Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I associate myself with the remarks of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. I thank my colleagues for allowing the vote to go forward on this very distinguished individual.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. And I thank the Senator from Texas. Having reflected on this debate on Iraq and postwar Iraq, a lot of what I am hearing--the rhetoric I am hearing about this administration not having a plan, this administration not preparing for all the contingencies, this administration not having an exit strategy or an end strategy--reminds me of a couple of things. No. 1, it reminds me about the same people making the same criticism about the same administration about a month into the war that the generals didn't consider all the different problems they were going to confront, they didn't have a plan, didn't have an exit strategy, et cetera--and then 2 weeks later the war was over. I am not suggesting that 2 weeks from now everything in Iraq is going to be settled, but this idea that every contingency had to be considered is ridiculous. No one is smart enough anywhere to consider every contingency. What you are smart enough to do is put a basic game plan in place, and then, as things develop, have that game plan flexible enough to adjust and meet those contingencies. It is exactly what Tommy Franks did when he put the game plan together for the war in Iraq. As things changed and developed, as new things came up, they adjusted. It is exactly what is going on with Jerry Bremer over in Iraq today. I also harken back to postwar Germany after World War II. A lot of analogies are being made by both sides about the importance of this reconstruction of Iraq as was the reconstruction of the Axis powers after World War II. I remind my colleagues that this plan Truman gets a lot of credit for, Marshall gets a lot of credit for, was not in place until 2 years--2 years--after Germany fell. It was not passed in the Congress until 3 years after Germany fell. I remind my colleagues of some of the comments some Members of this body made and some Members of the House made back then. A House Member, a Mr. Vursell, from Illinois, said--this is in the Congressional Record-- There is little question in my mind but that the launching of the Marshall plan asking 16 nations to gather in conference and determine how much aid they needed from the United States was a colossal blunder in the very beginning. Does this sound familiar--``a colossal blunder''? He said: It will be less disastrous to this country if the Members of this Congress will now take over and have the courage to try to salvage what we can in the interest of our Government and the [American] people. Now you are hearing the same thing today. History proved that great leadership and great vision have their place in the world. Sometimes Members of Congress, with very narrow vision and very parochial interests, don't necessarily do what is in the best interest of the Nation or the best interest of the world. What the President is doing is providing true leadership at a time when leadership is at a premium. He provided in the Iraq war a great plan. He stuck to it in spite of criticism and followed that plan to its successful conclusion. There were speeches in the Senate, both sides of the aisle, about how difficult not the war was going to be but how difficult postwar Iraq was going to be, that it would be the difficult and long challenge. Yet here we are a few months afterwards and we are already carping, saying it is not finished, it has not been accomplished. Yet by every measure, we are doing much better in postwar Iraq than they did with the most successful reconstruction plan in the history of the world, the Marshall plan. We are moving forward with economic reforms, currency reforms, banking reforms, money to be put in to restore their infrastructure at a much faster and more effective rate than what occurred after World War II. This is a plan that needs time to work. I understand the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle. Thankfully, in 1947 they didn't have that. But we have it today. And so the need is always immediate. There can be no room for delay or failure. We are in a push-button world, and we have to solve the problems today.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I want to make sure the record is straight. I do not believe the Senator from New Hampshire used the word ``privatization.'' My colleagues will not hear me use the term ``privatization.'' Privatization intimates to the American public that we are going to abandon the current Social Security system and turn it over to completely private accounts, which is not what any proposal on this side of the aisle or what the President's commission suggested. What the President's commission suggested, what every bill over on this side of the aisle proposes--and, by the way, joined in a bipartisan fashion and has historically been a bipartisan issue--is to take a portion of the contribution that comes into the Social Security Administration and give people the option voluntarily to establish a personal retirement account to be part of their Social Security benefit which continues to be guaranteed as it is, as much as it is, under current law. So let's understand that we are still talking about the foundation of this system being the same. What we are talking about is trying to solve the problem, a problem that my two colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not address. They talked about the criticisms of the personal retirement account option for people to help finance the shortfall in Social Security, that $25 trillion shortfall. They did not propose one solution as to how to do that. We have proposed a solution that uses the power of the market, which uses individual choice. If my colleagues want to talk about guarantees, ask the people back in 1978 and 1984, after the 1977 and 1983 changes in Social Security, whether that benefit is guaranteed. In both 1977 and 1983 benefits were reduced. So this idea that there is some guarantee out there is only