[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11614-S11620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 2003--Continued
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I believe we are now on S. 3, which is
the partial-birth abortion bill?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, for the information of Members, we will
have an hour of debate, a half hour each side, and then we will have a
vote at 2:40 this afternoon, followed by a series of five votes on
judges.
This is a vote that, candidly, is not necessary. It is a vote that
will be 100 to nothing, or as many Senators as are still here to
nothing.
It is a vote to get this bill to conference. The House passed one
bill. The Senate has passed a different bill. The normal rules are you
adopt a motion of disagreement and go to conference. Otherwise, you
keep bouncing back and forth to the House and the Senate with a fully
amendable vehicle which doesn't get you anywhere.
I am asking all of my colleagues to vote on this procedural matter to
get the bill to conference. I will tell you that I fully anticipate the
bill coming out of conference within a very short period of time before
we recess for the rest of the year. We will have a bill that will pass
here overwhelmingly. It will pass in the House overwhelmingly and be
signed by the President, which is the objective I think certainly the
vast majority of the people in this Chamber would like to see done.
I understand there may be some reasons the Senator from California
wanted to have this debate and have this vote. This is probably the
only time where all of us will agree on this issue and vote for this
resolution and get it to conference. We will then move, hopefully
expeditiously, from that point.
I see the Senator from New Jersey is here. I will be happy to yield
the floor and allow him time to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, thank you. I thank the Senator from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. President, I come to the floor and stand with my good friend,
Senator Boxer, and the women across America to express my support for
the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and the importance of protecting a
woman's fundamental right to choose. I think that really is what the
issue is about--not the parliamentary procedures we are talking about.
Earlier this year, we marked the 30th anniversary of this critical
decision which clearly established a woman's fundamental right to
reproductive choice. I strongly support that right. The decision about
this difficult choice for an individual should be made by the woman,
her doctor, and her moral counsel and, in my view, not by politicians
and not by Government. Simply put, I trust the women of America to make
their own health and moral decisions without the intrusion of
Government. I think that is what Roe v. Wade indicates.
Having said that, I recognize women and men of good faith can and
will reach different conclusions about this difficult moral question
involved in the debate. But Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. I am
very troubled by this administration's--and frankly Congress's--
attempts to undermine that basic right by that decision. Whether it is
through the so-called partial-birth abortion bill, reduced access to
family planning, efforts in redefining the legal status of fetuses, or
far-right traditional nominations, this administration and this
Congress are constantly knowingly chipping away at women's fundamental
freedoms.
That is why I was pleased when, in the context of the so-called
partial-birth bill, the Senate adopted the Harkin resolution expressing
support for Roe v. Wade, which is what the debate is about today.
First, let me make clear I oppose the underlying bill, and I still
do. I believe the bill is unconstitutional, and it doesn't take into
account the health of the woman that the Supreme Court requires. Its
practical effect would be to deny women access to some of the safest
procedures at all stages. That said, with the Harkin amendment
included, I was at least partially satisfied that the Senate has
reaffirmed the importance of Roe v. Wade.
Again, the reason we are having this debate is to make sure our
conferees are embracing something we supported here in an open vote on
the floor of the Senate. All of us know the House has stripped away the
resolution affirming Roe, laying bare, in my view, the true purpose of
the underlying legislation--to undermine Roe and ultimately roll back
women's rights.
When Roe v. Wade was decided in January of 1973, abortion, except to
save a woman's life, was banned in two-thirds of the States, including
my home State of New Jersey. Roe rendered these laws unconstitutional,
making abortion services safer and more accessible to women throughout
the country--not just to a select few--and certainly on a safe basis.
Many of these statutes are still on the books waiting for an anti-
choice majority in the Supreme Court to overrule Roe.
I hope my colleagues will think long and hard about the implications
of forsaking Roe. We need to be very careful to avoid returning to a
period in which abortion was illegal and when the only choice women had
was to seek illegal and unsafe abortions--particularly when economic
position determined who had a safe choice. In those days, thousands of
women died each year as a direct result of the abortion ban. In
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fact, 17 percent of all deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth were the
result of illegal abortions. It would be tragic if we return to those
days and forget the lessons of history.
The Supreme Court itself in 1992 noted that in addition to improving
women's health, Roe has enabled women to control their reproductive
lives, and thus ``participate equally in the economic and social life
of the Nation.'' Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe, called his
decision ``a step that had to be taken as we go down the road towards a
full emancipation of women.'' That is a pretty straightforward sentence
that I think most Americans believe in.
If we are really interested in reducing the number of abortions in
this country, we should ensure that women have access to the full array
of family planning services, including prescription, contraception,
emergency contraception, and prenatal care. We should also support
expansion of comprehensive sex education. That is the way to deal with
this problem as opposed to putting it into the dark alleys and off of
the front pages.
