Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. SANTORUM. Would you allow the doctor to kill the baby?

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from Dr. Pamela Smith describing Ms. Stella's condition as she knows it, and suggesting that this procedure was not appropriate for her to go through, that there was a safer medical procedure, and also to have printed in the Record a copy of ``Williams Obstetrics'' which is the authority on obstetrics, also describing what is medically recommended in cases where Mrs. Stella had her procedure. There were alternatives, safe alternatives, safer alternatives for her to go through.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from Bill and Teresa Heineman who had children who had severe abnormalities, fetal abnormalities, went through and had the children with abnormalities similar to the ones discussed here, and did so healthily and able to have children afterward.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yet you are to base your decision on this? You can't have it both ways. You can't argue with any----

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Answer the question.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. There is testimony that I entered in the Record yesterday--and I know Senator Smith has entered into the Record previously, and we will do so again tomorrow--that provides ample testimony of how this procedure is in fact more dangerous than the alternatives, including and particularly delivering the baby at term through either a vaginal delivery or cesarean section. The Senator from Colorado again reminded everyone--who is pro-choice and talked about a physician in Boulder, CO, who performs late-term abortions--saying that this procedure is more dangerous than other abortion techniques used at that stage. So even if you are for, as I am, the belief that it is important that these mothers have that--we respect all life, even those who are less than perfect, and give them every opportunity to live--even if you do not believe in that, even if you believe that a child that has a fetal abnormality at 35 weeks, premature 5 weeks, should be allowed to be killed before it is born, even though you can deliver the baby without any additional health risks, if you waited 5 weeks, even if you believe that could happen, according to the Senator from Colorado, that is a still a more dangerous procedure.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from Utah. If I can, I would like to deflect the praise, frankly, that in every respect should be deflected to the Senator who is sitting in the chair, the Presiding Officer, who in spite of calls against him of being an extremist, and, in spite of--as this issue was just beginning to rise in the political arena--being cast in an extreme pro-life position because, as the Senator from Utah, there is a lot of misinformation out there when this procedure was originally considered and even more misinformation when the Senator from New Hampshire introduced the bill to outlaw this procedure. But Senator Smith, to his credit, got all of the information, studied it, and presented a bill that was reasonable, mainstream--not by definition when you have 70 percent to 80 percent of the people in this country saying this procedure should not be legal-- it is not extreme to agree with them. You can say a lot of things. But when you are with 80 percent of the American public you are not an extremist by definition. Yet, I guarantee that you will hear Member after Member--I do not know how many Members will actually come up and speak against the override, but those that do will come up and will charge the Senator from New Hampshire, the Senator from Pennsylvania, the Senator from Utah, and other Senators with extremism for supporting this bill.

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Utah is absolutely correct. I just have to finish my comment on the Senator from New Hampshire. The Senator from New Hampshire took this issue when no one else would take it. The Senator from New Hampshire stood on the floor of the Senate and carried the debate the last time in spite of enormous criticism for doing so. The Senator from Pennsylvania is a Johnny-come- lately to this issue, admittedly. I was not aware of this issue until the Senator from New Hampshire was standing on the floor debating one day. I became aware of it, and couldn't believe that we were actually debating something like this on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Are you serious? This actually happens in this country? I will never forget listening to him and listening to the volleys that were lobbed at him and listening to him trying to stand up and present the facts although they were continually obfuscated by the other side. He stood tall, and he can stand tall because he is a tall guy. But he stood tall, and we were able to get this bill through. So now we are back. But I can tell you, as I said earlier, I had never wanted to debate the issue of abortion on the floor of the U.S. Senate, or in the House when I was there. The Senator from New Hampshire out of courage of his conviction stands up and says we believe. I saw him that day going toe to toe with the opponents of this legislation. I said to myself ``Where were you? Where were you when they needed to count the people to stand up for what you believe in? So I came down to the floor for a few minutes. And the Senator was on the floor for hours. I was on the floor, in comparison, for a second, but entered into the debate for the first time. And I want to say to the Senator from New Hampshire that the inspiration that he showed is the reason I am here today, and the reason we are all here today is we won a tough battle. People now are thinking, ``Well, 75 or 80 percent of the American public''--in fact then it was 75 to 80 percent. They had no idea. And there was a lot of misinformation out there that has now been clarified by thankfully a lot of obstetricians coming forward--hundreds of them coming forward--saying that we need to do this. The only people who are coming forward saying that this procedure is an acceptable medical procedure are those performing the procedure. No one else is. Some are saying we should allow this to continue because doctors should be able to do what they want to do; that we should not limit doctors' choices and women's choices. That is not the same as saying that this procedure is a healthy, good procedure; that they would do it, because they are not doing it and they wouldn't do it. And the Senator from New Hampshire stood up here and made the case. Unfortunately, by the skin of our teeth, we won here in U.S. Senate. I say ``unfortunately.'' We should have won by more, if people had had all of the information that they have today. We found that out over the last several months. I am hopeful that Republicans and Democrats alike who voted against this legislation will examine the facts. I am not even going to ask you to examine your conscience or examine your morals. Make that decision outside of that, although I hope you would not. Examine the facts as we now know them, not as given to us by the advocates of abortion, the National Abortion Federation or Planned Parenthood, but of doctors who are out there performing these procedures, of reporters, physicians, in some cases, who have done investigative reporting to find out what is going on out there--not what they tell us but what actually is going on. Now, you cannot hide behind what people who agree with you on this issue would like to have you believe. You have to face facts that this is not a rare procedure done to protect the lives and health of women. Anyone who stands up in this Chamber and says that this is a rare procedure done to protect the lives and health of women is not stating the facts. The facts counter that, are absolutely opposite to it. So let us have a debate about the facts. Let us not have a debate about the right to choose. This is not about the right to choose. Whether I like it or not, and, frankly, admittedly, I do not like it, late-term abortions will continue to be performed if this procedure is outlawed. And they have been described. We can enter into the Record all the varieties of other abortion procedures that can be done. So do not argue the right to choose. Do not argue it is a decision between the doctor and the patient, because the doctor and the patient have plenty of alternatives. This is an issue about what 100 Senators believe is the line in this country. Where is that line? Or do we not have a line anymore? Have we gotten to the point in our culture that any drawing of lines is offensive to us, any determination of what is right and what is wrong is for every individual to make a choice, that there is no right and wrong anymore, it is just whatever you decide to do is OK, no matter who it affects and how it affects them. I do not think that any Member of this Chamber believes there are no rights and wrongs and that there are no limits to what any individual can do to themselves or to somebody else. But you cannot hide from the fact that that is exactly what we are talking about here. We are talking about right and wrong. We are talking about how far we are going to let people go to infringe on the rights of others even if those others are less than perfect, are fetally abnormal. I hope we would stand up for those children, the lesser as some would suggest, lesser children. I would suggest--and the women more importantly, the women whose letters I read earlier would suggest--that they are not lesser, not by any stretch of the imagination are they lesser. They are important members of the human family and they make a significant contribution. I bet you could ask some of those mothers and they would tell you that the child who lived 2 months made more contributions to them and to their community than people who lived there for 30 years. I remember we in my generation always like to say when it comes to our children it is not the quantity of time, it is the quality of time you spend with your kids. How many times do you hear that? I wish that were true, but it is both. But certainly quality of time is important. Are we going to say that because their quantity of time is not going to be such for our standards, that their quality of life is not normal by our standards, that they are expendable by the most brutal procedure I think any of us have ever heard? Oh, I have faith in the Senate. I have faith that, as I look at these empty chairs--and most of them are empty, all but the Senator from Iowa--I look at those chairs, and I can see in those chairs every Senator sitting there as they will be tomorrow, or standing down in the well, and