as good as the next Congress's vote. The real guarantee is ownership. One owns that money in their account. That is a private property right that is now not subject to the whim of the next Congress to take away from an individual. So what we are doing is giving real guarantees, real security to Social Security, No. 1. No. 2, this idea that if we don't do anything, things will be fine? I hold up a comment by David Walker before the Aging Committee in the Senate. He said: Taking action now on Social Security would not only promote increased budget flexibility in the future and stronger economic growth but would also make less dramatic action necessary than if we wait. Waiting is not an option. There are three things we can do to fix the Social Security shortfall. No. 1, raise taxes; No. 2, cut benefits; No. 3, grow through investment and thereby make up the shortfall. Those are the three options. Senator Sununu and I think most Republicans, and some Democrats, thankfully, have said we prefer option 3. By the way, this debate has been around a while, as the Senators have suggested. One of the issues is, Do we include people who are not now in Social Security in Social Security, like teachers, local government employees, State employees who are now exempt? They are vehemently against losing their investment-based Social Security system if they have to trade it for a pay-as-you-go, promise-from- politicians system that we have. If it is such a bad system, then why do all the people who have an investment-based system, at least in part, not want to be in this other system? The reason is because it works. Every other pension system in this country is based on that. And virtually every other pension system, Social Security system in the world, has some component of private investment. We will be--I underscore ``will'' because I think it will eventually happen--the last to do this. But we should not wait because waiting costs. The longer we wait, the deeper the cuts in benefits that will have to be made if we do not go the personal retirement route, or the higher the taxes must go, again, if we do not come up with another method to solve this problem. I want to put up a chart from Senator Moynihan. I heard talk that somehow or another, if this money is put aside, we are robbing money from the Social Security system. I have a couple of comments on that. No. 1, the Social Security actuaries say: If the personal accounts are considered as part of Social Security, it is reasonable to combine the amounts of the trust fund assets and the personal accounts for representation of the total system. So when the Senator from New Jersey said you are taking this money out of the system, you are not actually taking the money out. Actuaries say you actually should include it as part of it since it is going to pay benefits. The Senator from New York said: Critics charge that establishing personal savings accounts would turn Social Security over to Wall Street. Dock workers would become day traders. A market downturn could wipe out benefits. The latter charge is obscene. The present progressive retirement benefit would remain. That is the point I was making before. We are not eliminating the base Social Security Program. We are enhancing it, we are stabilizing it, and we are better securing it through investment. There is no occasion to touch it. Not one proposal the President has put forward or one proposal put forward on this side of the aisle, in a bipartisan fashion I might add, does anything to undermine the basic Social Security system. It is, in fact, a response to shore it up, to make it stronger, and to make it secure and guaranteed for future generations. That is why we so strongly believe in it. I yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is a very good question.

Mr. SANTORUM. I assume what the Senator is referring to is the proposal by the administration to use price indexing versus wage indexing. Is that correct?

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues for this debate and appreciate the opportunity to talk about this very important issue in a way that talks about the bigger issues of the day. I thank them for their engagement on this issue. I end my part of this debate by going back to someone who is not necessarily a great favorite of mine but someone who knew a little bit about the Social Security system, and that is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was adamant--adamant--that we have a funded Social Security system. He did not agree with the pay-as-you-go system that was adopted in the late 1930s. In fact, his Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, said that he--``he'' being FDR--described building such a system, a pay-as-you-go system--which is the system today--as ``immoral,'' immoral because he understood that a pay-as-you-go system would pile up obligations on future generations of taxpayers. That is exactly what is going on. Back in 1940, there were 40 workers for every 1 beneficiary. Today, there are 3.4 workers for every 1 beneficiary. In 20 years, there will be less than 2 workers for every 1 beneficiary. This system is becoming more and more and more inequitable. Franklin Roosevelt was right when he said such a system is immoral. A moral system, which every other retirement system in America is funded upon, is a funded system, a system that says you will contribute so much, invest that money and have that money funded--real assets to pay benefits, not taxing future generations for accrued benefits of someone in the past. We are in a system that has what I described. We will keep that system forever. But we should at least have a partially funded system that has some buildup of equities to be able to pay benefits for future generations. That is what we are trying to do. It is a more moral system. It is a better and more equitable system. Considering the changes in demographics that we have going on in this country, it is one that is necessary to avoid big cuts in benefits or big tax increases. It is the fairest, most equitable, just way--most moral way, according to Franklin Roosevelt--and we should adopt it.