Every week 8,500 children in our country are born to mothers who lack
access to prenatal care. Too many of these children are born with
serious health problems because their mothers lacked adequate care
during their pregnancy. As a result, 28,000 infants die each year in
the United States. That is the real tragedy. We ought to act
immediately to address this issue by expanding access to prenatal care,
as several of my colleagues and I have proposed, to start helping them
stay healthy. What we should not do, however, is pass legislation we
know is unconstitutional and which would ban a common and safe form of
abortion at all stages of pregnancy, and which would increase maternal
mortality--all without improving the health of a single child.
We also should not forget Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land,
despite this administration's seizing opportunity after opportunity to
undermine it. Unfortunately, though, Roe hangs by a thread, and the
retirement of one Supreme Court Justice could mean a change and the
demise of Roe v. Wade.
That is why it is absolutely essential for this Senate to affirm the
importance--and indeed the very validity--of Roe v. Wade. That is why
it is important for the Senate to oppose the House stripping of the
Harkin resolution, which is what we are debating.
It is time for us to make sure we stand firm on what we believe in so
strongly. I think there is a lot we can do to prevent unintended
pregnancies. That is where we ought to be putting our efforts--not
undermining Roe v. Wade.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CORZINE. Certainly.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what time remains at this point?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California controls 22\1/2\
minutes. The Senator from Pennsylvania controls 28 minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. I just wanted to thank my friend very much, through the
Chair, for coming over. I know it is a very hectic day for all of us. I
appreciate the fact that several of my colleagues have come to the
floor to speak about this.
The Senator's point is quite eloquent; that is, affirming Roe, saying
this decision was the right decision and what this Senate ought to do.
Further, what we ought to be doing instead of outlawing procedures
without making exception for the health of the woman, we ought to be
moving forward aggressively with family planning. We ought to be
helping poor children and poor families.
I find very interestingly the very people who want to have the court
overturn Roe, say that Roe is a bad decision, and the Government should
decide what women should do with their own bodies are the ones we
cannot get to support us on family planning and on helping poor kids.
It is a very odd set of circumstances to me when I see an elected
official say we should ban abortion because it is wrong from minute 1.
We should ban abortion, force women to have these children at the
earliest stages, not let them decide but have the Government decide,
and then turn our backs on the children once they are born.
I ask my friend if he does not see an irony here?
Mr. CORZINE. There clearly is. The Senator from California recognized
that. First, there are positive steps that can truly lift up and help
children across the country, across the world, frankly, including more
thoughtful planning processes. But more importantly, we are taking a
decision away from individuals, which is the most private, the most
moral, the most important decisions they can take, and saying we know
best. I have a very hard time understanding how that fits with other
philosophies that I hear at times expressed.
I know this is a difficult decision for every individual. They have
to struggle with that in their own lives. There is no way, in my view,
that we should be moving to have Government make that decision when, in
fact, the individual, doctor, and people's moral counsel are the places
where that decision lies.
I appreciate the Senator from California and her effort to make sure
such an important and potentially divisive issue in our society, which
has been decided by the courts, constitutionally decided by the Court,
continues to be reaffirmed by all involved in elective public office.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask my colleague one more question. My colleague has
come in favor of the Harkin amendment. I hope we have a very big vote
to disagree with what the House did. The House struck the Harkin
amendment from the bill. That is a very strong difference the Senate
has with the House. We will vote to disagree with what the House did.
I share with my friend the very elegant simple language of the Harkin
amendment:
It is the sense of the Senate that:
(1) the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade (410
U.S. 113 (1973)) was appropriate and secures an important
right; and
(2) such decisions should not be overturned.
This is a very elegant, simple statement and, by the way, has no
force of law. It is simply a sense of this Senate.
Does it not seem to my friend to be an indication of how out of sync
the House is on that they would strike this simple sense-of-the Senate
language? If you ask the people, and we have a recent poll--Should
Government be involved in the early stages of a pregnancy?--80 percent
say, Government, keep your nose out. And the House is so interested in
passing this underlying ban on a medical procedure that, by the way,
has no exception for health, would the Senator not think they would
have just left this in and then there would be no difference between
the House and the Senate? As we know from our Government textbooks,
when there is no difference, the bill would go right to the President.
Does my friend believe that the House leadership, those who struck this
language, who pushed striking this language, are out of step with the
vast majority of people in New Jersey, people in California, people in
this country, 80 percent of whom believe the early stages of pregnancy,
this decision should be between a woman, her doctor, her God, and her
family, and it is not about Senator Corzine deciding or Senator Boxer
deciding or Senator Santorum but rather the women, in consultation with
their conscience, their family, their God, their doctor.
