Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, May 14, 1997, at 9:30 a.m. on program efficiencies of the Department of Commerce and National Science Foundation.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Madam President. I will just say in response to the Senators from California, I just need to reiterate what we stated earlier, and Senator DeWine read earlier, that there is no health reason where this is the only option. AMA said that today. They came out with a report saying that today. The American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians have said so. This is not going to limit anybody's access to abortion if that is what they choose to do. It eliminates a procedure, a procedure, as I said before, that is not medically recognized, it is not in the literature, it is not peer reviewed, it is not taught anywhere in any medical school. It eliminates a procedure which many of us believe, and I believe the vast majority of the American public believes, goes too far, is too brutal, is outside the realm of what we should allow in a civilized society. So I keep hearing the concerns that, ``Well, maybe there's something out there, maybe there's a case out there that this is necessary.'' I know that the Senator from California started with the case of Viki Wilson and talked about one of those instances being the case of hydrocephaly. I am going to talk about a case of hydrocephaly. I am going to talk about a case where a mother involved with a little baby in her womb, diagnosed with hydrocephaly, was confronted with the very same problems that Viki Wilson was confronted with, the very same challenges Viki Wilson was confronted with, the very same challenges that not just Viki Wilson or Laurie Watts were confronted with, but, unfortunately, lots of mothers and fathers are confronted with. I suggest that there is a different way, that there are other options, options that are much more fulfilling, more decent, more human, more humane than the option of a partial-birth abortion. We hear so much talk about the people who came to the White House and stood with the President. The Senator from California, Senator Boxer, is very fond of putting up charts of individual families that have gone through this very difficult time. I have often talked about the millions of children who die because of abortion, and the thousands of abortions of partial-birth abortion. But somehow or another, that does not seem to lock on, at least with the media or, in some respects, even with the American public. It reminds me of what Joseph Stalin once said. He said: A single death is a tragedy--a million deaths is a statistic. I think for far too often, we have been arguing statistics here, about the numbers of millions of children, and maybe, oddly, we can learn something from Joseph Stalin. So today I am going to talk about what could have been a single tragedy, what could very well have been a Viki Wilson, what could have been a whole host of other mothers and fathers who are confronted with this terrible dilemma of having a child who just might not survive. Let me tell you the story about Donna Joy Watts and Lori and Donny Watts. The Watts live in Green Castle, PA. They did not always live there. They lived, until just a month or so ago, in western Maryland. Seven months into her third pregnancy, Lori Watts learned that her child would not be normal, that there was a problem. A sonogram showed that her child had a condition known as hydrocephalus, the same condition that the Senator from California has just described with one of the cases the President points to as the reason for keeping this procedure legal. Hydrocephaly is an excessive amount of cerebral fluid in the skull, also known as water on the brain. Lori's obstetrician said, after the sonogram was done, that he was going to refer her to a genetics counselor. I could talk for a long time about genetics counselors. But I think this story sums up, unfortunately, what far too many genetics counselors do. Lori Watts phoned the clinic to ask directions and what they planned to do. The staff member told her that most hydrocephalic fetuses do not carry to term so that she should terminate her pregnancy. When she asked, how could you do an abortion so late in pregnancy at 7 months, she was told that the doctor could use a skull-collapsing technique that we refer to as partial-birth abortion. Donny Watts demanded to know why they had been referred to a facility that counsels for abortion when talking to his obstetrician, whom he called. And the obstetrician said, ``Well, you know, there are doctors there who didn't encourage abortion. I thought you would talk to them, and you talked to the wrong person.'' It is amazing--but not amazing--that you can call a clinic, and depending on who you talk to is what kind of advice you are going to get as to whether to terminate your pregnancy or not. But I am, frankly, pleased that at least there are some counselors who will suggest other alternatives. Far too many do not in cases as severe as was confronting the Watts family. In that conversation with their obstetrician, he advised the Watts to see a specialist in high-risk obstetrics. I can say that in conversations with the Watts, they were amazed at the attitude of the people they confronted. The obstetrician, the original obstetrician, said that he could not take care of the baby anymore; it was too complicated. So they went and asked doctors at Johns Hopkins. They said they--well, they would not even see them. All they wanted to do was an abortion. They would not deliver the baby. Then she went to Union Memorial Hospital, same thing. You hear so much talk about, well, we cannot get availability for abortions. How about availability for delivery? She finally went to the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. They were very quick to dismiss her also. They said the baby's chances for survival were nil, that she would be ``a burden, a heartache, and a sorrow.'' Where have we come in this country where we have so little respect for the little children among us who just may not be perfect, that they can be disposed of, that you can look into the eyes of a mother who desperately wants her child and tell her, ``It would just be a burden to you''? I do not know of any child that is not at times a burden. Children are joys and struggles. I mean, that is just part of life. If you are not ready to have some burdens with your children, then you better not get pregnant in the first place and try to have children. Where have we arrived? She went through four separate occasions. They were discouraging her even from delivering her child, as desperately as she wanted to do so, not unlike what Viki Wilson ran into. Lori Watts did not give up. Lori Watts finally found somebody who would do it, someone who was not going to say that it was a burden, a heartache, or a sorrow, or as the other doctors said, ``If you didn't abort, you would be jeopardizing your own fertility, your own health.'' So after all that treatment, they finally found someone who would do it. In the process of the care, prior to the delivery, they found out that the fetus had occipital meningo-encephalocele, which is exactly again what Viki Wilson had. Part of the brain was developing outside of the skull. There was an article from today's Washington Times, on page 2, about the Watts family. In that article, Mrs. Watts is quoted saying at this time in her life that ``everyone on the other side talks about choice, but they didn't want to give us a choice. They said they would not deliver her.'' Imagine, people wonder how far we have gone. People wonder how we can be debating partial-birth abortion on the floor of the U.S. Senate and have people get up and argue that it should be legal. Listen to this. They would not even deliver her at four places--four places. They did finally find someone who would deliver the baby at the University of Maryland Hospital. They delivered through a cesarean section. The Watts' third daughter, Donna Joy--Donna, named after her dad, Donny; Joy, for obvious reasons--was born on November 26, 1991. Yes, she was born with a lot of problems, a lot of serious problems. But let me describe to you what they had to confront now after they fought and did not give up to give their daughter a chance. Donna Joy was born with hydrocephaly. That is a picture of her shortly after her birth. For 3 days--for 3 days--they refused to drain the water off her brain. They said she was going to die, and so they refused to put a shunt in and drain the water. For 3 days they hydrated her, gave her fluids, but they did not feed her because they said she was going to die. Mrs. Watts said in this article, ``The doctors wouldn't operate on her to save her life. I just about had to threaten one of the doctors physically. And I was seconds from throwing him against the wall. She was already born and they were still calling her a fetus.'' But Lori and Donny Watts did not give up. They did not cave in to what our culture around sick babies is any more, and they fought on. They had the surgery performed. They began the feeding. Initially, she fed the baby with breast milk in a sterilized eyedropper. Then, at 2 weeks of age, the shunt that was put in failed, and Donna Joy was readmitted to the hospital. A tray of food was delivered by mistake to her room. It had some cereal and bananas and some baby formula on it. And so Lori decided that she would mix this together to form a paste, put it in an eyedropper, and place a drop in the back of Donna's tongue. You see, Donna Joy was born with about 30 percent of her brain. Donna Joy was born without a functioning medulla oblongata, with a deformed brain stem. She had no control over her sphincter muscle, so things that were given to her would come straight back up. There was nothing to hold the food in her stomach. So Mrs. Watts came up with the idea of getting something that was heavy, pasty, and putting it way back. And it worked. You want to talk about a burden and a joy? For the next several months, they had to feed Donna Joy that way. It took an hour and a half to feed their daughter; an hour-and-a-half break and then an hour-and- a-half feeding, 24 hours a day. She had to fight. She had to fight. Four months later, a CT scan revealed she also suffered from lobar- haloprosencephaly, a condition that results in the incomplete cleavage of the brain. She also suffered from epilepsy, a sleep disorder, and continuing digestive complications. The neurologist suggested that ``We may have to consider a gastronomy tube [a gastronomic tube] in order to maintain her nutrition and physical growth.'' She was suffering from apnea, a condition which spontaneously stops breathing. At 18 months, Donna Joy had another brush with death. She contracted encephalitis, which is the inflammation of the brain. So a little girl, with 30 percent of her brain, who has to take medicine so she does not have seizures, hit with another problem of encephalitis. As a result of high temperature--she had a 106 temperature--it was a big setback. Up until that time, she was developing along, using sign language. She was not talking, but she was communicating. That temperature wiped out, that encephalitis wiped out her memory. She could not walk or talk. She was laying in bed having all sorts of difficulty, could not focus on anybody, and had deteriorated substantially. Then a miracle. Lori would tape shows late at night and put them on to give some diversion for Donna Joy to direct her attention. Nothing seemed to work, until one day a television show came on, a tape of a television show called Quantum Leap. The star of the show, Scott Bakula sings a song ``Somewhere in the Night.'' Upon hearing that song, she reacted as follows, according to the newspaper: ``The child stopped crying. Mrs. Watts rewound the piece and played it again. This time Donna sat up and tried crawling toward the television. The more she watched Quantum Leap the more Donna improved. She would only eat and drink when the TV character was on the screen. Just before she turned 2, she took her first steps toward Scott Bakula on the TV set.'' At 2 years, Donna Joy had already undergone eight brain operations, most of which occurred at the University of Maryland hospital. Finally, they received news about Donna Joy's prospects. The neurologist who examined her after her seizure in 1996 noted that at 4\1/2\ years of age Donna Joy could speak, walk, and handle objects fairly well. He also thanked a colleague for ``the kind approval for the follow-up in allowing me to reassess this beautiful young child who is, remarkably, doing very well in spite of significant malformation of the brain.'' Today, the story of Donna Joy Watts has inspired many, many people. She can do a lot in spite of her disabilities. She has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, tunnel vision, and Arnold-Chiari Type II malformation, which prevented development of her medulla oblongota. She walks, runs, plays. In fact, she was in my office most of the afternoon playing with my children. I know she has very good dexterity because we have Hershey kisses and Three Musketeer bars in the front of the office, and she can unwrap them as fast as any 5-year-old I have seen. Prior to Donna Joy moving to Pennsylvania, the Governor of Maryland, Parris Glendenning, honored her with a Certificate of Courage commemorating her fifth birthday. The mayor of Hagerstown, MD, Steve Sager, proclaimed her birthday Donna Joy Watts Day. Members of the Scott Bakula fan club sent donations and Christmas presents for the Watts children. People from all over the world who learned about Donna Joy on the Internet have been moved to write and send gifts. Perhaps the most important is that the Watts' determination has inspired a Denver couple to fight for their little boy who was born with similar circumstances. I asked the Watts if there are other children whom they know who have survived and done this well. Mrs. Watts looked back at me and said, ``Other children with this condition are aborted. We don't know. We don't know.'' We don't know the power of the human brain. I hear the story all the time about how you do not use all your brain. Well, I guess you do not need it all to be a functioning human being in our world. She is very functional. There is a lot of talk that we need to have the abortions, particularly in the case of hydroencephaly to prevent future infertility. In June 1995, Lori and Donny Watts welcomed another child, Shaylah, into the family. Mrs. Watts looked at me very proudly and said, ``On the first try.'' I had the opportunity to walk over here with Donna Joy, hold her hand, ride the subway with her, go up the escalator, which was a big treat, and come up and be in the Senate gallery for only a brief time. She is now back in my