they will have to be making a decision that they have to come to terms with what is right and wrong, about what comes up to the line and what crosses the line. I believe that enough Senators will look inside and see that this calls for a moment to look at what the best of our humanity is about, not the worst, and they will do the right thing. I will pray for that tonight. I hope you will, too. I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I want to congratulate my friend from Colorado. The Senator from Nebraska was talking earlier about some Member who had distinguished himself in his ability to articulate his position well and to take stands on principles, ones he deeply believes in, not be afraid to cross the line sometimes and to take controversial stands that are outside of maybe what would be expected of him. I think the Senator from Colorado has done that in this case, and he will be missed for his thoughtful and thorough analysis of the issue. I think anyone who listened to his presentation had to come away with an understanding that this is someone who did exactly what I had been hoping and what he called for all Members of the Senate to do, which is to step back. It is not, Santorum, don't put your pro-life hat on, or, Hank Brown, don't put your pro-choice hat on, but let us look at the bill, let us look at the facts, and let us try to see whether this is something that we want to have to continue in this country. I think what you saw in the House of Representatives is just that. No one can stand up on this floor and say that two-thirds of the House of Representatives are people who are pro-life. They are not. They are not pro-life. Two-thirds of the House is not pro-life. I am not even sure if half of them would consider themselves or call themselves pro-life by the traditional definitions used in this town and across the country. But two-thirds of the House said no to this procedure; said it is time to draw the line irrespective of your opinion on the issue. So for those who did in the House and already have done so in the Senate to come here and say, well, this is just some of these pro-life extremists trying to meddle again in the right to an abortion does not hold water. It did not happen in the House. That was not a group of pro-life extremists. It was in fact a bipartisan coalition. It was people of both opinions on the issue of abortion as it was here. You heard from the Senator from Colorado. You will hear, I hope, tomorrow the Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan] and others who are pro-choice say this goes too far, this crosses the line. I think we have done an injustice by, as the Senator from Oklahoma said, referring to this procedure as partial-birth abortion, because I know in having discussed this issue many times you mention the word abortion and people scurry to their column--pro-life, pro-choice, and tend to only listen to those who agree with them on that issue, as to what their opinion should be on this issue of abortion. That is why I wanted to thank the Senator from Colorado for his courage in not only offering amendments, as he did, to improve the bill and tighten the bill as he said, but for his courage to stand up and talk to people who may listen and identify with his position on that issue and recognize that it is anything but extremism to say that a child that is delivered all but the head, that in many, many cases is fully viable outside of the womb, is then killed by a blunt instrument to the back of the head and the suctioning procedure, banning that procedure is not extremism. I have not mentioned but I will--I do not like to talk about these things when I talk about issues of this nature--polls. I hesitate to talk about polls because this should not be an issue that we have to take a poll on. But the polls say that as people understand this and once it is explained to them what the procedure is, over three-quarters of the American public find this abhorrent--in some cases much higher than that. I would think if three-quarters of the American public once informed of this procedure find it to be abhorrent, that two-thirds of the Senate could find it to be abhorrent. I discussed in my comments earlier the medical necessity for doing this, and the Senator from Colorado did the same and quoted a different physician who said this is not a medically necessary procedure, this is in fact contraindicated as other physicians have said, that this in fact is dangerous to the woman's health, and I went through physicians and what they said about it. I talked about, as I just did, other Members of the House and now Members of the Senate who feel differently on the issue of abortion who have looked at all the evidence and decided that now with this new evidence--one thing the Senator from Colorado did not mention was the new evidence that this is not a rare procedure. I think he still referred to it as a rare procedure, and that is what everyone was led to believe when this bill was first passed, that this was a rare procedure. Planned Parenthood provided information that there was only a few hundred, 300 to 500 of these performed every year. And yet we hear from the report in the Washington Post by Dr. Brown, I think David Brown, on September 17 that this procedure is performed in this area more than just a few hundred times, just here. In fact, Planned Parenthood said this is only done by a doctor in Ohio and the doctor in California. They are the only two. And the Post found that in fact there are physicians in other areas who do it. It was found in the area around Bergen County there are 1,500 such abortions performed, partial-birth abortions performed on fetuses 20 to 24, 26 weeks. I do not refer to a 26-week-old fetus as anything but a baby because it is viable, clearly viable outside of the mother's womb. So we have had all of that new information, and again I hope to share that and I hope that people do look at that and realize that with this information and with the medical--this is a medical procedure and should be judged not based on your opinion on abortion but based on medical evidence and whether this is medically necessary. That is one thing it should be judged on. Obviously, you cannot avoid the effect a decision like this has on our culture; about what we say is legal and permissible in our culture. It obviously has an impact on who we are. If the Government says that this is OK, it will have an impact on who we are. And so that is something that you have to think about, too. The other thing that is not talked about much that I think is important to discuss in light of those who support the procedure, and particularly the President, is the whole issue of fetal abnormality. The President of the United States brought to the White House when he decided to veto this legislation five women, all of whom said that they needed this procedure to be done to protect their health. All of these women had babies--some of them were late-term abortions--had babies who had some sort of fetal abnormality. In the House and in the previous debate in the Senate many of the supporters of this legislation and the President said that this is a very good reason to have an abortion, that a fetal abnormality, many of which are fatal, some of which are not always, is a good reason to have an abortion, a late-term abortion, and this type of abortion. We have discussed the health aspects of this, is this type of procedure necessary for the health reason. And clearly the evidence, the facts show physicians, both prolife and prochoice, say, no, it is not necessary. I think there is a bigger issue here. It really goes beyond this whole debate on abortion. And that is the debate on this whole issue of fetal abnormality as a good reason to kill a child, a baby. In some cases we are talking about very late term, we are talking about in the thirties weeks, very late-term abortion, because then we are getting into the fact that, well, it is OK to perform this procedure because the quality of life of the baby will not be what we believe is good, which is the perfect baby. Now, you have some extreme examples of this in this debate with Dr. McMahon out in California who said that he had nine third-trimester abortions--that is 7th, 8th and 9th month--he had nine such abortions that were done electively, which means there was no health risk to the mother in delivering the baby--nine such abortions done because the child had a cleft palate--a cleft palate. And we have the President of the United States and people in the Senate who are saying it is a decision between the mother and the doctor, it is not our job to say that that is wrong; that the mother has the determination as to what is perfect in her eyes and then the Government, the State has no decision. I said earlier that the very same people who make that argument are the very same people who stood in this Chamber and the House, and I am proud they did, and argued for the Americans with Disabilities Act. They said that people who are not perfect, who have a disability, have a right to be able to get around to different places, to have employment opportunities, to be treated equally. We did not bring up this issue. I do not know whether we will before we leave, but the issue of I-D-E-A, IDEA, which is education for the mentally disabled in our school system and the physically disabled-- again, the very same people, many of them, not all, but many of whom will stand and say this feature is OK because we have a deformed baby, say that we have an obligation to provide equal education to children with disabilities. If we have an obligation as a State, as a government, to provide equal opportunities for education for people who are not perfect, at least in the eyes of some, those who have disabilities should have the equal right to education, should have the equal right under the ADA to treatment in the workplace and other places, how can you stop short and say they do not have an equal right to life? How can you be for all those things and not be for giving this poor--in some cases, yes, badly deformed--baby a right to die with dignity, if that is the case, a right to live? There is an article in the Washington Times today. It quotes a man, a correspondent. I should not say it is a man because it does not say that. I apologize for that. The article is written by a woman, Maggie Gallagher. It may, in fact, be a woman. It says: I ran across excerpts from a letter to the editor of the London Spectator. The correspondent wrote: ``I have severe spina bifida, and am a full-time wheelchair user . . . Every day I read in the press about 'exciting breakthroughs' which mean yet another way to kill people like me before birth. I think that is