Mr. CORZINE. The Senator from California is elegantly stating the
case. I certainly have a strong sense that the people of New Jersey
believe, the women of New Jersey believe, what the people across the
country in the poll numbers that have been suggesting believe: Most
Americans thought this issue was resolved once and for all by a very
clear decision, tough decision of the Supreme Court, and should stand.
What we are doing by including the Harkin resolution--which is, as
the Senator said, very elegant, simple, very straightforward, not the
rule of law, the force of law--is very clearly underline something that
has been decided by the American people and continues to be supported
by the American people. It is important we have this language in the
underlying bill which, by the way, as I suggested, I didn't vote for to
start with. But I do believe it was made better by this resolution. I
implore the Senator from California to continue to speak out with the
kind of
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elegance and care which gets at one of the most difficult and painful
choices and issues we have to deal with in our society.
Since we have resolved this, we should live with it and go forward.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. To reiterate, this idea that the vast majority of the
American public agrees with Roe v. Wade is not correct. Roe v. Wade
allows abortion under any circumstances at any time during pregnancy.
That is what Roe v. Wade does.
Now, what does the American public say about their position on
abortion? According to the Center for the Advancement of Women, a pro-
choice activist group doing a survey among women in America--not
wording it in a way that will get a conservative or pro-life response,
I might add--51 percent of the women in this survey this year, this
summer, said they would either ban all abortions or only abortions in
the case of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother--51
percent of women in this country, and this is not inconsistent with
other polls.
The idea that 80 percent of the people in America support Roe v.
Wade, if you tell people what Roe v. Wade is or ask them their position
on abortion and match it up with what Roe v. Wade does, 80 percent of
the American public under no survey support what the law is pursuant to
Roe v. Wade; 51 percent would take what most people in this Chamber
would term the pro-life position, 50 percent of women--that is, no
abortions or no abortions except in the case of rape, incest, and to
save the life of the mother, which is far less than 1 percent of
abortions done in this country: 1.3 million, one-third of all
conceptions in America end in abortion.
Additionally, 17 percent say it should be stricter than under current
law. What does that mean? That means stricter than under Roe v. Wade.
So you have 68 percent of the women saying they disagree--according to
a pro-choice advocacy group survey--saying they disagree with Roe v.
Wade.
So the suggestion that the House is out of step with America because
they do not support language that is not supported by 68 percent of the
American public--and I argue it is probably higher than that because
the other category is so cloudily worded so as to probably bring in
people who would have problems with the absolutism of Roe v. Wade. The
idea that 68 percent, at least, of women in this country do not support
Roe v. Wade speaks for the wisdom of the House and the centrality of
the position that the House took.
A couple other comments about Senator Boxer's statement about
rejecting the House's stripping of the Harkin language. The fact is,
when you have two different versions that pass both bodies, you go to
conference. That is what we do. We do it as a routine. That is what we
will do today. This is a routine procedure vote that simply gets us to
conference. I assure my colleagues the bill that will come out of
conference will be one that will be very familiar to Members here and
will be, I believe, overwhelmingly adopted.
There are another couple points I would like to make.
I spoke earlier on this topic--the Senator from California spoke
about it--and that is this idea that Roe v. Wade has saved the lives of
women who would otherwise have had abortions illegally and would have
died as a result.
The Senator from California states that there were 5,000 women who
died per year as a result of illegal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade. I
put into the Record the facts. The facts at that time, according to the
Department of Health and Human Services, the National Center for Health
Statistics, which said there were a total of 612 deaths of women who
died as a result of complications from pregnancy--total maternal deaths
612: of that, 83 were related to abortion.
If you look at the trend--this chart starts in 1942--the total number
of deaths from abortion goes down from 1,200 to 1,100, to 986, to 888,
760, 585, 496, 394, 316, 303. It keeps going down and down and down,
all the way up to 1966, 189--160, 133, 132, 128, 99, 83--every year,
virtually every year. There are a couple where it goes up maybe one or
two and then back down one or two, but the trendline is clear: Because
of the improvements in health delivery, the improvements in medicine,
we have seen the number of deaths go down, even when abortion was
illegal, as well as a commensurate drop in total maternal deaths as a
result of pregnancy.
We would expect that trend to continue as health delivery continues.
In fact, if you look at the numbers today, in 1998, which is the most
recent number available, there were nine women who died from legal
abortions. If you would follow this trendline, that is actually higher
than what the trendline would suggest, given the trendline over the
previous 30 years on this chart.
So the idea that Roe v. Wade is saving all of these lives is false.
