May 14,1997
So I hope that my colleagues, enough of my colleagues, would share my concern, would look at the new evidence. There are new facts that are accurate to the degree they can be accurate relying on the other side. There are more accurate facts available now on this debate. There is ample reason to reconsider this vote.
I hope that they would be led by both their hearts and their minds because on both scores we win. There is no medical reason for this procedure to occur. You will not find any physician anywhere describing any condition where this procedure is necessary and is the only one available to be used for whatever situation. In fact, as I said before and I will say over and over again, this is a 3-day procedure. Why would it ever be used in a life-threatening situation when there is imminent health damage? It would not be used. We have hundreds of physicians who have testified via letters that this procedure is never medically indicated.
So on the facts, on the medical facts, using their brain only, this is not only unnecessary, unwarranted, but unhealthy.
I will share one other statistic from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, one of the signatories of the letter I referred to earlier with NOW and NARAL. This is an organization which is very much proabortion. This is a very, very radical group. And here is what their numbers say. After 20 weeks gestation, after roughly 4 and a half months, abortion is twice as dangerous to maternal health as delivering a baby. So to even suggest that abortion is necessary in cases of whatever, fetal abnormality or just because you do not want to have the child, that that is safer for the mother than delivering the baby either via Cesarean section or by vaginal delivery, the pro-choice institute, Alan Guttmacher Institute, says that it is twice as dangerous to the life of the mother to have an abortion after 20 weeks as it is to deliver the baby.
So if you are really wrapped up on this issue of health, abortions are more dangerous than delivering the baby. There is no health reason to do this procedure. In fact, because it is a blind procedure--the abortionist cannot see the base of the skull, and so they have to feel--as you see, they have to feel with their hands and then take a blunt instrument and puncture the base of the skull, which can cause bone fragments. This is a very blood-rich area, a lot of veins exposed. There can be damage done by doing this blind procedure. This is not a procedure that protects the health of the mother.
So using your brain, looking at the facts, this is a no. We should not allow this. This is dangerous. This is wrong. And I would think--I cannot speak to the heart, but I would think that your heart and that your conscience and the reason that so many Members have struggled so hard with this--and I know they have, people who I know believe deeply in this right of privacy and the right to abortion as enumerated in Roe versus Wade, that they have made their moral judgment that this is OK, but even to those Members this stirs a disquiet. This stirs some uncomfortableness in them. Follow your heart. Your brain is there. If you look at the facts, the brain is going to be there. The only thing stopping you is your heart. Open your heart to these babies. Do not let this kind of barbarism continue. Stop the murder, stop the infanticide, and you will not be violating Roe versus Wade, not one word of it.
So as we start this debate tomorrow, I intend to debate the facts. I intend to stand up and go through all of the arguments not only on this procedure but on Senator Daschle's amendment, Senator Boxer's amendment, and talk about why those two amendments, particularly the Daschle amendment, I might add, not only is a sham in the sense it is just political cover, which is exactly what it is, it does not accomplish anything. The Daschle amendment which we will debate, I am sure, tomorrow will not stop one partial birth abortion, not one. The Daschle amendment will not stop any abortion. In fact, I will argue tomorrow, and I think I can point out clearly from the language of the text, the Daschle amendment expands Roe versus Wade. Yes, this amendment which is supposed to be a compromise--interesting we use the term `compromise' when the Democratic leader never talked to anybody on our side of the issue. You would think when you are trying to compromise with someone you would talk to the other side in reaching a compromise.
That did not happen. I did not receive one phone call or even the hint of a phone call. No one else that I know of who supports the bill--of the 42 cosponsors of the bill, it is my understanding none of them received a phone call. And so this compromise, which was drafted by people who oppose this bill to give political cover by saying things like, well, we are going to ban all postviability abortion, then leaves it to the abortionist to decide what is viable and what is a health exception because they have a health exception--we will ban all postviability abortions except for life and health. Who determines health? The person performing the abortion.
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You have someone performing an abortion. They are doing it. They are performing an abortion on a client. They are killing a baby. After they finish killing the baby, then they have to certify whether this baby was either viable or there was an exception for the life or health of the mother.
Put yourself in the position of the abortionist. Are you going to say the baby was viable and I killed it? There was no health exception and I went ahead and killed the baby. Raise your hands. How many people think that the abortionist is going to claim that they violated the law? Because they are the only ones who certify to it. No one else can. Many times I have seen in the paper this debate has been analogized to the debate on the second amendment, the right to bear arms.
Let me give you this analogy. It is like passing a piece of legislation on assault weapons. That was a very popular topic. It is like passing a piece of legislation on assault weapons and saying that the gun dealer will define what an assault weapon is for purposes of whether they break the law.