Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Let me say to my friend, he keeps referring to partial- birth abortions: ``There would be less partial-birth abortions.'' I would defy my friend to show me where there is a list of so-called partial-birth abortions. Because there are none. This is a made-up term. I will read to you again--because having a debate about partial- birth abortion, I do not know that you take care of these women on a daily basis, as do physicians, but I want to answer my friend.

Mrs. BOXER. I would like to answer my friend's question. He is asking me a question, whether I disagree with the premise. The premise is, there is a procedure called partial-birth abortion. Physicians are telling me--and I believe them, I hate to tell you, over you, because this is their life's work. These are OB/GYNs. They are saying, there is no such technique as partial-birth abortion. Reclaiming my time, I am going to conclude in this way: I have shown you a couple of cases. My friends say: Oh, they are a couple of anomalies. There are many more I am going to share--many, many more-- many more photographs, many more stories, compelling stories of loving, religious, caring families that made a decision based on the facts as they were laid out, so that a woman could live and be a mother to her other children, so she could go on with her life, where she could have been in a circumstance where she could have absolutely been in peril for her whole family for the rest of her life. I think we have a lot of power here in the Senate. That is why I am so proud the people of California sent me here. And my friend feels so proud the people of Ohio sent him here, as my friend, who is sitting in the Chair, feels so proud the people of Nevada sent him here. We work hard to get here. And I do not shrink from responsibility. I am very happy to take on whatever responsibility that I have. I do not see it in the Constitution that I should outlaw a medical procedure that doctors are saying to me is necessary to save the life and health of a woman. I think that harms families. If my friends would like to offer a health exception, we would have a lot of support. Dick Durbin will do that. I hope a lot of you will join us. I will conclude my remarks because this is what I really think about this. I don't think this about my friends who are on the floor, but I think if you look around for the past 2 years, you see what has happened to women who want to exercise their right to choose, their right to family planning, and you see what has happened to women in this country. So I am going to conclude with the chart that will go through what has happened to women's rights in this country in terms of a right to choose, which is so important, it seems to me. First, we have a situation where the administration says pregnant women won't be eligible for health benefits; their fetus will--not them. Keep in mind what we have here. This is a circumstance where we have a bill that will outlaw a procedure that doctors tell us they need to save the life and health of a woman. Put that into perspective with what has been happening lately to women's rights. So a woman is ignored by this administration. They are going to give the prenatal care to the fetus, not to the woman. What does that say about women, by the way? We are not entities; we are just here to exist. People can look right by us. That is not right. That in and of itself is an insult, a lack of respect, it seems to me, for women. Pushing legislation recognizing an embryo as a person with rights separate and apart from the woman's: Again, what does that say about women? Moving legislation forcing some young women to make reproductive health choices alone, and criminalizing caring adults who help them: That will hit us soon in this debate. Attempts to block women's access to RU486, a drug proven safe and effective by the FDA, which will avoid abortion procedures: We have trouble with that. By the way, women all over the world have this, and we have fought hard to get our women to have nonsurgical abortion, which is safer. It has been a fight. So far we have won it. It is under attack. Attempts to block access to emergency contraception: We are going to have a chance to vote on that during the course of this debate. Denial of Roe v. Wade's protections to Federal employees; low-income women who rely on the Federal Government for their health care; poor women who live in the District of Columbia--in other words, women, including U.S. servicewomen, who pay out of their own pocket for a procedure cannot even use a Federal facility, with our women abroad, in difficult places all over the world--again, a lack of respect. Why am I bringing this up now? Because I see what we are doing here as a continuation of what I would call a basic assault on a woman's right to choose, which I consider to be a fundamental right that has been articulated in Roe v. Wade and stands for respect of a woman. We have seen starving funding for family planning programs, and international family planning is basically impounded by this administration, $34 million. That money can save, by the way, tens of thousands in abortions. If a woman has family planning, she will hopefully plan her family and not be in a circumstance where she might seek an abortion. Tell me how that makes any sense. I don't really see it. Attempts to channel taxpayer funds to deceptive crisis pregnancy centers that intimidate and withhold information from women; pushing legislation to gag doctors from providing abortion referrals; placing a gag rule on international family planning providers; push for youth programs that censor discussion of contraception benefits; censorship, then revision of medical information on Government Web sites about condoms, and the unproven ``link'' between abortion and breast cancer; attempt to fund Federal research on the unproven link between abortion and breast cancer; key Cabinet appointments who oppose the constitutionally protected right to choose; campaign to pack courts with judges hostile to women's rights; refusal to hold perpetrators of violence, intimidation, and harassment at reproductive health clinics responsible for their illegal acts; refusal to act on international women's rights treaty. I am involved in that, the convention to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women. We are standing with countries such as Angola because somebody says that may mean we support a woman's right to choose. Heaven forbid. So we cannot even sign onto a treaty. It is stunning to me; enactment of 335 antichoice State measures