office. I encourage anybody who would like to meet her, any one of my colleagues, I encourage all of them to go and talk to the Watts family and to look into the eyes of this little girl, this little girl who could have died through a partial-birth abortion. You want a face on partial-birth abortions? All of the faces are not here to be seen. They die. Brutal. This is the little girl who was saved from partial-birth abortion at 5\1/2\ years of age. I will read the end of Tony Snow's article about this situation of the Watts. Lori and her husband, both children of steelworkers, had to overcome the contempt of snobbish doctors and social workers as they painstakingly built their own miracle. They never got any help from feminists, liberal Democrats or the President. These days, Don works the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift in the local corrections facilities so he can spend time with his four kids. Lori educates them in the evening while he is gone. Unfortunately, they went bankrupt a couple years ago and have moved to Pennsylvania, Greencastle, a beautiful community in Franklin County, where they live in a 2-bedroom bungalow on a friend's farm. As for choice, here is what Lori has to say: ``Choice they didn't give me. I had to beg for a choice. Why did I have to go out of my way when they wanted to kill my baby, when they didn't want to operate or feed her? I didn't get to choose anything.'' As I mentioned earlier today, I rose and asked unanimous consent to have little Donna Joy Watts sit up there with her mom and dad and watch this proceeding and watch Members debate whether we are going to allow a procedure that could have been used to kill her still be legal in this country. When I asked for that unanimous consent, the Senator from California, Senator Boxer, objected. Donna Joy Watts is only 5\1/2\ years of age, although I suggest she has lived a lot in those 5\1/2\ years. But you have to be 6 years of age to sit in the Senate gallery unless you can get unanimous consent in the Senate to do otherwise, and Senator Boxer rose and objected. She said, and I quote, ``I think I am acting in the best interests of that child.'' Oh, how many times has Lori Watts heard that? How many people have said to her, ``I am doing this for the best interests of your child.'' But she did not listen to them. If she had listened to them she would not be here today, sitting here in Washington, and Donna Joy would not be on this Earth. Thank God Lori did not listen to all of the voices, thank God Donny didn't listen to all of the voices that said, ``I think I'm acting in the best interests of your child.'' There is no reason--there is no reason--for the conditions that the Senator from California outlined as medically necessary reasons to do partial-birth abortions. There is no reason. Those are not good reasons. Here is an example of why it is not a good reason. You do not have to kill the baby. You can deliver the baby. You can do a cesarean section. You may at times--in this case, it was not the case--you may at times have to separate the mother from the child, but you never have to kill the child in the process. You do not have to do it. So for all the arguments out there, for all the people who wanted to have a face, that is a beautiful face. It is a beautiful addition, a beautiful contribution to the human spirit. Does it not make you just feel good to know that people love their children so much, love life and respect it so much, that they will get up every 3 hours for an hour and a half every day to feed their children painstakingly one drop at a time? It ennobles us all. It lifts us all up. What is the alternative? Death, destruction of a little baby. I do not see how that elevates any of us. How does that add to the human condition? How does that improve the quality of life in America? How are we ennobling our culture by this? How are we standing as a civilization on righteousness with this? There are beautiful tales to be told. Just give these children a chance. That is what this bill does. It outlaws a barbaric procedure that is never, never, never, never, never necessary. Hold that thought. Believe that truth, then ask yourself why, why do we have people on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the greatest deliberative body on the face of the Earth, defending such cruelty, such barbarism, to some of the most vulnerable among us? I yield the floor. Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Five and a half.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to begin the debate on the issue of partial-birth abortion. This is an issue that, obviously, has garnered a lot of attention over the past couple of years, both in the House and Senate and across the country. While the bill is not formally before us tonight, the bill will come up tomorrow. I have been informed that it will come up approximately at noon tomorrow, when we can actually begin debate on the bill itself. So the debate on partial-birth abortion will begin tomorrow in the U.S. Senate. For those who have been following this issue, the questions that I have been asked, and Members are being asked on both sides of this issue, is not whether this bill will pass. I believe this bill will pass. The question is whether we are going to have sufficient votes to override what appears to be an almost certain Presidential veto. In the House a few weeks ago, the House passed the legislation with 295 votes, more than the 290 needed to override the President's veto. We only need 67 votes in the U.S. Senate to be able to override the President's veto. At this point, I think by all accounts, we are not there yet. We are still several votes short of the 67 votes committed publicly to supporting this legislation on final passage and supporting it in the face of a Presidential veto. I will say we are at least four or five votes short at this time, and we are narrowing down the time here in which decisions have to be made. So while I am not particularly optimistic of our opportunities at this point to get the votes necessary to override the President's veto, I think this is an issue that is going to continue to percolate, not only from the time that we debate in the Senate over the next few days, but also after the vote is taken, during the time that the President is considering it, and when the bill comes back here. So there will be plenty of opportunities for further debate, further evaluation as to whether the votes cast by all the Members are the votes that, in fact, will be the votes on the override vote itself. What I would like to do in starting the debate is to fill in for those Members who may not have been involved in the partial-birth abortion debate--and we have a lot of new Members this year--to fill in the who, what, when, where, why, how and how many. All of the questions that normally would be asked about anything, let's ask them about the issue of partial-birth abortion. This has been an interesting topic of discussion only because of the fabrications that have been built around what this procedure is about, when it is used, how often it is used, who it is used on, where it is used, how many there are. Those have been the subject of a lot of publications and debate about how the people who oppose this legislation have constructed a fantasy, if you will, as to what this procedure is all about. So today, as I tried to in the previous debate, I am going to attempt to lay out the truth as we know it. I say as we know it, because a lot of the truth is based upon what the opponents of this legislation tell us is the truth. An example of that is how many of these abortions are performed. The Centers for Disease Control do not track how many partial-birth abortions are done. They only track the abortions and when they are done. They do not track the procedure that is used to perform the abortion. The only people who track that, at least we are told the only people who track that, are the abortion clinics themselves who oppose this legislation vehemently. They are the ones that those of us who have to argue for its passage have to rely upon for the number of partial-birth abortions that are done. That is hardly a comforting position when you have to rely on your opponent for the information that you are to use in challenging the procedure. But let me, if I can, walk through first what is a partial-birth abortion. I caution those who may be listening, this is a graphic description of this procedure. I just want to alert anyone who might be watching who might feel uncomfortable with that. A partial-birth abortion is, first, an abortion that is used in the second and third trimester, principally in the second trimester. It is used at 20 weeks gestation and beyond by most practitioners of partial- birth abortion. So, by definition, it is later term, you are into the fifth and sixth month of pregnancy. The procedure is done over 3 days. You will hear comments by Members who come to the floor of the Senate and suggest this procedure needs to remain legal to protect the life and the health of the mother. First, there is a life-of-the-mother exception in the bill. Very clear. It satisfies any definition of what life-of-the-mother exception needs to be. Second, health of the mother. I just question anyone, just on its face, not as a medical practitioner, which I am not, but on the face of it, if the health of the mother is in danger, particularly if there are serious health consequences, why would you do a procedure that takes 3 days? That is what this procedure takes. It is a 3-day procedure. You have a mother who is at 20 weeks, or more, gestation, who has to have her cervix dilated. In other words, they have to create the opening through which the baby can come in the womb, in the uterus. And so it takes 2 days of drugs given to the mother. She does not stay at the hospital. It is not an inpatient procedure. She takes the drugs and goes home. If there are complications they happen at home, not anywhere else. The cervix is dilated. When you dilate the cervix, that opens the womb up to infection, but for a 2-day period, the cervix is dilated. On the third day, after a third day of dilation, the mother comes into the abortion clinic. The procedure then proceeds as follows. The doctor is guided by an ultrasound, and the abortionist reaches up with forceps and grabs the baby, which is normally in a position head down, grabs the baby by its foot, turns the baby around in the uterus, in the womb, and then pulls the baby out feet first in what is called a breech position. You may have heard of breech birth and the danger of birthing in a breech position. Here we have a doctor who deliberately turns the baby around and delivers it in a breech position. You may want to ask the question, why do they go through the trouble of pulling the baby out feet first? Why do they not simply deliver the baby head first and do what I will describe later? The reason they pull the baby out feet first and deliver the baby, as the next chart will show, all but the head--they deliver the baby out of the mother, with the exception of the head. Why do they leave the head? Why do they not take the head out first, which would be a normal delivery, a safer delivery? The reason they do not deliver the head first is because once the head exits the mother, it has constitutional protection and it cannot be killed, because once the head exits the mother, it is considered a live birth and you cannot kill the baby. So they take the baby out feet first so they can then take a pair of scissors, puncture the back of the baby's skull to create a hole, open the scissors up to create a hole large enough for a suctioning tube to be put in the baby's head, and the brains suctioned out, thereby completing the murder of this baby and then having the baby delivered. I just remind you the reason they do not do it head first is because if they did it head first, which would be safer than reaching in with forceps and grabbing the baby out from a breach position, if they did it head first, they could not do this, because once the baby is outside the mother they could not kill the baby. Who is this procedure used on? It is used on fully formed babies from 20 weeks on. Now, we will discuss what has been said in the past about who this has been used on. The abortion industry has made claims that this procedure was a rare procedure that was just used--and I will read some quotes--quoting from the Feminist Majority Foundation, ``A procedure used less than 600 times a year, and in every case, to protect the life or health of the woman.'' ``The procedure is used only,'' according to the Feminist News, ``600 time a year to save the life, health, or future fertility of the woman and in cases of severe fetal abnormality.'' Here is another feminist news article, ``used less that 500 times a year when necessary to protect the health of the woman facing severe problems due to the pregnancy.'' This is the National Abortion Federation factsheet on February 26, 1997: ``This particular procedure is used in about 500 cases per year, generally after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and most often when there is severe fetal anomaly or a maternal health problem detected late in pregnancy.'' The Alan Guttmacher Institute, as well as Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women [NOW] Zero Population Growth Fund, Population Action International, and the National Abortion Federation sent a letter October 2, 1995, to the Congress that said, ``This surgical procedure is used only in rare cases, fewer than 500 per year. It is most often performed in the cases of wanted pregnancy gone tragically wrong, when a family learns late in pregnancy of severe fetal anomalies or a medical condition that threatens the pregnant woman's life or health.'' Kate Michelman, President of NARAL, on June 2, 1996: ``These are rare terminations. They occur very rarely. They occur under the most difficult of circumstances. As I said, these are pregnancies that have gone awry.'' Let me tell you what Members of the Congress said. From Pat Schroeder, ``There are very, very, very few of these procedures. These procedures are heart-break procedures.'' Senator Kennedy, the Senator from Massachusetts, said, ``The procedure involved in this case is extremely rare. It involved tragic and traumatic circumstances late in pregnancy, in cases where the mother's life or health is in danger.'' Senator Feingold, ``In fact, these abortions take place only when the life or health of the mother is at risk.'' Senator Daschle, ``This is an emergency medical procedure reserved for cases where the life and health of the mother could be endangered or where severe fetal abnormalities are a major factor in the decision made by a woman and her physician.'' Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, ``Partial-birth abortion is a rare medical procedure used to terminate pregnancies late in the term of when the life and health of the mother is at risk or when the fetus has severe abnormalities.'' That is what we were told over and over. That is what the media bought. That is exactly how they covered this issue. They covered this issue as a very tragic, rare procedure used only in cases of life, health, and fetal abnormality--in only a few hundred cases. Now, we knew different. I argued it. Check the record from the last debate, that this was not as rare as they suggested. In fact, I entered into the Record an article written last fall by the Bergen County Sunday Record in New Jersey, where a reporter who took the time to do something reporters usually do not do on debate, particularly when it has to do with checking people in the abortion industry on their facts. She actually checked the facts. This reporter checked at an abortion clinic in northern New Jersey how many of the procedures were performed, and the reporter talked to two doctors, two abortionists, who said that they performed 1,500 partial-birth abortions every year, and not on fatally defective babies or not on unhealthy mothers or unhealthy babies, but usually in the fifth and sixth month for no health reasons at all--healthy moms, healthy babies, healthy pregnancies. We had that article already printed. That did not deter the President from saying what he said. We have quotes from the President here. ``I came to understand that this is a rarely used procedure, justifiable as a last resort when doctors judge it is necessary to save a woman's life or to avert serious health consequences to her.'' Now, the President knew better when he said that. That information was available to the President. It is available to him now. But what happened between now and then that has caused such a stir? Well, I can tell you, unfortunately, the media has not done a very good job of exposing this. I do not know of any other reporters who made calls to their abortion clinics. They will not tell me or National Right-to-Life when they call, but they might. Sometimes they do not. I know of a reporter at the Baltimore Sun who tried to contact abortion clinics in Baltimore, and at least what she related to me was they would not talk to her, they would not tell her. I do not know of any reporters who have taken the time to actually check the facts. What are the facts as we know them now? Well, thanks to Ron Fitzsimmons, who heads up an organization of abortion clinics--let me repeat this, a man who runs an association here in the Washington area--that represents some 200 abortion clinics all over the country, came out just a couple of months ago and said that he had lied through his teeth and he could not live with it anymore. He had lied through his teeth about what had been said by the abortion industry about the issue of partial-birth abortions. He said that this was not, in fact, a rare procedure, used only in the late term for unhealthy pregnancies and for maternal health reasons or because of a severe fetal abnormality, but this was a procedure used principally in the fifth and sixth month on healthy babies and healthy mothers. In fact, I think the figure 90 percent was used. Then he said, ``We estimate the number of these procedures that are done at between 3,000 and 5,000, not 500.'' He said, ``We have known this all along.'' He said as soon as the bill was introduced he called some of his providers, and he knew this from day one of this debate, of, now, I think, 2 or 3 years ago. Yet the industry, knowing this, up until literally the day before, and in fact on the Web page of some of the abortion rights groups, you still find claims that this is a rare procedure used only in the cases of fetal abnormality. So they continue to try to perpetrate the lie, and they certainly did until Ron Fitzsimmons blew the whistle. So what do we know now? I am not too sure we know too much. We know from the Abortion Provider Organization that they are willing to admit to 3,000 to 5,000. There is no check on what that number is. It could be 3,000 to 5,000, 5,000 to 10,000, 10,000 to 20,000, 20,000 to 30,000. There is no independent verification of that number, and we have to rely on the organization that is here fighting this bill to give us the information which we want to fight over. So we know of at least 3,000 to 5,000, but we also know that in one abortion clinic alone 1,500 were performed last year, and the doctors who were interviewed for that story in the Bergen County Sunday Record said they had trained other abortion doctors in the New York area who also performed the procedure. The other people who were known to perform the procedure and teach it do not reside in the New York area. And we also have reports from a doctor in Nebraska who said that he has performed 1,000 of these abortions. So I just caution, as we begin the debate here, that we are debating on some very soft ground when it comes to how many of these abortions are performed, when we make this claim that it is only a few thousand. Maybe I am making too much of the fact that it is a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred. I guess I make the point because it points out the inaccuracy of the opposition's information. Frankly, if it was one, it is as much of a crime, in my mind, and I hope in most Americans' minds. If we subject one baby unnecessarily to this barbarism, is that not enough? Do we need 500? Do we need 1,000? Do we need 3,000 to 5,000? Is that the threshold where Americans will look up and say maybe we should do something about it? One is not enough. It does not stir up moral outrage if it is only 1, 2, 200, or 500. Why is this procedure used? As I said before, they suggested that this procedure was used to protect the life and health of the mother. That was the argument being used. As I said before, 90 percent of the abortions, according to the people who oppose this bill, 90 percent of the abortions, are performed electively, for no reason other than the mother decides late in pregnancy that she does not want to carry the baby. The question is, is it ever medically necessary to use this? Because that is the argument, that we need to keep this procedure legal because it is medically necessary to protect, as the amendment from the Senator from California, Senator Boxer, which we anticipate being offered, it is necessary to keep this procedure legal to protect the life and health of the mother. But we have the life-of-the-mother exception in the bill. So we have taken care of the first issue. Although, as I said before, I cannot imagine--and I have asked on the floor this question, and I ask it again--any circumstance where a mother presents herself in a life-threatening situation where you would then conduct a procedure that takes 3 days in which to abort the child. Again, I am a lay person here, not a physician. I have talked to physicians, and they say there is no such situation. But as a lay person, you don't have to be a doctor to figure this one out. You are rushed and presented to a doctor with a life-threatening situation and they say, let me give you medicine and come back, and then give you medicine again and come back, and they give you more medicine and send you home. That isn't going to happen. But to take care of those who have an objection, we put a life- of-the-mother exception in there. Now they want a health-of-the-mother exception. Let's first look at whether this would be used to protect the health of the mother. I have talked to a lot of physicians, obstetricians who have stated very clearly to me that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to protect the life or health of a mother. That is a group of more than 400 obstetricians, principally obstetricians and gynecologists, and some other physicians, including C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States, who, prior to his fame as Surgeon General, was a well-respected and well-known pediatric surgeon who dealt with children shortly after birth, trying to fix some of the problems that they were born with. So we have clear medical judgment that this procedure is never necessary to protect the health of the mother. In fact, they make the argument that it is contraindicated, that it, in fact, threatens the health of the mother for a variety of different reasons. So we have doctors who say that this is not necessary to protect the health of the mother. Now, I will ask--and I have asked Members on the other side of this issue--when would this procedure be used to protect the health of the mother? Remember, it is a 3-day procedure. I have talked to physicians who say there are times when the life of the mother is in danger or the health of the mother is in danger and they need to separate the child from the mother. But in none of those cases is it necessary to deliberately kill the baby. They can induce labor, deliver the child vaginally and give it a chance to live. They can do a Cesarean section and deliver the child that way and give the child a chance to live. At no time is an abortion necessary that kills the baby in order to protect the health of the mother. And so why is it performed? The answer is very simple. It was given by the person who designed the procedure, who is not an obstetrician. He is a family practitioner who does abortions. He designed this procedure, very candidly, because this was a procedure that he could do on an outpatient basis. The woman would present herself after 3 days of having her cervix dilated, and he would be able to quickly do this procedure, so that he could do more in one day. It is done for the convenience of the abortionist. That is why. It is not done to protect anybody's life or health. It is done to make it easier on the abortionist. And it is used, again, on healthy moms, healthy babies in the fifth and sixth month of pregnancy, in almost all cases. (Mr. BROWNBACK assumed the chair.)

Mr. SANTORUM. Where is this procedure done? Will you find this procedure done in the finest hospitals in this country? Will you find it even described in a medical book? Will you find it taught at any school in this country? The answer to all of those questions is ``no.'' This is not taught anywhere. This has not been peer-reviewed anywhere. This is not used in any major medical center. It is used in abortion clinics exclusively. No hospital will get near this procedure. It is not a peer-reviewed procedure. It is not an accepted medical procedure. It is not in any textbooks or in any kind of educational literature. It is a fringe procedure by someone who wanted to make it easy on themselves to do more late-term abortions and do more of them in 1 day. So that sort of sums up the who, what, when, why, where, and how many of this procedure. Now, why do we think it is important to outlaw this procedure? Well, there are lots of reasons why I think we should outlaw this procedure. No. 1, because it is a barbaric procedure. I hope that it would shock the consciousness of every Member of the Senate that we would allow innocent human life to be treated in such a deplorable fashion, to be manhandled and destroyed, as we would not even allow a dog to be destroyed. So, on the surface of it, the obvious reason is that this goes beyond the pale of what should be acceptable in our society. I can't imagine a Senator from the United States of America standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate 30 years ago with these charts and having to argue--argue--that this should be illegal in our country. Absolutely incomprehensible. Yet, 30 years later, as a result of Roe versus Wade, we have become so desensitized to the humanity of a baby inside the mother that we will allow this to occur--and defend it, defend it, vehemently defend it as a right. The abortion debate in this country since Roe versus Wade has focused on the issue of rights, of choice. The reason I think the abortion industry and abortion rights advocates are so upset about this debate is because, in a partial-birth abortion, you can't miss what is at stake here. This is not about a right. It is about a baby. You can't miss the baby here. It is right here before your eyes. It is right there where you can see it. It is outside of the mother and you can't avoid it. That is why they just cringe when this bill comes to the floor, because now we are talking about the dirty little secret we have had in this country for a long, long time, that abortion--and I will use the words of Ron Fitzsimmons--``One of the facts of abortion is that women enter abortion clinics to kill their fetuses. It is a form of killing. You're ending a life.'' Bravo for Mr. Fitzsimmons for stating the obvious. But that is something that the abortion industry has steadfastly avoided. He is talking about what abortion really is. It is about ending a life. And in this case, you can't miss the life. It is right here, right before your eyes, fully formed. The argument about just a blob of tissue or some protoplasm doesn't hold up at this late stage of a pregnancy. This is a baby. It is a fully-formed little baby. In many cases, it's a viable little baby. I mentioned Roe versus Wade. There are some people who will argue that this goes over the line, that this violates the provisions of Roe versus Wade. Let me address that issue very briefly and I will refer not only to the committee report in the House, the House Judiciary Committee report, but also the remarks made by my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, on this issue. It was one of the reasons he supports the ban. When the baby is here in the mother's uterus, Roe versus Wade applies. Roe versus Wade says that, basically, for the first two trimesters, the woman has the right to do whatever she wants to do with that child in her womb. That is what Roe versus Wade says. They said, in the third trimester--it is definitely implied if not stated--because of the fetus', the baby's, potential viability, the rights of the baby come into play and there are limitations on abortion. Well, see, we have an interesting case here because this procedure takes the baby outside. The baby is not only outside of the uterus, except for the head, but outside of the mother almost completely, and is in the process of being born. In fact, the baby is almost completely born, hence the procedure's name, ``partial birth.'' So the baby is no longer completely within the domain of the uterus and then ruled by Roe versus Wade. By leaving the uterus, the baby gains rights that it didn't have inside. As an aside, don't you find it an interesting irony that inside the mother's womb this little baby, surrounded by fluid and warmth, is the most vulnerable to be killed and has no protection against someone who wants to kill it. Once it leaves what would be seen by