Mr. SANTORUM. Maybe I am confused. When the Senator says what change would then occur, my guess is--I am confused by the question.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I reiterate the first question which the Senator from New Hampshire offered, which is, What specific plans are out there? But I am not sure we are going to get an answer to that tonight. I will go to a second question. We hear a lot, as I mentioned in my remarks, about their guarantee, and I know both Senators know about the Fleming v. Nestor case in 1960--a U.S. Supreme Court case that said that Social Security benefits are not guaranteed. You do not have a private property right to Social Security benefits. It is a political promise. We saw evidence of that in 1977 and 1983 with those amendments to the Social Security Act which reduced benefits. So we are talking about this great guarantee, this incredible, infallible promise. Yet we have seen cuts in Social Security by previous Congresses. My question is, Can the Senator tell me that the 1977 and the 1983 amendments are not examples of what you would call a guaranteed benefit and how those reductions in benefits square with you telling the American public that there is a guaranteed benefit?

Mr. SANTORUM. This question always hearkens me back to a commercial which dates me a little bit. It was Fram Oil Filters. The question was: Pay me now or pay me later? The issue is, and the issue that, again, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle fail to address, and that is there is an unfunded liability here. How are we going to make it up? The question is, What is the best way to guarantee that for future generations? What I believe is, by allowing individuals to put money into accounts which they own, which increase in value, we will secure that system to the future. Does that mean coming up with more money now to secure the system later? Yes. But if you don't do that, you are going to pay much more later. So the question is, Pay me now--do it in a way that is progressive in the sense that individuals own money and have control of that investment, have real guarantees because it is their money--or pay me later, on a promise that my benefits will not be cut, which they will have to be, or taxes will not increase, which they will be.

Mr. SANTORUM. First, I say again what we are talking about here with this thrift savings model--and I know many have been critical of that. It was stated that administrative costs would eat up the benefit. The administrative costs on Thrift Savings was .05 percent, .07--only 50 cents on every $1,000 investment. So it will not eat up the benefits of investment. That is No. 1. It can be done in a way that makes sense from the market return point of view. The question the Senator from New Jersey poses is, How are we going to finance this? Again, the cost of not doing something is much larger than the cost of doing something. The Senator has said he would increase taxes. I suggest that is certainly not an option I support. But I certainly respect the Senator from New Jersey for coming forward and saying we can solve this problem by increasing taxes. The Senator suggests we increase taxes on things having nothing to do with Social Security, which would separate the covenant we have had, that Franklin Roosevelt put forward, that the contribution would somehow tie directly to the benefit you receive. So we will finance Social Security with things outside of Social Security. I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting we will finance the shortfall through allowing people to take a portion of what is already being paid. If we did it immediately, we could put a little over 2 percent into personal retirement accounts and it would not affect anything. We have a surplus right now big enough to finance 2 or 3 percent of benefits going to that account. And over time, yes, we would have to come up with a mechanism in the short term to finance that 2 or 3 percent, whatever we put aside. Again, that would grow, so we would not have to do so over the long time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized for 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Only two-thirds of that $900--$600--is funded under the system we have right now. Three hundred dollars of that benefit--in other words, two-thirds of that benefit--over the course of the next 75 years is going to be funded. So the question is, How are you going to make up this difference? We have put forth a plan that reduces that unfunded liability, that makes up that gap substantially. If we were to do one of the plans, it makes it up completely. So I suggest that we have plans on the table on how you get there. What we have not heard from the other side is how they get there. We have heard about the Bush tax cut. Are you suggesting we should increase taxes? What taxes do you want to increase to pay for these benefits? Are you suggesting that you don't want to increase taxes but somehow you want to reduce benefits? What benefits are we going to reduce to pay for this? But the fact is, you can't say to folks, It would cost this much--and it is not costing anything because all of the money stays in the system--to do their personal retirement account. The question is, How do you make up the difference? Again, no answer and no ideas. We can do this or we can make up the difference or we will make sure the guarantee is good--but no plan and no ideas and no honesty to the American public as to what the particular solution is to solve this problem. We have been courageous enough and bold enough to put forward a plan which, by the way, looks remarkably, in part, like the Thrift Savings Plan. Over these last few years, as bad as the market was, I didn't hear any Member of Congress or anybody else say we will abolish the Thrift Savings Plan. A diversified and balanced fund leads to good, long-term, stable investments over time. That is what we are talking about. If it is good enough for Federal employees, it should be good enough for Social Security recipients.