into law since 1995. So what I am suggesting to you is there is an agenda here--and this is part of it--to ill-define a procedure so it could, in fact, relate to more than one. The court says it could effectively ban all abortion, without really saying they are doing that and not having a health exception, so that women could face all kinds of horrible problems. It is just part of this campaign, if you will, this assault that I see happening, that I feel is very sad for the women in this country. This is the 21st century. We should allow women to make very private, very difficult choices, as long as these decisions are in accord with the guidelines sent down in 1973. I will close by saying that Roe v. Wade is a very logical, moderate position. It says in the very beginning of a pregnancy that a woman has a right to choose to have an abortion, without the interference in that decision by government. Then it says after that time, government cannot come in and put in restrictions--but always an exception for the life and health of the mother. I think that is a balance. The problem with this bill, it bans procedures--and maybe all procedures--many procedures, except some that are very dangerous to a woman, and procedures that could be used at any stage of abortion. That is what the court said, and it makes no exception for her health. I argue the life exception is very narrowly drawn, but we don't have time to go into that tonight. Thank you very much. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the question asked very eloquently by my friend is: How low have we sunk? I say pretty low, when we have a bill before us that doesn't even have an exception for the health of a woman. I get caught up in my throat when I think about it. Women like Viki Wilson, women who are religious, women who desperately want children, women who were told, as she was--and I will read her story-- that if she didn't have a procedure outlawed in this bill, she could never have a child again, and worse. So I think we sink pretty low when we write a bill that doesn't even have an exception that has been the law of this land since 1973 in a Supreme Court case that is still upheld, which says, yes, we can act to limit abortion, but we always have to make an exception for the life and the health of a woman. That is my position. I have said on this floor, along with many of my pro-choice colleagues who are Democrats and Republicans, we would ban all late- term abortions, except for the life and health of the woman. My view is anyone who comes to this floor to ban a medical procedure that could save the life and health of a woman and doesn't have that exception, is sinking very low. It shows a lack of respect for women, a lack of respect for their lives, their future ability to have children, to love children, and for their future as healthy women. I will show you a list of problems that could develop in women if they don't have the procedures that are banned in this bill. Show me that list of what could happen. This comes from various physician letters, which I will ask to print in the Record later in the debate. This is what can happen to women if there is no health exception in the bill, which there is not. There are 15 pages of findings, but no health exceptions. The Supreme Court already ruled on this very same bill--the Nebraska law--and sent it back and said you cannot come to us with a bill that doesn't make an exception for the health of a woman. Why? Because they see that a woman could hemorrhage and die; a woman's uterus could rupture and she could die; a woman could get a blood clot and she could die; she could have an embolism and she could die; she could have a stroke and she could die; she could have damage to nearby organs and, in some cases, she would have to live paralyzed. How low have we sunk that we cannot make a exception for the health of a woman? Pretty low. Pretty low. When I started this debate, I made the point that there is no such thing as partial-birth abortion. It is a phrase that is used by the proponents of this bill in order to essentially make abortion illegal one procedure at a time. Every one of my friends who is on the floor time and time again, if you ask them, they will be honest and they will say they don't like Roe v. Wade; they don't think abortion should be legal; it ought to be criminalized. This is the way they are going--one procedure at a time. By the way, if you read the Supreme Court case--put up the chart that shows what the Court said. We are talking about more than one procedure banned, although our friends will tell you it is one procedure. Look at what the case says. First of all, there is no health exception. I will go to this chart. The Supreme Court said in the Nebraska case, a legally identical bill: Even if the statute's basic aim is to ban D and X, its language makes clear it also covers a much broader category of procedures. So let there be no mistake, those voting for this bill are not just outlawing one procedure, but many procedures, which fits right into the agenda of my friends who are here tonight and who will be here in the next several days debating with us, because they want no abortion--even though, if you ask the American people, should a woman have a right to choose, should Government stay out of that private decision, a vast majority will say yes, because it is out of respect for women to make a decision with their physician and with their God. It is a decision that has a lot of components to it, one they discuss with their families. It is a tough decision. But I don't personally think any Senator ought to be put in the bedroom of any of our people making these decisions, or in a doctor's office. If my daughter had a problem pregnancy and her health was threatened, just as Viki Wilson's was, I don't think that I would go to a U.S. Senator--not even the one who is a doctor, because he is a heart surgeon. If she had a heart problem, absolutely. I think it is important to see what the American Medical Association says about this. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that they are very holier than thou about this and they have every right to their opinions. They do not know more than doctors. It is not their job to protect the life and health of women. They don't even know what they are talking about. Listen to the AMA. The AMA, American Medical Association, has previously stated their opposition to this bill: We oppose legislation that would criminalize a medical practice or procedure. Since S. 3 includes a provision that would impose a criminal penalty on physicians performing intact dilation extraction, the AMA does not support this bill. Even though they don't like the procedure, they would not support this bill. The letters I have had printed in the Record from practicing OB/GYNs--those are the doctors women go to. They don't go to ``Dr. Santorum,'' they don't go to ``Dr. DeWine,'' they don't go to ``Dr. Boxer,'' they don't go to ``Dr. Murray;'' they go to their OB/GYN. What do they say? We urge you to stand in defense of women's reproductive health and vote against S. 3, legislation regarding so-called partial-birth abortion. There is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature. There is no such term, I say to my friends. Physicians are never taught a technique called ``partial-birth abortion'' so, therefore, they are unable to medically define it. What is described in the legislation, they say, could ban all abortions. Why don't my colleagues just come out and say, ``Let's ban all abortions''? Let's have that debate. You lose it, at least with the American people. I do not know how the votes line up here. We are going to have a chance to vote on whether to overturn Roe v. Wade. We are going to offer that up. We will have a debate about that. Let's see where people stand on that one. But to do it in this way, making up a term and doing it in a way that is so vague that the Supreme Court basically says it covers a much broader category of procedures, is absolutely a fraud on the people. I do not know what else to call it. The Supreme Court said in an identical bill it is far broader than just one procedure. What did it say about the health of a woman? It also said: Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the process of regulating the methods of abortion, imposed significant health risks. In other words, there is no health exception in this bill. Senator Santorum added 15 pages of language, but the operative part of the bill makes no exception for health. Let's be clear on what we are talking about. First of all, a partial- birth abortion, which there is none, is a vague term which could ban all abortions and many abortions. There is no health exception whatsoever in the bill. Without a health exception, if a doctor fears a hemorrhage or a uterine rupture, or a blood clot or an embolism or a stroke or damage to nearby organs or even paralysis, it is not enough for my friends on the other side. How low have we sunk--I want to talk about that. If your daughter is told if she does not get this particular procedure, she may be paralyzed for life and you will not make an exception, how far have we sunk? I think that is a fair question. The debate we are having is not the real debate. The real debate is outlawing abortion completely and doing it one procedure at a time and making people think this particular procedure, A, is real, which there is no such thing as a partial-birth abortion--it is not in any dictionary; it is made up--and B, making them think you really are banning one procedure when the Supreme Court said, no, there are many procedures and maybe all abortions are banned. So why not come here like a man--and I say ``a man'' because it is the men on the other side who brought this to us. Maybe we will have some women debating it tomorrow, but so far we have seen the same men come down here, and they are saying they are after this partial-birth abortion when we know every one of them wants to ban all abortions, does not believe in a woman's right to choose, wants to criminalize women who would have an abortion, criminalize doctors, and have a constitutional amendment to make it illegal. I remember those days. Women died during those days. How low have we sunk? Women were made infertile in those days. All the points we see here--serious health consequences of banning safe procedures--all of that I remember in those days. Finally, the Supreme Court got enlightened in 1973 and said: Government, keep your nose out of this; it is a health issue; and if you legislate to clamp down on abortions in the late term--which, by the way, I agree with, but always have a life and health exception so we do not force women into a situation where they can lose their ability to function for their families. Let's put Viki's picture up again. I will tell you her story. She says: I urge you to oppose S. 3. I understand this bill is very broad and would ban a wide range of abortion procedures. Mine is one example of the many families that could be harmed by legislation like this. In the spring of 1994, I was pregnant and expecting Abigail, my third child, on Mother's Day. The nursery was ready and our family was ecstatic. My husband, Bill, an emergency room physician, had delivered our other children and he would do it again this time. John, our older, would cut the cord. Katie, our younger, would be the first to hold the baby. Abigail had already become an important part of our family. At 36 weeks of pregnancy, however, all of our dreams and happy expectations came crashing down around us. This is Viki. She says: My doctor ordered an ultrasound and detected what all of my previous prenatal testing had failed to detect. Two-thirds of my daughter's brain had formed outside her skull. What I thought were big healthy, strong movements were, in fact, seizures. My doctor sent me to several specialists. We were in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her. ``A desperate attempt to find a way to save her,'' and yet my colleagues come down here and make everyone believe that these women who have had this procedure were callous about it. ``A desperate attempt to save her.'' Everyone agreed she would not survive outside my body. They also feared that as the pregnancy progressed before I went into labor, she would die from the increased compression in her brain. The doctors feared that my uterus might rupture in the birthing process, rendering me sterile. The doctor recommended against C section because they could not justify the risks to my health. What were the risks to her health? Let's look at it again and again and again. What could have happened to Viki if she had to live under this cruel law that has no health exception? She could have hemorrhaged. Her uterus could have ruptured. She could have had blood clots, an embolism, or a stroke. She could have become paralyzed. Her organs nearby could have been damaged. When people come down here and say ``how low have we sunk,'' I agree: How low have we sunk to have a bill come before this body with a name that is not even a real procedure, that could outlaw a broad range of procedures, and that makes no exception for a woman's health and