the baby as a safe environment, then it could be protected. But in the place where you would think that the baby would be most secure is the one place where it is the most vulnerable to being killed, and only because this procedure involves partial birth, only because the baby leaves the mother does Roe versus Wade not apply. And so those who argue that we banned second-trimester abortions by banning this procedure--and we would because most do take place in the second trimester--that we violate Roe versus Wade, they don't understand Roe versus Wade. That child is no longer in the uterus and that child, now that it is born and still alive, still feeling, able to feel pain, cannot be killed; or at least we can ban it under Roe versus Wade because it has rights. The baby has rights. So we very strongly believe that these spurious arguments that somehow or another Roe versus Wade is being violated--by the way, there is nothing more I would rather see than Roe versus Wade being violated, but it doesn't do it here. This procedure does not do it. This procedure falls well within the constitutional boundaries of Roe versus Wade and Doe versus Bolton. Another issue that is being charged against this procedure--or it comes out in favor of this procedure--is the issue of a fetal abnormality. I am going to have a lot to say about the issue of fetal abnormality. But let me just say this for now. We have had Members of the U.S. Senate stand here in some of the finest hours of the U.S. Senate, and argue forcefully, gallantly, to protect the rights, the health, the safety, the security of disabled children. We passed the Americans With Disabilities Act. We are debating ironically--the irony is not lost--IDEA, which has the rights of disabled children in our discussion today. That bill is actually the bill before us as I speak. You will hear such passion. You should listen to some of the debate-- those of you who did not--the passion of the Senators defending the right for children with disabilities to have access to educational opportunities so they can maximize their human potential. Yet, unfortunately some of the most passionate speakers on that issue--turn around and passionately argue that because of their disability we should be able to kill them before they are born. Abraham Lincoln used a Biblical verse. ``A house divided against itself cannot stand.'' How can you with any kind of reflective conscience argue that the right to be so that children with disabilities have the ability to maximize their human potential and the Government should be there to ensure that their rights are not trampled upon and then not be willing to give them the most precious of all rights, the right to live in the first instance? How can you be a champion of the disabled when you will use fetal abnormality as an excuse to kill them in the first place? It is a shocking realism in this country that goes back to what I suggested before, which is we have become so desensitized to human life to kill a little baby, that unseen, unborn child, that because it is unseen you can just put it out of your mind, it is not really seen. That desensitization has consequences. We are seeing the consequence right now. We are debating this procedure. It is incredible to me that we even have to debate this. But it is here because people just have forgotten what life is all about, and what life means. We have across the street, at the Supreme Court, the issue of doctor- assisted suicide. We have had lower courts say that doctor-assisted suicides are OK. We have massive organizations --I do not know how massive--at least organized organizations that advocate for allowing people to kill themselves and to have doctors help them. Again, I look back at 20 or 30 years ago and wonder whether that debate could have occurred at this time. But do not be surprised, particularly if this bill is unsuccessful, if we send the message out to the country that says human life isn't really that valuable, that we can in fact brutalize the most innocent children who have done nothing wrong to anybody. It is amazing. You can describe this procedure. I saw a television commercial put out by one of the groups who showed a prisoner shackled, both arms and legs, walking down death row and being put in a chair. While he was walking and he was led to the chair, what if a voice describes the procedure, describes taking the scissors and puncturing the base of the skull and sticking a vacuum tube in the base of the skull and suctioning the brain out? The courts would clearly find that cruel and unusual punishment and violative of the Constitution. But you can do that to a little baby who hasn't killed anybody. It hasn't robbed, raped, stolen, nor harmed a soul. And then we wonder what is happening to our culture. We wonder, as we sit at home and we listen to the news, and we listen and we read the papers, and we see the young people out there, and we wonder. Why have they gone astray? What is happened to the fabric of our culture? Why don't they have respect for our country, for people's goods, for other people's lives? Why, indeed? You need to look only this far: 1.5 million abortions a year, as public, and as customary, and as usual, and, as a matter of fact, as any number you will hear on the U.S. floor--1.5 million abortions. OK, what is next? You will hear it discussed in the news: Abortion. It is a matter of choice. It is someone else's decision. I do not want to get involved. It has nothing to do with me. Look around you. Things are coming to roost in this country. When you have such disdain for human life that we are seeing exemplified, magnified, by allowing this procedure to go forward, by allowing this innocent little baby to be mutilated, butchered in such a way. People who vote for this to remain legal have answered their own question as to why our culture is the way it is, because the great, great leaders of our country, the role models--that is what we are, whether we like it or not. Every Senator who goes into a school--and I go into a lot of them--particularly young kids. I am sure the Presiding Officer now sees this as a new Member of the Senate. Oh, they would love to have your autograph. They want to have your picture taken with them because you are someone to look up to. You are someone who has achieved a level of excellence that we admire in this country. You are in a position of authority. What you say and think matters. And they look up to us. Is this what you want them to see? Is this what you want to teach the next generation, that this kind of brutality is OK, and then you wonder why you see random acts of violence and you wonder why you see no respect for human life? The consequences are real. They are here. We don't have to speculate as to what the consequences of this are. They are here, and we are living with it. All we want to do here is to take one little step in creating some decency again, one meek little message for the people in this country that life should be respected, that children should not be brutalized unnecessarily. That is what this procedure does. You will hear arguments that this will not stop abortions. It may be true. I wish I could say this would stop hundreds and thousands of abortions. But I am not too sure that it will. What I am sure of is that this brutality will stop and we will send a very clear, positive message to Americans and to the world that this kind of barbarism has no place in American culture, certainly no place in the laws of our country. So I hope that as Members come tomorrow and we begin the formal debate on this bill that they will come with open minds and open hearts, that they will seek the truth. This debate has been surrounded by lies from those defending the procedure. Hopefully those admissions of lies will give people the opportunity to look anew at what the facts are, not just the facts of when this is used, but how it is used. I went through all of those things--but what the ramifications are for this country and for our society. The abortionists are probably right. We are not going to stop a lot of abortions. There are other methods of abortion available if we outlaw this. Abortions unfortunately on babies this age will continue. But we send a signal, as small as it is. That is why I guess I am so shocked at the vehemence of the opposition, the opposition that says this will not stop abortions, the opposition that admits that this is rare and that this is a fringe procedure. They admit it is not a commonly used procedure, that it is not in the medical literature. They know all of that. Yet, they stand here, backs to the wall, fighting for every last inch of not defendable territory. Folks, this is not defendable territory. We may not win this time. I don't know what God has planned for this debate. But we may not win this time. That is OK. We will be back. This is wrong. So when people in the U.S. Senate who believe something is wrong don't stand up and fight to overturn that wrong, we will be in for very serious, even more serious, consequences for this country. 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. That is exactly what this bill does. It allows the doctor to define what the law is, in other words, what the exceptions to the law are, and no mentally competent abortionist who has just aborted a baby is going to claim they broke the law, just like no mentally competent arms dealer is going to sell a howitzer and say it is an assault weapon. They are not going to say it is an assault weapon. I broke the law. You let me certify it. A howitzer is not an assault weapon. And under the Daschle bill, if we could apply it to guns, the arms dealer is OK. Wait a minute. We have the certification here. No problem. He certified it is not a howitzer. He said it is not an assault weapon. He said it is something else. Again, just remember the people offering this amendment have a 100 percent voting record against pro-life issues. They have vehemently opposed this bill from day one. You can always tell the validity of this kind of legislation by who supports and who opposes. Now, you would think that an industry--and that is what abortion, unfortunately, has turned into with 1.5 million a year. It is an industry. You would think that an industry that has gone to tremendous lengths and expense to oppose a ban on a procedure which they admit is infrequent, that does not happen very often, that is only an alternative and others could be done in place of it, that they argue is not going to stop one abortion, that they would fight vehemently against this that will not, in their own words, stop one abortion, they argue against this, yet they support Senator Daschle's proposed amendment. Now, wait a minute. If Senator Daschle's proposal actually stopped abortion, do you think they would support it? I think you can answer that for yourself. The people who oppose it are people like myself who understand what it is. It is a sham. The proposal does nothing except one potentially very dangerous thing. By giving the abortionist the right to determine what health and viability is, you expand Roe versus Wade because under Roe versus Wade at least third-trimester babies are somewhat protected. Under the Daschle proposal, there is no protection, none. It is whatever the abortionist wants to do and the mother agrees to do at any time. Oh, you can probably string the viability issue along to 35 or 36 weeks and you probably have to admit that after 35 weeks that baby is viable. But the health, there is all sorts of health things that can go on even at that late time. So I would just caution my colleagues who are considering this legislation that this is a real change in the law. This will have an impact on stopping a procedure that has no place in American society. The Daschle proposal not only does not change the face as far as the existing rights of abortionists and abortion, I have argued and will continue to argue that it expands the right to abortion. Anyone voting for the amendment of the Senator from South Dakota will vote to strike this procedure--in other words, vote against this procedure because his amendment which will be offered tomorrow strikes this procedure from the bill. In other words, cuts it, amends it out and replaces it, substitutes it with his phony ban which not only does not ban anything but expands the right to an abortion. So I would just caution Members when they vote on Senator Daschle's amendment that they are doing two things, one of which they will admit they are doing. They are getting rid of this legislation. That is No. 1. So they will be voting against this procedure being banned. And No. 2, they will be expanding the rights of abortionists and abortion beyond what Roe versus Wade currently does by allowing the abortionist to have complete authority over what is a health exception, what is viability. So, this is really a very clear debate, and we will commence tomorrow in formality between those who want to at least take a procedure and say this goes too far, that the right to an abortion is not so absolute as to allow this kind of barbarism to occur, and others who believe that Roe versus Wade did not go far enough. In spite of all the rhetoric we will hear tomorrow, the bottom line, with the amendment of the Senator from South Dakota, is that he will be arguing in fact--not by his words, because I am sure he will not agree with that--but in fact--read the language, his amendment will loudly say that Roe versus Wade is not broad enough, that we need more access to abortion than we have today. I think, of anything that I have learned in dealing with this issue, particularly when it comes to children who are in utero, with disabilities, that the issue is not the ability to get an abortion in this country. If you have a child with a disability, and it is diagnosed in utero, I guarantee not only will the abortion option be made available to you, because they are legally required to do that, but if they see a badly deformed baby, they will do everything, most of the physicians, most genetic counselors, will do everything to encourage you to have an abortion. I will talk about one such instance tomorrow. For those Members I spoke about earlier who can come to terms with this debate on the intellectual level and have trouble crossing the threshold of the heart, I will put a face on partial-birth abortion. It will put a face on what is going on out in our country, with doctors who are so afraid of malpractice, so afraid of difficult and complicated deliveries that they choose the easy way out. ``Let's get her to abort the baby now so we don't have to deal with this.'' Many of you are thinking, ``Oh, I can't believe that.'' Believe it. Believe it. It happens every day. You do not see any wrongful death suits, do you, against abortionists for terminating a pregnancy? I am