the point I want to make here. Let us just put aside the whole issue of partial-birth abortion for just one second. Think about what message we are sending out to the people who have disabilities, who have suffered through some of the disabilities described by some of the women that the President brought to justify his decision here. Yes, many of the people who had these disabilities-- in fact, in some cases, all of the people who had these deformities-- died. But some lived. Some lived for a short period of time, some for a long period of time. What are we saying to them? What are we saying to our culture? What are we saying about these people who came to the floor for month after month on the issue of disabilities, on the issue of welfare, and said, ``What about the children? Don't you care? Where is your compassion? Where is your concern for the least of us as a society?'' Did these children do anything to end up disabled? Is it their fault that they were abnormal, that we should look upon them and say, ``Well, because you are abnormal, you are therefore expendable, and it is justifiable to treat you that way''? I am going to read an article from a doctor who wrote this just last month in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington edition. The doctor's name is Katherine Dowling. She is a family physician at USC School of Medicine. The title of the article is, ``What Constitutes a Quality Life?'' The nights can be long and frustrating for we doctors whose shifts fall with regularity in the wee hours. A young lady comes in demanding to know if she is pregnant, then fussing for instant termination when she is found to be. An elderly lady wants a cure for her constipation. An addict arrives, angling for a legal fix. But every once in a while, like the astronomer whose long nocturnal vigils are rewarded one clear night with the smudge of a new comet on his photography plate, we sometimes encounter the extraordinary. I did one recent night. I doubt you'd peg the couple as extraordinary if you saw them on the street. She had perhaps once been somewhat of a beauty. Her brown hair was cropped short and hung limply, and she clearly had put on a bit more weight with each of her pregnancies. His tummy flopped over his belt, and he had a kind smile. Their child was a young adult based on his birth date, but his brain hadn't really developed much beyond that of a 4-year-old. As he lay on the gurney, occasionally using words only his mother could understand, she calmly told of the recent worsening of his medical problems. When she left the room, he searched for her with the tenacity of an infant, and like an infant, looked into her eyes with pure joy when she returned. Dad waited outside, ready with a smile and a little joke. They had been caring for their child with love and patience since early infancy, when his problem first began. I suspect that he was a happy young man, in spite of his bad neurologic luck. He'd certainly had good luck in his choice of parents. To me, these parents showed a caliber of heroism that only a few humans are called on to exhibit in a lifetime. They had put aside their own wants, had accepted a child who would never be capable of doing things even the most ordinary of nonhandicapped children could, had given their son enough love and physical help to make his life not just bearable but apparently happy. In the process, they'd raised a bunch of other children now doing well, and they'd stayed together in a strong and supportive marriage. Far too often, we assume that a child born with a medical problem is a child whose life is not worth living. We think that parenting such a child is an impossible task. When President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have banned partial birth abortions, implicit in the stories of the women he gathered around him was that they were doing a noble thing for their children and themselves. Extracting the brain from a living, sensate fetus was felt to be better than allowing that fetus to be born with a body that was less than perfect. In 1995, James McMahon, a leading Los Angeles abortion doctor (recently deceased), sent a submission to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, which was holding hearings on partial birth abortion. This document revealed the reasons partial birth abortions were done in a survey of more than 1,000 babies. More than 10% were done because of fetal death, but by definition, this is not abortion. Twenty- four were done for cystic hydroma (a benign lymphatic mass, usually treatable in a child of normal intelligence). Nine were done for cleft lip-palate syndrome (a friend of mine, mother of five, and a colleague who is a pulmonary specialist both were born with this problem). Other reasons included cystic fibrosis (my daughter went through high school with a classmate with cystic fibrosis) and duodenal atresia (surgically correctable, but many children with this problem are moderately mentally retarded). Guess they can't enjoy life, can they? In fact, most of the partial birth abortions in that survey were done for problems that were either surgically correctable or would result in some degree of neurologic or mental impairment, but would not harm the mother. Or they were done for reasons that were pretty skimpy: depression, chicken pox, diabetes, vomiting. I'd like to commend those parents who have the courage to raise handicapped children. Whenever I see a mother or father holding a sickly baby and looking into its eyes with love, each time there's a Down's syndrome child learning from its sibling how to pile blocks on top of each other, I'm awed by the power of the family to make a ``less than perfect'' life a thing of happiness. And then I know how lucky I am to be in a profession where every once in a while, I get a glimpse of the best in humanity. Is what we are doing here today a sign of the best of humanity? If we allow this procedure to continue, is this the best we can be? Is this the seminal point? Is this the moment of pride that we came to the Senate to allow to happen on our watch? For those who voted to allow this procedure to continue, when we vote tomorrow, look around, look inside and tell me whether you think we are exhibiting the best of humanity. Dr. Dowling said that she had so much respect for parents who went through with difficult pregnancies possibly and maybe with the knowledge of an abnormal child being born. I would like to read--and I hope I can read, because they are sometimes very difficult to read--letters from mothers who knew that the child within them had fetal abnormalities. I believe all of the letters included here represent all of the conditions that the women that President Clinton had at his side when he vetoed this bill, all of the women--I shouldn't say that, I should read them--certainly a lot of the things that the fetuses of the mothers at President Clinton's veto ceremony --those conditions are represented in these cases. In some of these cases, the child didn't live an hour, and in some, miracles happened. But in every case, there is a case of courage, and their expressed purpose in writing was not to say that you won't hear this about partial-birth abortion, it was to deliver the point that, ``Mr. President, and those who are arguing for this bill to be defeated, for the override to be sustained, please understand, that this procedure doesn't need to be done to protect the health of the mother, No. 1, and No. 2, that we went through with these pregnancies that you say are necessary to have these abortions, are necessary to preserve our health, that we actual actually did the alternative, and were alive and were well, and we had beautiful experiences. Tragic but, yes, in many cases beautiful experiences. And, please, Mr. President, please the Members who argue for the sustaining of the President's veto on this bill, don't use the baby, don't use the children as a shield. Don't use them as the reason for allowing this to continue. Don't make them the enemy of the mother. In fact, they are not.'' I would like to read a letter first from Jeanne French, from Oak Park, IL, dated July 1996, to the President. And I think she conveys much better than I that point: Dear Mr. President: I write to you today as a fellow Democrat with something to say about a difficult subject, partial-birth abortion. You may know that last November I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the partial-birth abortion ban legislation. I was on the same panel as those mothers who chose partial-birth abortions. It was ironic to see you veto the ban framed by the women whose stories I got to know as I sat beside them that day. In my naivete, I expected that your administration would be more open to hearing the other side of the partial-birth abortion question.--I was deeply saddened to be excluded from the dialog you sought on this issue. In recent months, I've had the opportunity to get to know many women who have carried and given birth to children with fatal conditions from anacephaly encephaloceles, Trisom 18, hydrocephaly, and even a rare disease called body stalk anomaly in which internal organs develop outside a baby's body. We gave birth to our children knowing that their serious physical disabilities might not allow them to live long. I do not tell you this because we are, or want to appear heroic. We simply want the truth to be heard regarding the risks of carrying disabled children to term. You say that partial-birth abortion has to be legal for cases like ours, because women's bodies would be ``ripped to shreds'' by carrying the very sick children to term. By your repeated statements, you imply that partial-birth abortion is the only or most desirable response to children suffering severe disabilities like our children. Perhaps inadvertently, you send a message of hopelessness to women and families who anticipate the birth of children with serious or fatal disabilities. This message is so wrong. We feel that it is imperative that you reconsider the way you talk about options available to mothers carrying very sick babies like ours. Will you consider meeting with me and a few of the women I have come to know over this issue? Will you please extend to the Morsmans, Heinemans, Sheridans, and to me the same courtesy extended to those families who had partial-birth abortions? Will you meet with us personally, and hear our stories? Thank you for considering this request. I look forward to your response. The response came back 13 days later that ``the President appreciated the letter but will not have the opportunity to speak with you or your group.'' I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the President's response after the reading of the letter.