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Illinois mentioned the British system. The Senator from Illinois knows that the current Prime Minister of Britain, who is not a Conservative-Republican but a Labor-Democrat, if you will, has suggested expanding the personal retirement accounts in Britain, saying they have learned from their mistakes, the system has been improved and reformed, and he wants to expand the system to create more opportunities. Just recently--in the last couple of years--Sweden--that conservative bastion in Scandinavia--has gone to personal retirement accounts. Most European companies have done so. Almost all of the South American countries have done so. Russia and China are going in that direction. The rest of the developed world has recognized the power of the market as a reliable tool to finance long-term commitments for retirement. Not here in America. Now, that is not a surprise because when we adopted Social Security in the late 1930s, we were one of the last to do so. I ask the Senator who asked the question, if it is good enough for the rest of the world, why isn't it good enough for us?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, September 23. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business for 60 minutes, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the minority leader or his designee and the remaining 30 minutes under the control of Senator Hutchison or her designee, provided that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2691, the Interior appropriations bill, as provided under the previous order. I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. for the weekly party lunches.

Mr. SANTORUM

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

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. For the information of all Senators, tomorrow following morning business, the Senate will resume debate on H.R. 2691, the Interior appropriations bill. Under a previous order, the Senate will vote on or in relation to the Daschle amendment No. 1734 regarding Indian health care. The vote in relation to the Daschle amendment will be the first vote of tomorrow's session. For the remainder of the day, the Senate will continue to work through amendments to the Interior appropriations bill. There are several pending amendments that will require votes, and several Senators have indicated they will offer additional amendments. On behalf of the leader, I encourage all Senators who wish to offer an amendment to contact the bill managers as soon as possible. It is the leader's intention to complete action on the Interior appropriations bill during tomorrow's session. Therefore, Senators should expect rollcall votes throughout the day and into the evening tomorrow.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANTORUM. I don't know. We will discuss it with the leader.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. In how many States in 1972 were abortions illegal?