It is false. The idea that the Senator suggested--she said she was
going to put evidence in the Record to substantiate the 5,000. We have
gotten the information the Senator put in the Record. I cannot find
anything in those documents that even talks about the number of women
killed from abortions prior to 1972. So maybe she handed in the wrong
documents. I don't know. But I don't see anything in any of those
documents that talks about the number of women who died prior to 1972
as a result of abortion.
The reason is, the only facts we have are the official facts of the
U.S. Government. I know the Senator from California said: Well, these
women in these statistics were subject to prosecution, criminal
sanction, if they had an abortion, so, of course, they wouldn't be
reported. What the Senator from California obviously forgot is these
women are dead. So obviously they aren't concerned about criminal
sanctions at that point. This is information off the death certificate.
So the idea that someone is playing with these numbers or the people
are not reporting them because of fear of criminal action is just
absurd.
This argument that justifies Roe v. Wade is false. But what is true?
The number of abortions in this country has skyrocketed--that is true--
and millions of children have died. Millions of children have died as a
result of Roe v. Wade.
Is the condition of children better as a result of Roe v. Wade? Is
the condition of the family better as a result of Roe v. Wade? The
statistics don't prove that out, either. Oh, I remember reading things
that were written at the time about how the legal right to an abortion
was going to dramatically affect the amount of abuse, domestic
violence, and we would see a dramatic drop in domestic violence because
children--these problems that we have out there--if you take children
out of the relationship--unwanted children--domestic violence will go
down. Roe v. Wade will decrease the amount of violence in the house.
Not true. It did not happen. It went up.
It was said: Well, it will decrease the amount of violence toward
children. You have all these unwanted children out here and as a result
parents get violent because they don't want these kids and they are
forced to have them. So not only domestic violence will go down but
child abuse will go down. False. It more than doubled. Almost
immediately, within a few years after Roe v. Wade, it started to go up
and dramatically increase.
You can see from every single social indicator that has an impact on
women and children and families in America, they have suffered horribly
as a result of this ``compassionate'' decision. The facts just do not
work out the way some would have liked them to, so we make up facts.
The Senator said: I am entitled to my facts and she is entitled to
hers. Well, I disagree. You are entitled to your opinion; you are not
entitled to your own set of facts. The facts are what they are. Make
your debate. Make your arguments. As a result of that, I respect you to
do that. But the facts are what they are.
These are not my facts. These are the facts of the Federal
Government, period. And they do not support the arguments.
The Senator from New Jersey said that somehow or another we are not
to make decisions in the Senate that affect the rights of women with
respect to carrying a pregnancy to term. I respect that opinion. I
disagree with it.
I think it is important we have this debate. The problem, though, is
that we really cannot have this debate. See, the problem with the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision is that this debate was
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truncated in America because the U.S. Supreme Court came in and pulled
the debate that was raging across America as to how we are to deal with
this very difficult issue--and it is a difficult issue--they just
pulled the stakes right up and said: No, we are going to take this
incredibly important moral decision, take it out of the hands of the
American public, and we are going to decide, we are going to make a new
constitutional right, a right to an abortion.
I think everyone would agree, prior to 1973 there was no such right.
So they created one in the Constitution--by the way, without having to
go through the tortuous exercise of passing a constitutional amendment.
They just decided to do it and took away the right of every American--
other than them--to decide what the right public policy should be, what
the moral public policy should be.
I hear this so often, that Congress should not make moral decisions.
Name me one vote we have here that does not have some moral
implication. Every single one does, from whom we tax to whom we
regulate. There is a moral component to everything we do here. We
cannot run from that. My goodness, I hope we do not want to run from
it.
But they usurped that authority away from the people of the United
States, and now, when those of us get up and question that, we are
somehow illegitimate or extreme or somehow not comporting with the law
of the land.
Well, I have likened this decision--and I will to do it again--to the
Dred Scott case. I refer to Roe v. Wade as Dred Scott II because it is
exactly the same principle upon which Dred Scott was decided. Dred
Scott was decided saying that the rights of a human being were subject
to the rights of another person.
The life right, the essential right, the most important right, the
right to an existence was subject to the liberty rights of somebody
else.
There were people at that time who said: Who are we to make this
decision that slaveholders should not have the ability to own slaves?
It has been done for centuries. It is in the Bible. How can this be
wrong? And who are we to make the decision? We should trust our own
conscience. We should trust the conscience of these people to do the
right thing. I think that is what the Senator from New Jersey said.
That decision should be made between the slave owner, the banker, and
the slave. Maybe the slave doesn't get involved; I don't know. What did
they say back then? But that is the same debate being made today. We
sort of remove ourselves from having any moral overtones: We should not
make this decision. Let somebody else make it. I personally may be
opposed to slavery, but who am I to tell a slaveholder they shouldn't
have a slave? How many times have you heard: I personally would never
own a slave? I personally would never condone abortion?
