[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

[[Page S11615]]

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

[[Page S11616]]

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

[[Page S11617]]

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

[[Page S11618]]

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.

                          ____________________