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SANTORUM. I appreciate the basic disagreement. I think we are allowed to disagree on our opinions. We are not allowed to argue and disagree with the facts. The facts are what they are. This is from the Centers for Disease Control. These are numbers out of the abstract. I will be happy to give them to the Senator. But these are from the National Center for Health Statistics of the Department of HEW. This was in 1975, so that is from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare at the time. These were the official statistics of the United States. Again, I am not challenging the remarks of the Senator that every life is important. But I think presenting accurate evidence is also important if we are going to have a discussion about what the case was. Let's look at the case of abortion-related deaths. In 1942 there were 1,231; total maternal deaths were 7,267. Every single year, without fail, every single year, the total number of maternal deaths went down because medicine improved. The total number of abortion-related deaths went down. Why? Every year, I believe, without fail--there are 1 or 2 years where it popped back up and dropped back down--it went down almost in a direct line and was continuing to go down. So the idea that Roe v. Wade is saving even--in 1973 there were 36. The bottom line is that very few--given the number of pregnancies that were occurring in those years--very few women died as a result of ``botched'' abortions. The idea that thousands and thousands were--well, I will quote for you Bernard Nathanson, who was an abortion doctor at that time. He says: How many deaths are we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL [that's the National Abortion Rights Action League] we generally emphasize the drama of the individual case. You heard the Senator from California come back when I said the statistics are wrong. We talk about the individual case, not the mass statistics. But when we spoke about the latter it was always 5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year. I confess I knew these figures were totally false and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think about it. But in the morality of our revolution it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The bottom line is we are making a policy decision based on, hopefully, factual evidence. I want to make that clear. A couple of other things about what the Senator from California said and last night the Senator from Iowa said, that a majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. Maybe if you asked the question, ``Do you support Roe v. Wade?'' a majority of Americans would say, ``Yes, it is the law of the land.'' Most people, if it is the law, generally comply with the law and so most people say it is probably fine, although if you describe what the law is without saying it is Roe v. Wade and ask if they agree, you find that a majority of Americans do not agree with Roe v. Wade. In fact, there was a study done a couple of months ago by the Center for the Advancement of Women. Faye Wattleton, a very well known abortion rights advocate, formerly affiliated with Planned Parenthood-- I believe the head of Planned Parenthood--instituted a study this summer, and they asked the question about abortion to women--not to men, to women. They found that 17 percent of women in America--this is a pro-choice group--17 percent of women in America said abortion should be banned, period--never legal. Another 34 percent said it should be against the law except in the case of rape, incest, and life of the mother. If you add 17 and 34--I will get one of the pages to add that up for me--it is 51; 51 percent of American women are either against abortion, period, or only in the case of rape, incest, and life of the mother, which if you ask people in this Chamber if you are against abortion except in the case of rape, incest, and life of the mother, you are considered pro-life. Most people in this Chamber who are pro- life are for the exception of rape, incest, and life of the mother. So the majority of American women, according to an abortion rights group--who, by the way, described the results of this as ``disappointing''--don't agree with Roe v. Wade. A majority of American women do not agree. Let me broaden that even further. They asked this question, as an option: It should be available but under stricter limits than now. In other words, it should be less available than Roe v. Wade allows. Add another 17 percent to that. Now we are up to 68 percent of women in this country who believe Roe v. Wade is wrong; 68 percent of women disagree with Roe v. Wade. Now, the fourth category was: It should be generally available to those who want it. This is a very tricky thing. It should be generally available. It did not say, it should be what Roe v. Wade is, the law: It shall be available for any reason at any time. That is what Roe v. Wade is. This idea that this is a moderate, reasonable provision, Roe v. Wade, is nonsense. Roe v. Wade and its subsequent decisions have established an absolute right to an abortion at any point in time. The Senator from California says the State can prohibit abortions, late-term abortions. I asked the Senator, and I have asked her more than once in these debates, and today--she has not provided any evidence--I asked her to give me one example where an abortion was stopped in this country under Roe v. Wade, an example where someone wanted an abortion and, because of the Supreme Court decisions, was barred. It does not happen. Why? The Senator says, well, there is this health exception that is very important. There always has to be a health exception. Look at the Supreme Court cases that define what a health exception is. According to Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, health means any health: Mental health, physical health, economic health, stress, distress. Anything that could possibly affect mental or physical health is a health exception. What does that mean? This is an exception that swallows the rule. The health exception means that abortion is