not aware of any. But you will see wrongful birth suits for children born, and their parents, incredibly, believe that their child was better off dead than born. So, for doctors, as normal human beings, risk averse, it is easier to abort. You can't get sued when you abort. They sign all these waivers and consents. We will be fine. But they can sue us if we do not do everything we can to get them to abort beforehand and we have a complicated delivery and things happen, or the baby is deformed and we did not explain maybe well enough how deformed the baby was. I would argue it is easier to get an abortion in this country when you are carrying a child with a fetal abnormality than it is to find a doctor who will deliver it. I will tell you a story tomorrow of exactly that case. I am sure there are other cases out there. In fact, I know there are other cases out there. It goes back to the point I was making. Not only do we as a society, but unfortunately the people who are most responsible for delivering our children become so callous, many of them--not all of them. Certainly not all of them. I hope most would understand the significance of a human life and protect it and honor it and dignify it. But, sadly, that is not the case in far too many instances with the professionals in the field of genetics counseling. My father-in-law, Dr. Kenneth Garver, went into genetic counseling when he was a pediatrician in Penn Hills, PA. He decided to go into genetic counseling and medical genetics. I know one of the reasons that drove him to do so was not only the fascinating developments in medical genetics, which were certainly a lure to someone as bright as he and as interested as he was in the subject, but a fear, that has been borne out to be a legitimate fear, that the people who have been drawn to that field are people who do not believe that that baby has a right to life, who very much believe in abortion and counsel for it and, in far too many cases, encourage it. It is a field that he got into because he wanted at least someone--someone--where men and women who are going through a difficult pregnancy could come and not be browbeaten into having an abortion. You say, ``Oh, Senator, you are being extreme here.'' I will tell you the story of little Donna Joy Watts and you tell me how extreme I am. And I will tell the stories of people who have written to me and talked to me and called me and e-mailed me about situation after situation where those same set of facts have come forward. What have we come to when we encourage people who desperately want to hold onto their children that this is the only way? Some will say it is by ignorance. I suggest in many cases it is ignorance, but in many cases it is ignorance of convenience that a lot of these physicians would just rather not have to deal with the situation. So the first knee-jerk reaction is, ``Well, the baby is not going to live long. Abort it.'' Or, ``The baby is going to have all sorts of complications. Abort it.'' All we are trying to do here is to say stop the infanticide. That is the term used by the Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan, and I believe the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter--both of whom are generally on the opposite side of the issue on the issue of abortion. But they recognize that when a baby is outside the mother's womb and, as nurse Brenda Shafer said, moving its arms and legs, in the case that she described, the partial-birth abortion she described, the baby had the face of an angel. It was a perfectly healthy, normal baby. It thought--and yes, thought, because babies have brains; they are human beings--thought as it was leaving this environment that was so warm and protected, little did it know that it would meet with this kind of brutality. Folks, it's not just once, or twice, or 10, or 20, or 100, or 500--thousands. Untold thousands. I am hopeful that, as a result of all the things that were discussed for the past several months as a result of the statements by Ron Fitzsimmons, Members of this Senate will look again, look at this procedure, look at the consequences, real consequences of what the U.S. Senate and the Government of the United States will convey to the young people of our country, to any person in our country, that we will allow these innocent babies to be murdered like this. If we send that kind of message, I guarantee I will be down here when one of the Senators who did not support this stands up and beats his breast, complaining about why the crime rate is so high, why there is no respect for property, why there is no respect for life, why there is no respect for--you name it. Kids aren't dumb. They pay attention. I have a 6-year-old and a 4- year-old and a 1-year-old. It frightens me how much they pay attention to everything you do, whether you know it or not. They pick up so much. You see yourself. You know. You see yourself in your kids so much you just don't even realize all the little things that you do that they see. They will see this. They will understand what this means. They will understand that life is not important, that, unless you are big, strong, healthy, able to protect yourself, there is no protection. It is survival of the fittest. We wonder why we have a cynical generation X; everyone believes they are out for themselves, that everyone does things in their own self-interest. What could be more in self-interest than this? What can be more selfish than this? What kind of message are we conveying? This is ultimate selfishness. It was not convenient. I was not ready. I--I--I--I. This is a baby. It is not ``I,'' it is ``we.'' But we have told the message to the young people, only ``I'' matters. Then we wonder why they feel the way they do. We wonder why they act the way they do. We wonder what has happened to our culture, what has happened to our society. You need only look this far. You need only look at the selfishness, the individual self-centeredness of this procedure. A procedure we would not do on Jeffrey Dahmer, a procedure we would not do on the worst criminal in America, we will do on a healthy little baby. I hope the Senate says no. I hope the Senate can just muster the moral courage to say no and live up to the dignity of this place. It is an impressive place. Great men and great women have stood in this hall and fought for noble causes. I cannot think of any more noble a cause than protecting a helpless, beautiful--whether deformed or not, in the eyes of God, beautiful baby. I ask everyone within the sound of my voice to pray that that happens, that the Senate says no more, this is where we begin to draw the line. I ask you not only to contact your Senators by e-mail or write or call or drop by their offices, I ask you to pray that somehow their eyes will open to what the consequences of our actions are, what it means to us as a society, as a culture. What the reporters are writing today is this bill will fall short of the 67 votes needed to override the President's veto. If you do, those things I have asked, who knows? Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, for the information of all Members, tomorrow morning, the Senate will resume the IDEA bill under the earlier time agreement. All Senators can expect a series of three rollcall votes beginning at approximately 9:45 or 9:50 a.m. Senators should be prepared to be on the floor for the stacked votes beginning early Wednesday morning in that the second and third votes will be limited to 10 minutes in length. Following the votes and a short period for morning business, the Senate will begin consideration of the partial birth abortion ban. The Senate might also consider the CFE Treaty during Wednesday's session. As always, Senators will be notified as to when any additional votes are scheduled.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, May 14. I further ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted, and the Senate immediately resume consideration of S. 717, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak as in morning business for as long as necessary.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the supplemental appropriation before us today contains funding for floods which devastated the Northwestern and Midwestern States. I can appreciate the necessity of providing FEMA funding for those States. The last time that this body considered a measure to provide funding for disaster assistance, it was a proposal for $1.2 billion in assistance, mainly to my State of Pennsylvania. That funding was an acknowledgment of the devastation that occurred as a result of the harsh winter, extensive snowfall, and severe flooding throughout Pennsylvania. Again, Mr. President, the situation is no less severe and the need no less dire in the Northwest and Midwest. I sympathize with those Senators from affected States that have taken to the floor during this debate to talk about the devastation to homes, businesses, and communities that they have seen firsthand. The FEMA funding in this bill will be very helpful to States and localities in providing swift assistance in a timely manner. During our last debate, Mr. President, I offered an amendment addressing the need for a structural change in the manner in which the Federal Government provides disaster funding. Specifically, the Senate passed several amendments I offered to the fiscal year 1996 omnibus appropriations bill which provided a mechanism to pay for $1.2 billion in disaster funding, called for a long-term funding solution, and ensured that disaster assistance funds were deficit neutral in the final conference committee bill. The bill before us today and, specifically, the committee report build upon several of those amendments debated and passed last year. The committee report addresses concerns with the long-term structure of FEMA. The FEMA funding contained in this bill is offset by corresponding spending reductions within the same subcommittee jurisdiction. The work done by Senator Bond, chairman of the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, and Senator Mikulski, the ranking member, admirably balances the need for FEMA funding with the necessity of finding reductions within the jurisdiction of their subcommittee. Specifically, I would like to cite page 26 of the committee report which mentions that: The Committee notes its continuing concern with the escalating costs of FEMA disaster relief. . . . FEMA acknowledges that the escalation of costs is due not only to the increase in large-scale disasters, but also because the scope of Federal disaster assistance has expanded, the Federal role in response has expanded considerably, and State and local governments are increasingly turning to the Federal government for assistance. . . . The report also states that, ``The FEMA Director is committed to submitting a comprehensive proposal, including proposed legislation, by July 4, 1997.'' Mr. President, I would like Senator Bond to know of my continuing interest in working with him and the subcommittee on structural reform of FEMA, and of my anticipation of the report and recommendations from FEMA due in a few months. I will be sending him a letter offering my assistance, resources, and energies in restructuring the manner in which we have budgeted and provided relief for natural disasters. Senator Bond's statement in the committee report references several proposals worth considering. Among those reforms are the development of objective disaster declaration criteria and comprehensive Federal policies to control the Federal costs of disaster assistance, review of the appeals process, elimination of funding for tree and shrubs replacement, elimination of assistance for cultural and decorative objects, elimination of funding for certain revenue-producing facilities such as golf courses and stadiums, and creation of incentives for States and local governments to carry insurance to cover the repair and rebuilding of their infrastructure after a disaster. There are several other proposals and recommendations that I have previously reviewed and that I hope we would also consider. Those proposals would require stringent, written justification by the President and Congress to designate emergency appropriations; enact a requirement for a three-fifths majority budget point of order for emergency supplemental appropriations; identify multi-year spending cuts to pay for emergency appropriations and remain within the budget; base annual disaster funding on historic funding levels, permitting occasional surpluses; and protect the contingency fund from being raided as a funding source for nondisaster projects. Our action today is not without concerns, and I wanted to touch on a few areas of the supplemental appropriation, aside from the issue of disaster assistance. The supplemental appropriation is unfortunately riddled with additional spending in a variety of accounts and programs. The majority of these programs are not associated with the Northwest and Midwest floods. Rather, this process seems to serve as a vehicle to bolster Federal funding for programs that have otherwise operated this fiscal year under a very fair and widely supported allocation. The supplemental funding that is not associated with either Federal disaster assistance or support for our troops in Bosnia reverses the work done in both the fiscal year 1996 and fiscal year 1997 omnibus appropriations bills. More troubling is the fact that the total amount of funds provided in this bill today is not completely offset with spending reductions and this overall supplemental appropriations package is not deficit neutral. For the remainder of this fiscal year, the bill creates excess spending of $467 million in budget authority and roughly $1 billion in outlays. The budget projection for years 1998 through the year 2002 create an even more troubling scenario. I have been working with Senator Gramm on two amendments to pay for both the 1997 funding shortfall and the imbalance for the remaining fiscal years. Those two amendments would make the fiscal year 1997 appropriations deficit neutral. The remaining spending obligations under the bill would count against the new budgetary caps established under the recent balanced budget agreement. Both amendments will rectify shortfalls in the bill and are in the spirit of how this body should continue to conduct our business--spending must remain deficit neutral. Again, Mr. President, the FEMA disaster assistance in this bill is offset. The issue with this bill is about additional discretionary spending versus shortfalls in spending reductions, and the need for this bill to be deficit neutral. I hope that this body will support the amendments.