Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill which reforms and expands service opportunities through the AmeriCorps program by transitioning the service program toward an individual model with voucher-like awards to individuals desiring to serve low-income individuals or communities. The goal is to decrease dependency on large, more permanent group service locations and dramatically increase the scope of service opportunities and charitable locations which would be eligible for voucher recipients to serve communities and to require that site locations be predominantly serving low-income communities or people. Under the leadership of former Senator Harris Wofford and the States, significant steps were taken to improve the management of the AmeriCorps program of the Corporation for National Service, CNS, and I recognize the dedication and contributions of AmeriCorps participants. I also believe that more can be done to expand the effectiveness of the AmeriCorps by expanding the opportunities for service and have been looking at a number of options for more than a year. The bill's approach to reform should better enable participants to get to know the communities that they are serving. It is also a goal of this initiative to place an additional emphasis on the importance of leveraging volunteers and providing technical assistance and capacity building skills for these organizations. This will increase the long- term benefit which the organizations and the communities that they serve receive. The new proposal has some similarities to AmeriCorpsVISTA under the CNS but the scope of the proposed authorization is limited to AmeriCorps, although I believe that other restructuring may well be warranted. The reform proposal includes the following elements: The individual award or voucher would be for use at charitable organizations predominantly serving the poor (like the current AmeriCorpsVISTA focus). All eligible qualifying charities (consistent with IRS requirements for 501(c)(3)'s) predominantly serving the poor would be eligible locations for service. All receiving locations must comply with the current supervisory and reporting requirements (e.g., web- based reporting system) of the Corporation for National Service. The voucher is awarded to the individual who chooses a qualified location for service and not the charitable organization. The current education and stipend benefits of AmeriCorps would remain the same and be included with the new voucher. The education award may be given to another individual chosen by the AmeriCorps volunteer without impacting the ability of the donee to receive other sources of grant and scholarship assistance, increasing the attractiveness for older Americans to participate. If the number of applicants exceeds the available vouchers, a lottery system established by the Corporation for National Service would be used to determine the selection of qualified voucher recipients. The bill provides for consolidation of Americans and AmeriCorpsVISTA state offices to better leverage resources. A one- year transition period to the new system is provided. I urge my colleagues to consider this opportunity to reform AmeriCorps participants. I believe that refocusing the program on poverty alleviation efforts, expanded choice, and placing a greater emphasis on serving charities and the needy communities they serve through provision of expanded technical assistance and capacity building services will provide a brighter future for AmeriCorps and a more strategic contribution from this federally supported program for Americans in need.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague John Ensign of Nevada in proud support of The Responsible Stem Cell Research Act of 2001, legislation aimed at committing our Nation to a bold investment in promising, ethical medical research with which we all can live. As my colleagues well know, the issue of stem cell research has been the subject of rigorous debate in Congress, within the medical, bioethical, legal, and patient advocacy communities, and on the pages and airwaves of the local and national media. Over the past several months in particular the American public has been witness and subject to a maddening barrage of charges and countercharges about how our public conscience may or may not countenance the deliberate destruction of a human embryo for the purpose of research. If one thing is clear on this controversial issue, it is that the country is divided about this wrenching dilemma, about whether or not the Federal Government ought to lend support--and thus communal moral sanction--to the speculative potential of stem cell research which involves the destruction of human embryos. This is a profound policy question which is fraught with considerable ethical, moral and legal questions. It requires that our body politic make the monumental determination that will forever brand our public conscience as to whether a human embryo is a life, or conversely, a property which can be destroyed and exploited for the advancement of science and research. I fervently believe that fertilization produces a new member of the human species, that it is a categorical imperative that human life be treated as an end and not a means. To use a human being, even a newly conceived one, as a commodity is never morally acceptable. Each person must be treated as an end in himself, not as a means to improve someone else's life. Indeed, current Federal law explicitly prohibits Federal funding of experiments that destroy embryos outside the womb precisely because individual human life begins at fertilization. But while President Bush continues to review the stem cell guidelines issued under the previous