legal, period, up until the moment that the child is completely separated. The point of the partial-birth abortion debate is the child is all but separated. The child is completely delivered except for the head. And you do not believe Roe v. Wade is extreme? Under Roe v. Wade, this Supreme Court said that 3 inches from separation still is covered by Roe v. Wade. At 38 weeks, 3 inches from being born, you can still kill your child. It was interesting, when the Senator from California went through the different options a woman has. She said you can deliver your child and take it home, you can deliver your child and give it up for adoption, or you can terminate the pregnancy. She did not say--she used the term ``child'' in the first two instances, but in the third instance it is ``terminated pregnancy,'' as if the child does not exist. The third option is to kill your child. That is the option. It is very stark. It sounds rather cold, chilly, but it is. In the extreme nature of Roe v. Wade, if really known by the American public, these numbers I have been reading would be even higher--this 30 percent that says it should be generally available. If you ask the question, Should it be available for all circumstances at any time up to the moment of separation, including up to 39\1/2\ weeks, I daresay the number of people who would be supportive of Roe v. Wade, which is the law, would be in the very low double digits and, I would hope, single digits. But I don't know that. I have not seen any polling on that because no pollster asks the question of what the law really is. They put it in fuzzy terms to gather more people. But even with this fuzzy language, even written in a way for the pro-choice groups to get the best number they possibly can, two-thirds of the American people oppose Roe v. Wade. I find it remarkable the Senator from Iowa last night got up and called my opposition to this extreme when two-thirds--I said of people, two-thirds of American women--say what the Senator from Iowa is doing is extreme, is wrong, is not what they believe. He does not represent them. His extreme views--and they are extreme, not by my definition, not by my morality, not by my theology, but looking at what the American public believes. Extreme means out of the mainstream, on the edge. If you look at the polling data now on abortion, Roe v. Wade is on the edge; it is not where the American public is. One of the reasons for that, I happen to believe, is medical science. I saw a TV commercial the other day of what I think is called the 4-D sonogram, where you can actually see these 3- or 4-D images--I don't know what they are--but color images of a child in the womb. I saw an article in the paper talking about how they can see a baby in the womb smile and have facial expressions. It gave rise to a study or discussion as to whether children of the womb feel pain, or how much. It is very hard for the American public--and I know this is a battle that people usually internalize, and most people do not talk about abortion--when they see those images, see this little baby in the womb. There is a commercial. It is a GE commercial, and I thank them for the courage to run the commercial. I know it was incredible the amount of heat they got. From whom? From these organizations that call themselves women's rights organizations, pressuring General Electric to pull the ad. These are women's rights organizations that don't want women to know what is going on within their own body, but they are women's rights organizations. They want to hide facts from the very people they want to, ``give rights to.'' They don't want them to see. They want to keep the deception to the very people whose rights they say they are protecting. But General Electric, to their credit, kept the ad about this incredible new technology. At the end of the ad, you see this closeup of this baby in the womb--this little face--and then it dissolves into the face of the baby, subsequently, after the baby is born--the same face. It is not a different baby. It is not one baby in the womb and another baby in its mother's arms a couple months later. It is the same baby. But the other side, the ``women's rights'' organizations, don't want you to know that. They don't want you to see that. They don't want you to understand what abortion is. The reason I have been so passionate about the issue of partial-birth abortion is because, for a long time in this country, the whole debate about abortion was about the rights of women only--only. You never saw the baby because in an abortion, you do not see the baby. In partial- birth abortion, you cannot miss the baby. It is a baby. It is moving. This baby would otherwise be born alive because of the late-term nature of when these abortions are done. We are being called extreme because we do not want to allow a procedure which allows the baby--who would otherwise be born alive, who in 99 percent of the cases is healthy, with a healthy mother--to be delivered in a breach position, and have a pair of scissors thrust into the back of the baby's head, when they are literally inches away from being born? We are extreme if we want to stop that? George Orwell, in 1984, could not have thought we could twist the English language so much that such horrendous actions would be twisted to somehow we would be the extremists in trying to defend the rights of these little children not to be treated in such a horrible fashion. No. No. We are going to proceed. And we are going to proceed with this debate on the motion to disagree with House amendments. And I make a request of every one of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to vote to disagree with the House amendment. Why? Because that is the way you get to conference. This is a procedural motion. I never, in my 9 years, recall that we ever had a debate about what is strictly a procedural motion to go to conference. But some point is trying to be made, which, frankly, escapes me, that somehow if we vote for the disagreement, somehow we are arguing that we are for the Senate version versus the House version. What we are for is a bill that will be