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his leadership on this issue and his continuing leadership on this issue. To paraphrase a colloquial that is used often, ``Been there, done that.'' We have been here and we have done this many, many times before. A disaster bill comes, a supplemental comes to the Senate floor--to the House floor when I was in the House--with these pictures. I guess these are on the Senators' desks. These are very compelling pictures of horrible disasters. And I understand the pictures. Let me give you some credibility here before I go on about what is going on in the Dakotas and in the upper Midwest. I was here last year on another emergency supplemental bill for Pennsylvania disaster funding, $1.2 billion. Most of that money was going to Pennsylvania. I stood here with Senator Gramm, supporting his amendment to do the same thing when the money was directed at my State. Because it is not right to use--I hate to put it in these strong terms but this is what is going on--to use the calamity of others to run up the deficit. That is exactly what is going on. I know that sounds harsh. We have a FEMA. Even the committee report says that FEMA acknowledges that the escalation in costs is due not only to the increase in large-scale disasters, but also because the scope of Federal disaster assistance is expanded, the Federal role in response is expanded considerably, and State and local governments are increasingly turning to Federal Government for assistance. Not only are we not budgeting enough money to FEMA in the annual budget--Why? Let us ask that question first. Why are we not budgeting enough money to FEMA? We know these disasters come. They come every year. This is not a surprise. Why don't we do it? Because we want to spend it somewhere else and we know we can bring these pictures to the Senate and get borrowed money to do it later. So we do not have to live within our budget. We can underfund FEMA, knowing that no one is going to deny these people who are facing this horrible disaster. And, if you do, you left your heart at the door and how dare you come in and say you are compassionate? I mean, that is just a shell game. I want to state for the record, as I did last year, I am for disaster relief. But I am for doing what we should do with every aspect of our budget, which is set priorities. If the priority of this Senate, if the priority of this Congress, the priority of the President is to make sure that these people get the disaster relief they deserve--fine. Count me in. But when the refrigerator breaks you cancel the vacation. And that means that you have to come up with some other area of the budget and fund it. Some will say, if this is a disaster in the family, if the refrigerator breaks, I may have to borrow money. That is true. But if your refrigerator keeps breaking, then at some point you have to realize you are not budgeting right here. There is something wrong and you have to fix the problem. What we have is a broken refrigerator in FEMA and the way we fund FEMA, and a broken refrigerator in the way they are more and more taking a bigger and bigger share of disaster relief costs. That is a very serious problem and it is blowing big-time holes in the deficit of this country. So, I know it is not popular to stand up here--and Senator Gramm and I maybe make somewhat of a career on taking unpopular stances. But this is not right. It is not right to, on the backs of those suffering, really pursue your other agenda. Because we all know that money is going to North Dakota and South Dakota. We all are for that. It is not that money that is really being debated here. It is the other money that is stuck in there that should have been going to FEMA in the first place. That is the money they are really protecting here. That is the money they are hiding. That is what they do not want to cut. What Senator Gramm has put forward is a very reasonable proposal. It says cut 1.9 percent across the board. We would like to do it in a targeted way, but you cannot do that kind of thing. We have rules against that. So he has to do it across-the-board. And it says in the future, as we spend money for this disaster, it just has to stay under the caps. In other words, it cannot increase the deficit. It is a reasonable proposal that says live within your means. Responsibly budget for disasters. Do not use these very gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, heartfelt, compassionate stories to fund your little projects off here to the side and to fund all those other things that could not stand the light of day if, in fact, they were compared to funding these or those.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate the Presiding Officer, who just spoke, for his stick-to-itiveness in continuing to force this issue here in the U.S. Senate and, finally, accomplishing what we had hoped to accomplish and probably should have accomplished a couple of days ago, which is at least to move to this bill and begin the debate on whether we can, here in the U.S. Senate, do some positive things to the volunteer spirit of America, to see if we can remove some of the barriers that are in place right now that limit the amount of volunteer participation in our society. I think the present Presiding Officer's remarks about the Philadelphia summit, the spirit created there, the momentum that was created there can only be enhanced. The big concern in Philadelphia, as I talked to so many people, was, ``Isn't this wonderful? Don't you feel this great spirit? Don't you feel like we are focused on the right thing and we are pulling the country together, Republican and Democrat alike, liberal or conservative, focusing on a value that we all share?'' It is an understanding that is sort of core as an American to understand the significance of participating as a volunteer in your community and the benefit that it gives not only the people you volunteer for but the benefit it gives you. But the big concern I heard over and over again, even from the most enthusiastic supporters of the summit, was, ``Can we keep this going? Can this momentum continue? Will much happen after this week? How can we keep this spirit alive and keep this momentum that we have built, the commitments that were made? How can we continue to keep this ball rolling?" I point right here to the U.S. Senate. This is the best way that I know of to keep the ball rolling, to keep the momentum going. If we follow up this week and maybe early next week with the passage of this legislation, with a strong message to the American public and to the prospective volunteers in America that not only do we think it is a good thing--and everybody says nice things about voluntarism and we talk about the benefits of it and about all of the wonderful things that it accomplishes for your community and for you as an individual-- but we can lay down something solid, something tangible for them to say that things are different. It is not just that people are talking about it now, or not that it is an in-vogue thing, but there is a different set of ground rules now to participate and, to me, they are much more favorable. I don't have to look over my shoulder as a Little League coach as to whether I gave the catcher the right mask. I know that was one of the examples that was used over in the House. But I am doing this because I love my community, I love my neighbors, and I want to do something positive to contribute to their lives. I want to do so in a way that I feel that I can really express myself without having to be concerned about the whole troop of lawyers hanging in the wings for somebody who may have some accident in the process of volunteering. So I think what we are doing here is taking that first step after the summit. This is the first step. People who have given all the great speeches about how important voluntarism is--if they don't follow through with doing something to move this agenda forward then I think we have every right to question the sincerity of the remarks. We have every right to question whether this was in fact a political stunt, and nothing more; that this was an attempt to revive individuals involved in their own public reception and nothing more than that; that it wasn't really real. This is an opportunity to make the summit in Philadelphia more real in the eyes of the American public, to do something tangibly good for the volunteer in America, and thereby for the needy among us who have such a need and such a desire to deal with their fellow men and neighbors in solving the problems that confront them and their communities. So I again congratulate the Senator from Georgia for his tremendous drive and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness to stand up here--for 3 days now--and fight this battle and refuse to relent. I know some have said we are holding things hostage. I would suggest that this bill releases hostages all over America who are hostage to litigation fears--who now can go out and participate in their communities, and do the kind of things that will liberate so many other people who are in the need of volunteers, and the organizations with whom they work. So I again congratulate the Senator from Georgia. I commend him for this. It sounds like we have accomplished something tremendous. We have. All we have accomplished is that we can now talk about the bill, and we can now debate the bill. We are going to have, I am sure, amendments that will dramatically weaken this and that will take the teeth out of this legislation. Unfortunately, those will be offered on the floor. We have a tough battle ahead of us to be able to stand up to those kinds of weakening amendments, stay the course, and follow through with this responsibly. I believe it is a very valid piece of legislation that preserves the right of those who are injured and at the same time liberates the volunteer in America to go out and pursue what they know in their hearts is the right thing to do which is to serve their fellow man to a greater good. I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. In the past year, I might add, we passed it by unanimous consent; without an opposing voice, in the end, to getting this legislation passed. It had national application. The reason is it was clearly understood that these products travel, just like volunteers do, over State lines. There are companies that are multinational, not only multistate but multinational companies that produce goods, food products. If there was a chilling effect on one side, they would probably have a uniform policy against it. So we understood the nature of the goods involved and, obviously, Members on the other side of the aisle understood it also and went along on a unanimous vote and it was signed by the President. So, it is now law. I can tell you from the experience that I have had, talking to those at the soup kitchens and food banks, contributions are up. And I am somewhat surprised, because most of the places I go to, oddly enough, do not even know we passed the law. Most of those at the soup kitchens and food banks do not even know they can now tell the grocery store or restaurant or pizza parlor, that maybe has some extra pizza there at the end of the day or whatever, that they can ship it over here and you do not have to worry about a serious legal liability. It has gone up. It is just by some of the folks who happened to pick it up. I just suggest, for, hopefully, those listening here, and for those Senators in particular listening, we did something in Pennsylvania as a result of that just recently, where we sent a letter out to all the different food banks and soup kitchens in my State to inform them of the legislation, to encourage them. And, in fact, I even offered to write the different grocery stores, food processors, and the like in my State, to encourage them. We have a duty here, as leaders in our community, to try to effectuate that change. But, it was a long answer to the Senator's question, but I do so because I want to emphasize, not only did this pass bipartisanly, signed by the President, but it has already had a positive impact even in the first 2 months, the proportions of which I don't think we know yet because I don't think the information has been disseminated to all the parties who could benefit from this knowledge.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct; it was.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair. I thank the distinguished Senator from Georgia for his kind words and congratulate him on many counts. No. 1, for this piece of legislation. And while this piece of legislation has been around in various forms for quite some time, one thing it never had on its side was Paul Coverdell in a leadership role. One thing I found out about this place is things happen when people have the energy, the enthusiasm, a good plan, a good game plan and a willingness to work hard to bring the issue to the fore, and Paul Coverdell does that with every issue I have ever seen him engage in. He has taken this issue and plucked it out of obscurity and driven it to the front here at a very appropriate time. And so the Senator's sense of timing is magnificent in bringing it up here at a time when many of us, who just yesterday were in Philadelphia at the volunteer summit, were very moved by what was going on there, excited about the opportunity. I had a tremendous opportunity personally to have a good, long talk with Harris Wofford, who, as you know, I succeeded in the Senate. We had a really delightful conversation about how this is a project that, while we may be apart on very many things, we can find common ground on and work together on. In fact, we worked together a lot on the summit, to make sure that a lot of the small organizations, small charitable organizations and nonprofits were included. We understood the significant role that they play in the nonprofit community of America, the volunteer community of America. So we saw a lot of coming together--right, left, Republican, Democrat--in Philadelphia. It was a wonderful experience. Bringing this bill to the floor was a hope, I guess, on the Senator's part, and certainly on mine, that we would see that spirit continue in the new Capitol of the United States, not where it all started in Philadelphia. It is unfortunate that we had a failure with this cloture motion today just to move to the bill. I think it is in some ways disturbing. We have in a sense solidarity going on on a subject that is at the core of who we are as America. I think we had a coming together, an understanding of the need for all of us to go beyond ourselves and look to each other and look at our brothers and our sisters and our neighbors, at their needs and the needs of our communities in fulfilling the promise of America. That was so clear in Philadelphia and yet becomes somewhat murky and cloudy here on the Senate floor, of all places, where it should be critically clear that is in fact the prerequisite to success in