Mr. SANTORUM. What are those stories? Why are they important in this debate? I think Mrs. French said why they are important. I think they are important for the purposes of this whole idea that we need to have these abortions legal because of the health of the mother. That is important. That is why, the President said, he vetoed the bill. We have all sorts of medical evidence and testimony, and even newer testimony, testimony from both pro-choice and pro-life physicians, who say that there is absolutely no health-of-the-mother or life-of-the- mother reason for doing this procedure. In fact, it is contraindicated. It is more dangerous, according to Dr. Hern, who performs abortions and late-term abortions, to do this procedure. So we have lots of medical testimony about the cold medical aspect of it. What Mrs. French is getting to is something that is maybe more important for us who are nonphysicians, who do not, frankly, feel comfortable about making medical decisions but, hopefully, feel more comfortable about making cultural decisions. That is where we are. The cultural decision is, as Dr. Dowling said, what constitutes quality of life? We are making that decision here. If we sustain the President's veto, the children who just do not measure up, are not perfect, for that reason alone, that we should allow this procedure to continue because they are not wanted in the human family here in the United States of America. The Senator from Indiana said just a few minutes ago, if we knew that a civilization, a country, was deliberately killing disabled children, what an outcry--what an outcry--there would be from a lot of the very same people who say it is OK to do it if they are only 24 weeks old in their life. So I think it is necessary to read these stories. I do not know whether I will be able to read them all tonight because I find it very difficult to read them. I have been very lucky as a father of three children that we did not have any ``fetal abnormalities'' with our children. My wife Karen had three healthy pregnancies and is having another healthy pregnancy to date. But I cannot help but hear these stories and feel such great empathy, as a father, who stood there in the birthing room, in the delivery room, and just waited, with incredible anticipation, for that child to be born, and encouraging my wife, and seeing that little baby, and wondering how that little baby is. ``Please cry. Please take that first breath.'' Jeannie and William and Teresa, Whitney and Bruce, Margaret, the people who wrote these letters, knowing that they were delivering a baby, that once it took its first breath, how difficult that breath would be and how many breaths will they be able to take, and how to deal with them. The first story is of William and Teresa Heineman of Rockville, MD. I will read their story as they dictated it. We have noted with concern statements made by several couples suggesting, from their very personal and very tragic experiences, that the partial birth abortion is the only procedure available to a women when the child she is carrying is diagnosed with a severe abnormality. We have had experiences that were very similar and yet so very different. We have had three children biologically and have adopted three more. Two of our children were born with a genetic abnormality--5-p Trisomy. One also had hydrocephalus. The medical prognosis for these children was that they would have at best a short life with minimal development. Some medical professionals recommended abortion; others were ready to help support their lives. We chose life. That decision carried some hardships. However, God blessed us immeasurably through their short lives. Our first child, Elizabeth, was diagnosed after her birth. We were deeply saddened but desired to give her the best life we could. Though she never could say a word and could not sit up on her own, she clearly knew us. she learned to smile, laugh, and clap her hands. She was a joy to us for two and one half years. We clearly saw how many lives she had touched with over 200 people attended her Memorial Mass! One child was touched in a very personal way when he received Elizabeth's donated liver. Two others received sight through her eyes. Our third child, Mary Ann, had been diagnosed with hydrocephalus in utero and shortly after birth with the same genetic abnormality that our oldest daughter had. (We could have known this during pregnancy via amniocentesis, but refused the procedure due to the risk to the baby.) Terry's obstetrician said that we were fortunate, though, that Mary Ann would have the chance to go home with us. We learned to feed her through a gavage tube as she was unable to suck to receive nourishment. Our son, Andrew, developed a special bond with his sister. We spent the next five months as a family, learning, growing and caring for our children. When our precious daughter died, we celebrated her life at a memorial Mass with family and friends. Our belief in Jesus Christ and His gift of salvation provided comfort for us as our daughters entered their new home in heaven. They remain a part of our family and are always in our hearts. They enriched our lives and touched the lives of many others. Our Creator sent these children to us and we were privileged to love and care for them. What a tremendous loss to all of us who know them to terminate their lives because they were not physically perfect. We look forward to a joyous reunion with them in heaven. It is so easy to see the half of the glass that is empty when we face difficult problems; will we have the courage to allow our children to have the half of the glass that is full? We pray for other mothers and fathers who are faced with agonizing decisions that they will remain open to the gift being entrusted to them. God's love is ever-present during our times of joy and sadness. He is with us now as well are parents to Andrew, now nine years old, and three children: Maria, Christina, and Joseph; ages 11, 9, and 7, who joined our family through adoption. Again, this is a story about children who die as a result of the fetal abnormalities that some would suggest are medically necessary to save the life of the mother or health of the mother. I think what Terry Heineman and Bill Heineman said is that not only is it not necessary to do this procedure to preserve the health of the mother, but I think it says something about how we value life in this country. It is a very disturbing thing, indeed. Whitney and Bruce Goin from Orlando, FL: On March 20, 1995 my husband and I found out that we were expecting a precious baby. The discovery was an incredible surprise. We were not trying to become pregnant, but knowing that the Lord's plan for our lives was being carried out, we were overjoyed, a little overwhelmed, but completely thrilled. I began my prenatal vitamins immediately and followed all known guidelines to protect my unborn child. Three months later, on June 18, I had an uneasy feeling, nothing that I felt physically, just an anxious, strange feeling. I called my obstetrician and requested a fetal heart check. They dismissed my concern as the first-time-mother jitters but agreed to let me come into the office. unable to find a heart beat, the nurse sent me down the hall for a sonogram to reassure me that there were no problems. This would be my first sonogram where I would actually be able to see the baby. I was five months pregnant. The nurse began pointing out our baby's toes and feet, and when the baby kicked I smiled, believing that everything was alright. Then, the nurse suddenly stopped answering my questions and began taking a series of pictures and placed a videotape into the recorder. Unaware of what a normal sonogram projects, I did not decipher the enormous abdominal wall defect that my child would be born with four months later. My husband was unreachable so I sat alone, until my mother arrived, as the doctor described my baby as being severely deformed with a gigantic defect and most likely many other defects that he could