Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. It does say ``on or in relation to'' the amendment, so that means on the amendment or in relation, which is a tabling motion. It is clear under the UC.

Mr. SANTORUM. They could be tabled under this unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. SANTORUM. I will move to table the amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote occur on or in relation to the Santorum amendment No. 2322 and the Durbin amendment No. 2319 in 10 minutes, with the time between now and then to be equally divided, and if the amendment is agreed to, it be considered as an amendment to the bill and the motion to commit be immediately withdrawn. I further ask consent that there be 2 hours total for debate equally divided prior to a motion to table amendment No. 2321, with the minority time under the control of Senator Boxer, and the vote to occur on or in relation to the amendment no later than 11 a.m. on Thursday, and the Boxer amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed to without any intervening action.

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk to the motion to commit with instructions.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I move to commit the bill, and I send a motion to the desk.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. The Senator from New Hampshire is someone who deserves a tremendous amount of credit for his courage in coming to the floor 4 years ago, offering this bill, fighting for this, and beginning the battle in the Senate. And he continues to be a stalwart supporter and someone who deserves a lot of credit for the movement that has occurred already. I will finish my charts, and that is, again, getting back to where this abortion procedure is ``rare.'' Ron Fitzsimmons on ``Nightline,'' in 1997, said that between 3,000 and 5,000 partial-birth abortions could be performed annually. They say they didn't even know because, again, they do not get reports--at least we are told they do not get reports as to how many of these late-term abortions are done in this manner. The Centers for Disease Control does not track the method of abortion. So we know 1,500 are done in one clinic. And the people at that clinic said they have trained others to do it in New York City. So I hesitate to guess of the thousands upon thousands of living human beings--living human beings--who are brutalized in this fashion, 3 inches away. As the Senator from New Hampshire just said, if that baby was born head first, even though a smaller portion of the baby's body is out, I think most people in this body would say: Well, you couldn't kill the baby then. Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny in the sense that we draw these artificial lines that don't exist? We would say, it depends on which way the baby exited the mother as to whether you could kill the baby or not. Think about that. This is the bright line. This is the bright line that we will never cross in our society as to who deserves the protection of our Constitution or not. That is the issue, folks. That is the issue. Who in this Senate Chamber, who within the sound of my voice is safe if that is the bright line? Who is safe from a group of Senators who think they are being compassionate, who decide that maybe we are better off drawing the line somewhere else, maybe drawing the line that after the baby is born, if the baby isn't what we want. As, again, Dr. Singer, a noted professor at Princeton University, now suggests, why don't we draw the line afterwards? There is not much difference, folks, is there? There really isn't. Let's get honest about this. What is the difference? It is just a couple of inches. We will be back someday. If we keep this procedure legal, we will be back someday. We will be back someday arguing whether that 3 inches really means anything. It is an artificial line. That will be the argument. Come on. ``What is the difference because it is 3 inches if the baby is really deformed? Let it die. Kill it. Put it out of its misery. This baby is going to die anyway.'' The arguments you are hearing this very day about children who are not wanted because they are not perfect, in our eyes--I know whose eyes they are very perfect in. In the eyes that matter most in this; they are perfect little children. But to those on the Senate floor who argue that because of their imperfection we have to keep this legal, so we can dispose of unwanted, imperfect children--3 inches from legal protection--folks, when the issue is 3 inches, it might as well be 1 inch or half an inch and eventually it is no inches because the 3-inch line is the Maginot Line. It will be blown through at some point when it suits the majority of Americans that they do not want to be bothered with this burden--with this burden. ``It would be better off for this child,'' I am sure the argument will be, ``that we let this baby die or we kill this baby. Why let it suffer?'' That is the argument now--3 inches from protection. Oh, how those 3 inches will shrink; mark my word. This is not a far- out debate. It is the mainstream of political debate right now that we can kill children 3 inches from birth because they are not perfect. That is the argument. That is the mainstream of thought in America right now. On the horizon, the Dr. Singers of this world will say: Why quibble over 3 inches? I remind you, step back in your mind, those of