Congressional Record, Volume 149 Issue 137 (Wednesday, October 1, 2003)

[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 137 (Wednesday, October 1, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9110-H9117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that there
is finally light at the end of the tunnel in what has been a long
battle. Tomorrow, the House is poised to pass the conference report on
S. 3, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. This conference
report represents several years of hard work on the part of the
Congress to produce a bill that passes constitutional muster.
Since 1995, State legislators in both Houses of Congress have passed
laws with broad bipartisan support banning this barbaric procedure.
Although successful in 31 States, twice bills passed by Congress to ban
partial-birth abortion were vetoed by President Clinton. However, I am
happy to say that President Bush has indicated that he will sign this
bill into law and ban what he calls this abhorrent procedure that
offends human dignity.
We have several Members here joining me to speak on why this needs to
happen, and I want to first yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
Pence).
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me; and
more importantly, I thank the gentleman for hosting this critical
Special Order on the eve of some extraordinarily good news for the
right to life in America.
As the gentleman from Minnesota just suggested, it is astonishing to
think how long it has taken this Congress to address this issue,
literally first coming to the floor of the 104th Congress on November
1, 1995. That was the day that Congress first considered the Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban Act. And here we stand in October of 2003, 8 years
almost to the day since; and we

[[Page H9111]]

are on the eve of this legislation actually becoming law, passing a
conference report that will go to a President who, unlike the past
administration, will not veto this ban of this barbaric procedure, but
will sign it with the humility and the gratitude of the American people
in his heart.

{time} 2045

Mr. Speaker, partial-birth abortion is truly an antiseptic word to
describe a barbaric procedure, and I believe it is important as we
begin this conversation today to reflect however briefly on the
barbarism of this procedure, aided as we are by some less-than-graphic
images, but nonetheless effective.
What is described in these images, hopefully tastefully, for families
that may be watching across the country, happens several thousand times
a year. Healthy mothers carrying healthy babies in the fifth or sixth
month of pregnancy undergo a procedure which has come to be known as
partial-birth abortion. As is depicted in these images, a doctor
inserting the forceps forcibly causes the unborn child into a breech
position in the birth canal, feet first for lay people like me.
After that with the assistance of the forceps, the child is then
forcibly pulled out, delivered breech through the birth canal out of
the mother by his or her leg, and once the child is removed from the
birth canal, at least until the base of the head is available, the
procedure is quite horrible in and of itself, but it becomes fitting to
refer to it as barbaric from there, for here, as I emphasize, Mr.
Speaker, children who in most cases would be able to live outside the
womb, literally inches from birth, are then held in the birth canal,
stabbed at the base of the back of their skull and the contents of
their brains forcefully removed by a suction vacuum device. Once the
head is collapsed, the remains of the unborn child are removed.
It is no small wonder that that liberal lion, the late great Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, referred to this procedure as ``near
infanticide.'' Tonight, I know we will hear from many of our
colleagues, and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) who chairs
this Special Order, we will hear arguments about constitutionality and
about why this law which will come to this Chamber tomorrow and go to
the President's desk within days is superior to laws which have been
challenged successfully at the State level at our own Supreme Court.
But I would like to begin our Special Order tonight with none of
those arguments, none of the discussion about constitutionality or
endorsements, or even that the American Medical Association said that
``this procedure is never the only appropriate procedure, never
medically necessary.'' I would rather begin tonight by suggesting that
what is not arguable to the overwhelming majority of the American
public is that this practice is inherently, morally wrong.
What is not arguable is the practice of delivering an unborn child
feet first and holding it in the birth canal while the back of its head
is stabbed with a suction device is evil. That is not arguable. What we
will render unlawful tomorrow and then with the President's signature
is what virtually every American knows in their heart is evil and
morally wrong, and so the polls attest to that moral conscience of the
American people.
As I yield back to the gentleman, I am mindful of that Bible verse
that whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me, the Lord
tells us. And I submit what we will do in this Congress tomorrow,
banning this barbaric procedure known as partial-birth abortion, is the
least we can do for the least of these.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the
gentleman for his leadership on this critical issue on the eve of such
an important legislative accomplishment.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Pence) for clearly and crisply outlining why we find this
procedure so abhorrent and why we find it important to pass this
tomorrow.
Since I had a young nephew that was born less than 2 pounds, a pound
and then some, sadly, three to 5,000 young children, most of them, many
of them bigger than my nephew was born, have lost their lives through
partial-birth abortion; and it is time that we end this. It is
deplorable that a country like ours which was founded on the respect
for life has continued to allow this terrible practice.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Speaker, no matter where we stand on the abortion
issue, most Americans agree the brutal and horrific practice of
partial-birth abortion needs to end. In previous Congresses,
legislation to ban partial-birth abortion has been thwarted by
Presidential veto. This year President Bush will sign this bill into
law, making it the first abortion-limiting law on the books since Roe
v. Wade was enacted.
This is truly a historic moment and a milestone for the rights of the
unborn. This is also a historic time for this Congress. We have
listened to the will of our constituents, and we hear them loud and
clear. They demand a ban on partial-birth abortion. According to a
recently Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year, 70 percent of
Americans favor a law which would make this procedure illegal except in
cases necessary to save the life of the mother.
The outrage over this grotesque practice is nothing new. The American
Medical Association has said, ``The partial delivery of a living fetus
for the purpose of killing it outside the womb is ethically offensive
to most Americans and physicians. It degrades the medical practice and
cheapens the value of life.''
As a husband and father of four beautiful children, I have a deep
respect for the sanctity of life and the miracle of childbirth. I have
been at every one of my children's births, and what the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Pence) described as having to stop the head of a child
because if it comes out, you cannot kill it, you have to stop the head,
and to stick a device in the back of the head and suck the brains out
should not happen in the United States of America or anywhere else in
the world. There is no place in a civilized society for this horrific
act.
This evening we can take solace in the fact that the nightmare of
partial-birth abortion will soon end. I urge my colleagues to vote in
favor of the conference report.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan), and he and I are not alone in the position
that this should end. A Gallup Poll conducted in January found that 70
percent of those surveyed favored banning this horrible procedure. Even
doctors agree on this point. The overwhelming share of doctors believe
this procedure is not necessary. The partial-birth abortion procedure
has been labeled as not good medicine by the AMA. Respected medical
professionals like former Surgeon General Everett Koop testified in
1996 that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to
protect the mother's health and future fertility.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Shuster).
Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in great anticipation of a
historic action we will be taking tomorrow in this House. Tomorrow we
will vote on a conference report that will ban the cruel practice of
partial-birth abortion. With the passage of this conference report, we
will finally eradicate a brutal practice that is inflicted upon the
most innocent of our society, the unborn.
I am not going to outline the gory details of this practice, because
others have done that; but I will say that medical experts have
repeatedly testified that fetuses are fully able to feel pain after 20
weeks of development, the time at which most partial-birth abortions
take place. Thus, these babies are fully able to feel the terrible pain
that is being inflicted upon them.
Opponents of this bill argue that it is unconstitutional because it
does not provide an exemption for when the health of the mother is at
risk. I would point out that health experts have testified time and
time again that a partial-birth abortion is never needed to save the
life of a mother. In fact, the American Medical Association has stated
that this procedure often poses a serious health risk to the mother.
Mr. Speaker, life is the most precious gift and opportunity we are
given as human beings. Robbing children of that opportunity is wrong,
wrong, wrong. Three times the House of Representatives has passed a ban
on partial-birth abortions. President Clinton vetoed it twice, and last
year the leadership in