It is the same issue. The right of life has been subjugated to the
right of someone's freedom to do what they want irrespective of that
other person's life. That is what slavery was based upon. That is why
we look at it now and we say: How could we possibly let that happen?
How could we take the order of liberties put forward in the
Declaration of Independence--that you are endowed by your creator with
the right to life first and foremost, then liberty, then the pursuit of
happiness? Why? Because if you don't have life, you can't have liberty.
And if you don't have liberty, you can never pursue your happiness and
your dreams. When you put those out of order, it is like pouring acid
on the structure of America. It corrodes us. It just eats away at us.
And it infects so much else. So much else has been affected by this
right to privacy under the Constitution that was created by the Supreme
Court. I mean you go on and on and on, these rights that put the
liberty rights of some over the life rights of others. What happened to
the society that put the rights of others before the rights of us, put
the common good before us?
I had the privilege a couple months ago, on July 4, to be at the
National Constitution Center opening. I thank my colleagues who
supported Federal support for this incredible facility to teach our
children about our Constitution. It is three blocks from Independence
Hall. It is a magnificent facility, a great interpretive facility that
teaches about the essentials of our Constitution.
I was asked to speak at this event and talk about one particular
piece of the Preamble to the Constitution. Each speaker got a little
piece and, therefore, we were to weave the whole thing together. My
piece was ``promote the general welfare.''
Not having been a great student of the Constitution, I decided I had
better read the Preamble again and get an understanding of what this
was all about. As I looked at that, I looked up the definition of
``preamble.'' It said: The reason for the document to follow. It gave
the reason. Why did we establish, why did we put this Constitution
together? The preamble states the why; the Constitution itself is the
what. And it struck me, as to all the things that were in the
Constitution--establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide
for the common defense, secure liberty for ourselves and our
posterity--of the five verbs, ensure, establish, provide, and promote,
four of the five were active verbs in which the Government was to do
something. It was the Government's responsibility to ensure or to
establish or to provide, except the one--promote.
The Government's job there was not to do that but to create an
atmosphere in which people would do it. Do what? Promote the general
welfare. And what is the general welfare? What was the reason that our
Founding Fathers gave us all of these rights and which the Supreme
Court now litigates on, the rights in the Bill of Rights, the right to
freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of the press and
religion, all of the freedoms, equal opportunity, all of the things
that are in this great Constitution of ours?
What was the goal of our Founders in giving individual--because they
are by and large not group rights; they are rights of individuals--
rights, the general welfare, not the individual welfare, not your
personal success, the common good. It was a country designed to be
bigger than us. It was not about us. Yes, they gave freedom to us. They
gave liberty to us. But the goal was not us. The goal was something
lofty, something great. And we are corroding this document into
something that is just about us.
The greatest of the corrosions is Roe v. Wade. The greatest injustice
is Roe v. Wade, where it says: I am the law; I decide common good,
general welfare--me. I come first.
That is not the vision of the miracle of Philadelphia. That is not
the reason this country was established through this Constitution. We
had loftier goals. We had greater ideals. We had dreams of what this
country could be if we all went out and, yes, pursued our dreams, but
we did so in service to others, in building a community, in founding a
nation based on morals and laws that respected the rights of others.
Oh, how we have slipped, how we have slipped to just thinking about us.
Why is this right in the Constitution so popular among others,
particularly the popular culture, the elite culture in this country?
Why is it so adamantly defended by the media and those in this elite
culture? Because it is about me. It is a culture. Look around you,
folks. It is a culture that says: If it feels good, do it. Please
yourself. Don't worry about other people. Just do whatever feels good--
me, me, me.
Of all the rights in the Constitution, the right to privacy is the
``me'' right, it is the ``me first'' right.
If you think about what our Founding Fathers did when they put that
Constitution together, they had no intention of creating me-first
rights. If you have any question, read the Preamble--the general
welfare, the common good. That is what this country is all about, and
they knew the best way to get there was to give people the freedom to
pursue the truth, to pursue those dreams, to pursue happiness--not
hedonistic happiness but true happiness that you find in serving
others, in doing things that are bigger than you.
We have lost our way, and there is no better example of how lost we
are than this decision. I know there are hard cases out there, and we
will hear them, I am sure. We will hear them over and over again, how
difficult the decisions are. Having known people who have gone through
that decision, I know
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how gut-wrenching and terrible and awful these tough decisions are. But
I think back to the speech given earlier this year by Condoleezza Rice
at the National Prayer Breakfast. She gave a talk I have not heard in
this town for a long time. She gave a talk about the importance of
suffering. She gave a talk about her ancestors, slaves in America, who
had a spiritual hymn, ``Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen,'' followed
shortly thereafter by the verse: Glory hallelujah.