you who were here on this Earth 40 years ago, and imagine--close your eyes and imagine--the Senate Chamber without television cameras, without the bright lights, without the microphones, and people on the Senate floor debating whether it is OK to kill a child who is almost born. It would be beyond anyone's possible comprehension that that could have occurred in Manhattan, much less Washington, DC, here in the Senate Chamber. But here we are. Where will we go from here? The Senate can take a stand on that. So far it hasn't in the numbers necessary, but we are working on it. Lie No. 5: Partial birth abortion is used only to save the woman's life and health and when the fetus is deformed. Again, Ron Fitzsimmons said: The procedure was used rarely and only on women whose lives were in danger or whose fetuses were damaged. That was 1995. Fast forward to 2 years later. Ron Fitzsimmons admitted he lied through his teeth when he said the procedure was used rarely and only on women whose lives were in danger or whose fetuses were damaged. Yet that is the debate you continue to hear on the floor of the Senate, case after case after case after case of this. But what did Ron Fitzsimmons say: What the abortion rights supporters failed to acknowledge [the people on this floor] is that the vast majority of these abortions are performed in the 20-plus week range on healthy fetuses and healthy mothers. The abortion rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably does everyone else. Would you please inform the rest of the Senate, Mr. Fitzsimmons, so they can begin to discuss the facts of this case, not the smoke and the mirrors of this legislation. I guarantee my colleagues, we will have clouds and clouds of smoke hovering over this Chamber over the next 2 days in an attempt to obfuscate what really is going on. Lie No. 6: Partial-birth abortion protects a woman's health. I understand the desire to eliminate the use of a procedure that appears inhumane but to eliminate it without taking into consideration the rare and tragic circumstances in which its use may be necessary would be even more inhumane. The argument that this protects a woman's health. President Clinton, again, veto message of 1997: H.R. 1122 does not contain an exception to the measure's ban that will adequately protect the lives and health of a small group of women in tragic circumstances who need an abortion performed at a late stage of pregnancy to avert death or serious injury. A, there is a provision in the bill that says life of the mother is an exception to the ban. Factually incorrect. There is a life of the mother exception. I think it is agreed on all sides that that is not necessary because it would never be used, but we have a prohibition there anyway. Going to the truth: The American Medical Association endorsed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The AMA stated that partial-birth abortion is not medically indicated. I have talked about hundreds of physicians, over 600 obstetricians, not medically necessary. The partial-birth abortion procedure, as described by Martin Haskell [the nation's leading practitioner of the procedure] and defined in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, is never medically indicated and can itself pose serious risks to the health and future fertility of women. Over 600 obstetricians signed this, over 600, pro-life, pro-choice, signed this. Those are the facts. This attempt by those who oppose this bill to change the subject to get to Roe v. Wade doesn't obscure those facts. I will get back to that. Motion To Commit

Mr. SANTORUM. I am happy to yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. SANTORUM. They clearly state this was not medically necessary; this, in fact, was not in the best interests of the patient in this case; and this was, in fact, not good medicine. Did it have a good result? Yes, it did in the sense the health of the women was not jeopardized. That does not mean there is a good result. It was the best practice. A lot of things are done that turn out OK that may not have been the best thing to do. I think that is what we are saying. More importantly, it is not medically necessary. In fact, it is medically more dangerous. A group that said it ``may be'' necessary, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 3 years ago said: Clearly, it is not the only option. The proponents of partial-birth abortion are saying it is medically necessary. They want to keep this option open. If they don't, it is a violation of Roe v. Wade. They stand behind anecdotes. In some cases, including the Viki Wilson case that Senator Durbin brought up, it is clear from her testimony she did not have a partial-birth abortion. She says in her testimony the baby was dead inside of her womb and then the baby was delivered. If the baby dies inside the womb, it is outside the definition of the bill. The definition of the bill says a living baby is born. The baby was not living. I don't want to pick apart the very tragic stories and make a very difficult situation even more difficult for these people because I understand the pain they have gone through. Our job is to not be clouded by personal anguish and tragic circumstances. Ours is to look at the underlying facts of what happened and what can happen in the future. Again, we have over 600 obstetricians and gynecologists, specialists in perinatology, who say this is never medically