could consign her to live the rest of her life, if she survives it, in a horrific situation which could be so detrimental to her other children. I see my colleague has come to the floor. I am not going to go on much longer because I have a lot more to say on this and a lot more cases to share with my colleagues tomorrow. We have pictures and pictures and pictures of women and their children, women who are deeply religious, women who tried every way to save their pregnancy, women who wanted to live to try to have another child. Is that a crime? Is that being made a crime? Yes, it is being made a crime. I feel heavy in my heart that with all of the issues that face us, 250,000 troops--talk about killing. I have 5,000 National Guard on the border of Iraq, with another couple of thousand having been notified. I have young people over there, people who have left their families, who are going to face God knows what, and we are debating a procedure that would be banned, which does not even make an exception for the health of a woman such as Viki, and the many others I will bring to light. It is so callous. We have children who are uninsured who cannot even get medicine. We are not talking about that. We have the most unemployed people we have seen in decades, the worst economy we have seen in 50 years. The stock market plunged again today, and people have to work another 5 or 10 years because their dreams are gone. And we are talking about banning a procedure without making a health exception. I am amazed. Debate it we will, and we will offer amendments to try to bring health to women, to children, and to women who are pregnant. We hope our friends will be as eloquent in supporting those as they are eloquent tonight. We will have the chance to speak out on Roe v. Wade and see how many of our colleagues really support a woman's right to choose, as the Supreme Court laid it out, in the early stages of a pregnancy. And, yes, in the later stages one may not have an abortion unless it is to save the life and health of a woman. That is the law. This will set a dangerous precedent. It will send a message that the health of the mother does not matter. Every time I put up a picture, my friends will say, because they did it last time, oh, these women, they could have had it, there is no problem with them. Wrong. These women have come to us and told us they had the procedure that my colleagues want to ban, and had they not had it, they might not have lived to tell the tale or they would have had serious adverse health consequences. So how low have we come? That is for the people of America to decide. As far as I am concerned, anyone who comes to this floor and puts forward a bill that is so callous as to say that if a woman's health is threatened and she could suffer one of these terrible consequences, she cannot even have a procedure that her OB/GYN says she needs to have--it is callous, and I am going to speak out against it. I hope we will finish this in due course, have a good debate and move on, but we will be heard on our side. We did not bring this up, but we will be heard. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I take a minute to rebut my friend before I listen to my colleague from Ohio. I find it very interesting that because a procedure could take 3 days, it is not an emergency. If my daughter is undergoing a procedure and on the third day she dies, because perhaps something went wrong, she was in an emergency, even though it took 3 days. If someone has cancer and rushes into the hospital and it may take some intensive work over a period of days to save their life, the procedures used there are used because this is an emergency. To say it is not an emergency because it took 3 days to try to save a woman's life is, on its face, counterintuitive. I say again, my friend, with all due respect, absolutely knows this procedure he wants to ban without exception for health, he knows it is not the safest procedure. Well, I don't know what medical school he went to. Listen to the physicians. They are writing to us. They are stating over and over again, don't tie our hands; we may be forced to use this procedure. Don't tie our hands; a woman can suffer irreparable harm. I would love to believe in everything my friend----

Mrs. BOXER. I'm sorry?

Mrs. BOXER. I will.

Mrs. BOXER. I have not read what my friend is reading from. I wonder whether he has read what the obstetricians and gynecologists----

Mrs. BOXER. Send it over to me. I will be glad to. You are asking, do I agree with this doctor. I don't know who he is. I am telling you what I am agreeing with. I agree with the OB/GYN, the women physicians, the physicians who were dealing with these difficult pregnancies all the time. But I am happy--the time is mine, if I might, I say to my friend.

Mrs. BOXER. I didn't say I would not yield for another question. I asked you to send over the letter to which you are referring so I can answer the question with intelligence. I have not seen the letter. I am not asking my friend to comment on the OB/GYN because I don't know that he has seen it. I don't think that is right to do in an intelligent debate. I am happy to look at it and at that time I will be happy to answer the question. We have a situation where we are being told by doctors over and over again, thousands of doctors, 45,000 doctors, that they may well have to use this procedure. All they want is a health exception. My friends are not interested in giving us a health exception. They will have a chance to vote it down because we will offer up an exception that talks about the terrible things that can happen to a woman. If they want to vote it down and say no, that is fine. They have to live with that. That is fine. I don't want to have to face a Viki Wilson. I don't want to have to face the women who have told me this procedure that they want to ban saved them. I don't want to face them when they are sitting in a wheelchair and paralyzed or suffering from a stroke because my friends decided we were sinking so low that we would fight for an exception for health. Imagine. Just imagine. I rise tonight, and I will do so at every turn, because the facts simply are not on the side of those who want to get this through the Senate and outlaw a set of procedures the court said--by the way, my friend argues that the bill took care of the problem; it is very specific. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a legal analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights which says very clearly that this bill is legally identical to the one that the court found unconstitutional.