[[Page H9112]]

the other body refused to take up the bill. We finally are presented
with an opportunity to take a giant step forward in banning this
gruesome practice. President Bush has said he would sign a ban on
partial-birth abortion, and I encourage all Members to vote for the
conference report tomorrow, and finally we will put an end to a violent
attack on our most innocent citizens.
Almost 3 years ago when I started to run for office, I told the
people of the 9th Congressional District of Pennsylvania that it would
be a great day in America when we passed a bill banning partial-birth
abortion. Tomorrow it will be a great day in America.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) for
putting this Special Order together, and God bless America.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, even the strongest abortion
rights supporters have a hard time defending this procedure. In four of
the last five Congresses, Congress has passed a partial-birth abortion
ban by a two-thirds majority. Instead, abortion rights supporters
insist this procedure is rare and used only in the most extreme
positions to avoid serious physical injury to the mother. Nothing could
be further from the truth. Hundreds of obstetricians have stated they
regularly treat women for medical conditions used to rationalize
partial-birth abortions, and these babies are regularly delivered with
no threat to the mother's health or future fertility. These medical
reasons include depression and other treatable conditions like
emotional trauma, psychological problems, and age. While these may be
serious, I do not think that they warrant the life of an otherwise
healthy unborn child.
Even Dr. Martin Haskell who has performed more than a thousand of
these abortions has stated that 80 percent of those were purely
elective, meaning the health had nothing to do with it. What is most
disturbing is that multiple doctors have testified that this procedure
is typically done on healthy women with healthy unborn children after
20 weeks when a baby can often survive without assistance for hours
outside the womb.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to show my support for the
partial-birth abortion ban. On June 5, I stood in these very Chambers
and took the oath of office to be sworn in to the 108th Congress. I
said at that time while I was on the floor that the only regret I had
was that I was not here the day on June 4 when this body passed the
partial-birth abortion bill and sent it to the Senate. I said that day
I was looking forward to tonight and tomorrow when we are going to have
an opportunity, I will have an opportunity to cast that very vote, that
very important vote.
Mr. Speaker, we have been at war in this country for many years.
Americans are working hard today to stop the killing fields in Iraq,
and tomorrow we are going to stop the killing fields in America.