necessary. The AMA says it is never medically necessary and is bad medicine. It is not a peer review procedure. It is not in the medical textbook. It is not taught in medical schools. It is not performed in hospitals. It is only performed at abortion clinics. Again, this is a rogue procedure. They present case after case, as if this is some wonderful creation of medical science by some genius in obstetrics. I remind Members the person who created this procedure is not an obstetrician, much less a specialist in perinatology or difficult pregnancies. It is a family practitioner who only does abortions. Again, I stress over and over again what seems to be the compassionate argument is a smokescreen. It is a smokescreen. It is not true. There is no compassion in allowing a procedure that is dangerous to the health of the woman to be continued any more than it is compassionate to prescribe any kind of medical treatment that is inappropriate. We have an overwhelming body of evidence saying it is bad medicine; it is inappropriate. On the other side we have two things: One, stories, stories that turned out OK. In other words, the procedure was used--not in all cases; sometimes some of the people brought up in stories actually didn't have the procedure, and even those who did may have resulted in a good outcome--but it wasn't the proper course according to the overwhelming body of evidence. The only thing counter, as far as factual comments by physicians, is the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The pillar upon which they rest the health-of-the-mother exception, the select panel they put together says they: . . . could identify no circumstances under which this procedure would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. It is not the only option. It is not the only option. From the Wisconsin case that upheld the Wisconsin statute, quoting the judges: Haskell, who invented the procedure, admitted that the D&X procedure is never medically necessary to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. We have the person who invented it saying it is not medically necessary. ACOG goes further and talks about whether it is preferable in some cases. Here is what they say: An intact D&X [partial-birth abortion] however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances, can make this decision. We have asked them to identify one of these circumstances. Give an example. They cannot say this may be the best thing for the health and life of the mother, may be preferable, and yet give no situation which can be reviewed by the medical community. That is what we have to base the judgment on. The medical community is saying it is necessary to protect the health of the mother. Yet they give no example, give no example as to when this, in fact, would be preferable. We have a thorough smokescreen, anecdotes with many of the cases having nothing to do with partial-birth abortions; those that did, argued by hundreds of physicians as being bad practice of medicine, were an improper course of conduct. Then we have the only scientific group that says it is never medically necessary, never the only option, only that it ``may be'' the best thing. Yet they give no example and after repeated inquiry are still giving no examples. Again, we come back to the health question. There is a dearth of evidence to support the position. I am hopeful the Senator from Iowa can debate his amendment, saying somehow this is important vis-a-vis Roe v. Wade. I argue the opposite. This legislation has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade. I think when we are looking at specific amendments to deal with that issue, the constitutional issue of vagueness--again, that is not necessarily a Roe v. Wade issue, although it gets into the issue of undue burden. From my point of view, if we can tailor that definition narrowly to make sure we are talking about partial-birth abortion, it leaves open other methods of abortion to be used. It gets to the counterargument some have suggested, that all we are doing is trying to outlaw abortion, trying to restrict a woman's right. No. All we are doing is, for gosh sakes, drawing a line about who is protected. When a baby is 3 inches from being completely born, that is too close. That is too close. We are going to get into a whole lot of issues when we start drawing lines. In fact, we have gotten into a lot of issues with respect to drawing the line. Now we are talking about assisted suicide. We talk about quality of life instead of life itself. As the Senator from California said, we want everyone to be wanted. What if everyone isn't wanted? Is that license to get rid of them? It certainly is if you are in the womb. Now we are suggesting it certainly is if you are just outside the womb; it certainly is if you are within 3 inches of being born. If you are not wanted, too bad. If we draw the line that close, it is not a very long way to go to get where our new theologian at Princeton University, Dr. Singer, is coming from. He suggested that it is, in fact, the moral thing to do; that once the baby is born, if we don't like it, to kill it. One might suggest this is outrageous; this could never happen in America. This is a professor at Princeton, whose works, unfortunately, have been published in the popular press and hundreds of thousands of copies of this radical--I would consider it radical but on this floor maybe it is not