Mrs. BOXER. My friend did say, and I appreciate that, that he heard a lot of witnesses come forward to talk about this. That was a couple of years ago. For some reason, they have the time to do this but they did not have the time to send this bill to the Judiciary Committee where they could have looked at this issue. This is an amazing situation. We had a Supreme Court that argues that the Stenberg case, the legally identical bill to this, is unconstitutional on its face on two grounds--no health exception and a very vague definition. Here it is. Unconstitutional. This is what the Supreme Court said in a legally identical bill, and I have just placed in the Record a letter from the attorney who argued that case. She read the Santorum bill and says it is legally identical to the case that was declared unconstitutional. This is what the Court said. Unconstitutional because it put an undue burden on women because the definition is vague. Undue burden--very important words. You cannot put an undue burden on a woman because abortion under Roe is legal and in the late stages it is not legal if the State says it isn't, except for life and health. But it puts an undue burden because we don't know at what stage the woman is going to get this abortion and whether this procedure applies to it or not. No exception to protect a woman's health, that is the one that breaks my heart. After all of this, the Court sending it back, please make an exception for women's health, my friends do not even have it in their heart to make an exception for a woman's health. I find it difficult. So S. 3, the bill before us, and Stenberg are legally identical according to the lawyers who won the case. I argue the life exception is very narrow. It does not just say you can use it if a woman's life is threatened. It says the woman has to have this preexisting condition. I argue that. But clearly my purpose tonight is to say to my friends on the other side, as we offer these amendments on women's health, be with us; as we offer these amendments on children's health, be with us; as we offer these amendments on prenatal care, be with us. Because you care about children, that is why you are here. So be with us. Be with us on these. I say be with us on Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade is a modest decision that said to government, take your nose outside of privacy. You cannot make a decision in an early stage of a pregnancy. Be with us on that. Be with us if we suggest that the Judiciary Committee ought to take a look at this in light of the Stenberg case. We offer our hand to you. Be with us when Senator Durbin offers a health exception. If you care about women and their families, be with us when we say make an exception if a woman is told she could be paralyzed if she does not have this or be prepared to face the consequences if this does become the law of the land and the Supreme Court does change. It is bringing pain and suffering to a lot of our families in America. We will give you the chance to offer up these amendments. We look forward to joining with you. We hope we will win a couple here. We have a few people already on your side of the aisle who are pro-choice who are going to be with us on some of these amendments. We hope we can expand that. We hope we can have a good vote on the health exception. I think we are getting close to winning that one. That would be a good day for women. Just remember the most important thing of all: This is about real people, real women like Viki. She is just one. These are religious women, caring women, loving women, who wanted these babies more than anyone could say but who knew if they didn't have the procedure that you want to ban, they could well die, be made infertile, have a blood clot, be paralyzed. We can't do this to women. We should not do this. We should respect women. We should act as Senators, not OB/GYNs. I think it is important. In closing, I want to say my friend, Senator Santorum, when I was out of the Chamber, said: Well, Senator Boxer said we should not ban procedures, but she voted to ban a medical procedure that would have allowed women's genitals to be mutilated. I just want to set the record straight. You are darned right I did. That is not a medical procedure; that is torture. That is torture. We are talking here about a medical procedure which doctors say is necessary to save the life and health of a woman in certain abortions. That's quite different. So I wanted to set the record straight. This debate is emotional. This debate is difficult. There is no doubt about it. But I am so proud to stand tonight, to call on my friends to be honest about what their true goal is. If it is to ban one procedure, then name it in the bill. They do not do that. It is vague. Therefore, according to the Court, it could ban all abortion. That is what the Supreme Court said. If that is what they are about, then be man enough to come over here and say they believe abortion should be banned, and then let's have at it and talk about the right of families, of women, to make a decision like this--with their doctor, with their God, with their conscience, with their family. But I say: Not with their Senator. I don't think I have that right. I have more humility than that. I try hard to be a good Senator. I try hard. I come here, I try to fight for the American dream for people. I fight for children, fight for families, fight for jobs. God knows we have trouble in this land. We have troubles in this land. Retirements are up in smoke. People are being forced to work longer and harder. I mean, there are a lot of issues that adversely impact on children and their families. But we will stand here and we will have a point/counterpoint as long as they want to do that. I thank you and yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, my friend talked about the joy of childbirth. He is so right. I have a magnificent grandchild. I have two beautiful children, a boy and girl. They were both premature. It was very scary, and they made it. It was wonderful. I absolutely can say there is no greater joy in my life. As I stand here today, it is because I am pro-children. I am pro-family. I am for healthy families. I am for women not having to face a situation where they could be paralyzed for life if a certain procedure is banned. My friend says it is not about Roe v. Wade. Nothing could be further from the truth. None other than the Supreme Court said on an identical bill in Nebraska that, in fact, it was against Roe v. Wade--that because there was no exception for the health of the mother in which you have the same situation here. You have salutary language in findings. But the operative language makes no exception for health. That is against Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade was a very carefully crafted bill that has withstood time since 1973. Even this Supreme Court, which is new, as we well know, and to the right, has supported Roe very recently. It says to me, if you look at the case that just came down, you have two problems with this bill that goes against Roe: No health exception. Everyone agrees there is no health exception. The fact is that the terminology used is very vague. Therefore, it puts an undue burden on a woman because it could ban all abortion procedures. Having said that, it seems to me puzzling why this bill didn't go back to the Judiciary Committee. I will tell you why. It is not as if nothing has changed since we looked at this the last time. Everything changed. The Supreme Court said the partial-birth abortion ban, as the Senator calls it, was unconstitutional in Nebraska because they had no health exception and it put an undue burden on women because the definition is vague. That has not been cured here. This is going to go right back to the Supreme Court. I am sure the President will sign this bill because he definitely said he is looking forward to doing that. And it will go to the Court, and I believe it will be struck down because it hasn't met the problems the Court found. It is puzzling to me why we wouldn't send it back to the Judiciary Committee to discuss the problems the Court found with a legally identical bill. I have had printed in the Record a letter from attorneys who say, in fact, this is a legally identical bill. I want to close tonight for my part and talk about another case because my friend was very eloquent, and I appreciate his eloquence about children and families.