not detect with their equipment. He went on to explain that babies with this large of a defect are often stillborn, live very shortly or could survive with extensive surgeries and treatments, depending on the presence of additional anomalies and complications after birth. The complications and associated problems that a surgical baby in this condition could suffer include but are not limited to: bladder exstrophy, imperforate anus, collapsed lungs, diseased liver, fatal infections, cardiovascular malformations, etc. I describe my situation in such detail in hopes that you can understand our initial feelings of despair and hopelessness, for it is after this heartbreaking description that the doctor presented us with the choice of a late-term abortion. My fear is that under this emotional strain many parents do and will continue to choose this option that can be so easily taken as a means of sparing themselves and their child from the pain that lies ahead. With our total faith in the Lord, we chose uncertainty, wanting to give us as much life as we could possibly give to our baby. On October 26, 1995, the doctors decided that, although a month early, our baby's chance of survival became greater outside the womb than inside, due to a drop in amniotic fluid. At 7:53 am, by cesarean section, Andrew Hewitt Goin was born. The most wonderful sound that I have ever heard was his faint squeal of joy for being brought into the world. Two hours after being born he underwent his first of three major operations. For two weeks Andrew lay still, incoherent from drugs, with his stomach, liver, spleen and small and large intestines exposed. He was given drugs that kept him paralyzed, still able to feel pain but unable to move. Andrew had IV's in his head, arms and feet. He was kept alive on a respirator for six weeks, unable to breathe on his own. He had tubes in his nose and throat to continually suction his stomach and lungs. Andrew's liver was lacerated and bled. He received eight blood transfusions and suffered a brain hemorrhage. Andrew's heart was pulled to the right side of his body. He contracted a series of blood infections and developed hypothyroidism. Andrew's liver was severely diseased, and he received intrusive biopsies to find the cause. The enormous pressure of the organs being replaced slowly into his body caused chronic lung disease for which he received extensive oxygen and steroid treatments as he overcame a physical addiction to the numerous pain killers he was given. The pain and suffering was unbearable to watch, but the courage and strength of our child was a miraculous sight. We were fortunate. The worst case scenarios that were painted by the doctors did not come to fruition, and we are thankful that our son was allowed the opportunity to fight. His will to live overcame all obstacles, and, now, we are blessed by his presence in our lives each and every minute. Our deepest respect and prayers go out to the courageous parents who knew that their baby would not survive and yet chose to love them on earth as long as God allowed and intended for them to be. This is an issue that goes beyond abortion. This is an issue that goes beyond a medical procedure. This is an issue about what we view as life, as good enough life, to be born or to live. To use as a reason for allowing this procedure to continue, fetal abnormality, so badly misses the mark, sends a message to the women of this country, families of this country who are listening, who are having to deal with this issue today, right now the President of the United States said because of fetal abnormality these women should have abortions, it is a good reason to have an abortion, this kind of a partial-birth abortion. What these women are saying is that we do not need to do that to protect our health and that there is an alternative out there, and that the message from the President of hopelessness for their situation is, as Mrs. French said, wrong. There may be no hope for an encephalitic child to survive long, hours if that, but that does not mean that the situation is as hopeless as you have heard from these letters. We have an obligation here in the U.S. Senate when we vote on an issue to look at every aspect of that issue, particularly one of this importance and consequence, to look at every aspect of that issue and to weigh all the facts and to weigh the message that we send out when we do something--not only the direct consequences. The direct consequences are clear: Thousands of children, of babies that are 20 weeks and later, will be allowed to be partially delivered, feet first, the entire body delivered except for the head, and will be allowed to be killed--that far, inches away from its first breath. We know that. That is a fact. That will happen if this bill is not passed here by the Senate over the President's objection. That is what we sort of focused on. We focused on, rightfully, the horror of that procedure being given a legal imprimatur by the U.S. Senate and by the President of the United States of America. That is a tough one for many of us to swallow. It is a tough one for many Americans to swallow. But there is more, and I think the stories of these women and the children involved is another element to this story. I think I am going to save these last couple of letters for tomorrow to read because I don't want to be repetitive tomorrow. My colleagues, many of whom are otherwise involved right now with meetings and receptions and other kinds of things here on Capitol Hill, I just hope that at some point tomorrow when we are debating this, their television sets are turned on, or they happen to be on the floor, and that they understand this is not just an issue--although it is an issue--of a medical procedure being performed. This is a horrific procedure. It is not just an abortion, it is infanticide. It is infanticide. It is killing a baby. If you can accept that, I guess the argument that we are also making a decision on regarding the quality of life in America sort of pales in comparison, maybe--I don't know. But if you are troubled by that, if it causes you to think again, with all the new information that has been provided over the past several months and weeks, if it bothers you enough to rethink, then also think about that message that we are sending to the less-than-perfect children of America and the mothers who are, right now, dealing with the possibility of delivering an abnormal baby. My wife is due in March. We haven't had a sonogram done. We are hopeful that everything is fine. What message would it send to me, in looking at that sonogram in a week or two, if they say that if that child just isn't what you want, if that baby of 20-some weeks is just not what you bargained for, you have our permission to go through this procedure. In fact, it is your right to do so. I don't think we want to send that out. As Dr. Dowling said, I don't think that's a glimpse of the best in humanity. I don't think that is a moment that many of the retiring Senators here want to look back and say, ``That was one of my last actions here in the U.S. Senate.'' I don't think we as Americans want our legislative bodies to say those things--that infanticide is OK, as long as the mother and the doctor agree that it is OK. And the children who just are not what we wanted them to be is a justification for terminating a pregnancy of a viable baby. But let's make no mistake about this; that is what we are saying if we do not override the President's veto. That will be the message to America, to the world, to children who have been so afflicted, and to mothers and fathers who have to make that decision. I think we are better than that. As Hank Brown, the Senator from Colorado, came down here and talked about his position on abortion, which is pro-choice, he said that this is the proper place to draw the line. That is all we are asking. Are there no more lines in this country? (Mr. SMITH assumed the chair.)

Mr. SANTORUM. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Utah.