radical. Maybe killing a baby after it is born, if it is not a healthy baby, is not a radical thing anymore. Certainly killing a baby who is 3 inches from being born is not a radical thing anymore, so I don't know where 3 inches--maybe that does not make any difference. If you do not like what you have, then you can sort of exchange it. But that is where we are. Someone suggests: Senator, this is outrageous. How can you make the comment that once a baby is born you can kill it? I am not making that argument. But Dr. Singer is, and there are those who follow him. There will be judges who follow him. There will be judges who say the mother was distraught and she killed her baby, but it is sort of normal. If the baby was not perfect, it is probably better--we are probably all better off. But what is the rationale given for partial-birth abortion, as extreme as that sounds, that Dr. Singer is proposing? What is the rationale for partial-birth abortion? Why do we need to keep it legal? Because we have pregnancies that have gone awry and these babies, they are not perfect. They might not live long. They may have cleft palate-- in fact, yes, many partial-birth abortions were performed because the babies had cleft palate and mom and dad just didn't want the baby because it was not perfect. So we have gotten to the point where the defenders of partial-birth abortion are defending it on the basis that things go bad in pregnancy and these children just do not deserve our protection because they are not normal like you and me. They should be given less rights. Because of their imperfections, they should be allowed--why would you bring a baby into this world who is going to die? Kill it first before it has a chance to die. That is the argument. It sounds rough. Let's cut to the chase. That is exactly what they are saying. All we are suggesting is, first off, we do not stop you from doing that. This bill does not stop anyone who wants to have a late-term abortion from having it. If you want to have a late-term abortion, you can have a late-term abortion if this bill we propose passes. All we say is, don't have the baby outside the mother, don't have the baby 3 inches away from the protection of the Constitution, and then brutally execute the baby. That is just too close. That creates this nebulous area that the Dr. Singers of this world will gladly fill in. Because if we say 3 inches, then why not 3 inches later? What is the big deal? If the baby is not wanted, the baby is not wanted. Many listening to this will say that is a ridiculous argument. There is no such slippery slope. Although, by the way, the people who oppose these often themselves provide a slippery slope argument. Certainly they do here. They say, if you restrict this right in abortion, it is a slippery slope; we are going to get rid of Roe v. Wade completely. That is why we have this amendment, to get at the Roe v. Wade amendment, to make sure we are not providing the slippery slope. Fine. Let's have a Roe v. Wade amendment to show we don't have a slippery slope. No problem. Let's have a vote. But allowing a baby who is almost born to be killed, that is not a slippery slope? The Senator from California--we were talking about what if the foot or the leg were the part not born, would it be OK to kill the baby? I have the transcript, by the way. I asked that question. I will read it: What you are suggesting-- This is me talking. What you are suggesting is if the baby's toe is inside the mother you can, in fact, kill that baby. Mrs. Boxer. Absolutely not. So she said if the toe or foot is inside the baby, you can't kill the baby. But if the head is, you can. No slippery slope there, is there? No problems with a bright line there, is there? We are headed down a very dangerous path if we start differentiating between what body part is outside the mother and what is inside the mother, as to whether an abortion is legal or not. The reason we have trouble differentiating is because this is not about abortion. This is about killing a baby. It is in the process of being born that under Roe v. Wade was protected. The Texas law was not stricken under Roe v. Wade that said you couldn't kill a baby in the process of being born. Under Roe v. Wade, the seminal decision of the right of privacy, even that Court understood that once the baby is in the process of being born you should not be able to kill it. That is what we are saying. We are not restricting the right of Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade ruled on this by not striking that law down. So fine, we are going to have a vote on Roe v. Wade. Fine, have a vote on Roe v. Wade. But this is not about Roe v. Wade. This is about infanticide. A lot of folks want to try to change the subject. They want to talk about these difficult cases. Again, there is no one in this Chamber who sympathizes as much with these men and women, mothers and fathers, who dealt with a pregnancy gone awry. It is incredibly painful to have that hit your family. I hesitate to talk about it because I know how painful it is to revisit them. But they have brought their situation into the public square to prove a point. The problem is, it does not prove the point. Again and again there is no medical reason. It is never medically necessary to do this procedure. So I hope we can get to the facts, that we can stay away from anecdotes that are inapplicable or not relevant; and we can get