Mrs. BOXER. I certainly will.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely, it has been, but not since the Supreme Court case which struck down a legally identical bill. That is why I believe it should go back to Judiciary.

Mrs. BOXER. With all due respect to my friend, we have a Judiciary Committee that is supposed to make those judgments. So I am sure you think it is fine. You thought the other one was fine, the Stenberg case. You thought the Nebraska case met the Roe v. Wade requirements as well. You were wrong and you were faulty. So I believe if there is sincerity here--this isn't about politics or whatever--it is really about meeting the constitutional requirements of Roe, it should have gone back. But I agree with my friend, sure, it has been debated quite a bit, but not since this latest case. Mr. VOINOVICH addressed the Chair.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we are talking about polls. I will give you a very late poll. This is an L.A. Times poll of the Nation: 45 percent think we ought to be working on strengthening the economy; 28 percent, fighting terrorism; 26 percent, dealing with health care costs; at that time, 25 percent dealing with Iraq; 18 percent, protecting Social Security; 7 percent dealing with tax cuts; and 7 percent dealing with late-term abortion. The people are exactly where the Senator from Washington says, but we are willing to debate this and we are looking forward to a good debate. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, there have been so many misstatements made on this floor right now in just a few minutes that I don't know where to start. Why don't I start with the whole point that we have made over and over again. We are Senators. We are not doctors. With all due respect to my friend from Pennsylvania, if my daughter were in trouble with pregnancy, I wouldn't go to him. I would go to her OB-GYN. And I would say, Tell us what do we have to do to make sure this birth goes well, and tell us what we have to do to make sure our daughter's life will not end and that her health will not be impaired forever. I would not go to the Senator from Pennsylvania in that circumstance. There are many arguments that we will lay out. Today, we only have a few very short minutes. Senator Murray and I are going to share the time. We have a number of amendments that we are going to offer during this week to talk about what we think is very important for women's health, and, frankly, the health of their families and their children. This bill, S. 3, is called the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. It should be called the following: The ``Criminalizing Medically Necessary Procedures Act,'' because the procedures that are banned are necessary to save the life and the health of a woman facing a medical emergency during a pregnancy. My friend from Pennsylvania makes light of it. Oh, this doesn't hurt women. This is fine for women. Let me tell you who agrees with us and who disagrees with the Senator from Pennsylvania. To start, I have a letter that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record from Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in fact, they say the so-called partial- birth abortion does not exist. There is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature. Let me say once again for my colleagues that there is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature. Physicians are never taught a technique called partial-birth abortion and, therefore, are unable to medically define the procedure. These physicians who are charged with protecting the life and health of women and babies--I might add that what is described in the legislation could ban all abortions. What this bill describes can be interpreted as any abortion. We have a bill called the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and there is no such thing as partial-birth abortions. What this does is criminalize a medically necessary procedure. So let us get that on the table. Why then would this be before us? I think the answer lies in this letter from OB-GYNs. It is an attempt to outlaw all abortions, to take away the rights of women to choose--not only to chip away at that right, but to take it away, and, by the way, criminalize abortions. What follows from that? Women and doctors will be in jail. That is what follows from that. And if you read behind and between the lines here, when you hear my colleagues stand up, they have been fighting all their lives to outlaw abortion and to overturn Roe v. Wade. So let us get it on the table. That is what this is about. There is a further quote in this letter that I think is worth mentioning. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology, representing 45,000 OB-GYNs, agrees: ``The intervention of legislative bodies into medical decision-making is inappropriate, ill-advised and dangerous.'' Let me repeat that. These are the doctors who birth our children. I find it very interesting because a lot of men come out here and talk about this, and women who have had pregnancies, who understand the relationship that you develop with your doctor--your doctor is your friend. Your doctor advises you. Your doctor tells you what your risks are. Your doctor, more than anything, wants a healthy child to be the end result of a pregnancy. That is why they go into medicine. People here would put them in jail if they tried to save your life by using a procedure that they know is the safest one in an emergency. So repeating: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology, representing 45,000 ob-gyn's, [says]: ``The intervention of legislative bodies into medical decision making is inappropriate, ill advised, and dangerous.'' The American Medical Women's Association, women who go into healing-- women who go into healing--what do they say, 10,000 female physicians? They are opposed to this ban because it ``represents a serious impingement on the rights of physicians to determine appropriate medical management