{time} 2100

These cultural wars have divided our country. Yet our desire for
respecting life will win out tomorrow.
The issue of abortion is a very personal and emotional one that
requires considerable reflection. I believe the sanctity of human life
must be honored and the rights of the unborn need to be protected.
I believe that some women are not ready for the enormous
responsibility of motherhood, and that is the reason that we need to
make sure that we make other options available to them. And the parents
should play a very active role in helping, sometimes, children make
these very important decisions.
I know that during the Clinton administration, the President vetoed
this bill twice, and I am happy to be working with a President who once
and for all will sign this bill into law. I know my constituents would
certainly like to see this practice banned, and I intend to watch this
happen on this floor tomorrow.
No compassionate person wants to see a woman suffer the personal
tragedy of abortion. Women deserve better than partial-birth abortion.
The argument that partial-birth abortion provides some benefit, even in
tragic cases, is false, and women should not have to bear the
psychological burden that is the result of such flawed reasoning.
Women who experience abortions also experience the psychological pain
of being present at the destruction and disposal of their babies,
suffering that is virtually incomprehensible to anyone who has not
experienced it. What is more, many women look for a way out at the last
moments before an abortion, by whatever method, but their appeals are
sometimes disregarded. This is especially true when many of those are
sedated during this procedure.
We stand on the precipice of a great victory for the pro-life
movement tomorrow. By committing to our children, we are investing in
the future of America and the future greatness of our proud country. I
appreciate this opportunity to speak on behalf of this bill.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I thank my friend from Texas.
I would just remind us to keep in mind that under Federal and most
State laws, a live birth is when a baby is entirely delivered from a
mother and shows any sign of life, regardless of whether or not it has
yet reached the stage where it can survive independently of the mother.
Under the doctrine set by the Supreme Court, such a baby, no matter how
premature, is a person and is protected under the law. Even worse,
scientists have shown that babies at such a stage certainly experience
great pain during partial-birth abortion. On this fact alone, we should
ban this procedure.
I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks).
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, you may recall that I stood here in June to tell the
story of little Samuel Alexander Armas, the little boy who was operated
on at 21 weeks for his spina bifida condition. Baby Samuel's famous
grasp of the doctor's finger as he reached out of the mother's womb
gave us all a new and profound gratitude for the miracle of life. And
now, Mr. Speaker, just this month, doctors in England have recorded the
smiles of unborn children at just 24 weeks through advanced ultrasound.
I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, without this legislation, how many smiles
will we miss having the privilege of sharing?
But, Mr. Speaker, an historic day is nearly upon the United States
Congress, for tomorrow we will extend the hand of hope to the unborn.
We will vote to protect unborn children from this unspeakable and
horrifying procedure called partial-birth abortion.
Seven years ago, such a bill was first passed by Congress, but then,
tragically, it was vetoed by President Bill Clinton. Since then, unborn
children numbering in the thousands have been unmercifully killed by
this barbaric, nightmarish procedure. There is no greater mark of shame
or disgrace upon the Clinton administration.
But now, thankfully, Mr. Speaker, this Nation has a new President,
and President George Bush will sign this bill into law and a new day
will have dawned in America. Because even though this bill will not
protect the other 4,000 unborn children that die each day in America
from abortion on demand, it marks a turning point in the soul of this
Nation, because it points to a day when that warm sunlight of life will
finally break through the clouds and shine once again on the faces of
unborn children in this country.
When that day comes, and it will, Mr. Speaker, history and coming
generations will remember that it was George Bush and Members of this
Congress who found the courage to reach out and take the tiny hand of
an unnamed baby and refuse to let go until the storm was gone.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I thank the Member from Arizona.
Partial-birth abortion, it is often said is there, to try to help the
women's health. But so often it is detrimental to the very things that
people say it is trying to help. So often women suffer from depression
and psychological stress after having performed this procedure. So this
again is something that we need, as a Congress, to act on tomorrow.
I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin).
Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to do something just a little
different

[[Page H9113]]

