is the kind of thing which would shock the conscience 
of most Americans not only as it relates to unborn children, but if it 
were, as a matter of fact, a procedure used even on animals.
  Mr. President, about 2 weeks ago, a Rhode Island jury found a mother 
guilty of second-degree murder in the death of her newborn daughter. 
The State medical examiner, according to a May 9 article in the 
Providence Journal-Bulletin, testified that the little girl died from a 
single blow to the back of the head that left a laceration on her scalp 
and an inch-long skull fracture. The umbilical cord and the placenta 
were still attached to the child.
  Now, ironically, this Rhode Island woman who had been found guilty of 
second-degree murder, if she had, prior to giving birth, allowed a 
physician to perform a procedure very similar to what she did, a 
procedure called partial-birth abortion, there would have been no 
criminal action involved. The baby would have been there, the blow to 
the head would have been similar, the umbilical cord would still have 
been attached, the placenta would still have been there, but because 
the baby would have been only partially born, it would have been 
entirely legal.
  This kind of tension that exists in the law between charging and 
convicting a mother of second-degree murder and authorizing a physician 
to conduct what is called a partial-birth abortion makes no sense to 
the American people.
  Let me take a few moments today to talk about the lessons we teach 
when we as a culture allow such tensions to persist. When we come down 
here to the floor and we argue before the cameras, the Nation is 
affected on a level of which we too often take little notice. People 
look, people listen, people understand.
  Right now we are debating a violent medical procedure that, in my 
judgment, should be a clear-cut wrong. People understand that. However, 
the high emotion of the abortion debate seems to blur the vision of 
many of us who are in the U.S. Congress. We are so caught up in arguing 
about the definition of technicalities that we are in danger of 
slipping into absurdities ourselves, absurdities that are exemplified 
by the charge and conviction of the woman in Rhode Island.
  The stakes are high here, as we are talking, in no uncertain terms, 
about the value of human life. It seems so clear that all of us should 
vote to ban the direct killing of a fully formed, often viable, human 
being. Yet because the child is 80 percent born, somehow we have 
allowed the killing of that child to be legal.
  Now the partisan political rhetoric we expend here and the attempts 
to turn this vote into abstract public policy are setting an example in 
our society and in the world that bring into question our Nation's 
status as a moral leader. How can we lecture or threaten China on its 
human rights abuses when we stand up and argue that human beings should 
be brutally butchered in a procedure that is rarely, if ever, medically 
necessary?
  How can we question the practice of child slavery in foreign nations 
when our own Nation's lawmakers cast cavalier votes to torture our own 
infants?
  Let me be clear, though. Our position as a world leader does not 
trouble me as much as the positions we put our youth in when we refuse 
to provide moral guidance.
  What are we teaching our own children? What are we saying to them 
about the value of life? What are we saying to them when we suggest 
that a technicality provides the difference between destroying a life, 
committing murder, and merely having an abortion?
  What values are we teaching when we vote that the difference between 
a partial-birth abortion and a homicide is a mere 3 inches?
  If the physician took forceps or scissors to collapse the baby's 
skull outside the mother's body, he or she would be charged with 
murder.
  Yet, if the skull is collapsed when the baby's head is still 
partially in the birth canal, the homicide becomes a legal procedure.
  What values are we teaching when lawmakers show more concern for 
animals or the environment than for human life? Let's look at two 
pieces of legislation that demonstrate the absurdity of our present 
value system.
  H.R. 3918 was introduced by then Representative Barbara Boxer on 
November 25, 1991. The Congressional Research Service summarizes the 
bill as follows:

       Requires each Federal department or agency head to review 
     and evaluate nonanimal alternatives with the potential for 
     partial or full replacement of the Draize or other animal 
     acute toxicity tests for some or all of the products 
     regulated by such department or agency.

