Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I absolutely supported the Murray-Reid amendment, as did my colleague. I was stunned at how many people on the other side of the aisle, who stood up and defended the rights of the fetus, somehow cannot defend the rights of a child. It is a stunning thing to me to see people, who are speaking so eloquently on this, vote against the Murray-Reid amendment to help poor children get the help they need, to help them get the medical attention they need. We ought to think about the pictures of these women, with their families, who faced this. This is not an issue that is an abstraction. It is an issue about real families struggling. And being told that to save the woman, to save her ability to have future children, to make sure she does not wind up paralyzed or with a stroke, that she have a chance, this Senate is going to move to outlaw this procedure, that could do that for this woman without a health exception--I think it is cruel. I think it is wrong. I think it is sad. I think it shows a lack of humility. And I hope the people of this country will understand what we are talking about: The willingness of the pro-choice Members of this Senate to outlaw all late-term abortion as long as the life and the health of the mother are excepted. I thank my colleagues for listening, and I retain the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to start by answering Senator Fitzgerald, who complimented me on my work. We have worked together on saving dolphin and others. But since he couched it in the form of an attack, I think I would like to respond in this way. My whole life has been dedicated to protecting children, women, the elderly, the infirm, and that is what my current position on this issue reflects. I want to ensure pregnancies are safe, that women have prenatal care so they have healthy babies and, yes, when a woman faces a crisis pregnancy, that she can be saved--women, like some of the women in the Senator's own State of Illinois, who have to choose this particular procedure that would be banned by his vote, without even an exception for the health of a woman. I find that position to be inhumane. I want abortions to be safe, legal, and rare. I have to say to my colleague from Illinois, if he wants to go back to the days when abortions were illegal, I could share some stories about people I knew who were made infertile, and many whom I have read about who died. If you want to go there, we will talk about it. But right now we are talking about a bill that is a very important bill because it bans a procedure that women need to have available to them on rare occasions. Because we are talking about a bill that is legally identical--if I didn't use the term ``legally identical'' in every case, I apologize--we are talking about a bill that is legally identical to the bill that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Senator Leahy agrees. He is the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. I will ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, if it has not been done so, his statement. He says: Senators deserve the benefit of full consideration and vigorous debate before they are asked to cast a vote on such a significant and complicated issue. He says: The Judiciary Committee has not had an opportunity to fully debate the pros and cons of this issue in a hearing since 1997. I would say to my colleagues, to heed the words of their own leaders--Senator Don Nickles, who excoriated Democrats for bypassing the committees instead of bringing a bill to the floor, in which he said: Bypassing the committee should not be repeated by Democrats or Republicans. We have committees for a purpose so we can have bipartisan input, so we can have the legislative process work, so we can have hearings on legislation so people can know what they are voting on. It is the height of irresponsibility, it seems to me, when we are talking about a bill that would deny a procedure that 45,000 OB/GYNs say is sometimes necessary to save the health of the mother, not to have a hearing on this particular piece of legislation since we have not had one in a very long time and the Supreme Court chastised those who wrote the Nebraska law because, they said, it did not really make any exception for the health of the woman even though the kinds of risks that she faces are very serious. Let's take a look at the risks that doctors tell us women face: Hemorrhage, uterine rupture, blood clots, embolism, stroke, damage to nearby organs, and paralysis. So I say to my friends who come here with such compassion in their heart, to be compassionate toward the mothers, too, to understand what they may face. Let's send this to the Judiciary Committee. That is where it should be. Let them take a look at it and bring it back up. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. First, anyone who reads Roe v. Wade knows it is not an unfettered right. Clearly, at the later stages, Government can in fact restrict abortion. Secondly, the kind of talk we just heard on the Senate floor, where two Supreme Court Justices were essentially called murderers--if one reads back the words, it is essentially calling them murderers--I think is beyond inflammatory. I think it is dangerous rhetoric. It is wrong, and I am very sad that the debate has deteriorated to this point.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, regardless of the vote on final passage of this bill, I think you ought to think about why it is important to commit this bill to the Judiciary Committee. Since we last debated this bill, the Supreme Court has ruled that an identical bill is unconstitutional based on two principles that I have here behind me.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, since we last debated this bill, the Supreme Court has ruled an identical bill unconstitutional based on two principles: No. 1, there was a health exception; and this bill has none; and, No. 2, because of an undue burden on women because the procedure ban is so vaguely defined that it banned more than one procedure. It has those same flaws and should be examined by the committee of jurisdiction. The ranking member of the committee, Senator Leahy, agrees. In his statement, Senator Leahy said: ``Senators deserve the benefit of full consideration''----

Mrs. BOXER. I will take another 30 seconds. --``of full consideration and vigorous debate before they are asked to cast a vote on such a significant and complicated issue.'' We are talking about--and I will show a picture of one of them--women such as Coreen Costello, a religious, self-described pro-life conservative woman who had no other option but this procedure if she wanted to preserve her health and have more children.