now and step back just a small amount from our debate. Sometimes it is
good to step back and see the forest.
And so what I would like to do would be to ask a question of those of
you who are paying attention to this rather grave moment in the history
of our Nation; and that is a very simple question. What is it that has
made America, America? What was it that caused people from every nation
and every tribe and all over the globe to come to this great land and
live in a land where there is prosperity and freedom? I understand
there are the detractors, but all of the paths across our borders that
are being beaten by immigrants tell the story that there is something
special about America.
What is that special thing? If somebody put a camera in front of you
and said, what is it that makes America a special place? How would you
summarize in one sentence the essence, the formula that is America?
If it were me, I would look back to the document of our birthday, to
that great second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, a long
sentence. It says, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.''
The sentence goes on from there and says that the purpose of
government is to protect those God-given rights: life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. That means that there is a very simple formula
that is the heart of America: There is a God, He grants us unalienable
rights, and the job of government is to protect those rights.
If the government does not protect those basic rights of life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, gentlemen, we have failed in the
basic function of why we were here in the first place. We might as well
jump on our airplanes and go home and stick our heads in the sand,
because that is the purpose of why we are here.
There are some people today who would say, I don't like the formula,
I don't agree with that, I don't think there is a God that gives
unalienable rights. There were people in those days, we called them
Tories, who felt that way as well. But they did not win.
America was built on that basic set of ideas. As we have gone along
in time, that set of ideas has proven the test of time and we have been
blessed with freedom and prosperity.
But there have been those, those days which I think of as pages in
our history that we are not as proud of. There are some gray days in
our history. One was in some of our relations with our own brothers,
the Indians. There was a Trail of Tears of the Cherokee people that was
a gray page in our history.
In the mid-1800s, there was an even grayer page as our Nation
grappled and dealt with the terrible scourge of slavery in this land.
At that time, the first President of my political party, the
Republicans, took charge and under his administration saw fit to try to
get rid of those dark pages in America's history.
And then we moved forward to the time when I was born, and
unfortunately during the time that I have been alive, the blackest page
yet in American history was opened in the process of abortion, where we
denied the most basic tenet of what makes America, the right for people
to be alive, because if you are not alive, it does not do any good to
have freedom of speech or freedom to own property or any other right if
you are dead. And of these practices of abortion, the worst, the most
obviously evil, is this practice of partial-birth abortion.
As an ironic history, as a matter of fact, some pro-lifers brought it
to the attention of the media and the media said, Oh, that couldn't
possibly happen. They checked with the pro-abortion people. Oh, that
doesn't happen. Then the media found out that they had been lied to.
That is the only thing that seems to make the media really mad is
when they get lied to. So they started to let people know what this
practice of partial-birth abortion is. I did not like biology very
well, and the pictures that I see of it I can hardly stand.
Consider that there is a child that has lived 9 months, he is
instants away from taking his first breath of fresh air, of freedom and
we are going to poke a hole in the back of his skull and suck out his
brains. It makes me sick. It made a lot of other Americans sick as
well.
And so it is now that we come to this momentous time, tomorrow, when
there is a possibility that we can close again a dark page of America's
past. We can close the page on the nightmare of partial-birth abortion.
And we can once again reaffirm those truths that we stand by, that
there are basic rights given to all mankind everywhere by our God and
that the most basic right of any government is to protect the life,
that precious life made in the image of our Creator, the life of our
little children.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I thank the Member from Missouri. I thank
him for calling us all back to our roots, to what this country has
always stood for, what this country was built upon, the respect for
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I would also like to call on the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess)
for his remarks.
Mr. BURGESS. I thank my friend from Minnesota for showing the
leadership of gathering this special order tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak out tonight to express my strong
support for the passage of the conference report on the Partial-Birth
Abortion Ban Act of 2003. As a physician who has dedicated over two
decades of my life to the practice of obstetrics, I believe this
unnecessary procedure should be banned.
I have delivered over 3,000 babies. I am personally opposed to
abortion; but in particular, the only reason to select the partial-
birth abortion procedure is to ensure one thing, and that is that you
have a dead baby at the end of the procedure.
As a physician, I recognize that serious complications can occur
during the last trimester of pregnancy. However, if the mother's health
dictates that the pregnancy must be concluded and a normal birth is not
possible, deliver the baby by C-section. Whether the infant lives or
dies is then determined by the severity of the medical complications
and the degree of prematurity. But the outcome is dictated by the
disease process itself. The fate of the infant during the partial-birth
abortion procedure is predetermined by the nature of the procedure and
is uniformly fatal to the baby.
During my two decades of obstetrics, with my share of high-risk
pregnancies, I never, never encountered a situation where the partial-
birth abortion procedure was required. I believe it is an inhumane act
that is not ever medically necessary.
The procedure itself, always fatal to the baby, carries risks for the
mother as well. Partial-birth abortions are done in the third
trimester, and at that point, the child has all the characteristics of
what we normally associate with a healthy newborn. Through the use of
technology, prospective moms and dads have the opportunity to see how
life develops before birth. Parents can now watch the beating of their
unborn child's heart as early as 21 days after conception and can see
the movement of the child's arms and legs at 3 months.

{time} 2115

In 1995, a panel of 12 doctors representing the American Medical
Association voted unanimously to recommend banning the partial-birth
abortion procedure, calling it ``basically repulsive.'' I agree with
the AMA that it is repulsive, and, moreover, it is unnecessary. I
strongly support the passage of the conference report to the Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Just like my good friend from Missouri,
I believe that the United States Constitution is very clear when it
guarantees a right to life. Partial-birth abortion has no place in a
civilized society. Thankfully, after tomorrow it will no longer be
around.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Texas, and with great authority with his medical experience he speaks
out the truth that this is a procedure that America must ban.
I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), someone who has
equal authority from the medical field.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and
giving me an opportunity tonight as a physician Member, and
particularly as an

[[Page H9114]]