  I might not have all the facts, but it seems to me that Senator 
Boxer--one of the strongest opponents of this legislation--seems to put 
the pain and suffering of laboratory animals above the pain and 
suffering of human beings.
  When you say that you want to replace the Draize, or other animal 
acute toxicity tests, and you are willing to say it is necessary to 
spare animals this kind of pain but it is not necessary to spare these 
mostly born children of the pain inflicted on them by partial-birth 
abortion, I think you can again raise the level of tension between what 
the public knows is right and the technicality of the law which would 
allow something which the public knows to be very wrong.
  Former Senator Pell introduced S. 1701 during the 104th Congress. The 
bill prescribes criminal penalties for use of steel jaw leghold traps 
on animals; directs the Secretary of the Interior to reward 
nongovernment informers for information leading to a conviction under 
this act; and empowers enforcement officials to detain, search, and 
seize suspected merchandise or documents and to make arrests with and 
without warrants.
  Senator Pell stated on the floor, ``While this bill does not prohibit 
trapping, it does outlaw a particularly savage method of trapping.'' 
Well, the bill we are debating today does not outlaw abortion--it 
outlaws ``a particularly savage method of abortion.''
  I am surprised and even a bit dismayed that the Members supporting 
and proactively fighting for measures that would reduce the suffering 
of animals have not been willing to afford at least the same 
protections to human beings.
  What values are we teaching when we appear to value to limbs of 
animals over the lives of children?
  And this takes me back to my opening--the emotion and strife of the 
abortion debate is blinding and confusing some Members. However, the 
legislation before us today is not about an uncertainty, it is about 
combating acts of barbarism against human beings.
  Of course, part of the confusion on this issue is due to misleading 
reports on the necessity and practice of partial-birth abortions. As 
reported in Newsweek last October:

       When the partial-birth-abortion debate took shape last 
     year, pro-choice groups insisted the procedure was extremely 
     rare. The number 500 to 600 was tossed around, with the 
     President and others explaining that it was reserved for 
     heart-wrenching cases involving women whose tests show 
     severely deformed fetuses or whose health was at risk.

  That comes from Jonathan Alter, ``When the Facts Get Aborted,'' 
Newsweek, October 7, 1996.
  But we now have a fairly clear and broad concurrence on the truth 
about the rarity and utility of this procedure. Let's look at the 
facts.
  The fact is that partial-birth abortions are not rare or unusual.
  The fact is not that it is 500 or 600 cases a year in the entire 
country.
  The Sunday Record of Bergen County, NJ stated: ``But interviews with 
physicians who use the method reveal in New Jersey alone, at least 
1,500 partial-birth abortions are performed each year''--triple the 
450-500 number which the National Abortion Federation [NAF], a lobby 
for abortion clinics, has claimed occur in the entire country.
  The same article in the Bergen County Sunday Record reported:

       Another [New York] metropolitan 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

[[Page S4665]]

     teaching hospitals, said he had 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.

  The truth contravenes the myths of last year's debate--the 
suggestions by proponents of this procedure that it is only used in 
situations of dire medical emergency, and that it is limited in its use 
to about 500 or 600 a year nationwide. The truth of the matter is that 
in New Jersey alone it is three times that number.
  Is partial-birth abortion needed to protect the health of the mother?
  Frankly, I think we have to always be very concerned about the health 
of women in this debate. We should not do those things that would 
unduly or unnecessarily impair the health of women in this country.
  President Clinton has justified his veto of the partial-birth 
abortion ban last year by pointing to the legislation's absence of a 
health exception. Some Members of this body also argue for a health 
exception. However, the facts indicate that such an exception is 
unnecessary.
  Four specialists in ob/gyn and fetal medicine representing PHACT--
Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth--a group of over 500 doctors, 
mostly specialists in ob/gyn, maternal and fetal medicine, and 
pediatrics, stated in a September 19, 1996, Wall Street Journal 
article:

       Contrary to what abortion activists would have us believe, 
     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.