administration to determine whether or not they violate current Federal law barring the use of Federal funds in research that leads to the destruction of embryos, and it is my hope that President bush will uphold current Federal law and reject any semantical nuances or euphemisms with regard to what embryonic stem cell research is all about, the field of promising research behind which all Americans can unite, which is ethical and beyond controversy, is that which involves embryonic-type post-natal stem cells. Unfortunately, the opportunities for developing successful therapies from stem cells that do not require the destruction of human embryos have been given relative short shrift by the media. But adult and other post-natal stem cells have been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat, cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and other organs. They can be located in numerous cell and tissue types and can be transformed into virtually all cell and tissue types. And perhaps most important of all, these alternative cell therapies are already treating cartilage defects in children, systemic lupus, and helping restore vision to patients who were legally blind, just to name a few. By contrast, embryonic stem cell research has no equivalent record of success even in animal studies. Embryonic cells have never ameliorated one human malady. In order to move forward with and build upon the successes of this promising research, the Responsible Stem Cell Research Act would authorize $275 million for this ethical stem cell research which is actually proven to help hundreds of thousands of patients, with new clinical uses expanding almost weekly. This represents a 50 percent increase in current NIH funding being devoted to this stem cell research. This legislation would also establish a National Stem Cell Donor Bank for umbilical cord blood and human placenta to generate a source of versatile, embryonic-type stem cells that could be matched with people who need stem cells for treatment. These stem cells would be available for biomedical research and clinical purposes. No matter where one stands on the divisive issue of embryonic stem cell research, this issue and many others dealing with the rapid advancements in biotechnology are coming to define the very important choices which confront us as a society and the courses we must choose as policymakers. With stem cell research moving forward so rapidly, we have a duty to be well educated to be able to make informed decisions about these issues. For this reason, and because of biotechnology's prospects for affecting positive change in other areas of our lives such as in our agriculture community, I have recently joined as a member of the bipartisan Senate Biotechnology Caucus. Co-chaired by our colleagues Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the Biotechnology Caucus regularly hosts educational forums for members of the Senate and their staff about a broad scope of biotech issues, from the increasing availability of genetically-engineered products to research, trade, and bioethics. The group also acts as a resource for information about biotechnology and encourage committee hearings on the topic. The possibility that biotechnology may help improve the health humankind holds great promise and must be examined closely. But there is no reason for our Nation to lie fallow with respect to the federal government's support for type of stem cell research which is life- friendly and beyond controversy. It is my hope that our colleagues here in the Senate and in the House will pause from the rancor that has surrounded the stem cell research debate and come to support the Responsible Stem Cell Research Act, an aggressive initiative to fund and develop promising medical research with which we all can live.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill which reforms and expands service opportunities through the AmeriCorps program by transitioning the service program toward an individual model with voucher-like awards to individuals desiring to serve low-income individuals or communities. The goal is to decrease dependency on large, more permanent group service locations and dramatically increase the scope of service opportunities and charitable locations which would be eligible for voucher recipients to serve communities and to require that site locations be predominantly serving low-income communities or people. Under the leadership of former Senator Harris Wofford and the States, significant steps were taken to improve the management of the AmeriCorps program of the Corporation for National Service, CNS, and I recognize the dedication and contributions of AmeriCorps participants. I also believe that more can be done to expand the effectiveness of the AmeriCorps by expanding the opportunities for service and have been looking at a number of options for more than a year. The bill's approach to reform should better enable participants to get to know the communities that they are serving. It is also a goal of this initiative to place an additional emphasis on the importance of leveraging volunteers and providing technical assistance and capacity building skills for these organizations. This will increase the long- term benefit which the organizations and the communities that they serve receive. The new proposal has some similarities to AmeriCorpsVISTA under the CNS but the scope of the proposed authorization is limited to AmeriCorps, although I believe that other restructuring may well be warranted. The reform proposal includes the following elements: The individual award or voucher would be for use at charitable organizations predominantly serving the poor (like the current AmeriCorpsVISTA