to, hopefully, from the other side, a factual discussion as to when this is medically necessary. Once I would like to see a peer-reviewed document where everyone examined the case and someone will say: You know what, there is a situation where this is medically necessary, where no other option is as safe or safer. To date, that has not occurred. Let me underline that. To date, no such evidence has ever been put before the Senate. Yet there are people who will stand here and say, ``We need it, we need it to protect the health of the mother,'' when there is not a shred of evidence, not a shred of evidence before the Senate, these stories aside. There is not a shred of evidence that suggests these stories, or all the other instances that have been brought up, were the most safe or there were not things as safe that could be used in place of a procedure that is infanticide. What we are hoping is we can get to that discussion. I understand the process now; we want to play some games on Roe v. Wade. But that is not the issue before us. I cannot reiterate that enough. The issue before us is should this procedure remain legal. And it should be overturned. It should not remain legal. It does not surprise me we are seeing smokescreens. This is the Roe v. Wade smokescreen. We have the anecdote smokescreen. We can get the charts up about the previous attempts by supporters of this procedure. They have tried case after case to misinform the Senate. The advocates of this legislation, the abortion rights groups, have deliberately--and this is according to their own people now who have come clean-- deliberately misled the Congress, deliberately lied, as Ron Fitzsimmons, who is a lobbyist for a great number, if not all, of the abortion clinics in America, said that he lied through his teeth and that the industry lied through their teeth. Now after lie after lie--and I will go through all the lies--after lie after lie, they now are going to come up with new stories and say: Well, no, believe us now; OK, yes, we may have lied to you before, but believe us, health is really an issue. There is not one shred of substantive evidence to support that claim--not one shred of substantive evidence. And yet, a group of people that has come to the Congress in opposition to this bill, they have lied in at least six cases, and, after those, we are now supposed to believe them when they have no evidence to support what they are asserting. What are they? The National Abortion Federation called illustrations of the partial-birth abortion procedure ``highly imaginative and artistically designed, but with little relationship to the truth or to medicine.'' You heard the Senator from California talk about the cartoons that showed how a partial-birth abortion is done, and proponents of the procedure argued early on: These are cartoons; they are not factual; they have nothing to do with how the procedure actually works, until Dr. Haskell publicly described this procedure at the National Abortion Federation meeting on September 1992. Dr. Haskell told the AMA News the drawings depicting partial-birth abortion were accurate ``from a technical point of view.'' Strike 1. Argument 1: This does not occur; this thing is not factually correct; this is not how partial-birth abortions are done; you are wrong. Strike 1. By the way, they went even farther than that. Many of them argued this did not exist. First they said this is just a cartoon, these things do not happen at all, much less the drawings, but Dr. Haskell straightened them out. Believe it or not, people actually came to committee meetings in the Capitol and suggested the anesthesia that is given to the woman during this procedure ensures the fetus feels no pain; in other words, it passes through and assures us the fetus does not feel any pain during this procedure. Again, this is Dr. James McMahon, who is one of the originators of this procedure: The fetus feels no pain through the entire series of the procedures. This is because the mother is given narcotic analgesia at a dose based upon her weight. The narcotic is passed, via the placenta, directly into the fetal bloodstream. Due to the enormous weight difference, a medical coma is induced in the fetus. There is a neurological fetal demise. There is never a live birth. That was testimony before Congress under oath. When this happened, the American Society of Anesthesiologists went bananas. Why? Again, having gone through six births, one of the options available to women during childbirth is to receive a narcotic to help with the pain. Women were justifiably very nervous about receiving a narcotic for pain that would kill their baby. One of the pain management procedures during childbirth is, in fact, the giving of a pain killer, a narcotic. Immediately we got response from them and this letter later on: In my medical judgment, it would be necessary in order to achieve neurological demise of the fetus in a partial-birth abortion to anesthetize the mother to such a degree as to place her own health in serious jeopardy. The community of experts responded saying this is not true; you would have to give so much in the way of narcotics, you could jeopardize the life of the mother, which is certainly something I am sure no one on either side would like to do. Lie No. 2: The baby does not feel any pain. The fact is that after 20 weeks, babies have developed nervous systems; they feel pain. In fact, some have