OBGYN physician Member, just like my colleague from Texas.
During my campaign and these 9 months that I have served in Congress
since the election, back in the district probably the most frequent
question that I am asked is ``Phil, do you miss it? Do you miss your
practice? You gave up a great profession, and you delivered all those
babies, over 5,000 during a 27-year career.'' And the answer to them
is, of course, I miss it. I miss it tremendously. What a wonderful
opportunity and a calling it was to be a physician, and, in particular,
to bring life into the world. And I am very proud, of course, to say
that in all those 27 years, I have never once performed an abortion.
But maybe God, and I guess, Mr. Speaker, it is okay for me to say
``God'' in this Chamber, maybe God had a higher calling for me, wanted
me to have an opportunity to do something even greater, Mr. Speaker,
than bringing a precious life into the world.
One of my supporters during the campaign, when I asked him for help
in helping me get elected, he said, ``Phil, I am going to support you
if you promise to do one thing. I want you to promise me that you will
just do good when you get to the Congress.''
I know now tomorrow, I have an opportunity to do something very good,
an opportunity to vote to ban an abominable procedure known as partial-
birth abortion, and I do not know how many years of life I have got
left, but when I cast that vote tomorrow, and I have that privilege,
that honor, that distinction of being one of 535 Members of this
Congress out of some 275, 280 million people to make that vote, and
when we pass this bill, yet once again for the third time, we have a
President in George W. Bush who is committed to finally end this
abomination. And I just cannot help but think about all the lives that
now I have an opportunity to save forever, and maybe it will be far
more than the 5,200 that I have already delivered.
We have heard from other Members on this issue and seen the graphic
description of this procedure, and I will not go into that again, but I
can tell my colleagues as a physician, there is no reason, there is
never a reason for the health of the mother to perform an abortion in
the third trimester of pregnancy. We are talking about, for those who
do not understand trimester, we divide a pregnancy into thirds, but
when one gets into that third trimester, we are talking about children,
fetuses if they want to call them that, but literally who are 4\1/2\ to
5 pounds, fully capable of life outside the womb. And what people are
doing in this procedure is, literally, killing these children, as the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) indicated, so that they are born
dead, and, therefore, are characterized as an abortion, but what they
are doing is no different than taking, literally, a child that is lying
there in the bassinet at 4\1/2\ pounds and sticking a knife through his
chest. It is the exact same effect. One is legal and one is not legal.
One is called an abortion. The other is called murder, but there is no
difference and make no mistake about it. What the mother is put through
in this process of partial-birth abortion in the interest of preserving
her health is one of the most dangerous medical procedures one could
possibly do.
It is something that is so clear in my mind as a physician, as a
compassionate human being, that I cannot really understand how anybody
could not vote to ban this procedure. And I say to my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle, men and women, this is not about Roe v. Wade.
This is not even so much pro-life and pro-choice, although the Members
of this body that are speaking tonight are passionately pro-life. But
this procedure needs to be banned because it is nothing more than
murder in a so-called legalized fashion, and it does nothing to protect
the health of the mother.
So I am very proud to tell my colleagues tonight that my vote will be
very strong to ban this abomination known as partial-birth abortion,
and I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota for giving us this
time tonight to talk about this procedure and, specifically, giving me
time to address it.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, I think one can see the passion that we who are gathered
here today have for ending this cruel procedure. We have heard from the
AMA. We have heard from two doctors in a row who confirm the AMA's
belief that this procedure is not only not necessary, as the AMA would
say, but as the last two physicians so eloquently said, is a cruel
procedure that's time has long since passed, should have never started,
should never have been allowed to start in the first place, but now we
are calling upon it to end.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith),
the dean of the pro-life caucus, a man who has dedicated decades of his
life here in Congress to try to lead the effort on repealing partial-
birth abortion and so many other pro-life issues, and will be a big
factor in our success when President Bush finally signs this.
So again, it is an honor for me to yield to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Smith).
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my very good
friend and colleague not only for his leadership tonight, but for many
years on behalf of the rights of the unborn and their mothers. He has
been a stalwart. He has been compassionate, and I thank him for his
leadership. And I would like to thank my colleagues who have spoken,
the two docs, and the other Members who have spoken tonight so
eloquently and passionately in favor of protecting the most innocent
and the most at-risk minority in America today and that is the unborn
children and the other victims of abortion, who every time that victim
is the mother, many of whom who have been cast aside. They have been
hurt and hurt very severely as a result of abortion.
Just a couple of months ago we hosted, a number of us, a group of
four women including Jennifer O'Neil, the actress who was in ``Summer
of '42.'' She was a former Cover Girl. Melba Moore, an accomplished
singer, four women who have had abortions, who have become part of a
group called Silent No More. They have spoken out, and I encourage
women who might be listening to this or men or who know someone who has
had an abortion and is living with that agony to know that there is
hope, there is reconciliation. The pro-life movement has always been
about speaking truth to power, to Government and to those who would
take the life of an unborn child, but also speaking truth and
reconciliation to those women who have been victimized by abortion,
including partial-birth abortion. Silentnomoreawareness.org can be
accessed through the Web or through contacting our various offices. It
is an outstanding means of reaching out to these women who are hurting.
During the course of their conversations, one woman who had two
abortions talked about how she had so many sleepless nights. She
thought that she could never hold a child again in her hand. Jennifer
O'Neil had talked about the pressure that had been put upon her time
and again by her family members who thought they were doing something
benign and good for her, while actually hurting her severely,
unwittingly but nevertheless hurting her severely. And she carried that
pain for years, and now speaks out passionately to the women of America
to come forward and know that there is reconciliation and to warn other
women not to march into that abortion clinic and get a partial-birth
abortion or any of the other methods that dismember or chemically
poison unborn children.
I just would point out to my colleagues that some 62 years ago, from
a podium right up there by the Speaker, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave
his famous speech after the attack on Pearl Harbor and called December
7 ``a day that would live in infamy.'' I would point out to my
colleagues that as a result of that, as we all know, some 55 million
people around the world lost their lives to that global conflict.
Another day of infamy less visible but no less lethal, the imposition
of abortion on demand by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade on
January 22, 1973, has unleashed an assault on innocent human life that
is absolutely staggering, about 44.4 million dead babies, children, and
counting. The loss of so many innocent children by chemical poisoning,
by literal dismemberment and suction machines 20 to 30 times more
powerful than an average vacuum machine that all of us