for individual patients.'' So here we are, with everything else happening in the world, playing doctor--playing doctor--and putting women's lives at risk. It is very upsetting. I go home every weekend. That is why I could not begin this debate on Saturday because I go home and I listen to my constituents. They come up to me--as I know my friend from Washington goes home every weekend-- and they tug at my sleeve. Do you know what they are saying to me? Not ban medical procedures that doctors think might be necessary to save the life and health of a woman, no. They are saying: Senator Boxer, we are worried. We have 250,000 troops ready to go to war. We are worried. Can we avoid war? We are worried. We are losing our retirement nest eggs. We are worried. We have lost our jobs. I have a chart in the Chamber to just put this into context; that we are standing here debating a procedure that, if you take the definition of D&X, impacts one-tenth of 1 percent of all abortions. I do not happen to agree that is what the bill does, but let's take the advocates' point of view. They say it is this D&X, and that is one- tenth of 1 percent of all abortions, when these are the things people want us to work on: In the last 2 years, 2.5 million private-sector jobs have disappeared. And I know some of those families. And 8.5 million people are unemployed in the United States of America; 1.1 million in California.

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, Mr. President. I will continue. Will the Chair let me know when I have used 11 minutes, please?

Mrs. BOXER. Two additional minutes, and then I intend to yield back to my friend. And then Senator Murray will seek recognition.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, people are unemployed. Mortgage foreclosures have reached a record high. Forty-one million Americans have no health insurance--no health insurance--whatsoever. Nine million children do not have health insurance coverage; 1.6 million children in California have no coverage. Over 15 million Medicare beneficiaries have no prescription drug coverage. And 1.5 million violent crimes were reported in the U.S. in 2001. The crime rate is going up again, along with the unemployment rate. We are talking about banning a medical procedure--or more than one, because the Supreme Court, by the way, in its ruling, claims the wording actually bans more than one procedure--we are doing that instead of this. Mr. President, 13.5 million eligible children do not have child care assistance. And 280,000 children in California are on waiting lists to receive assistance. There is a lot of passion about kids here. I share the passion. I share the love. I share the anxiety for those children. Let's do something to help them. Mr. President, 15 million children have no access to afterschool programs, and the President cut the afterschool program by 40 percent. One million children live within 1 mile of a toxic Superfund site, and the Superfund is in danger, and Superfund cleanups are now cut in half. Talk about how it affects children. Why don't we do our job instead of trying to be doctors? If we do our job, we will have healthy children, get the parents health insurance, and the rest. Mr. President, 17 million Americans have asthma; 6 million are children. I will tell you, if you go to any school and ask the kids to raise their hand, a third of them will say they have had asthma. And 11.6 million children are living in poverty. Mr. President, I ask for 30 more seconds, and then I will stop. Bottom line: We are here in a situation where we are making a decision that is going to harm women. And through this debate I will show you the real faces of the women who have had this procedure. Some are very religious Catholics. Some are very conservative Republicans. And they are fighting against this with all their heart. So I do look forward to this debate because, frankly, if we can take this love we all share for children and put it to good use for all of these things I have talked about, maybe something good will come out of it. I thank the Chair very much and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, could you advise me when I have used 9 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I will speak just as long as my friend speaks.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last week in the Senate, I indicated that with the exception of Supreme Court nominees, I believed that if a judicial nominee answers the questions posed to him or her and provides the Senate with the information needed in order for us to perform our constitutional role of advice and consent, I would not engage in a filibuster on the nomination. I made this remark expecting that the so-called blue slip process would be honored. That is, if a Senator from the nominee's home State did not return a blue slip, that nominee would not have a hearing, would not be considered in the Judiciary Committee, and would never even come before the full Senate. A filibuster would not be possible because the nomination would not leave the Committee. After my remarks, however, something happened that makes me question that assumption. I heard on good authority that hearings are being considered on nominees for whom a blue slip has not been returned. Given this development, it is possible that the Senate could, in the very near future, be asked to vote on a nominee for whom a blue slip was never returned. At the time of my statement last week, I was not aware that such an abrupt change in Senate practice was being contemplated so seriously and so quickly. Therefore, Mr. President, if a nominee were to come before the full Senate without a blue slip having been returned by a home State Senator, I reserve the right to participate in a filibuster on that nomination. Furthermore, after I gave my statement last week, an incident occurred in the Senate Judiciary Committee that is of great concern to me and should be to the entire Senate. The rules of the Judiciary Committee require at least one Member of the minority party to agree to end debate on a matter before the Committee. Despite this rule, and despite the fact that no one on the Democratic side voted to end debate, the Committee held a vote on two circuit court nominees anyway. If Committee rules are going to be ignored--if the rights of the minority party and the interests of the minority party are trampled upon--this process is going to break down. It may take a filibuster in the full Senate to ensure that the rules are followed. Finally, Mr. President, when President Bush was elected, he pledged to govern from the center. Judicial candidates who are not moderate, mainstream nominees violate that pledge. I want to hold President Bush to his pledge, so I also reserve the right to filibuster a nominee who is far outside the mainstream.