focus). All eligible qualifying charities (consistent with IRS requirements for 501(c)(3)'s) predominantly serving the poor would be eligible locations for service. All receiving locations must comply with the current supervisory and reporting requirements (e.g., web- based reporting system) of the Corporation for National Service. The voucher is awarded to the individual who chooses a qualified location for service and not the charitable organization. The current education and stipend benefits of AmeriCorps would remain the same and be included with the new voucher. The education award may be given to another individual chosen by the AmeriCorps volunteer without impacting the ability of the donee to receive other sources of grant and scholarship assistance, increasing the attractiveness for older Americans to participate. If the number of applicants exceeds the available vouchers, a lottery system established by the Corporation for National Service would be used to determine the selection of qualified voucher recipients. The bill provides for consolidation of Americans and AmeriCorpsVISTA state offices to better leverage resources. A one- year transition period to the new system is provided. I urge my colleagues to consider this opportunity to reform AmeriCorps participants. I believe that refocusing the program on poverty alleviation efforts, expanded choice, and placing a greater emphasis on serving charities and the needy communities they serve through provision of expanded technical assistance and capacity building services will provide a brighter future for AmeriCorps and a more strategic contribution from this federally supported program for Americans in need.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would like to address the point of the Senator from Iowa. At least three components of this bill have nothing to do with farm income. One establishes a scientific research unit in USDA. It provides additional funding for business and industry. It provides that U.S. cities with populations not exceeding 50,000 will be eligible for guaranteed community facility costs. That has nothing to do with emergency farm income this year. This is just another vehicle to try to do some more agricultural authorization. I am not against doing agricultural authorization. I loved being on the Agriculture Committee. But we should do it in a farm bill and not in an emergency supplemental bill for agriculture. No. 2, the fact is, I think the Senator has received letters from the White House and previous administrations where they said: Senior advisers will recommend that the President veto the bill. Unfortunately, we get those all too often around here. I think it is very clear that the President and his advisers do not like the way this bill was constructed and would prefer to see us live within the requirements of the budget agreement for the year 2001. I think we can do that, and we should do that. It is the only way I believe we will actually get a bill done this year.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to voice my concerns about this Agricultural supplemental appropriations bill. I believe reaching forward into next year to spend an additional $2 billion is fiscally irresponsible and, frankly, unnecessary. Even though some of that $2 billion in additional spending will benefit farmers in my State, I do not believe at a time when we are debating issues of great importance-- Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, other issues such as that, where we are going to be needing resources to solve those problems--reaching forward to next year, when we are going to be doing a farm bill next year, to allocate those resources is the wise course to take. I do not want you to take my word for it. We have just received a Statement of Administration Policy about this legislation. I want to quote from it: The Administration strongly opposes S. 1246 as reported by the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry because spending authorized by the bill would exceed $5.5 billion, the amount provided in the budget resolution and the amount adopted by the House. If S. 1246 is presented to the President at a level higher than $5.5 billion, the President's senior advisers will recommend he veto the bill. We are about to engage here in a motion to proceed. If this scenario plays out, with the objections that I intend to have to this bill and I know others on this side will have, we will not get around in any way, shape, or form to final passage of this bill until Friday, Saturday, sometime Sunday. It can all go away. From my perspective, it can all go away. If we stop this overreaching and get back to the budget number of $5.5 billion and we get to the House number of $5.5 billion, we can pass a bill here and, I hope, in a relatively expeditious time. Certainly from my perspective I will not have objections to moving forward. There may be amendments offered, and I certainly want to reserve my right to object if there are amendments offered, but the idea we are going to spend all week here, probably past the time the House of Representatives will even be in session, and pass a bill that the House will not even be here to deal with--it may not even get to the President--and we get no ag assistance at this point in time is irresponsible. To overreach to the point we get nothing at a time when certainly there are some ag needs out there, that is, in my view, an irresponsible action. I am hopeful with this word from the President, with I think a very strong conviction of many of us on this side of the aisle that this additional spending is not only unnecessary but unwise, we can get this bill done in a rapid, orderly fashion and get it done to a level that has been approved by the Budget Committee and the authorizing committee and move forward and get ag assistance out before the House of Representatives leaves and get a bill that will be signed by the President. If we go to the $7.5 billion level, I tell you we will be here all week. We will be here past the time the House of Representatives will be in session. And it will be met with a veto by the President. I am willing to do that. But we are not going to get any ag assistance to people anytime soon if we do that. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. SANTORUM. I am sorry, too. It is the cost of leadership on our side.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Iowa. A couple of comments: No. 1, the President's advisers have advised the President to veto this bill because of the obligation of this 2002 money and this additional $2 billion of obligations. We received this a few minutes ago. I will read it to you again. The administration strongly opposes S. 1246 as reported by the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, because spending authorized by the bill would exceed $5.5 billion, the amount provided in the budget resolution and the amount adopted by the House. If S. 1246 is presented to the President at a level higher than $5.5 billion, the President's senior advisers will recommend that he veto the bill. I understand the idea of reaching forward and obligating money. The problem I have is we are now obligating money that is going to start to be spent October 1. I have been around here long enough to know that we will be here next year, and we will have another emergency. And the $5 billion left over isn't going to be enough and we will either try to bump that up or reach for the next year and try to draw out some money. If I can have assurances that this isn't just a continual practice-- which I know it will be, if we allow this to occur and we will just in a sense begin reaching more and more into the following year to make up for it in this crop-year. That is not what the Budget Committee suggested. They said we want $5.5 billion. If we have a farm bill coming up next year, we have authorization for $7.3 billion, let's go through the working process of doing that in the fiscal year in which we intend to do it. But to reach and grab, if you want to obligate, why not obligate the whole $7.3 billion, if there is no big deal about it. The fact is, we have a responsibility under the farm bill to change farm policy. Use that $7.3 billion to implement that change. There will be some changes, as I am sure the Senator knows, in farm policy. What we have done now is to limit our ability to make that happen. I do not think that is wise. Whether I think it is wise or not is somewhat relevant in this body, but what is more relevant is the fact that the President's advisers will recommend that he veto this bill. If we don't get aid to the farm country right now in this fiscal year, the best course of business is to scale this bill back and put the $5.5 billion out to the farm country. We either adopt the House bill or we pass $5.5 billion here in conference. There may be some policy differences that we may want to work out. That is the best way to do it. There would be much more cooperation from many of us on this side of the aisle who would like to see some agricultural assistance. If I could read further from the Statement of Administration Policy, it says: The budget resolution provides $5.5 billion for 2001, an amount that the Administration strongly believes is more than adequate for this crop year. Moreover, improvements in agricultural markets and stronger livestock and crop prices means that the need for additional federal assistance continues to diminish. An additional $5.5 billion in federal assistance will boast expected real U.S. farm net-cash income to $53.6 billion in 1996 dollars, a level of income significantly above the previous two years. Having been on the Agriculture Committee, I remember when we had this discussion. Our objective was to keep net-cash farm income at the 1996 level of $45 billion. I ask the Senator from Iowa if he remembers that also. But the number we had always targeted was $45 billion in net-cash farm income. Here we are with this supplemental at $53.6 billion. We are talking about 20 percent above what we thought was the projected level of income that we wanted to set as a floor. Now above that we want to throw on another $2 billion. All I am asking is when is enough enough? I think $5.5 billion is more than generous. It is not the way I would want to spend it. That is why I hope we can maybe do some amendments to this bill. Almost 99 percent of the $5.5 billion is spent this year on AMTA payments. I understand that is an easy way to get out the money. But it isn't necessarily a regionally fair way to get out the money. I see the Senator from Vermont. The Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Pennsylvania consider agriculture pretty important to our States. It is the No. 1 industry in my State. It is either No. 1 or No. 2 in his State. But I will guarantee that the level of AMTA payments in our State is probably a third or less of what it is in Iowa, and certainly North Dakota and a lot of other Midwestern row-crop States. Putting all of that money in AMTA doesn't help us much. It doesn't help the Senator from Vermont or the Senator from Pennsylvania. It doesn't help the Senator from Massachusetts or anybody else who has farmers who aren't in the big row crops. I suggest that we step back and try to put together a bill that is regionally fair and that meets the budget target we set out. Then we can get a bill that I think can pass in a bipartisan fashion that will be signed by this President and really do something about the need in some areas of farm country to help stabilize that economy. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Wyoming for being here this morning to talk about what I think is one of the most important issues we can talk about in the Senate, and that is what we are going to do to strengthen our economy. Why is it I put it in that context? The right medicine at this time is to put more resources into the economy to get this rather flat-line economy right now jump started. Over the past year now, we have been going through a fairly substantial economic slowdown. The right medicine is exactly what the Congress did. We worked very hard with the President of the United States to pass a tax relief measure that got an infusion of money out into the public just in the nick of time, I hope--I hope just in the nick of time to help get this economy up and going and churning again. Checks are in the mail and being received by people all across America in amounts that are substantial, in amounts that are meaningful to people, to families who are preparing for their children to go back to school and need to buy school clothes and books and school supplies. Those are the kinds of expenditures that I know, with the number of children I have, can put a real pinch in your budget because they are one-time expenditures, mostly at end of the summer, the beginning of the fall, and they are very difficult to budget. This check coming at this time can provide some help to middle-class and lower income families who really do need this help and help the economy at the same time. It gets that infusion of money into our economy. I am proud that we were able to work in a bipartisan way in the Senate. Twenty-five percent of the Senate Democrats along with the Republicans voted for this proposal. It showed that with good leadership we can get bipartisan work done to meet the needs of the American people, to help the average American. At the same time, we can strengthen our economy at a time when we are going through a very difficult slowdown. I know there are other things we need to do. We need a national energy policy because at least in my State, in Pennsylvania, we have some real problems in our manufacturing sector, driven principally by high energy prices over the past 18 months. We need to have a national energy policy so we do not have these spikes that cause economic downturns and difficult times in our manufacturing sector, which is still, from my perspective, a very important sector of our economy. We need to do something on trade. We need to open up new opportunities to trade around the world, which by doing so will create better jobs in America. The economy is important. We need to be aware here in the Senate of what we can do at a time of economic slowdown to get this economy up and running. The first and most important thing is to reduce the tax burden on the American public to get more money in the economy. The second thing is to develop a national energy policy to make sure we have stable, long- term, affordable, clean energy for America's future so we are not relying on foreign energy and that problem. The third thing is to increase trade. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, let me reclaim my time. It is quickly running out.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute to finish this colloquy so it doesn't impinge on my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I reiterate that this amendment is about taking money. The concern of this bill is that excessive costs will drive up the rates for insurance. We are taking some of this excessive cost that is built into this bill and plowing it back into the system to make sure that we don't have more uninsured if we don't take care of it. I wish to make one additional point. Back in 1992, the House sponsor of the McCain-Kennedy bill, John Dingell, proposed using 50 percent of punitive damage awards to help compensate people--in this case, to prevent medical injuries. This is not a punitive damage measure. This is a measure that understands that punitive damages should go to benefit those in society who could be hurt by their increased cost of insurance. That is what this amendment does. I hope we can get some bipartisan support for it. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANTORUM. Which is not criminal.

Mr. SANTORUM. I just want to remind the Senator from Massachusetts that the Smith-Wyden amendment that provided $28 billion for those who do not have insurance passed and that is now law. It was in the budget. So I have been a supporter of money and a substantial amount of money for those who do not have insurance. I have sponsored a piece of legislation, with Senator Torricelli, that is called Fair Care, which provides tax credits for the uninsured at the cost of around $20 billion a year. So I suggest to the Senator from Massachusetts----