[[Page H9115]]

have in our homes, ripping apart that child; and now we see this cruel
and unthinkable method where a baby, very late-term, as the doc pointed
out a moment ago, third trimester, some in their second trimester but
late second trimester, very mature babies where a doctor literally
punctures their brains, usually with Metzenbaum scissors, to make a
hole so that the baby's brains could be sucked out.
That is pathetic child abuse, and thankfully tomorrow the House, with
the leadership of so many Members, especially with our President, will
be putting into effect when the Senate finally adopts it as well, which
they will, signs this ban into law.
Let me just give an idea of the numbers again, because I think
sometimes we, in our entertainment-oriented age and the fact that we
can go from one distraction to another, forget how many people have
been lost. I mentioned 44.4 million. I am a big Yankee fan.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. We have a disagreement on that issue.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. My team lost to his last night. Yankee
Stadium was filled to capacity, 56,292 people. The number of lives that
have been lost since Roe v. Wade, 44.4 million, and picture this, it
would be like filling Yankee Stadium every single day for 788 days full
of children who are then slaughtered. The horrific loss of life, that
is a staggering loss of life, is beyond almost any of our
comprehensions to grasp, and yet that is what has happened in the 30
years since Roe v. Wade.
It has been done in what seems to be the pristine environment of an
abortion clinic. We know that is not often case. Many of these so-
called doctors are anything but. They are at the lower level of the
medical chain, if you will, food chain, and I have known some abortion
doctors, some of whom have actually become pro-life, and they talk
about the squalor, the killing that goes on every day and the mental
impact it even has on them.
So I just want to say to my colleagues that tomorrow we take, I
think, a major step forward in trying to stop some of this killing, and
I think the logical among us, the logical people out there in America,
will begin connecting the dots and saying if it is so horrific to kill
a baby with partial-birth abortion, why is suction okay? Why is D & E
and all the other methods that are no less gruesome but a little bit
more invisible because they do not happen as late in the stage of the
pregnancy and they are not as visible as a partial-birth abortion, why
are they any less of an act of child abuse? And this is all about child
abuse. Again, there are two victims in every abortion, and my hope is
that tomorrow we take a step forward in protecting these children from
this cruelty.
I thank my good friend.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New
Jersey. I thank him for his leadership on this very important issue, on
protecting the lives of those babies that have been lost in this
horrific procedure, to keep this from happening in the future.
I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) to also
continue the reasons why it is we need to, as a Congress, pass this
bill tomorrow and send it to the President's desk.