She said it struck her: How could they be talking about all this
suffering and pain and then giving glory to God? She let me understand
that God puts you through suffering to perfect you. I don't know too
many people in life who learn and grow by having things come easy,
being taken care of by somebody else. They learn by the difficult,
tough things we all do because we are all sinners, we all make
mistakes, and we get ourselves in jams all the time. You learn, you
develop character, and you develop who you are by how you deal with
that suffering.
I would argue the right to privacy in America has given people an out
that is not always in the best interest of them or our society.
This is a tough issue. I reiterate, I respect the other side for
their opinion. I just wish the Court would respect my side. I wish the
Court of the United States of America would respect the other side of
this issue enough to allow us to debate it in America and make a
decision based on how America feels about it because that is how
democracies and republics are supposed to work. But they have denied
you, the American public, and your representatives here the opportunity
to do that. My colleague from California wants to keep it that way. I
think you deserve better.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will you give me the time situation,
please?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has 15 minutes 27
seconds, and the Senator from Pennsylvania has 1 minute 2 seconds.
Under the previous order, the Senator from California reserves 10
minutes to close.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will you please notify me when I have 10
minutes remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will so notify the Senator.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, we are coming to the end of what I think
has been a very good debate. I am very hopeful the Senate will vote yes
on the motion to disagree with the House. The Senator from
Pennsylvania, who is worried about this, has decided everyone is going
to vote for it. I say good news. Let the Supreme Court see that while
the Senate took up this bill to ban a medical procedure, a medically
necessary procedure, it, at the same time, supported a landmark
decision called Roe v. Wade that said to the Government: Stay out of
people's lives in the very early stages of a pregnancy. It said to the
Senators then and to the Senators now: You think you are important, but
guess what. You need to respect the people you represent and not
interfere in a decision they need to make with their God. I think that
is profoundly moral.
What I think is immoral is to take your views, Madam President, or my
views or the views of the Senator from Pennsylvania and force them on
the people of this country. It is disrespectful, it is not right, and
it is not what America is about.
In 1973, the Court said to us: At the early stages of a pregnancy, a
woman has this right, but at the later stages of a pregnancy the State
can, in fact, ban abortion, as long as the State always respects the
life and health of a woman. That was a wise decision, and it has held
to this time. There are many people who want to see it overturned.
Indeed, the Court is about 5-4 on that decision. A lot hangs on that
because this is not some abstract issue. This is a real issue.
The Senator from Pennsylvania challenged me this morning. He said:
You keep saying women's health would be harmed if this medical
procedure in the underlying bill is banned, but you have no proof.
I don't know what more I can do than what I did this morning, which
is to put into the Record--and I will reiterate the documents--how many
doctors, organizations, how many nurses, how many OB/GYNs said, we are,
in fact, opening up the door for women to be harmed, gravely harmed.
Let's put up the chart that shows what we were told by physicians
could happen. If this is supposed to be a moral bill, I ask you a
simple question: Is it a moral position to outlaw a medical procedure
that doctors are telling us is necessary, in many cases, to protect the
health of a woman? Is it a moral position to subject a woman to
hemorrhages, to uterine rupture, to blood clots, to embolism, to
stroke, to damage to nearby organs, such as your kidneys, to paralysis?
If that is considered a moral position, then I guess--I just can't see
it. I don't see it.
If you don't know, if you do something without knowledge, I cannot
say you are immoral. But if you are doing something with knowledge, if
you are banning a procedure we know is necessary, and we have doctor
after doctor--here is testimony of Vanessa Cullins, vice president of
Medical Affairs of Planned Parenthood after years of being a board-
certified OB/GYN with a master's degree in public health and business
administration. That is her testimony.
We also put in the Record the testimony of Anne Davis, M.D. She is a
physician who practices in New York. She is board-certified in OB/GYN.
She went to Columbia University. She gives us chapter and verse about
her belonging to the American College of OB/GYNs and how they are very
worried that these things, and worse, could happen if this bill passes.
Let's face it, this underlying bill is going to pass. For the first
time in history, Congress is playing doctor, outlawing a medical
procedure that is sometimes necessary to save the life and health of a
woman, outlawing that procedure without a health exception, and we are
doing it with knowledge and forethought. If you can sleep at night
doing it, then that is fine.
The American Medical Women's Association: Please have a health
exception.
The American Public Health Association; Physicians for Reproductive
Choice and Health. It goes on and on. This letter by Felicia Stewart,
who is an OB/GYN in California, was very specific on what could happen.
So the bottom line is, if we want to talk about morality, I am ready to
talk about morality.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 10 minutes remaining.
