[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 28306]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       END PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, 2 days ago the President of 
the United States signed into law a historic piece of legislation, a 
bill that would end partial birth abortion, a law that will now end 
this heinous and truly gruesome, barbaric act of killing innocent 
little boys and girls.
  But as was all too expected, a lawsuit was immediately filed and a 
court immediately prevented this life-saving law from going into 
effect. Most appalling is the fact that the court did so not on any 
sound basis of law, but on what is becoming all too often the case with 
courts in this Nation, a decision by the court to simply impose its 
feelings on the issue over the findings of a legislative body, this 
United States Congress.
  As has been reported in the press, the U.S. Department of Justice 
asked the court, as courts should do, to give deference to the finding 
of fact by Congress. Instead, the court replied to that request that it 
could find no record of any doctor who performs abortions in the last 
trimester to testify before Congress. The court stated: ``Isn't that 
important if Congress was really interested in knowing about this 
procedure?'' Indeed, if this court was truly being honest, it would 
realize that no abortionist would ever want to testify before Congress 
because in so doing, the awful truth about this heinous act would be 
revealed before the opponents of this act, before this House. It is 
telling that no abortionist of such late-term abortions would want to 
testify about such horrific acts that they do.
  It is so patently clear that the court here was searching for a way 
to impose its personal view instead of abiding by the law of the land, 
a law which is supported by the vast majority of the people of this 
Nation, as well as most State governments. The court simply refused to 
abide by the findings of this Congress that a health exception was not 
necessary. The court stated: ``While it is also true that Congress 
found that a health exception is not needed, at the very least it is 
problematic whether I should defer to such a conclusion when the 
Supreme Court has found otherwise.'' Problematic, court?
  If the court was indeed wanting to uphold the law of the Nation and 
not its personal views, it would have recognized that the Supreme 
Court's holdings were not its own, but were the opinions of a lower 
court that the Supreme Court simply did not have sufficient legal basis 
to overrule.
  Congress, however, very clearly and upon substantial hearings and 
evidence set out its findings of fact of no need for a health 
exception. This court, however, as past Supreme Courts have stated, 
should have abided by the findings of facts by this Congress. This 
court has failed to uphold the findings of this Congress. This court 
has failed to abide by the precedent of the Supreme Court in granting 
due deference to such findings of fact. And most tragic of all, this 
court's actions may well result in more deaths to innocent little 
children.

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