{time} 2130

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota
(Mr. Kennedy) for his leadership in organizing this tonight and letting
me participate in this.
I have been involved in the pro-life movement for many years. Not as
long as Grandpa Smith who literally, along with the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Hyde), have been the crusaders in the United States
Congress and have kept this issue alive and have never let anyone in
this Congress, House or Senate, or the administration, forget the
importance of this. This is just a huge day for him in particular.
Because I have been in many meetings with leadership over the years and
different things and they say, man, that Chris Smith, sometimes he just
gets obsessed on this issue. And he has, literally, while he has done
many other things here in Congress, has focused on this issue and
helped keep Congress focused on this.
I want to share a little bit of a different thought, not about the
procedure itself, but some of the history behind it, because I am a
little older than some of the other guys here. When the pro-life
movement really started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as we became
concerned that California and New York had opened up abortion
procedures and were letting people from States like Indiana where
people had chosen not to have abortion moved to those States, we were
stunned.
I was in graduate school at the University of Notre Dame. We had
organized a conservative club there, and we had started to look at the
abortion movement when, on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court took in
its hands, overruled all of the States in America, and said, these poor
little children are unprotected. We were stunned. In those first 48
hours, Dr. Charles Rice, who was our advisor to our group, wrote the
Human Life Amendment for then-Congressman Larry Hogan, and it was
introduced shortly after that decision. Dr. John Wilke, who was one of
the original founders of the National Right to Life's daughter was at
Notre Dame and she and I, along with Chuck Donavan and Rich Maji and
Leo Bukinani and others, formed a group called the Student Committee
for the Human Life Amendment within 48 hours of that decision. We
organized across the country.
In fact, one of the first meetings I was at was with the bishop in
South Bend with a lot of the leaders, different priests and other
activists; and after we talked about abortion a little bit, they talked
about baptizing the fetuses. I held up my hand and I said, I think that
actually is a religious issue. And the bishop leaned back and said, ah,
a Protestant among us. The truth is that in the early days of the pro-
life movement, the Protestant Church was asleep. Most of America was
asleep. The Catholic Church understood more what was happening.
Over the years, the pro-life movement got organized, and we thought
that we could roll back that decision politically. The Human Life
Amendment, surely, the American people, when they saw the truth, we
could change this. As they understood the slaughter that the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) just described of millions of babies,
surely they would overrule.
In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won and the Republicans took the Senate,
where pro-lifers and conservatives for the first time started to look
at the political system and said, we need to get involved, we thought
it would change. We got tax cuts, we fought back communism, but we did
not make progress on abortion; and it was incredibly frustrating over
the years, as people came out for 30 years to march here in Washington.
One of the things we hear back home repeatedly is, does it do any
good? I have been working in this movement for 30 years. Does it do any
good? Is there any hope? What has happened in America? Is anybody
sensitive? I remember one time when I was an undergraduate in our
student government office, there was a debate about whether unwanted
children should be born, and one of my friends turned to one of the
abortion advocates and said, you know, my mom told me that at the time
I was born, she really did not want me, and if abortion had been legal,
she would have killed me. And he turned to this person and said, you
would have killed me. I would be dead.
Do my colleagues know what? One of my big fears about talking tonight
is that somehow, something is going to go wrong. It seems like after 30
years, we cannot possibly get something into law. But after all of
those years of marches, we have not made a lot of progress, but this is
an important step. Because if we pass this and then the Senate passes
this, and then we have this President, we are actually going to save
some babies' lives. We are actually going to pass legislation so people
like my friend can say, I am alive because of how people voted, how
people marched, how people spoke out. When people say there is no
difference, that I cannot make a difference in this system, that my
involvement does not do any good, I say to them, when this bill passes,
those of us who have worked in the trenches, those of us who have been
speaking out for years, those of us who have gotten involved in
campaigns, in fact, your vote makes a difference,

[[Page H9116]]

your actions make a difference; and there are going to be babies
growing up to be young adults and adults who will create families who
would have been dead if you had not been involved.

So I thank my colleagues for their work. I thank the Members here,
because this is a great day for America and a great day for those
children.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Indiana. I thank him for the passion that he has had for this issue
since his time at Notre Dame. I am very pleased to have a son there at
Notre Dame. I am very pleased that my oldest daughter was the first
president of the Fire for Life chapter at her high school. And as the
father of four, it is hard to imagine not having those children. It is
hard to imagine children not having the opportunity to have the same
experience that each of us as parents have had the opportunity to grow
up with and watch and watch them develop.
As someone who is very familiar with children and has a passion for
life, I would also like to yield to my good friend, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleagues have all heard the
statement that says that years from now we will not remember what kind
of houses we lived in or what kind of cars we drove, what material
possessions we possessed; but we will remember if we made a difference
in the life of a child.
Some years ago, actually before I decided to run for the State
senate, I remember working in a newborn intensive care unit at Mercy
Hospital in Pittsburgh. There and at McGee Hospital, part of my job was
to see the infants who had been born prematurely. I worked with the
families and infants and made sure that we took care of dealing with
any risks that they may have had for developmental disabilities, and
dealing with the families and dealing with a child who was born at
perhaps 27, 26, 25, 24 weeks.
It amazed me the miracles that I saw of these babies no bigger than
my hand, no bigger than my hand, frail, transparent skin, eyes, in some
cases they were so young, barely opened, of how we saw them struggle,
but how we saw them breathe. And their hearts beating, you could see
beneath their skin. And how, as time went on, we worked with the
families and the nurses to help these young babies learn to deal with
their world, not stress them too much so that they would grow up. It is
amazing to me now, years after I started that career, to be seeing
these children graduating from high school and graduating from college;
children at that age that otherwise people would see as throwaway
babies, throwaway babies; but they are very real.
As the history of our Nation is written, each generation that perhaps
has been in this Chamber or the former Chamber has had its core issues
it has dealt with. Initially there was the forming of our Nation. What
did the Constitution mean? There were also issues of the expansion
west. There were issues of slavery. There were issues of civil rights,
the women's suffrage, the different generations of folks who worked in
these Chambers dealt with. I think one of the issues that will define
our generation as legislators will be what we did to be meaningful in
the life of a child.
I look upon this as perhaps there is no more humbling, but prouder,
thing to do than to save a child's life. Many of us have also, I am
sure, heard the phrase that says, if we get here, if we can make one
small difference in the world, one small improvement, the votes we will
take on this bill will do that, not just for one child, but for
thousands and thousands, perhaps millions of children, who otherwise
would have seen life untimely ripped from them, as it was.
But for me it is particularly important because I have seen these
children live. I have seen children much younger than those we are
talking about preventing their deaths thrive. I have talked to them. I
have played baseball with them. We have laughed together; we have cried
together. And it is important that we understand that it is part of
that, that this is not just tissue. It is not just some amorphous cells
there floating about; but these are real beings, real beings.
I am also struck as being a father. I know a lot of us speaking here
tonight are men, and so many times those who are involved in this
issue, they talk about, well, perhaps this is a women's rights issue.
Let me speak about fatherhood. I do not think there is any more
important thing we do as men on this Earth, outside of having a good
relationship with our wives, than being fathers. That is the next
generation we deal with. I think part of our role as fathers is to make
sure we are there to nurture our children, to feed them, to clothe
them, to provide for them, to play with them, to help teach them in the
ways of life. But that is important, and it is not diminished because
we are males. Our love and our compassion and our caring for children,
it is very real. But it always has distressed me when sometimes these
arguments come out about pro-life or pro-choice or abortion, that
somehow, because a person is only a man, he does not get to have input
on that.