Mr. SANTORUM. One second--I just suggest to the Senator from Massachusetts, to impugn me personally and suggest I am disingenuous by proposing that we provide some money in punitive damages, not damages to compensate for injury but damages to punish someone who did a wrong--why should that go to an individual as opposed to society, which was wronged by that activity, as all criminal activity is. It is a crime against society. We do not compensate, as you know, when we prosecute someone criminally. The individual does not get benefit from that punishment. So punitive damages are there to punish, not to compensate. I know the Senator from North Carolina knows that. That is why they are called punitive--punish; compensatory--compensate. There is a difference. That language is not there for window dressing; it is there for substantive difference. What I am suggesting is that these punitive--punishment--damages should not further punish people who have insurance because they are the ones ultimately to be punished. Several States have recognized this and have plowed that money back into the system to help those who would otherwise be punished by this money coming out of the system of health insurance. So I just suggest that my commitment here is sincere and my object here I think is worthy of support. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I will be happy to work with the Senator from Illinois to tax HMO executives and lawyers who get big awards out of the health care system equally. If you would like to propose an amendment, I will work with you so all lawyers and all health executives who profit from the health care system will have that money plowed back in. I did not hear that. I don't think I heard that. I think I just heard one side of that argument. I will be happy to yield a minute to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. SANTORUM. I make clear a couple of issues. Eight States have already passed legislation that redirects punitive damages to specific purposes. I mentioned Georgia is one; Florida allocates money into the medical assistance trust fund; Illinois, into the department of rehabilitative services; Iowa puts money into the civil reparations trust fund; Kansas puts money directly in the State treasury; Missouri, to the tort victims compensation fund; Oregon, to the criminal injury compensation account; Utah, anything in excess of $20,000 in punitive damages goes to the State treasury. This is not a brand new concept but a concept States have adopted because they understand, as the State of Georgia, that these are punitive damages, not compensatory damages. These are to punish people. We are saying, if you punish a guy who does a bad thing, who is a criminal, the crime is against everyone. Those who are not in the courtroom should be benefiting from this. That is the uninsured. What will happen if those punitive damages are awarded to the individual or to the lawyer--because they get a big chunk? There will be more uninsured because the cost of health care will go up. This is punishing people who have insurance with higher premiums and higher rates. As the Senator from Louisiana said, we are already compensating the victim. They are getting unlimited compensation. There are no limits in State or Federal court for any compensation that is due this person. Who we are punishing here with punitive damages are the people who are going to lose their insurance because of high rates of insurance because of these punitive damages, and we will punish people who are going to keep their insurance and have to pay a lot more. This is a modest amendment that tries to lessen the heavy hammer of cost that this bill puts in place. I am hopeful we get bipartisan support for it. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I make one clarification: There are eight States that currently do this. One of them is the State of the Presiding Officer. The State of Georgia takes 75 percent of punitive damages, less attorney fees, and puts them in the State treasury. That is the State law in at least eight States. Georgia was, in fact, the model we used for this legislation. By the way, those States are exempt from this provision so we don't take both the State and the Federal. If there is a State law, those are excluded under this act. This is hardly punitive. These are punitive damages, not compensatory damages. These are not pain and suffering. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. SANTORUM. My amendment is simple. My amendment says anybody born alive, any child born alive is entitled to protection under the laws of the United States of America. Unfortunately, this amendment is necessary for two reasons. No. 1, because of the treatment of children who are delivered as a result of an abortion that was botched. We have ample testimony to, unfortunately, show that children born alive as a result of induced abortions are not cared for and are discarded, not cared for as appropriate to their gestational age. So we think it is important to make it clear there is Federal protection; that the laws of the land apply to even children who are born as a result of abortion--born alive. The second reason is because of our courts in this country, particularly the Supreme Court, where two Supreme Court Justices in the most recent abortion decision, the Nebraska decision, stated that any procedure that the doctor would permit is OK in this country. This is just two of the nine. But they said the Federal Government and our Constitution does not allow regulation of any procedure that the doctor believes is in the best health interests of the mother. That, to me, leaves open the possibility, if the doctor decides in the health interest of a mother that the best thing is to deliver the baby alive and then kill the baby, two Justices on this Court would suggest that would be OK because we cannot regulate any procedure, and they use ``any procedure,'' that the doctor believes is the best interests of the mother. So I think it is important for us to draw a line at least here. I am hopeful we will have unanimous support for this amendment. It is one that seems obvious on its face, but because of the courts and because of the practice in abortion clinics, it is necessary to make this statement again on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 841, with the modification I send to the desk.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield a minute to the Senator from Alabama.