America. It is disturbing, but I am confident, as I am sure the Senator from Georgia is, with continued effort we will bring to the American public, as we try to do this afternoon and hopefully will do in the next several days, the importance of this particular piece of legislation in making what is going on in Philadelphia a reality. I heard the Senator from Georgia, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from Kentucky, and others talk here about the importance of this legislation to so many nonprofit organizations all across this country. I could speak for Pennsylvania because that is where I have done the majority of visiting nonprofit organizations that serve the needs of communities, the team mission in the city of Chester in Delaware County, where I was just a few weeks ago, and I asked about the issue of the costs associated with liability insurance. The director there told me that his costs have skyrocketed in the last few years and now he is paying tens of thousands of dollars for liability coverage for his board, just a nonprofit board of well- meaning people in the city of Chester who want to serve in a capacity of helping, promote, organize, run, operate a mission in the city of Chester which has gone under some very tough times over the last several years. They are expending thousands and thousands of dollars on liability coverage to protect themselves and their board members, and they have trouble getting board members and, frankly, have trouble sometimes, as I have heard from many other shelters and many other places, getting people to make a commitment, whether it is a volunteer commitment, whether it is a commitment of resources of some sort, whether it is equipment or loaning people a car or other things. They are scared to death of getting sued; we have become so litigious as a society. The Senator from Georgia has come forward with a great idea of saying let us at least focus on something that is noncontroversial, the human capital involved in serving our fellow citizens, the volunteer, whether it is the volunteer board member or the volunteer out there, big brother or sister or someone else. I would think of all the proposals that we have put forward--in fact, just last year we put forward a proposal in the same kind of genre. We had a bill which was called the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Bank, named after Bill Emerson, a late Congressman from Missouri, who was a tremendous champion for hunger in America, for feeding of the children of America. Shortly before he died last year, the bill passed in the House, and I was privileged enough to carry that bill here to the Senate and finally pass it on the last day, but I will tell you it took weeks, maybe even months--my memory is a little faded right now, but maybe even months--to get that bill which passed unanimously in the House even to be voted on here on the Senate floor. One Senator or another kept putting holds on this bill. This bill was very simple. It said if you give food to a food bank, we are going to raise the standard from negligence to gross negligence. A lot of States have done similar kinds of measures, some have not. This was a voluntary thing. We had a statute on the book--it was not a statute, but it was a suggestion to States with language to do this. It was not a law that required them to raise the standard from negligence to gross negligence. The special interests lobby that has been debated here often on the Senate floor today found one Senator after another to block it, to try to amend it, to gut it, to do everything they could. And finally several of us got together and said certain things aren't going to happen around here that did not happen before we left, that if it did not get through, we were going to get up on the floor and start exposing Members of the Senate who were putting holds on this bill and tell them, you want to feed the hungry but you do not want to allow those who process food and who sell food, whether it is in restaurants or grocery stores, to give it, because surveys showed 90 percent of the people, companies, organizations that refused to give food to food banks refused because they were afraid of legal liability, yet not one person had ever been sued, not one person had ever been sued or taken $1 out of any lawyer's mouth. And yet they still held the bill up. Well, now we are talking about areas that people actually do get sued, and so we have the special interests out in force to stop this piece of legislation. And they were successful in convincing enough Members on the other side of the aisle to do just that. I think that is unfortunate. This issue goes beyond the issue of just voluntarism in its broadest sense. I think you have to understand--and again this has been highlighted in Philadelphia but I think needs to be highlighted here-- the importance of voluntarism and community organizations, what Dan Coats refers to as the mediating institutions in our society, those that are the buffer between the individual and the Government, those just in free association to help each other out in our own communities to solve our problems and to be that sort of close-knit group that really makes things happen on a local level. Those mediating institutions, those nonprofit groups, those civic associations are so important for our survival as a country. We are a great country for a lot of reasons, but I can tell you that most people do not think we are a great country because we are the greatest superpower, we are the greatest economic power, we have the greatest, most powerful Government. Most people come to this country because they want to get out of a country that has a powerful government that dictates to them. They come to this country because they want to freely associate and raise their family and have the freedom to work where they want and solve their own problems in a community setting. Voluntarism is key to making that happen. It is so important for us as a society to recognize, to lift up the volunteer as really the unique thing about America, the unique thing. The unique instrument by which we govern ourselves is that small organization that solves most of the problems in our community. Not the big Government, but those small, local organizations with the volunteer participating that solves the problem but does even something more. It brings out the best in the individual, the volunteer. Most of the people here volunteer for one thing or another in their lives. How many people, when they volunteered, left that assignment, that mission, that duty, and as they are walking out say, ``You know, I helped somebody. But, you know, I got more out of it, I am sure, than that person that I helped got out of it.'' See, voluntarism is not just about helping somebody else. It is about understanding more about yourself, it is about broadening your own horizons. It is about a real fundamental understanding of what your purpose is as an individual in our society. So, to the extent that we put barriers up to people experiencing that growth, their own personal growth, as well as a barrier to meeting real human needs, we are all-- those who need the help and those who are not participating in helping--both lose. And what we have seen, and you have heard all the numbers and all the statistics--you have seen how this problem, this barrier, is a real barrier. This is not something that we cooked up and said, ``Gee, let us just throw something out here to really honk off the other side.'' This is a real barrier. We heard Lynn Swann talk about it from Big Brothers and Sisters. We heard Terry Orr, former Washington Redskin, talk about it from Little League. And Senator Coverdell has read letter after letter at hearings, and others--we know the volunteer organizations tell us, plead with us to give them some breaks here. They need this relief if they are going to serve their duty, their mission, as well as ennoble the people who volunteer, get us to connect with each other. One of the great things, and reasons I am so excited about the Project for American Renewal and the Civil Society Project that Senator Coats and Senator Coverdell and Senator Ashcroft and Senator Abraham have been working on here in the Senate, and Congressmen Watts and Talent--I want to mention Senator Hutchison, who has been very involved--and Congressman Pitts--I could go on. But the most exciting thing, in focusing in on trying to empower the local communities, the nonprofit organizations, to do more, is--yes, they do it better. No question. They are more caring, more compassionate. They do it better, they do it cheaper, much more efficiently. They are volunteers. They have people who do this because of real motivation, inner motivation-- in many cases spiritual--but true, true inner compassion, not because it is a paycheck. Not to say those who do it because it is a paycheck do not have compassion. But that volunteer spirit just comes through and people understand it. That is important. But the most important thing that it does in my opinion is it reconnects us. One of the things I really fear about our society is we are becoming less and less connected to each other. You know, you can sit in front of a computer terminal right now and basically live your entire life without having to move. You don't have to go outside. You don't have to know who your neighbors are, or the people down the street, or go to church. You can do it all through television or through your computer. So we end up, as a society, that people--I am all for individualism. I think individualism is great. But, you know, we hear so much about individual rights and individual freedoms and all that stuff, we forget about the responsibility that we have to each other and our neighbors. This is a way to begin. All these things are in Senator Coverdell's legislation. I have introduced several pieces of legislation along the same lines that I hope someday we can bring up. I have not brought them up on this bill because I think this is so important that we move this forward, but we have other pieces of legislation I have introduced to encourage people to participate, to connect again, to get outside of that door. There are people who need you and, whether you know it or not, you need them. To the extent we, here, in the U.S. Senate can remove a barrier, can say: Look, don't be afraid of helping. Don't be afraid of asserting yourself. Don't be afraid that someone, Big Brother or big lawyer is over your shoulder, looking down at you, analyzing everything you say and do. Go out there and follow your heart, do what you know is right for your community and for the kids. The summit focuses so much on kids. A lot of the folks we are going to be helping are kids or the elderly--people in need. So, what Senator Coverdell is doing, what we are trying to do with the Renewal Alliance, is to empower those local groups to bring down the barriers that stop them from serving more people, to bring down the barriers that are almost in front of people's doors so they do not go out and minister to the needs of their neighbors much less--I should not even say that. In some cases they do not even bother to know who their neighbors are. They just do not want to get involved. ``There are all sorts of things that can happen to me if I get involved.'' We have to be a country that stops thinking like that. Look, I am not suggesting people do not have legal rights, that if they are harmed they should not have rights and recourses. And we preserve that in this legislation. We are saying, if you are grossly negligent or you are reckless in your conduct, you can be sued. And the organization, no matter whether the conduct was negligent or grossly negligent, could still be sued. It is just the individual volunteer, if they happen to do something maybe they should not have, or said--I said something I should not have. I did not mean any harm. It was not reckless, but I just threw a baseball at somebody and the kid didn't look. Hopefully, I will not get sued. I did not mean to hit the kid. But, believe it or not, people get sued for that. It is those kinds of actions, those kinds of lawsuits that have such a chilling effect on the human nature that is so typically American, to give, to go out and meet the needs of the people. So, I congratulate, again, the Senator from Georgia for his tremendous leadership. I cannot say enough, that this bill is where it is today and we are moving forward with this, because of his energy, his enthusiasm, his vision in moving this forward. I stand ready to help him every step of the way to make this happen. I think this is important in bringing down those barriers. It is important in building a better, more civil, more responsible, more compassionate, more connected society. To the extent we can make some little contribution here in the U.S. Senate, we should do so and we should do so immediately. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Lt. Col. Stephen G. Gress, Jr., who recently retired from the U.S. Air Force. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Lieutenant Colonel Gress has served his country with valor and distinction for more than 22 years as an instructor pilot, a combat pilot, and as a member of the Air Force legislative liaison. One needs only to look at Steve's academic credentials to see that he is a man of exceptional achievement. In addition to graduating from the Air Force Academy, Lieutenant Colonel Gress earned a masters degree in operation research from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Likewise, Steve became a distinguished graduate of the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base in 1987. Mr. President, Lieutenant Colonel Gress was one of the military's premier pilots. He served as an instructor pilot for the T-38 at Webb Air Force Base, and later, for the T-41 at his alma mater, the U.S. Air Force Academy. In 1979, the Air Force chose Steve from a very select few to become an F-15 fighter pilot. Steve also distinguished himself in the Air Force Special Programs Office, where he managed the development of future fighter weapons systems. During his tenure at Bitburgh Air Force Base, Steve's extensive knowledge of fighter combat operations led to an appointment as the chief of wing inspections, a position that is critical to the combat effectiveness of all Air Force organizations. I would also note that Lieutenant Colonel Gress is a war hero. As an F-15 flight leader, he flew 19 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. Later in 1991, Steve returned to the Pentagon. Once again, the Air Force came to rely upon his keen understanding of fighter combat. As the branch chief for both air to air weapons and fighter development, he worked to ensure that the next generation of fighter systems would secure American air dominance. Steve moved to the Office of the Air Force Legislative Liaison in 1993. He worked his way up from the branch chief for fighter and fighter weapons to the division chief of the weapons systems division. As always, Steve took tremendous pride in his work. He strove to ensure that critical military issues were presented to Congress in a clear and nonparochial manner. Over the years, many congressional staff members have come to know Steve both as a serious professional and as a man of integrity. As Lt. Col. Stephen G. Gress, Jr. retires to private life, I ask my colleagues will join me in commending the outstanding service he has given this country. On behalf of the Senate, I would like to wish Lieutenant Colonel Gress and his family the very best.