Mrs. BOXER. I will withhold my 10 minutes until after the Senator
from Pennsylvania speaks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, to reiterate, we make moral decisions
on this floor every day. We decide what things are legal, what things
are illegal. We do so based on a variety of things, but morality is
certainly one component of that. The idea that we have no right to pass
laws that are moral, then we should eliminate the laws against killing,
we should eliminate the laws against rape. Those are all based upon the
fact we believe those acts are harmful and immoral and therefore we
pass laws to proscribe them.
I do not think we want to kick ourselves out of the business of
stopping things that are immoral in this country by passing laws to
proscribe them. Believe it or not, some people actually do not do
immoral things because there are laws against them.
I suggest that this idea that we have no right to pass moral judgment
is the greatest canard that I have heard across this country. I hear it
all the time, that we should absent ourselves from this moral debate.
It is exactly where this debate should occur.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. I never said we should not pass laws that stop
immorality. I am a champion of those. I am leading a fight right now in
the Commerce Committee to stop child kiddy porn. I am sure my friend is
going to work with me on it.
Mr. SANTORUM. I will.
Mrs. BOXER. He misunderstood and absolutely misrepresented what I
said. What I said is that the underlying bill, which does not make an
exception for the health of the woman, is an immoral
[[Page S11619]]
bill. I do not think it is a moral bill. I think it is an immoral bill,
and the reason I think it is an immoral bill is it makes no exception
for the health of a woman, no matter how hard we try. We reached across
the party line. We said we want to make an exception for health. Oh,
no, women will lie. Oh, no, doctors will lie. We cannot have a health
exception. People will lie.
I feel sorry for a woman who finds herself in a circumstance where
she is in desperate shape, in a pregnancy gone horribly wrong--and I
have met many of them. I have seen their faces, and God bless them
because they have come out and given up their privacy to talk about
what they have gone through. I feel sorry for the next woman who is
lying bleeding on a table and a doctor has to take out this law and
say: I am not sure because your life may not be at stake. It may be
your health, and if I use this safe procedure I might lose my license,
I might go to jail.
Anyone who wants to be party to that, be my guest. Thankfully, across
the street there is a Supreme Court, and I think they will find this
underlying bill unconstitutional because it is vague and because it
does not make an exception for the health of the woman. Even the most
rabid anti-choice people are now saying that this bill is surely
unconstitutional.
Why do I think the underlying bill is immoral? Because we know a
woman could get a hemorrhage, a uterine rupture, blood clots, an
embolism, a stroke, damage to her organs, or paralysis if this
technique, this medical procedure, is not used in certain very serious
cases.
So, oh, yes, I support laws that are moral. My colleague is
absolutely correct, there is morality in everything we do. When we go
after corporate abuse, when we go after criminals who because of
insider trading, for example, make an illegal profit, I am going after
them. That is a moral issue. Weapons of mass destruction, that is a
moral issue. A new generation of nuclear bombs, that is a moral issue.
Abortion is a moral issue. You bet it is.
I believed that the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 took a moral stand
and found that they have to balance the rights of all involved. My
friend says, and I am going to quote him now, ``Our society is
corroding.''
Well, I do not believe that I am corroding because I am pro-choice. I
do not believe the people in the Senator's State who are pro-choice are
corroding. I do not believe that the people of this country who believe
that politicians ought to stay out of their private lives in the early
stage of a pregnancy are corroding. I think they are struggling with a
tough issue.
My friend said this morning that I was wrong, that 5,000 women did
not die. I put a cite into the Record. I now have a book by Richard
Schwartz, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He was the
chief of the section there. This is an old book from 1968 in which he
says:
It has been estimated that as many as 5,000 American women
die each year as a direct result of criminal abortion. The
figure of 5,000 may be a minimum estimate inasmuch as many
such deaths are mislabeled or unreported.
As I said to my friend this morning, he said the CDC said only 85
women died of illegal abortions. Well, people did not come forward.
Families did not come forward. Doctors did not come forward.
This was a crime. He has in his own State a great university, and one
of the leaders of the School of Medicine there has written this. I ask
unanimous consent that this excerpt from the book be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Septic Abortion
(By Richard H. Schwarz, M.D.)
Scope of the Problem
It has been estimated that as many as 5,000 American women
die each year as a direct result of criminal abortion. The
figure of 5,000 may be a minimum estimate, inasmuch as many
such deaths are mislabeled or unreported. Most studies also
indicate that up to 1,200,000 illegal abortions are performed
annually or--otherwise stated--that one pregnancy in five in
this country is illegally terminated. Hellegers challenged
these figures and suggested that there are more likely
200,000 abortions and 800 deaths annually. Although much
smaller, these figures still represent a significant wastage.