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to protect drinking water from contamination by the toxic chemical perchlorate. My bill will require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a standard for perchlorate contamination in drinking water supplies by July 1, 2004. Under EPA's current schedule, 2006 is the earliest date a standard would be finalized. Perchlorate is a clear and present danger to California's public health. We cannot wait 4 more years to address this threat. EPA needs to get moving and protect our drinking water sooner rather than later. Drinking water sources for at least 7 million Californians and millions of other Americans are contaminated with perchlorate. Perchlorate is the main ingredient in rocket fuel, which accounts for 90 percent of its use. Perchlorate is also used for ammunition, fireworks, highway safety flares, air bags, and fertilizers. It dissolves readily in many liquids, including water, and moves easily and quickly through cracks and water. Perchlorate was first discovered in drinking water in 1957, although it was rarely listed as a contaminant of concern as late as the mid- 1900s. Since 1997, when California's Department of Health Services developed a new, more sensitive analytical testing method that can detect perchlorate down to 4 parts per billion, perchlorate has been found in soil, groundwater, and surface water throughout the U.S. Perchlorate poses a variety of serious health risks relating to thyroid function, especially in newborns, children, and pregnant women. Exposure to perchlorate interferes with the thyroid gland's ability to produce the hormones needed for normal prenatal development. This can cause both physical and mental retardation. Perchlorate is also linked to thyroid cancer. Californians face special threats from perchlorate contamination because so many rockets and missiles were built and tested in the state during World War II and the cold war. Groundwater can become contaminated wherever the chemical is manufactured, used, disposed of, or stored. Alarming levels of perchlorate have been discovered in Lake Mead and the Colorado River, the drinking water source for millions of Southern Californians. Communities in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clara Valley, and the Sacramento area are also grappling with perchlorate contamination. In addition, more than 20 million Americans in at least 19 states drink water contaminated with perchlorate. My bill will ensure that EPA acts swiftly to address this threat to our health and welfare. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to protect drinking water from contamination by the toxic chemical perchlorate. My bill will require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a standard for perchlorate contamination in drinking water supplies by July 1, 2004. Under EPA's current schedule, 2006 is the earliest date a standard would be finalized. Perchlorate is a clear and present danger to California's public health. We cannot wait 4 more years to address this threat. EPA needs to get moving and protect our drinking water sooner rather than later. Drinking water sources for at least 7 million Californians and millions of other Americans are contaminated with perchlorate. Perchlorate is the main ingredient in rocket fuel, which accounts for 90 percent of its use. Perchlorate is also used for ammunition, fireworks, highway safety flares, air bags, and fertilizers. It dissolves readily in many liquids, including water, and moves easily and quickly through cracks and water. Perchlorate was first discovered in drinking water in 1957, although it was rarely listed as a contaminant of concern as late as the mid- 1900s. Since 1997, when California's Department of Health Services developed a new, more sensitive analytical testing method that can detect perchlorate down to 4 parts per billion, perchlorate has been found in soil, groundwater, and surface water throughout the U.S. Perchlorate poses a variety of serious health risks relating to thyroid function, especially in newborns, children, and pregnant women. Exposure to perchlorate interferes with the thyroid gland's ability to produce the hormones needed for normal prenatal development. This can cause both physical and mental retardation. Perchlorate is also linked to thyroid cancer. Californians face special threats from perchlorate contamination because so many rockets and missiles were built and tested in the state during World War II and the cold war. Groundwater can become contaminated wherever the chemical is manufactured, used, disposed of, or stored. Alarming levels of perchlorate have been discovered in Lake Mead and the Colorado River, the drinking water source for millions of Southern Californians. Communities in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clara Valley, and the Sacramento area are also grappling with perchlorate contamination. In addition, more than 20 million Americans in at least 19 states drink water contaminated with perchlorate. My bill will ensure that EPA acts swiftly to address this threat to our health and welfare. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.