[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[April 10, 1996]
[Pages 567-568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval 
Partial Birth Abortion Legislation
April 10, 1996

To the House of Representatives:
    I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 1833, which would 
prohibit doctors from performing a certain kind of abortion. I do so 
because the bill does not allow women to protect themselves from serious 
threats to their health. By refusing to permit women, in reliance on 
their doctors' best medical judgment, to use this procedure when their 
lives are threatened or when their health is put in serious jeopardy, 
the Congress has fashioned a bill that is consistent neither with the 
Constitution nor with sound public policy.
    I have always believed that the decision to have an abortion 
generally should be between a woman, her doctor, her conscience, and her 
God. I support the decision in Roe v. Wade protecting a woman's right to 
choose, and I believe that the abortions protected by that decision 
should be safe and rare. Consistent with that decision, I have long 
opposed late-term abortions except where necessary to protect the life 
or health of the mother. In fact, as Governor of Arkansas, I signed into 
law a bill that barred third trimester abortions, with an appropriate 
exception for life or health.
    The procedure described in H.R. 1833 has troubled me deeply, as it 
has many people. I cannot support use of that procedure on an elective 
basis, where the abortion is being performed for non-health related 
reasons and there are equally safe medical procedures available.
    There are, however, rare and tragic situations that can occur in a 
woman's pregnancy in which, in a doctor's medical judgment, the use of 
this procedure may be necessary to save a woman's life or to protect her 
against serious injury to her health. In these situations, in which a 
woman and her family must make an awful choice, the Constitution 
requires, as it should, that the ability to choose this procedure be 
protected.
    In the past several months, I have heard from women who desperately 
wanted to have their babies, who were devastated to learn that their 
babies had fatal conditions and would not live, who wanted anything 
other than an abortion, but who were advised by their doctors that this 
procedure was their best chance to avert the risk of death or grave harm 
which, in some cases, would have included an inability to ever bear 
children again. For these women, this was

[[Page 568]]

not about choice--not about deciding against having a child. These 
babies were certain to perish before, during or shortly after birth, and 
the only question was how much grave damage was going to be done to the 
woman.
    I cannot sign H.R. 1833, as passed, because it fails to protect 
women in such dire circumstances--because by treating doctors who 
perform the procedure in these tragic cases as criminals, the bill poses 
a danger of serious harm to women. This bill, in curtailing the ability 
of women and their doctors to choose the procedure for sound medical 
reasons, violates the constitutional command that any law regulating 
abortion protect both the life and the health of the woman. The bill's 
overbroad criminal prohibition risks that women will suffer serious 
injury.
    That is why I implored Congress to add an exemption for the small 
number of compelling cases where selection of the procedure, in the 
medical judgment of the attending physician, was necessary to preserve 
the life of the woman or avert serious adverse consequences to her 
health. The life exception in the current bill only covers cases where 
the doctor believes that the woman will die. It fails to cover cases 
where, absent the procedure, serious physical harm, often including 
losing the ability to have more children, is very likely to occur. I 
told Congress that I would sign H.R. 1833 if it were amended to add an 
exception for serious health consequences. A bill amended in this way 
would strike a proper balance, remedying the constitutional and human 
defect of H.R. 1833. If such a bill were presented to me, I would sign 
it now.
    I understand the desire to eliminate the use of a procedure that 
appears inhumane. But to eliminate it without taking into consideration 
the rare and tragic circumstances in which its use may be necessary 
would be even more inhumane.
    The Congress chose not to adopt the sensible and constitutionally 
appropriate proposal I made, instead leaving women unprotected against 
serious health risks. As a result of this Congressional indifference to 
women's health, I cannot, in good conscience and consistent with my 
responsibility to uphold the law, sign this legislation.

                                                      William J. Clinton

The White House,

April 10, 1996.