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator's memory is accurate. I, in fact, discussed that article yesterday on the floor and entered it into the Record for anyone who would like to see it, as well as other articles from physicians concerning this. Yesterday, a columnist, Richard Cohen--who is pro-choice and liberal, and who wrote an article a year ago supporting partial-birth abortions--wrote an article saying he was wrong, that what he was told by the pro-choice establishment here in Washington, the special interest establishment, was incorrect. He did not say this, but I will say it for him. They lied to him, or they deliberately misled him, based on an incomplete presentation of the facts. But in either case, he did not have all the information. He admits that he still doesn't have all the information as to how many of these procedures are done and when they are done. But what we do know is that that argument by Members who oppose this bill, who want to continue this procedure to be legal, no longer exists. Those who stood and said, well, this is a very rare procedure that is only used to protect the life of the mother--I can refer you to speaker after speaker in the Congressional Record of last week in the House who defended this procedure, who got up and said, ``But, Mr. Speaker, we have to do this to protect the life of the mother.'' Well, we have all sorts of medical testimony that that is not the case, No. 1. No. 2, even if it were the case, the bill provides an exception for the life of the mother.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to continue the deliberation here in the Senate of the issue of partial-birth abortions. We have had a discussion over the past several days in the Senate about this issue. I think it is good that we continue the debate. I have asked for a time agreement for tomorrow, and I hope we can get that, from 9 to 2 tomorrow morning and into tomorrow afternoon, and then a vote at 2 o'clock. I know that is being hot-lined right now. I do not know if there has been any objection to that. But I think 5 hours of debate is a reasonable period of time for both sides to get the opportunity to put forward their views on this issue. I think, while we have had some debate, and maybe we will even have some more debate today, I think this is such an important issue that that kind of time is necessary to really have the Senate work its will, for it to be a deliberative process and a deliberative decision based on all the information. As I said yesterday, there is a tremendous amount of information, frankly even still coming out, about this issue and about the number of these procedures that are performed in this country. I think it is important for all Senators to realize exactly what we are voting on here and its impact, as I said yesterday, not only on what we will tolerate as a country, what lines we will draw as to what is permissible in our society, in our civilization, but what it will say about the quality of life in our country. While I was sitting here listening to some of the remarks, I thought about what I read last night in the House debate. Member after Member got up and talked about: Well, you know, we are talking about deformed fetuses--I will talk about that later in my remarks--deformed fetuses, as if, because they are not perfect, they are expendable. I found it sort of ironic that the very people in the House of Representatives who stood up and gave as a rationale for allowing late-term abortions a deformity of a fetus, in many cases--in fact, in most of the cases described by the testimony--not fatal deformities but just deformities, those people who say that a mother can abort a baby because of that deformity are the same people who get up with passion--and I admire the passion--who fight for the Americans With Disabilities Act because they believe people with disabilities can, in fact, contribute to our society and who argue for IDEA because they believe children with mental difficulties or physical disabilities can, in fact, contribute to the educational process of all children. Yet, when it comes to the very initial right--not the right to go to school, not the right to have a curb cut so your wheelchair can get from street to street, but the right to live, the right to be a citizen of this country--that is where they draw the line; that that is not an issue worth fighting for; that that disability is somehow so great that it is not worth fighting to protect that disabled child from being delivered through this procedure feet first, completely delivered up to the head. The only thing remaining in the birth canal is the baby's head. A pair of scissors is taken and punctures the base of the skull. A catheter is then inserted into the brain and the brains are suctioned out. That brutal, gruesome, barbaric procedure administered to a baby from 20, 21 weeks on; in some cases, third trimester abortions, late third trimester abortions in some cases. That is OK, because the baby isn't perfect. Fortunately, in the House of Representatives, many Members who voted against this piece of legislation to ban this procedure had second thoughts, gathered more information, listened to the testimony that was given, listened to the new findings which I talked about yesterday in Richard Cohen's article in the Washington Post where he said when he wrote his original article back in June of last year, ``I was under the understanding that late-term abortions were rare and they were only for health and life of the mother reasons, or that the child to be born would have no chance of surviving. But I find that is not the case,'' he says. He cited an article written by a colleague of his, a physician at the Washington Post, Dr. Brown. We have another article written by a woman with the Bergen County Record who said that in New Jersey alone this late-term abortion procedure done, in many cases, on viable babies at 24 weeks and older are not 500 a year, as some of the pro-choice lobbyists would have you believe, like Planned Parenthood and others who conveniently don't keep close track of these things, but 1,500 a year, just in one particular area of New Jersey alone--1,500 a year. That fact was not known when the Senate first deliberated. It was an important fact that caused the change of opinion of one Member that was written about by Cal Thomas today in the Washington Times, Marge Roukema. I served with Marge during the 4 years I was in the House. Marge is a pro-choice moderate Republican from New Jersey. Quoting Mr. Thomas: Representative Marge Roukema, a pro-choice moderate Republican from New Jersey, decided that instead of voting in lock-step with the rest of her pro-choice colleagues, she would go beyond the sloganeering and the sound bites. Though Mrs. Roukema voted against the original bill banning partial- birth abortion--a procedure in which a fully formed baby is delivered feet first-- Scissors inserted in the head and the brains sucked out-- she switched sides and voted to override President Clinton's veto of the measure. The reasons Mrs. Roukema gave for her change were as honest as they were profound. She said her concerns about protecting the mother's life had been answered-- In fact, there is a provision in the bill that was inserted by Senator Dole when the bill came through that this procedure would still be permitted if it were necessary to save the life of the mother putting the lie to pro-choicers' charges that the bill would jeopardize women's lives. She also said she was satisfied that doctors would not be prosecuted if the procedure were performed in dire circumstances. Mrs. Roukema said, ``Over time, I've been reading about this and informing myself. It's a decision that was very difficult to make, but I decided (partial-birth abortion) comes too close to infanticide.'' She took the time to weigh the facts. As I said yesterday, I have a tremendous amount of faith--a tremendous amount of faith--in the U.S. Senate and its deliberative capabilities, and I have faith in every one of the Members here who will not be blinded or blocked into a position because they are pro-choice or pro-life. This is not a pro-life, pro-choice issue. This is an issue about a procedure that is so barbaric and inhumane that if it were performed on an animal, we would be hearing the animal rights activists storming the Capitol today. If it were performed in another country, the human rights people would be saying we should have trade sanctions against them until they stop it. And yet it is performed in this country thousands of times and in many, many cases, as I quoted yesterday from the doctors in the Bergen County Record, in most cases on healthy babies, healthy pregnancies, and healthy women who had no problem with their pregnancy but was purely elective. Other Members who are pro-choice stood up and took a very difficult position in support of the override of the President's veto. I give them a lot of credit for doing so, because it is not easy to stand up and draw a line. One such person was a Member from across the river, Mr. Moran, who I was elected with when I first came to the House of Representatives back in 1990. I will quote from his statement on the floor of the House just last week: Mr. Speaker, I am very hesitant to speak on this issue. I share with Mr. Moran that I was very hesitant to speak on this issue. I had been a Member of the House for 4 years and have been a Member of the Senate for 2 years. Never once, prior to this issue, did I ever speak on the issue of abortion. I have talked to several of my colleagues over the past few days, now that I have stood here talking about this and they, too, have told me, ``You know, Rick, I've never spoken on the floor of the Senate on this issue, but I feel compelled to do it this time.'' So I give credit to Mr. Moran, a Democrat, pro- choice. Continuing his talk: For one thing, I have been associated with the pro-choice side throughout my legislative career, and I do believe that when the issue of abortion is considered, it really ought not to be a legislative issue; it ought to be a personal decision by a woman with the advice of her physician, within the context of her religion and family. I do not believe that this issue falls within that rubric, within that context of decisionmaking. He then says he agrees with Roe versus Wade and describes the decision of Roe versus Wade. I will continuing quoting: What we are talking about now, though, goes beyond that third trimester. We are talking about the delivery of a fetus clearly in the shape and with the functions of a human being. And when that human being is delivered in the birth canal, it cannot be masked as anything but a human being. We should not act in any legislative way that sanctions the termination of that life. And that is why I urge my colleagues to vote to override the President's veto of this legislation. I know that is not an easy thing to do. I know it is not easy to get up and talk about those issues. What I also know is I know it is not easy for people to listen to talk about this issue. One of the things that I think probably led