  In response to the President's statements that partial-birth 
abortions were necessary to preserve the woman's health and their 
ability to have future pregnancies, former Surgeon General C. Everett 
Koop stated:

       I believe that Mr. Clinton was misled by his medical 
     advisors on what is fact and what is fiction in reference to 
     late-term abortions. Because 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.

  ``Because in no way can I twist my mind in a way * * *.''
  C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States, 
indicates that it takes a twisting of the mind to get to the point of 
saying that the baby must be destroyed in that setting.
  Even Dr. Martin Haskell, who has performed over 1,000 partial-birth 
abortions, said that he performs them routinely for nonmedical reasons, 
and that 80 percent are purely elective--not required to protect the 
health of the mother.

  Dr. David Brown, a physician investigating this procedure for the 
Washington Post wrote:

       [I]in most cases where the procedure is used, the physical 
     health of the woman whose pregnancy is being terminated is 
     not in jeopardy * * *. Instead, the ``typical'' patients tend 
     to be young, low-income women, often poorly educated or 
     naive, whose reasons for waiting so long to end their 
     pregnancies are rarely medical.

  The PHACT doctors have even said that at 21 weeks or later, abortion 
is riskier to a woman's health than childbirth. They state in a recent 
letter to the editor of the Washington Post:

       It should be noted that at 21 weeks and after, abortion is 
     twice as risky for women as childbirth: the risk of maternal 
     death is 1 in 6,000 for abortion and 1 in 13,000 for 
     childbirth.

  I hope we will be successful in our endeavor to obtain enough votes 
to override an expected Presidential veto in this matter. Clearly the 
President won't be able to rely on the myths and misrepresentations 
this year that he relied on last year if he is to veto it.
  We are not only teaching poor values. We are not only setting a bad 
example. We are risking lives and losing lives as a result of this 
procedure.
  George Will tells an interesting story in an April 24 Washington Post 
op-ed which demonstrates the irony of what we are debating here. The 
story is about Stephanie and Sandra Bartels of Hull, IA. Sandra and 
Stephanie were twins born in a South Dakota hospital. They were born 88 
days apart by what is called ``delayed-interval delivery.'' Will 
states:

       Stephanie, born January 5 when her mother went into 
     premature labor in the 23rd week of her pregnancy, weighed 1 
     pound, 2 ounces. Sandra, weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces, was 
     born April 2, by which time Stephanie weighed 4 pounds 10 
     ounces.
  For 88 days, while her twin sister's life was protected by the law, 
Sandra, who was still unborn, under the current law could have been the 
subject of a partial-birth abortion.
  As Will states,

       Location is the key factor. Unless she is completely 
     outside the mother she is fair game for the abortionist.
  The tension between the fact that one twin already born is protected 
by our law, while the other twin yet unborn is fair game for 
destruction through a brutal procedure called a partial-birth abortion, 
is obvious.
  Such an absurdity in the law is not consistent with American values. 
It is not consistent with the expectation of the American people that 
we govern rationally. Physical location should not be the key factor. 
However, George Will is right. Location was and is the key factor, and 
that locational factor should be abandoned.
  We should ask ourselves about location. We should ask ourselves: To 
what location will our moral compass direct us when we vote on the 
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act? I believe it should direct us to the 
location where we abandon and outlaw this painful and brutal procedure.
  We should ask ourselves: Where will we end up on the scale of decency 
and humanity?
  Will we continue to be guilty of basing our reasoning on a thin, 
irrational thread of support for an inexcusable practice which we would 
not tolerate in terms of animal experiments?
  Should we keep drawing these illogical distinctions to sustain the 
brutal inhumane treatment of our citizens?
  I hope when this vote comes before the Senate that we will all end up 
on the high ground. I hope that our vote to ban this procedure will be 
so resounding that the President will look at our action and think, 
This legislation is not only based upon rationality and consistency, 
but it was also endorsed so thoroughly by the U.S. Senate that I ought 
to sign it rather than veto it. We as a nation must refuse to allow the 
grotesque brutality of partial-birth abortion to continue.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I observe the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair.

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