If we were able in this Nation to bring men back in the fold, to work
more with children, what a great Nation this would be. No longer having
the troubles that so many children have, who have been abandoned by a
parent, struggling along, a mom or a dad struggling with single
parenthood, trying to make ends meet, but really working with them. How
much better children's lives would be, if all men took that
responsibility as a father seriously and not just there; but you have
to continue to not just create life, but nurture children along the
way.
It is because of that feeling as fathers that I think we also have an
important role in making sure we preserve and work to protect the lives
of these children as well. We love them as much, we cry when they are
hurt, we shed a tear when they get married or when something sad
happens to them. We love them as much, and we have every right to
protect those lives. It is part of our responsibility as men and as
fathers. And when people say it is not, that is part of something that
weakens the American fabric of the family.
If you want to measure the strength of society, you can measure that
strength by the integrity of the families within that society. If you
want to see the weakness of the family, watch how culture after culture
has tried to dismantle families, move parents away, split them up,
raise them one way or another. It loses the core, loses the core of its
being. We have that in America with families as long as we care for
them and love them. That is why it is our duty, that is why it is our
responsibility to make sure that we are there to protect the lives of
these young children. So that years from now when we look back, we can
say it did not matter what kind of house we lived in, what kind of car
we drove, what we accumulated. We will be able to say with peace in our
hearts, we were important in the life of a child.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, for speaking out with such passion and
with such authority.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by sharing a story that is in my
heart, a story and some thoughts on a community in my district that has
recently shown us all the way that we should respect each other, that
we should respect life itself.
When I heard for the first time that a shooting had occurred at
Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota, last week, my first
thought was disbelief. That is the last place in the world that I would
have ever expected something like that to happen. Cold Spring is a
community with well-maintained homes, clean-cut students, and active
parents.
When I heard that the coach at that school bravely averted further
bloodshed, I was not surprised. Many teachers from my time in high
school came to mind that may have done the same thing. The Rocori
school staff and the Cold Spring community reacted to the incident in a
commendable fashion.
I have met many of the people from the community there and the St.
Paul Parish community, including Father Clydis, at a pro-life dinner
hosted in the parish school last year. The parish school gym was packed
and the local community members served dinner. I remember the idyllic
community scene, complete with a church and an American flag, painted
on a wall in the gym. I remember the community choir who entertained us
that evening and

[[Page H9117]]

the song, they sang a German song; and the whole room joining in except
for me singing that German song. I know of no town in this great land
where it takes their heritage, their families, their community, their
faith, their life, people's lives more seriously.
Therefore, I had high expectations when I attended a service for
Aaron Rollins, a 17-year-old senior who had been shot by a 15-year-old
freshman. But I was taken aback when I walked into this beautiful,
modern church that seated over 1,000. For a town of less than 3,000 to
have such a commitment to a building in and of itself shows their
commitment to each other and their faith. But over 1,500 people came
out for that service, students, parents, townspeople. The service
lasted over 2 hours, 2 hours; but it flew by. Nearly the entire senior
class lined up on either side of the aisle as honorary pall bearers. We
saw looks of devastation comforted by a quiet faith on the faces of
children who had never before experienced such a loss.

{time} 2145

A large number of them were dressed in khaki slacks and skirts, black
shirts and camouflage ties to honor Aaron's love of hunting.
But what allowed the gathering not to be overcome with grief was
their deeply held belief that even though Aaron barely missed last
weekend's duck hunting opener in Minnesota, he now had a new home where
the ducks were probably even more plentiful.
But watching this family and how they coped with it and the grief
that they felt was just overwhelming. They prayed for Seth Bartell who
was also shot and remained in critical condition. But the part of the
service that really blew me away, really elevated me further for my
respect for the people of Cold Spring and really showed us the true
spirit of love and life was when twice during the service the young man
who shot Aaron and Seth was lifted up in prayer.
They prayed that that family who struggled to cope with tragedy, that
the community show them the compassion and understanding that we want
to see in this world.
I think Cold Spring indeed calls us to a higher level. If they can
reach out for such compassion towards someone who has inflicted so much
pain, how can we not reach out with an equal amount of compassion to
those who have done no harm to anyone, the unborn?
That is why we gather here.
I encourage all my colleagues to vote for this ban of partial-birth
abortion.
This city whose granite has built beautiful memorials on the Mall
here in our Nation's Capital, they have shown us that their values are
as solid as that granite. Let us follow their example.

____________________