me not to speak so much-- not so much--at all on the floor of the U.S. Senate about this issue is because it is so uncomfortable to talk about. I was assailed yesterday by one of my colleagues saying, ``Well, you never delivered a child, and so you really don't know what it's like, and you really don't have any standing to talk about it.'' It is true I never delivered a child, but I have been there for the three deliveries of my children with my wife Karen, and I saw those children born. I had the privilege of cutting the umbilical cord in all three cases and holding that little, vulnerable baby. Two of our children were born premature. We are lucky enough to have a fourth child on the way, and we follow the growth and development of that child. No, I have never had a baby, but I am a father who understands what life is about. So while I may not have the standing that some in this Chamber believe I should have, I think I have every right to stand up for those children as a father, as a citizen, and as a Senator. So I will continue to do so. This is a difficult issue because it pushes us to the edge and makes us so uncomfortable to think about a viable baby, not a blob of tissue an inch long, not a little embryo, but a baby. My wife--as I mentioned, we have three children--but my wife has had a lot more experience with babies than just our three children. For many years she was a neonatal intensive care nurse in Pittsburgh, PA. She worked in the NICU unit, level 3, which is the most severe level, with the babies that are having the toughest time surviving. She worked with 24-week-old babies. She even worked with a 23-week-old baby. She reminded me last night that the eyes were still fused on that baby. That baby is alive today. She said, yes, it is a struggle for those young babies. But they fought and they fought and they fought, so many of them, and they did survive. What this procedure does to those little babies, if we allow that to happen in this country--well, I hope we do not. The Senator from California yesterday said that we could get a bill agreed to here in the U.S. Senate just like that if we just had a provision that said, that in addition to protecting the life of the mother, that we added a section that said, ``to protect the health of the mother.'' I attempted to respond, but I sort of ran out of time. I would like to respond to that. I will assure the Senator from California that we could not get an agreement on that issue with Members who voted for this legislation. The reason is very simple. No. 1--and I will read for you physician after physician after physician who say that this procedure does not-- does not--protect the health of the mother. In fact, they would argue that in fact it greatly endangers the life of the mother, more so than other procedures, No. 1. No. 2, it also enhances the risk of infertility and the inability to carry a child to term. So even if you accept--I cannot accept the premise that there is a need for this procedure to save the health of the mother. It is in fact contradicted, and it is in fact more threatening to the health of the mother to do this procedure. So to say this procedure is necessary to do that puts forth a false assumption, and then you are asking me to agree to it. I cannot agree with something that is not true. Second, what we have seen repeatedly in this country is that health of the mother is in fact not a limitation at all; that health of the mother means, yes, physical health, but also mental health, social health in the sense that if it is a young girl who wants to have this procedure, that we have to worry about her social standing in order to allow this to happen, and financial health. Health has been broadly defined in this country to the point where it is not a limitation to a procedure at all. I think anyone who argues that fact knows fully well that it is not a limitation. So the underlying premise of the health exception is a faulty one. Secondly, health is not a limitation. So in either instance, I could not accept an amendment like that because, No. 1, it is not true, because the health is not endangered by doing some other procedure more than it is by doing this one, and, No. 2, it is not a limitation. Let me read from some obstetricians who have commented on this health issue and life issue. ``I can't think of any situation where you would have to carry out a specific, direct attack on the fetus,'' said Dr. James R. Jones in an April 19 interview at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in Manhattan. Dr. Jones is chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the New York Medical College in Valhallaran. . .and head of obstetrics and gynecology for the hospital. * * * * * ``Their intent is fetal death,'' Dr. Jones said. ``I can't imagine that being an indicated procedure for the saving of a life or well-being of the mother.'' He said it amounted to ``simply another elective abortion'' and was ``practically infanticide.'' In cases of special difficulty, obstetricians can always resort to Caesarean delivery, he said. Even if an obstetrician knows in a particular case that the baby is unlikely to live, he said, its death is not the intent and no direct action is taken to kill the baby. Dr. Nancy Roemer, who I know has testified before here, and in fact may have been up on the Hill today--I do not know that. I know there were some physicians up here again to try to educate Members of this body who are going to have to make this critical decision, possibly tomorrow afternoon, as to what the medical facts are, not some information thrown out there by advocacy groups attempting to influence the debate, like Planned Parenthood, who put out, ``Oh, there's only a few hundred of these done,'' when we find out the facts after the bill was passed and vetoed. The fact is, there are thousands of them done. In fact, as Richard Cohen said in his article in the Washington Post yesterday, nobody knows. Conveniently, those people who perform a lot of the abortions do not want to keep track of these kinds of abortions, do not want to keep track of late second-trimester and third-trimester abortions. It is inconvenient for their cause of trying to convince the American public that these abortions only occur when they are very early on, and we do not have a baby that looks like a baby. It is not really a baby. At 24 weeks, it is a baby. You can call it what you want, you can try to call it a choice, but it is a baby. I asked the Senator from California yesterday three times--and I really do not want to be combative. I really want the Senate to try to deliberate thoughtfully, to try to remove some of the emotion that always gets wrapped up in these debates, obviously, with reason. This is a very emotional subject. I asked her three times, and I will ask her again, because unfortunately she did not answer me any of the three times yesterday. I said, let me give you this set of facts: A partial- birth abortion is being performed--whether it is a normal baby, a perfect baby, or a baby that has some abnormalities--and you have a 24- week-old baby being delivered feet first, everything is delivered, the shoulders are then delivered, and by some mistake of the obstetrician, the head is also delivered. Would it be the choice of the mother and the obstetrician to then kill the baby? Now, I think most people within the sound of my voice would clearly say, ``No.'' But if you say no, if it is so obvious, and is it not obvious? Does it not just hit you? Of course not, of course not, absolutely not, not even a question that the doctor at that point, with a baby in its hand, and maybe just in one hand, moving, that that doctor could not kill that baby. Two or three inches, then, is the difference between what some would say, ``Of course not,'' to ``OK.'' Two inches before, ``OK,'' two inches later, ``Of course not.'' That is the line being drawn in this country now about life--about life. Is that the line that the U.S. Senate, this great deliberative body, this body that when I talk to people from other countries look at this place and see this country as something they aspire to, something they want to emulate, that we cannot get two-thirds of the men and women of this body to say that 2 inches is too close of a call, that that is too fine a line, that we have gone over the line about what is right in our society? I think we as a body can do that. I think we as a body can stand up and do the right thing. I think Members who have voted differently on this issue in the past can change their vote based on new information. Dr. Nancy Roemer said on the claim ``medical necessity'' that the President has invoked and Members on the other side have invoked, ``I am insulted to be told that I am tearing a woman's body apart by not doing this procedure.'' The ``tearing a woman's body apart'' line comes from a White House ceremony where the President vetoed this bill. ``As physicians, we can no longer stand by while abortion advocates, the President of the United States, the newspaper and television shows, continue to repeat false medical claims to Members of Congress and the public. This procedure is currently not an accepted medical procedure.'' The American Medical Association legislative counsel said it is not a recognized medical procedure. It is done in abortion clinics, as many of the doctors have said here, for the convenience of the person performing the abortion. A search of medical literature reveals no mention of this procedure, and there is no critically evaluated or peer review journal that describes this procedure. There is currently also no peer review or accountability of this procedure. It is currently being performed by a physician who is not an obstetrician. It is in an outpatient facility behind closed doors and no peer review. That is what Dr. Roemer says about the necessity for this procedure and the appropriateness of this procedure. Let me quote another physician who happens to also be a Member of Congress, and that is Dr. Coburn from Oklahoma, who spoke last week on the floor of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, I have spent the last 18 years of my life, including a great deal of time of the time 2 years while I have been in this Congress, caring for women who deliver babies. I personally have been involved in over 3,000 births that I attended. I have seen every complication and every anomaly that has been mentioned in this debate on partial- birth abortion. I am not standing here as someone who is pro-life. I am not standing here as someone that is a freshman Republican. I stand here today to make known to Members that they can vote against an override for only two reasons on this bill: One is that they are totally misinformed of the true medical facts; or that they are pro-abortion at any stage for any reason. The facts will bear this out. That is not meant to offend anybody. If someone feels that way, they should stand up and speak that truth. But this procedure, this procedure is designed to aid and abet the abortionist. There is no truth to the fact that this procedure protects the lives of women. There