Mrs. BOXER. I retain those 30 seconds.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, women such as the one shown in this picture deserve to have another hearing. These are the things that could go wrong if a woman is denied this procedure without a health exception: They could hemorrhage; they could have a uterine rupture, blood clots, an embolism, a stroke, have damage to nearby organs, or have paralysis. We have not had a hearing on this bill since 1997, my friends. We have since had a Supreme Court decision that faults the bill because it does not have a health exception. At least vote with us, please, to commit this to the Judiciary Committee. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, it is really very interesting when we talk about disabled children that the man offering this amendment to reaffirm Roe v. Wade is the champion for the disabled. He has fought for the disabled all his life. To somehow put out the idea that those who are pro-choice are not for the disabled is another terrible thing to say in this Senate. I have been in many of these debates over the years, and the comments made by some of my colleagues on the other side of this issue--in terms of their view toward women, women who want more than anything else to bear healthy children and have those children and, yes, even bear them if they are disabled--are extremely disturbing. The kind of comments we have heard about Supreme Court Justices border on, worse than inflammatory, dangerous comments. The comments we have heard about doctors and health professionals are very disturbing to me. Let me reiterate that the AMA opposes this bill--my colleague keeps talking about the AMA--and they oppose it because it imposes criminal penalties on physicians who they say perform these procedures. So they are not in agreement with this bill at all. They find that S. 3 is something they must oppose. The Senator from Pennsylvania keeps asking for specific cases of women who were told that this procedure was necessary as the safest procedure to save their health and their life. He keeps saying no one has come up with these. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full text of 10 statements by 10 women who so testified.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I yield.

Mrs. BOXER. I haven't seen any recent polls. I wonder if my friend could inform me. I assume overwhelmingly the people of this country support Roe because it is a moderate decision, a moderate mainstream decision.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. I think people are horrified at the thought that a Senator would make such a personal, private decision. Our colleague from Pennsylvania wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned, and that is exactly what would happen. Government would be put in the middle of the lives, the private lives, of the people of this country. The people would no longer be trusted to make these decisions.

Mrs. BOXER. I say to my friend, he is absolutely right. Because there is no health exception in S. 3, it is a complete reversal from Roe. What is shocking is my colleagues on the other side won't even make a health exception that was narrowly drawn by Senator Durbin. They couldn't even go that far. We all know what could happen to a woman if she does not have this safe procedure. Doctors are telling us. We put those statements in writing. They could have a hemorrhage, their uterus could rupture, they could have blood clots, embolism, stroke, damage to nearby organs, and paralysis. Yet S. 3 comes to us without a health exception. I say to my friend, the rest of the time is his. I have concluded my remarks. I am very proud to stand with him. I think it will be a close vote, but I am hoping a winning vote, so the message can go out from here that Roe v. Wade, which balanced all the interests--the family interests, the interests of the fetus, and the interests of the mother, which said that previability a woman has a right to choose, she will make that decision with her God and her doctor and her loved ones--that should stand. Certainly later in the pregnancy there can, in fact, be restrictions, and always exceptions for the life and health of the woman. I thank my colleague for again offering this amendment. I think it is very important. I hope people of the country will watch the vote and will think about the ramifications. I yield the floor. Senator Harkin retains the balance of time.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I appreciate that. I have two questions for the Senator. Is the Senator aware that 78,000 women a year around the world die of illegal abortions? And since he stated that the other figure I put out is false, I went back and got the World Health Organization number. Is the Senator aware of this? The second question I have is: The Senator, in having a debate with Senator Clinton, which I thought was probably one of the more instructive things that has happened this afternoon, talked eloquently about the rights of the disabled, and I wondered why the Senator, in the two last votes that we had, voted against the Individuals with Disability Education Act, IDEA funding, which would fund education for children with disabilities.

Mrs. BOXER. This is appropriations. These are two votes.

Mrs. BOXER. No.

Mrs. BOXER. I appreciate the Senator has not seen it.

Mrs. BOXER. These are two votes for 2 years in a row.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that the record of these votes be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Chair please inform me when I have a minute left?

Mrs. BOXER. Ten minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Then I want to tell a story. My colleagues have an artist's rendering, but I want to show a photograph of a woman named Coreen Costello. I want my colleagues to listen to this because it is not a made-up picture. It is a real picture of a real family and a real woman. Why don't my colleagues listen to it because I think this is what we are supposed to be about, real people facing real problems and what we are about to do by passing radical legislation, which is unconstitutional on its face. It did not even go to the committee. I say to my friends, it did not even go to the Judiciary Committee, although the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. The least they could have done was bring it back to the committee and look at what the Court said, that the definition was broad, it was vague, it could ban more than one procedure and that it had no exception for the health of a woman. Listen to the story of Coreen Costello. She says: I am writing to you on behalf of my family. I have testified before both the Senate and the House concerning the so-called partial-birth abortion ban. I have personal experience with this issue for at 30 weeks pregnant I had a procedure that would be banned by this legislation. When I was 7 months pregnant, an ultrasound revealed that our third child, a darling baby girl, was dying. She had a lethal neurological disorder and had been unable to move any part of her tiny body for almost 2 months. Her muscles had stopped growing and her vital organs were failing. Her lungs were so undeveloped, they barely existed. Her head was swollen with fluid and her little body was stiff and rigid. She was unable to swallow amniotic fluid and as a result, the excess fluid was puddling in my uterus. When we learned about our baby's condition, we sought out many specialists and educated ourselves. Our doctors, five in all, agreed that our little girl would come prematurely and there was no doubt that she would not survive. It was not a matter of our daughter being affected by a severe disability--her condition was fatal. Our physicians discussed our options with us. When they mentioned terminating the pregnancy, we rejected it out of hand. I want my colleagues to hear this, and I ask that there be order in the Chamber.