With the striking reduction in the general, maternal death
rate, however, septic abortion has become a leading cause of
maternal deaths. In Philadelphia over 50 per cent of the
maternal deaths result from complications of abortion, and
this fact apparently holds true in other areas of the
country: Stevenson reports 57 per cent in Michigan; Hellman,
33 per cent at the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn: and
Fox, 28 per cent in California.
During recent years at the Philadelphia General Hospital,
where deliveries averaged between 4,000 and 5,000 per year,
there have been, rather consistently, 800 to 1,000 abortions
annually. One can readily see that this exceeds the expected
spontaneous abortion rate. Periodic reviews of patients
admitted with incomplete or inevitable abortions indicate
that at least one third of these women can be classified as
septic at the time of admission to the hospital. During the
12-year period between January 1, 1954 and December 31, 1966,
a review of slightly over 12,000 abortions revealed 29
deaths. Twelve fatalities were caused by septic shock, five
by ruptured postabortal abscess, two by staphylococcal
septicemia and two by tetanus. Therefore, 21 of the total of
29 deaths, were caused by infection.
Mrs. BOXER. Another point of debate about how many women died,
whether it is 85, 89, 100, 5,000, or as Dr. Schwartz says, probably
much more, one death from an illegal abortion is too many.
Those of us who remember back to those days remember that, and that
is why the Harkin amendment is so important because the Harkin
amendment simply said we strongly support Roe. We do not think it ought
to be overturned. I am very hopeful that every Republican and every
Democrat today will vote to support Roe in this motion to disagree.
My colleague says it is just a routine voice vote. No, it is not. It
is a vote on substance. That is why we have been arguing it. If it was
such a routine, just a go-to-conference vote, I do not think he would
have been arguing against Roe. If he wants to argue against Roe and
then vote for Roe, that is great with me because we are sending that
right over to the Court, and they will see that the Senate stands
firmly in favor of Roe.
There are certain problems in our country that we thought we solved.
One of them was this problem because when Roe v. Wade was heard, we did
have thousands of women dying, and thousands more being made infertile.
We all knew the stories. We all lived through those times. Roe said
something had to be done about it. What they decided to do is balance
all the interests.
Let us show what Roe says, because it is, in my opinion, such a
moderate decision that balanced all of the interests and why it has
been supported for so many years. What they say is that after
viability:
. . . the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality
of human life may, if it chooses, regulate and even
proscribe--
that means ban--
abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical
judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the
mother.
I believe people who come to this floor and talk about morality, that
is their right to do it. If they want to say they are more moral than
someone else, that is their right. I do not have a problem with that.
But what the Court did back in 1973 has said this is a tough issue. We
have to look at everything. What they decided is instead of women
running to a back-alley abortionist and paying cash under the table and
risking their life by bleeding to death, becoming infertile and all of
that, that in the early stages of a pregnancy, before the fetus could
live outside the womb, that a woman has this right to choose.
I have to say, if we go back, and we could go back--it all depends on
who is in this Senate, who is sitting in the President's seat, who is
over in the Court. That is all that is riding on. It is very clear. If
we go back, we are going to go back to the days that were not good for
women and were not good for families. Do you know what. They were not
good for anyone.
The beauty of being pro-choice and being in favor of Roe is that we
respect everyone's opinion, not only by just standing here and saying,
I respect the Senator, I respect the Senator--that is all fine. I
respect my constituents. That means I trust them to make a judgment.
That is the foundation of Roe--balancing all the interests; saying, at
the early stages, keep the big nose of Uncle Sam and the Government out
of private lives.
[[Page S11620]]
Some people find that privacy ruling distressing. I think it said: Do
you know what. This is a great country because we respect our people.
We are not an oppressive government like China. We are not an
oppressive government like Romania certainly was. We don't force our
people to have children. And we don't force them to have abortions. We
trust them to think about what they want to do in such a situation.
I am extremely hopeful that in one moment from now we will have a big
vote, a big vote to disagree with what the House did when they
callously stripped out the Roe language that Senator Harkin put in.
I hope it is a big vote. I cannot wait to see the vote because we are
going to make sure the Supreme Court understands that we still stand
for the life and health of the woman.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to disagree to the House
amendment. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Utah ( Mr. Hatch) is
necessarily absent.
I further announce that the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Smith) is absent
because of a death in the family.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Utah
(Mr. Hatch) would vote ``yea''.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Edwards), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Lieberman), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Miller) are necessarily
absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea''.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 93, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 351 Leg.]
YEAS--93
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Clinton
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hollings
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NOT VOTING--7
Edwards
Graham (FL)
Hatch
Kerry
Lieberman
Miller
Smith
The motion was agreed to.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate agrees to
the request for a conference.
____________________