suggested because their nervous system is, in fact, not in a full developmental state, they feel increased pain as a result of this procedure. As described by Nurse Brenda Shafer when she witnessed a partial-birth abortion, when that scissor was plunged into the base of the skull, when those scissors were rammed into the base of that skull, the baby's arms and legs shot out, similar to if you held a little baby and the baby thought it was going to fall; it would spasm out, and then the baby's arms fell limp and legs fell limp. Again, in October of 1995, during this period of time after McMahon's testimony, ``the fetus dies of an overdose of anesthesia given to the mother intravenously.'' Again we have Dr. Haskell, who is another one of these abortion providers--Dr. McMahon is one and Dr. Haskell; they are the two who do the most in the country--who says: Let's talk about whether or not the fetus is dead beforehand. Haskell says: No, it's not. No, it's really not. That is pretty clear. Again, people fighting this bill are putting information out that is not true. Why? To try to get support for this position. Fourth: Partial-birth abortion is a rare procedure. We had this debate the first time. We are in a very difficult situation because we have to rely upon the information of the abortion industry. When Senator Smith, who is here, argued this debate 4 years ago, he had to deal with a deck that was stacked against him. He did not have the information we have today. The organizations out there were saying--there were just a couple hundred of these--it was very rare, only done on babies who were sick and mothers whose health was in jeopardy or life was in jeopardy, but this was a very rare procedure. This is the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood, National Organization of Women, Zero Population Growth, Population Action International, National Abortion Federation, and a whole list of other organizations that wrote to Congress saying: This surgical procedure is used only in rare cases, fewer than 500 per year. It is most often performed in the cases of wanted pregnancies gone tragically wrong, when a family learns late in the pregnancy of severe fetal anomalies or a medical condition that threatens the pregnant woman's life or health. Lie. What is the truth? We have two sources outside of the industry. By the way, we still do not know the truth. We do not know the truth because the folks who provide us with the statistics on partial-birth abortions are the very organizations that oppose the bill. How would you like to go into a courtroom and argue with a set of facts that is given to you by your opponents? That is what we have to do here right now. Most of what we have to deal with certainly on this issue--the numbers--we have to take from people who vehemently oppose this bill. We have one source of independent judgment. Our crack news staff on the Hill of which--let me look up in the news gallery: Gee, nobody is up there. Our crack news staff on the Hill, whom we have challenged time and time again to get the facts, why don't you ask a few abortion clinics how many of these they do. A couple of people have. I know a reporter for the Baltimore Sun did. Do you know what the abortion clinics said in Baltimore? ``None of your business; none of your business. We don't have to tell you.'' Maybe some other crack staff, who really, I am sure, in their heart of hearts, want to get down to the bottom of this because I know they care deeply about this issue, will call around some of their communities and find out what the Bergen County Record did in New Jersey. What did they find out? That at least 1,500 partial-birth abortions are performed each year, three times the national rate at one clinic in northern New Jersey.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I am not going to debate the Harkin amendment. The Harkin amendment has nothing to do with the bill that is before us. The bill that is before us, as I have said over and over again, and I will say it again, is not about Roe v. Wade. One of the reasons we believe this bill is getting bipartisan support, as well as supporters on both sides of the abortion issue, is that it is outside the realm of Roe v. Wade. I remind everyone that this is a baby in the process of being born. This is a baby who is almost outside of the mother except for 3 inches. Again, I repeat that in Roe v. Wade, the original decision, which the Senator from Iowa was referring to, the Court let stand a Texas law that said you cannot kill a baby in the process of being born. Again, we can have a vote on this. But we might as well be having a vote or another vote on the chemical weapons treaty. It is as related. This is not the subject. It is a completely different subject. If they want to have a vote on it, obviously the Senator has the right to offer an amendment. That is within the rights here in the Senate, and I certainly will stand by his right to offer that. But to suggest somehow that the underlying bill is an assault on Roe v. Wade is again proof positive that when it comes to the real factual debate on what this procedure does, the response is: Well, let's change the subject. I don't want to change the subject. Let's focus in on the facts. The facts are not anecdotes from people who aren't physicians about what happened to them. What happened in these cases you see and the pictures you see--I always believe, if you argue the facts, argue the facts; if you can't argue the facts, argue the law; if you can't argue the law, then appeal to the sentimentality or emotion of the situation. That is what this is. These are horrible situations, tragic situations, of pregnancies that have gone awry late in pregnancy. I sympathize with these people more than you know, to have something such as this happen for a child that you want desperately. I know the difficult decisions they have to make. I know what doctors tell you and how they influence your decision. But the fact of the matter is, we can't in a legislative forum dealing with such an important issue deal with emotional stories as powerful as they are unless we look at the facts underlying those stories. The facts underlying those stories are very clear. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters from the Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth--fact--about two cases discussed by the Senator from Illinois where they talk about how this was the only option available, or this saved our life, or our future fertility, et cetera. Again, letters from this Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth. One is from Pamela Smith, a director of medical education of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Chicago, about the case of Vicki Stella and the case of Coreen Costello, another letter from the Physicians' Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth. I ask unanimous consent to have those printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to work out--reserving the right to object--a time arrangement once people on our side want to proceed. But at this point I have to object. We would be happy to work something out. Right now, I just can't do that.

Mr. SANTORUM. I object.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANTORUM. If I may amend that to say, following that, Senator Brownback would be recognized after Senator Lieberman.

Mr. SANTORUM. If I can reclaim my time, first off, the Senator from California said this was an emergency procedure. Name me an emergency procedure that takes 3 days. That is what the procedure takes. That is one of the things that was put forward early in the debate, now risen again, that this is somehow an emergency procedure. It is not an emergency procedure. It is a 3-day procedure. No emergency do you present yourself in an emergency condition and get sent home with pills for 3 days to present yourself back. Again, I want to finalize, and then the Senator from Arkansas has been waiting for quite sometime, and I want to allow him to speak. This is not a clean issue. This is not a removal of a tumor. We are talking about drawing the line between what is infanticide and what is abortion, and that is why many of us are disturbed about this. No one is trying to reach in and outlaw abortions. The Senator from Illinois and I were very clear about the limited scope of this bill. What we are saying is, this is too close to infanticide. This is barbaric. This fuzzies the line that is dangerous for the future of this country. And what you saw, as the Senator from California was hesitant to get involved in that because she realizes how slippery this slope is, that you can say the foot does, the head doesn't, maybe the ankle--folks, we don't want to go there. It is not necessary for the health of the mother, it is not necessary for the life of the mother, and if you don't believe me, believe the person who developed it because they said so. I think we need to have a full debate, not just on narrow issues, but on the broader issue of what this means to the rights of every one of us born and unborn, sick and well, wanted and unwanted. I think the line needs to be a bright one. I yield the floor. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. It also involves--and that is the point I think the Senator from California is missing--it also involves when in the process--that is why people on both sides of the abortion issue support this bill, because it also involves what is infanticide and what is not. A lot of people who agree with you on the issue of abortion say this is too close to infanticide. This is a baby who is outside the mother. Again, I will not put words in the Senator's mouth, but what I heard--and again I am willing to have that corrected by the Record and the Senator can correct me right now--what I heard her say is if the foot is inside the mother, no, you cannot kill the baby, but when the head is, you can. That is a pretty slippery slope.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I hate to do this, but could we have the clerk read back what the Senator from California said with respect to that question? I understand it will take some time for us to do that. I will be happy--

Mr. SANTORUM. I was smiling at your characterization of my demeanor. I have not lost my temper. I think I am, frankly, very composed at this point. What I will say--and the Senator is walking away--is the Senator said, again, the baby is born when the baby is born. I said: If the foot is still inside the mother? She said: Well, no, you can't kill the baby. If the foot is inside, you can't, but if the head is the only thing inside, you can. Here is the line. See this is where it gets a little funny.

Mr. SANTORUM. Reclaiming my time, Mr. President. All I suggest is I was not laughing about the discussions. It is a very serious discussion.