is no truth to the fact that this procedure preserves fertility. There is no truth to the fact that this procedure, in fact, is used on complicated anomalous conceptions. This procedure is used to terminate mid and late second-term pregnancies at the elective request of a woman who so desired--in some cases, I might add, third-trimester abortions. This has nothing to do with women's emotional health. This has to do with termination of an oftentimes viable child by a gruesome and heinous procedure. What we should hear from those who are going to vote against overriding this is that they agree, that they agree that this procedure is an adequate and expected procedure that should be used, and that it is all right to terminate the life of a 26-week fetus, that otherwise the physicians would be held liable under the courts of every State to not save its life should it be born spontaneously. This debate is not about the health of the women. This debate is about whether or not true facts are going to be discussed in this Chamber on the basis of knowledge and sound science, rather than a political end point that sacrifices children in this country. That is an obstetrician. I have a letter here signed by 4 obstetricians of an organization called PHACT, which is the Physician Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth. It lists scores and scores of OB/GYN'S, who are against this procedure--and speak in very graphic terms against this procedure--including 123 members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. They say the same thing: ``This procedure is not necessary to preserve health, fertility, or the life of a mother.'' I see the Senator from Oklahoma here. I have more things to say, but I have been on the floor for a while, and I want to give him an opportunity to speak. I will continue talking about this at a later time. I yield the floor. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

Mr. SANTORUM. I reclaim my time. I would like an answer. If I can, let me restate the question again, based on the information that has been read here and the facts that have been provided. You have the former Surgeon General of the United States who says this procedure is never medically necessary. You have an article that I will be reading from later, from a series, a group of gynecologists and obstetricians that say partial-birth abortion is bad medicine. You have some organizations who support--I think the American College of Gynecologists opposes the legislation, but not because they support partial-birth abortions. They do not recognize that as proper medical procedure. They do not like any criminalization of anything. They do not like to have doctors be subject to any kind of criminal complaints. That is why they are opposed to it. That is what they said in their letter to Congress. We should focus on the question. The fact of the matter is, we have sufficient evidence here that these are not medically necessary abortions. They are not to save the life of the mother. In fact, we have a provision in our bill, as the Senator knows, to make an exception for the life of the mother. They are not medically necessary. It is for the health of the mother. You have physician after physician after physician saying so. So talk about the facts. I ask this question--and I know the Senator would like to give a long answer and give a speech--but see if you can answer the question very succinctly.

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute.

Mr. SANTORUM. If a partial-birth abortion was being performed on this baby, and for some reason the head slipped out and the baby was delivered, which, in my understanding, is not unprecedented, would the doctor, in consultation with the mother, be able to choose to kill the baby?

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, after the Senator from California speaks, I will talk about the medical necessity for this procedure, and I will cite a group of physicians and other people, other physicians, who have written extensively on the fact that this procedure is never medically indicated. In fact, it is contraindicated. In fact, it is more dangerous to the mother to have one than to do other procedures that are not under the debate here in the Senate. I will get to that as soon as the Senator answers my question.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I will not read the entire article, but it is in the Record, and I do not think what I do read, which is most of the article, takes away from the meaning. He mentioned a case in his previous article in June of a woman who had an abortion and used that sort of to justify late-term abortions and particularly the partial-birth abortion procedure. He revisits that in the beginning of the article and says he still agreed this woman who did not have a partial-birth abortion but had a late-term abortion, was right to do so. But he said, ``What seemed justifiable to me last June, does not now.'' He said: I was led to believe that these late-term abortions were extremely rare and performed only when the life of the mother was in danger or the fetus irreparably deformed. You heard in the House of Representatives last week when they were debating this issue and you will hear over and over again from the advocates of partial-birth abortions that this is only done in extreme medical emergencies when fetuses have no chance of survival outside of the womb and that they are done very rarely. Mr. Cohen says: I was wrong. I didn't know at the time, of course, and maybe the people who supplied my data, the usual pro-choice groups * * *

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, while my colleague from California was on the floor I didn't get a chance to hear her, and much of what she said was in response to my question--and I use that term loosely because, in what I heard, she did not respond to the question. My question is a very simple question. The question, obviously, needs to be asked and, hopefully, at some point someone will answer me. That is, what will be the position of innocence if, in the performance of this procedure where the baby is delivered feet first, this birth canal, the entire baby's arms and legs, torso, are outside of the mother's womb completely, arms and legs moving outside the mother, all that is left in is the head, that is, when this procedure is performed and the baby is then killed, what if--which is not unknown from what I understand-- if, for some reason, when the shoulders were delivered the head were accidentally delivered, will the mother and the physician then have a right to choose whether that baby lives or not? Or, would they be responsible--would the physician have to do something to keep the baby alive, since it is now completely outside the mother? I understand the Senator from California went in, started talking about when the procedure should be used, and certain facilities, and all the things that could happen as a result of not using this procedure, talked about Roe versus Wade, but did not answer the question as to whether it was still the woman's right to choose at that point. Since she wanted to have the abortion, whether it would still be the woman's right to terminate that pregnancy? She defends the procedure, but she does not answer the question, and I will ask that question again, as I will be on the floor for some time. I will ask that question again of the Senator from California or anybody else who wants to defend this procedure being used on a 24-week-old or 30-week- old baby. The Senator from California talked about this procedure as medically necessary to stop--to prohibit infertility or if it is more dangerous because it could cause paralysis, and all of these medical-health reasons why this procedure should be performed. Let me read to you some information from a group of physicians. They call themselves FACT, Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth. The first quote is from a doctor, Nancy Romer, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Miami Valley Hospital, in Ohio. People deserve to know, ``partial-birth abortion is never medically indicated to protect a woman's health or her fertility.'' ``Never medically indicated.'' The Senator from California talked about how the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support this procedure. You hear this often, how ACOG, which is how they go, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have come out in opposition to the bill and support partial-birth abortions. That is only half true. They have opposed this bill. I will read to you the letter. I have a copy of the letter sent to the Speaker of the House dated last week: Dear Mr. Speaker: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an organization representing more than 37,000 physicians dedicated to improving women's health care, does not support H.R. 1833, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995. The College finds very disturbing that Congress would take any action that would supersede the medical judgment of trained physicians and criminalize medical procedures that may be necessary to save the life of a woman. Moreover, in defining what medical procedures doctors may not perform, H.R. 1833 employs terminology that is not even recognized in the medical community--demonstrating why Congressional opinion should never be substituted for professional medical judgment. For these reasons we urge to you oppose the veto override. . . . They do not support this procedure. What is very clear in this letter, to me, and I think to everyone who reads it, is they do not like having procedures criminalized. They do not want any doctor procedure criminalized. They want the doctor, basically, to have the say what kind of procedures they perform, if any. I would ask the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists-- and they will give me an answer. I guarantee you, in fact we will write them a letter today and fax it over: If this procedure was done and the baby's head slipped out, would the obstetrician be allowed to kill the baby? If they would be so kind as to respond to that I will send the letter, if necessary. But I would suspect the answer would be pretty clear: No. No. I do not know if we will get that answer from anybody on the other side.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague from Ohio for his statement and for the tremendous amount of work he has done on this issue from the committee level through passage in the Senate, and here he is back again. I can tell you that those of us who have spoken on this issue do not relish the opportunity to do so. It is a very difficult issue. It is a very tough issue to talk about. And Senator DeWine has eight children. I have three children. My wife and I are expecting our fourth in March. We know how very serious this issue is. And we very much believe that in this case, on this issue, this is an issue of the life and death of a little baby. And we think it is important for us to stand up and say something about it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be given 20 minutes to speak on this issue.