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments of Senate business to honor Maj. Margaret Joseph, a Pennsylvanian who dedicated her life to defending freedom and serving her country. Margaret distinguished herself as a member of the Army Nurse Corps. During World War II, she served in the European theater. Many soldiers fighting in France and England owe their lives to dedicated professionals such as Margaret Joseph, who nursed them back to health. For others, her compassionate care was among the last acts of kindness they would experience on this Earth. In recognition of Margaret's skill and dedication, she was promoted to the rank of major by an act of Congress. Unfortunately, Major Joseph is no longer with us. She passed away on November 19, 1996, in Philadelphia, PA. On December 3, 1996, she was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Mr. President, Major Joseph was rightfully proud of her service to this Nation. I hope my colleagues will join me both in recognizing her accomplishments and in honoring her as a patriot, as a distinguished soldier, and as a courageous human being.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes of Senate business to discuss Music in Our Schools Month. Throughout the month of March, which was designated Music in Our Schools Month, the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association [PMEA] promoted public awareness of arts education. On March 11, the Pennsylvania Alliance for Arts Education sponsored the Second Annual Arts in Education Day in Harrisburg, PA. Representatives from PMEA also attended the ``SingAmerica'' campaign here in Washington, DC, on March 13. In addition to renewing an interest in music, ``SingAmerica'' sought to restore a sense of pride in our communities. For years, public schools in Pennsylvania have provided opportunities for children to grow and learn through the arts. Several teachers have observed that studying music has helped children learn to work in groups, to think creatively, and to communicate more effectively. Moreover, music education has helped introduce students to history and cultural studies. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the teachers who have dedicated their lives to preparing children for the future. I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking them for their commitment to improving education.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants [PICPA] celebrated its 100th anniversary on March 23, 1997. I rise today to congratulate PICPA for a century of service to the people and businesses of Pennsylvania. This distinguished organization, which boasts more than 18,000 members, is the second oldest society of certified public accountants [CPAs] in the United States. In fact, several of the big six accounting firms were actually founded by PICPA alumni. Mr. President, PICPA is comprised of dedicated professionals who provide essential financial advice to individuals, corporations, nonprofits, and government entities. Every day, they ensure that corporate financial dealings are properly reported to stockholders, help organizations comply with our tax laws, and provide detailed financial reports for managers. In a dynamic business climate, it is essential to stay apprised of changing professional standards, government regulations, and accounting practices. PICPA associates have risen to this challenge. They have demonstrated a commitment to the accounting profession by adhering to a continuing education requirement. Likewise, they subject themselves to periodic peer reviews to improve the quality of their financial statements. I am also pleased to note that PICPA encourages community service. Members have proudly helped improve the quality of life for less fortunate Pennsylvanians by donating thousands of hours to charitable organizations. Mr. President, members of PICPA are currently serving the public as auditors, tax advisors, computer consultants, personal financial planners, educators, legislators, small business advisors, managers, and estate planners. I salute CPA's in all walks of life, and I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the accountants and employees of PICPA, both past and present, for 100 years of exemplary service.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Zvi Muscal, an exemplary businessman from Philadelphia and an outstanding community leader. Last December, the American-Jewish Community presented the 1996 Civic Achievement Award to Zvi Muscal, and I had the distinct honor of delivering the keynote address at his presentation dinner. In 1979, Zvi left his beloved Israeli homeland to start a branch of Bank Hapoalim in Philadelphia. Like many who came to this country before him, Zvi came to America with a dream and a strong work ethic. As the bank grew under his leadership, Zvi dedicated himself to many organizations which had a major impact on the Philadelphia community. Serving on the International City Steering Committee, the World Affairs Council, and the Philadelphia-Israel Economic Development Corp., which later became the Philadelphia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Zvi has been a tireless advocate for business development in Philadelphia. Additionally, he has worked zealously to promote the city's cultural affairs and to support many important nonprofit organizations. In fact, the city of Philadelphia recognized Zvi's outstanding achievements and contributions by proclaiming May 19, 1985, Zvi Muscal Day. Since then, Zvi has undertaken several business ventures. For instance, he started PhilTrade, Inc., an international trading company. Later, he and other business leaders founded the First Executive Bank. Zvi served as the bank's chief executive officer until June, 1996, when it merged with the First Republic Bank. Today, Zvi is the chairman of this institution. As Zvi climbed the ladder of success, he strengthened his commitment to the community and his ardent devotion to Philadelphia. He currently serves on the board of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, the Philadelphia International Airport Advisory Council, the Community Bank Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Operation Smile-Philadelphia Chapter, the Police Athletic League, the Philadelphia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Elwyn Jerusalem, the Solomon Schecter Day School, and the Gesu School of Philadelphia. Mr. President, I salute Mr. Muscal for his achievements in business and in the community at large. I ask that my colleagues join me in wishing Zvi Muscal and his family all the best.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I introduce four related pieces of legislation all aimed at increasing donations of goods and services to charities. Collectively called the charity empowerment project, I urge my colleagues to consider cosponsoring these bills. Over the past 30 years, courts have consistently expanded what constitutes tortious conduct. Regrettably, fault is often not a factor when deciding who should compensate an individual for damages incurred. This has had an impact on charitable giving. Today, individuals and businesses are wary of giving goods, services, and time to charities for fear of frivolous lawsuits. The charity empowerment project is designed to free up resources for charities by providing legal protections for donors. Generally, these bills raise the tort liability standard for donors, whereby they are liable only in cases of gross negligence, hence eliminating strict liability and returning to a fault based legal standard. By allowing businesses to once again become good Samaritans, I look forward to seeing a massive increase in the donation of goods and services to charities. Specifically, I am introducing four bills each of which accomplishes one of the following four objectives: First, to limit the civil liability of business entities that donate equipment to nonprofit organizations; second, to limit the civil liability of business entities that provide use of their facilities to nonprofit organizations; third, to limit the civil liability of business entities that provide facility tours; and fourth, to limit the civil liability of business entities that make available to nonprofit organizations the use of motor vehicles or aircraft. Clearly, where an organization is grossly negligent when providing goods or the use of its facilities to charity, that organization should be fully liable for injuries caused. These bills merely require this to be the standard in cases arising from certain donations to charities. Last autumn, the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was passed into law. This law now protects donors of foodstuffs to charities from liability except in cases where the donor was grossly negligent in making the donation. I was proud to join Senator Bond in his successful efforts to pass this act. The bills I introduce today draw from my successful work with Senator Bond last year. Each of these bills is modeled on the legal framework of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. I hope my distinguished colleagues who supported the Food Donation Act will help further these efforts by supporting the charity empowerment project. Mr. President, I wish to note additional efforts by my colleagues to enhance charitable giving. Senator Coverdell and Senator Ashcroft have recently introduced legislation which protects volunteers from frivolous and damaging litigation. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of Senator Coverdell's Volunteer Protection Act of 1997, and I anticipate supporting Senator Ashcroft's bill with equal vigor. Collectively, I look forward to our legislation freeing up massive resources for charities through increased volunteerism and increased giving. At the end of this month, the Summit for America's Future will assemble in Philadelphia. The Senate now has the opportunity to consider the Santorum, Coverdell, and Ashcroft bills prior to the convening of this century's greatest gathering on voluntarism. There may never be a more appropriate time to consider legislation which so dramatically empowers charities with enhanced ability to carry out their noble causes. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of these bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I introduce four related pieces of legislation all aimed at increasing donations of goods and services to charities. Collectively called the charity empowerment project, I urge my colleagues to consider cosponsoring these bills. Over the past 30 years, courts have consistently expanded what constitutes tortious conduct. Regrettably, fault is often not a factor when deciding who should compensate an individual for damages incurred. This has had an impact on charitable giving. Today, individuals and businesses are wary of giving goods, services, and time to charities for fear of frivolous lawsuits. The charity empowerment project is designed to free up resources for charities by providing legal protections for donors. Generally, these bills raise the tort liability standard for donors, whereby they are liable only in cases of gross negligence, hence eliminating strict liability and returning to a fault based legal standard. By allowing businesses to once again become good Samaritans, I look forward to seeing a massive increase in the donation of goods and services to charities. Specifically, I am introducing four bills each of which accomplishes one of the following four objectives: First, to limit the civil liability of business entities that donate equipment to nonprofit organizations; second, to limit the civil liability of business entities that provide use of their facilities to nonprofit organizations; third, to limit the civil liability of business entities that provide facility tours; and fourth, to limit the civil liability of business entities that make available to nonprofit organizations the use of motor vehicles or aircraft. Clearly, where an organization is grossly negligent when providing goods or the use of its facilities to charity, that organization should be fully liable for injuries caused. These bills merely require this to be the standard in cases arising from certain donations to charities. Last autumn, the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was passed into law. This law now protects donors of foodstuffs to charities from liability except in cases where the donor was grossly negligent in making the donation. I was proud to join Senator Bond in his successful efforts to pass this act. The bills I introduce today draw from my successful work with Senator Bond last year. Each of these bills is modeled on the legal framework of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. I hope my distinguished colleagues who supported the Food Donation Act will help further these efforts by supporting the charity empowerment project. Mr. President, I wish to note additional efforts by my colleagues to enhance charitable giving. Senator Coverdell and Senator Ashcroft have recently introduced legislation which protects volunteers from frivolous and damaging litigation. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of Senator Coverdell's Volunteer Protection Act of 1997, and I anticipate supporting Senator Ashcroft's bill with equal vigor. Collectively, I look forward to our legislation freeing up massive resources for charities through increased volunteerism and increased giving. At the end of this month, the Summit for America's Future will assemble in Philadelphia. The Senate now has the opportunity to consider the Santorum, Coverdell, and Ashcroft bills prior to the convening of this century's greatest gathering on voluntarism. There may never be a more appropriate time to consider legislation which so dramatically empowers charities with enhanced ability to carry out their noble causes. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of these bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 66 submitted earlier today by Senators Mack and Graham.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.