Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have not objected to his modification, but I wanted to speak on it. The Senator did it when I was talking about Senator Smith. I would like to have a little time prior to the Senator from Illinois to respond to the modification.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to ask, how much longer does the Senator plan on going at this point in the debate?

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

Mrs. BOXER. Please. I know the Senator wants to criticize the doctors, but now he is criticizing the lawyers.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to ask my friend from Pennsylvania, am I right, he is critical of the general counsel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who are the doctors in charge of women's health in this country; he is critical that their general counsel, upon reading his amendment, could determine on its face that amendment or that modification does not meet the criticism of the Eighth Circuit Court? Is he critical that the general counsel trusted her law degree, her reading of his bill, her understanding of the law, to come back with an opinion? It is hard for me to believe that.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield on his criticism of ACOG?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. Again, I think it is really important because to have this study come out and say that States with the strongest antiabortion laws and want to end a woman's right to choose are the weakest in taking care of these children seems to be a horrible contradiction to me. I think what my friend is saying is regardless of our position, my goodness, we ought to come together when it comes to taking care of our children who have special needs. I thank her. I will be proud to support her amendment. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to add my voice on this amendment. I am really pleased that the Senator from Louisiana has brought this amendment to the floor. It is very important that we make a statement today that the children of America will be protected, and the Senator from Pennsylvania said he views this amendment as opening our arms to unborn children. To me, this is opening our arms to children regardless of where they come from, so the children born in this country will get help. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article that appeared in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. Its title is, ``Study Links Abortion Laws, Aid to Children.'' It says, ``States With Stricter Rules Are Less Likely To Spend on the Needy.'' That is incredible. Legislators stand up and say Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned, women should not have a right to choose, and what happens? ``States with the strongest anti-abortion laws generally are among the States that spend less on needy children and are less likely to criminalize''--this is amazing--``the battering or killing of fetuses in pregnant women by a third party. . . .'' That doesn't add up. So I think what we are doing today with the Landrieu amendment--because I think it is going to get overwhelming support--is saying whatever side of the aisle we fall into on the Santorum amendment--and there are strong differences there--we agree with her sense of the Congress that the Federal Government should fully cover all expenses related to the educational, medical, and respite care requirements of families with special needs children. Many times, these children come into the world, and it is anticipated by their parents that it will happen, and the parents choose to go forward with the pregnancy. Many times, we have children born and it is a total surprise to parents that they have special needs requirements. Either way, any way, however it happens, how could our hearts not go out to children in this country with special needs? By the way, I would like to engage my friend in a colloquy. Wouldn't this apply to any child--perhaps a child who is 1, 2 or 3--who gets injured in a car accident and suddenly the family finds that they need special care for the child? My friend isn't just talking about newborn babies. I think she is basically saying all children and all families that have this need ought to be covered.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like to be heard on the amendment if my friend has finished.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair. To sum up my feeling on this and the feeling of those of us who actively oppose the Santorum bill, we have no objection to the Senator amending his bill in this fashion, but we still believe very strongly that it doesn't meet the constitutional arguments. It still doesn't do anything to protect the health of a woman, and it doesn't do anything to remove criminal penalties on physicians. I hope we will get this moving forward. We will amend the bill the way the Senator from Pennsylvania wants. I hope we can get to a vote at some point, although I know Senator Smith is still talking about an amendment. Senator Landrieu has a very important amendment. I hope when we can get this wrapped up, all of those things can be done, perhaps in the next hour or two. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER. I have a second letter on the new Santorum language from the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. It was addressed to Senator Chafee. Dear Senator Chafee: You have asked for our advice regarding the significance of new language defining partial- birth abortion in substitution for the prior language. In our opinion, the changes are without legal significance and will not correct the constitutional infirmities of S. 1692. Nor do they limit the prohibition's wide-ranging ban on previability abortion procedures. I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. I don't know how this is all going to end, but my side has no problem with the Senator from Pennsylvania changing his legislation in any way he wants to change it. We on our side are not going to object at all. He can change it any way he wants to change it. I will say something very important from our side, and that is, the change he is submitting does nothing at all to meet the health concerns of the mother. He is changing a definition, and he doesn't at all say, if a woman's health is at stake, this procedure can be used. So if the Senator is trying to meet the constitutional objection from the courts which have thrown out his bill across this country, he doesn't do it with his modification. He still doesn't make an exception for the health of a woman, and this bill remains a very dangerous bill. It makes no exception for health. Secondly, as I understand it, he still keeps the criminal penalties for the doctors. This caused the American Medical Association to back off its support for the bill. That still is a defect because, as the Senator from Nebraska said, after speaking to an OB/GYN, who brings life into the world, when these dangerous situations present themselves to a physician, they have to make a quick-second judgment on what to do to preserve life, to preserve health, to make sure the woman is not paralyzed, deformed, made infertile, to make sure the fetus isn't injured. All these things come into play. We don't want to have doctors saying: Just a minute, I have to read Senator Santorum's law. What we want is for the physicians to do what has to be done, do the right thing, according to their oath they take when they become physicians. We take an oath of office when we become Senators. We are not physicians. We don't take the Hippocratic oath. When we take the oath, we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. We do not get sworn in to be physicians. Physicians take their oath to do no harm. Our oath is to uphold the Constitution. And to uphold the Constitution, we should be upholding the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, which, by a very slim majority, this Senate says it upholds. So this so-called fix the Senator from Pennsylvania will be submitting, which I have no objection to his submitting, still renders the bill unconstitutional because the health of the woman is not addressed. Roe says clearly, yes, the State can get involved in the right to choose after viability, but you always have to respect the health of the woman. No such exception. Secondly, I only had a little time to send this new language, because we did not see it until literally less than an hour ago, to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. I want to ask them if they believe this new language Senator Santorum is going to place into his bill, in fact, makes the whole issue clearer, whether or not it is still vague, vaguely describes a procedure that is used in the earlier terms, which is the second reason the courts have struck it down. The way partial-birth abortion is described--and that is a political term, not a legal term--the courts say applies to all abortions, regardless of whether they are in the first month, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth. So the court struck it down. This is what Ann Allen, general counsel of the American College of OB/GYNs--those 40,000 physicians who bring babies into the world and, yes, if things go tragically wrong, may have to resort to this procedure--says: Upon review of the attached language . . . in my opinion the language does not correct the constitutional defects of S 1692. In particular, this language does not correct the issues addressed by many states and federal courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which have held similar legislation to be unconstitutional. The Senator from Pennsylvania says he is reacting to the Eighth Circuit Court. The doctors at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, through their general counsel, say it does not cure that problem. I ask unanimous consent to print this letter in the Record during the debate.