passed by both Chambers and signed by the President, and that will be the original contents of S. 3, which I suspect will pass here and pass, hopefully, by a very large margin. I want to go through some of the points the Senator from California made. She talks about the medical evidence, and she put a chart up of all of the things that could go wrong with a woman in the cases of not having a partial-birth abortion available. I think we just need to review the facts. Again, you are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. Five thousand people dying from abortion prior to Roe v. Wade a year--factually incorrect, unsupportable. We have people who were involved in the movement, as I commented earlier, who said they made up the number. Yet 30 years later, they are still using the number in spite of the National Center for Health Statistics, the Federal agency at the time that was responsible for keeping track of the number of maternal deaths, deaths of mothers due to abortion, saying--actually, there were two organizations. One was the Center for Disease Control. They said 83. They just began that year keeping track. And then the National Center for Health Statistics said 70. So somewhere between 70 and 83, not 5,000. You are not entitled to your own facts to influence the decisionmaking of the American public or Members of Congress. If you are going to make your argument, you are entitled to your opinion. I can respect your opinion. A lot of people hold that opinion in this country, and it should be represented here, but it should be represented honestly. It should be an honest debate about what the case was before Roe v. Wade, and an honest debate as to what the case is now. I would argue that neither has been put forward by the other side. They exaggerate claims of what was going on before. They minimize what is going on now. They minimize the real effects of Roe v. Wade. You never hear them talk about the 1.3 million abortions a year that go on. I am not talking about 5,000 or 83. I am talking about 1.3 million children die from abortion in this country--a third of all pregnancies; somewhat less than a third now. Thankfully, it has come down. But for roughly a third of all children conceived in this country, their lives end before they have a chance to enjoy the freedoms this country provides. Last night, I had a discussion of how this country on this issue is out of whack, how we have put the liberty rights of a woman above the life rights of her child. As I said last night, the last time we did that in this country was back in the early 1800s. We put the liberty rights of the slave owner above the life rights of the slave. I refer and have referred to the Roe v. Wade decision as Dred Scott II because it is the second time in the history of this country we have taken the fundamental premise of our country--the founding document of our country, the Declaration of Independence, which said, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident''--back then we actually used very lofty terms such as ``truths,'' absolute things that we all agreed on, the truth. They believed there was a truth and that you could actually find what that truth is. We said: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal--all--and that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. And they listed three--the three foundational rights upon which this country was founded--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--not liberty, happiness, life; not happiness, life, liberty--life, liberty, happiness. Why? Because it sounded better? Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness sounds better than happiness, liberty, life? Is that why they did that? It sounded better? Jefferson was good at writing, and he just said: Boy, this sounds better. I will put life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. That sounds nice? How many people think that is the reason they did it that way? Of course not. He wrote it that way because that is the way you have to write it. You can't have happiness without freedom and liberty. How can you truly be happy, how can you truly pursue what God has called you to do in this life if you are not free to do it, if someone tells you what you must do or what you must say, what you must believe. Likewise, how can you be free, how can you have liberty if you are dead or the equivalent of dead in the case of the slave? They are there for a reason, and they are in that order for a reason. Roe v. Wade scrambles them, just like Dred Scott scrambled them. It was wrong then. It is wrong now. It was legal then. Why? Because the Supreme Court said so. It is legal now. Why? Because the Supreme Court said so. Back then a bunch of people stood up on this very floor and said no. Millions of people across America said no. We had great leaders in our country, including President Lincoln, who said no. Remember the mainstream view was, who are we to tell others how they should live their life? Who are we? I am not God. How can I tell a slaveholder they can't do something they did in the Bible, own slaves? That has been the tradition of this country. Who am I to make those choices for other people? I trust them. I trust their judgment. I trust their morality. How dare you not trust these people that they are not treating these people kindly, that they aren't doing the right thing for them? How uneducated of you to feel that way. Do these arguments have a somewhat familiar ring to them? It is the same debate. It is just as wrong. For it is our job here to say what is right and what is wrong. That is what laws are. Laws are the reflection of the collective morality of our country. Roe v. Wade was a usurpation of that collective morality. It was a hijacking of the collective morality of this country by nine Justices of the Supreme Court who decided they would play God. Now we just follow along as so many did in the early 1800s. They just followed along. Why? Because it was the law. And who are we to judge these people who own these slaves? Who are we? Who are we? That is a question all of us need to ask: Who are you? How much are you standing up for what you believe is right and what, in many cases, we know is right, and how often do you just sort of turn away and say: Well, that is the law? It is an uncomfortable issue and we will just leave it alone. And so we pass language, sense-of-the- Senate language that says this law, Dred Scott II, is something that should continue in America. I believe, as much as I believe that I am standing right here today, that this law will be overturned, not by the courage of Senators, not by the courage of Governors or judges, but by the wisdom of the American people. We are seeing it happen. The more people find out about the injustice that abortion is and the extremeness of Roe v. Wade, people are changing. That is why there is this desperate attempt to hang on, to codify Roe v. Wade or to support Roe v. Wade, to prop it back up, this wretched decision that is affecting so much of society. We are going to have a chance in a few weeks, once we pass this resolution of disagreement, to vote on the conference report on S. 3, which is the partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. We will have an opportunity--I hope it will not be filibustered--to vote straight up or down on whether to send this bill to the President, which he said he will sign, and send it across the street. That is where it is going to end up. Across the street from the Senate happens to be the Supreme Court of the United States. They will have another opportunity to look at this procedure based on the factual record. Again, I challenge any Member on either side of the aisle to come forward with a reason why this procedure needs to be legal for the health of the mother. Not one piece of evidence has been entered in the record ever that this procedure was ever necessary to protect the health of the mother. No one even makes an argument that it protects the life of the mother, but there has never been a case introduced that has not been refuted 30 different ways that suggests that this procedure is necessary for health. So the health exception of Roe v. Wade, as a result, is not applicable here because there is no medical reason why this procedure needs to be legal. In addition, we have tightened the language. The other concern in the Court was that it was vague and could have included other late-term abortion procedures. There are many in this Chamber who would like to ban all late-term abortion procedures. That is not what this bill does. It simply bans a procedure which the vast majority of the American public, anywhere from 70 percent to 80 percent, believe should be banned. By the way, if you are with 70 or 80 percent of the American public, you are hardly on the extreme. By definition this can't be extreme if 70 to 80 percent of the American public support what you are doing. We have tightened the language to ban a procedure, just one--this one. So there is no doubt now that the Court had before, because of the language in the Nebraska statute, that we might include other abortion techniques. We are including one technique, this one, a technique that is never used to protect the health or life of the mother. Roe v. Wade is as expansive a right as there exists today. Let me repeat that: The right to an abortion in America is more absolute than the right of free speech, than the right of freedom of assembly, than the right of freedom of the press. Under constitutional interpretation, there is no limitation on the right to abortion--none--where these others all have limits. I would argue not great limits, but they are all limited in some fashion by the Court and by statutes that have been found constitutional by this Court. Except abortion, there is no limit. There is no practical limitation on the right to an abortion. This--candidly and unfortunately, in some respects--is not a limitation on abortion either because if it were a limitation on abortion, the Court would find it unconstitutional. But it is not. It is a rogue procedure that candidly is unhealthy. We have mountains of evidence from experts in the maternal field of medicine who say this procedure is the least healthy option for women. Obviously, it is the most horrendous and brutal to the child. That is our plea. It is a modest one. It is so modest that many people do not understand why we are even pursuing it on both sides of this issue. They ask, Why are you suggesting this? It is not going to do anything. It will bar one procedure that is not used very much--a few thousand times a year. But, as the Senator from California says, every life matters. Every case is a tragedy. So we should do it if we can. We should, and we will, hopefully in a few weeks. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. In the year prior to Roe v. Wade, 1972, the total maternal deaths in the United States--total maternal deaths from all causes--was 612. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the total abortion-related deaths were 83. So I ask the Senator from California how they can continue to use the number 5,000, when the official statistics of the United States say the total number of maternal deaths in the country were 612, and those related to abortion were 83?

Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Sure.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:40 the Senate resume consideration of the House message to accompany S. 3, the partial-birth abortion ban bill; provided further that time on the motion to disagree be limited to 1 hour equally divided in the usual form; further, that following the use or yielding back of the time the Senate proceed to a vote on the motion with all other provisions of the agreement remaining in effect. I further ask unanimous consent that following the vote, the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consecutive votes on the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 352, 347, 348, 350, and 351. Further, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided between the two leaders or their respective designees prior to each vote; further, that following the votes the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.