Mrs. BOXER. I would like to have a chance to discuss what the Senator has done, whenever it is easy for him.

Mrs. BOXER. Is the Senator going to send it up and ask unanimous consent to modify?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of the time. I thank the Senator from Iowa for his insight in offering this important amendment. I am very hopeful the Senate will go on record as supporting Roe v. Wade. I think it may well do just that. That would send a wonderful signal to the families of America that we trust them to make the most personal, private decisions that perhaps they will ever be called on to make. Once again, I have to say I think some of the language used on the other side of the aisle in this debate has been offensive. I think it has been wrong. I think it has been inflammatory. The Senator from Pennsylvania continues to say those of us who disagree with him, in essence, want to kill children. We are mothers. We have bore children. We are grandmothers. We love the children. So it is highly offensive to hear those words used on the Senate floor. My colleague says he feels the pain of the families who went through this horrible experience; yet he demeans them. He basically says they don't know what they are talking about when they beg us not to pass this legislation, when they beg us to turn away from this legislation, which makes no exception for the health of a woman. Again, we are not doctors. We are Senators. When the women of this country need help--and serious help--they don't turn to us. They turn to us for other things, but they don't turn to us to get the help they need. They turn to a physician they trust; they turn to their God, to their families, to their closest friends, and they turn to their conscience. So I hope we will reaffirm Roe v. Wade because that is what Roe v. Wade says--trust the women, respect them, respect their privacy. I want to put into the Record a statement sent to us by an award- winning actress, Polly Bergen, who came forward to talk about her illegal abortion in the 1940s. She said: Someone gave me the phone number of a person who did abortions. . . . I borrowed about $300 from my roommate and went alone to a dirty, run-down bungalow in a dangerous neighborhood in east L.A. A . . . man came to the floor and asked for the money. . . . He told me to take off all of my clothes except for my blouse. . . . I got up on a cold metal kitchen table. He performed a procedure, using something sharp. He didn't give me anything for the pain--he just did it. He said . . . I would be fine. Well, Polly Bergen was rendered infertile. Vote for the Harkin amendment. Vote no on the underlying bill.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield the Senator from Iowa 3 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I am answering the question I have been posed by the Senator, and the answer to the question is, I stand by Roe v. Wade. I stand by it. I hope we have a chance to vote on it. It is very clear, Roe v. Wade. That is what I stand by; my friend doesn't.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I move to table the Santorum amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I urge Senators to read the text. It was the Senator from Pennsylvania who talked about the feet. I talked about a baby and when a baby is born. The Santorum amendment, just as his bill, is a direct overturning of Roe v. Wade, which gave women the right to choose in 1973. Before Roe, 5,000 women a year died because of illegal abortion. Now abortion is safe, and it is legal. Why don't we keep it that way? It is working. It is working for women and their families. It balances the rights of the woman with the rights of the fetus. That is why it says in Roe, in the beginning of a pregnancy, a woman has an unfettered right to choose, and later there can be restrictions. But this is where the Santorum bill steps over the line. It makes no exception for the health of the woman. Senator Durbin reaches to that issue. I commend him for his effort. The fact is, if you make no exception for the health of the woman, you are overturning Roe; there is no question about it. And by using the term ``partial-birth abortion,'' which has never been in any medical directory in the history of medicine--it is a political term-- it is so ill-defined that the courts have ruled it would in fact make most abortion illegal. Listen to what some of the judges have said. In the State of Alaska: It would restrict abortion in general; in the State of Florida: This statute may endanger the health of women who might seek abortion; in Idaho: The act bans the safest and most common method of abortion used in Idaho and, therefore, imposes an undue burden on a woman. It goes on and on. Nineteen States have said this Santorum language goes against Roe, endangers the life, the health--in particular, the health--of a woman. I hope we will table the Santorum amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, since we are adding some time here--and I think we should--I want to have about 2 minutes to speak before we vote on the Santorum amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. If I may ask my friend to yield for a question, it appears to me that everyone is going to wind up tabling someone else's amendment. So if he can make that clear, it would be helpful.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask my friend a final question. Will my friend be willing to read one more time, if he can find it, the statement that was made by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, all Justices appointed under a Republican President, when they made their statement on Casey because I really hope colleagues will listen to this. I think if they listen to it, they will vote for my friend's amendment to reaffirm Roe v. Wade and will also be against the Santorum underlying bill. If my friend would repeat that, I would greatly appreciate it.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays.