Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. At that point. Were that to be the case, then there are provisions here, and let me specifically refer to it so that the Senator will not have any concerns. If it were to be the case--and I cannot imagine where it would be, but were it to be the case in subsection (e) of the bill, which we have here, it says that if a doctor reasonably believes that a partial-birth abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, then he or she, that doctor, simply proceeds and cannot be convicted of the violation of the law, simple as that. So the life of the mother exception is there. Again, I just want to point out that where you have a procedure that takes a period of 3 days, including dilation and anesthesia and all the things in preparation for this, the preparation is for the abortion so this is not an emergency as has been described on the floor by others in the sense there is some immediacy to save the life of the mother. Were there to be a complication--I am not a doctor, I do not want to interfere with the doctor-patient--this is a matter that the doctor would deal with and simply would not be convicted. We have the right of self-defense. If someone broke into your home and you shot them, somebody could accuse you of murder, but you certainly were within your rights to do what you did to protect yourself, as a mother would be within her rights to protect her rights should this child, fetus, whatever, be an immediate threat to her life. We protect that.

Mr. SMITH. I yield 1 more minute.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I yield whatever time I may consume to myself.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Senator Specter's motion to refer H.R. 1833 to the Committee on Judiciary. Make no mistake about what this motion is. Let us not kid ourselves. It is a motion made by the opponents of the bill that is intended to get the bill off the Senate floor, to get it out of the public spotlight, to spare the full membership of this body from having to face up to the grisly reality of partial-birth abortions. That is what this motion is all about. Nothing else. They do not want to see what happens in this grisly, disgusting procedure. They do not want the American people to see it. That is why they want to move this bill off the floor and send it back to Judiciary. But frankly, Mr. President, the American people are sick and tired of politicians doing just this: Ducking and weaving and dodging. The Ali shuffle, that is what it is here in the Senate: Let us not face up to reality, do not make the tough choice, do not give us a recorded vote, do not come out here and vote your conscience; shuffle it off to committee. Originally, the Senator from Pennsylvania was going to make it a 45- day motion, which would have taken us to December 23, which means it would have taken us into the next year. Then he surprised us, I suppose, in this element of surprise which is so common here, and he now brought it back to December 7, 19 days, where he says we will report the bill with amendments, if any. Of course, what he does not say is they could report the bill with a recommendation to defeat it. He does not point that out. This is dilatory. It is an act of cowardice. It is a refusal to face reality, to face the issue. That is what this is about. I want to make it very clear to my colleagues, I may lose on this motion today. I hope not. I think when we get finished with the debate you will know why I hope not. But if I do, and this motion carries, I want my colleagues to understand that we are going to vote on this. We will vote on it on the next bill that comes in here if it is an hour after this, a day after this, a week after this, a month after this. The next time I can get this amendment attached, it is going on and we are going to vote on it because I am not going to let the U.S. Senate back off from going on record on this issue. Not tomorrow, not after some hearings. We have already had hearings. The House has had hearings. The House has had a subcommittee markup, a committee markup, a report. We have had all of that. We have had a debate. Senator Boxer and I debated last night on two national programs. [[Page S 16777]] Everybody knows what happens here, especially the opponents. They know what happens here in this process. I am going to show you what happens here in this process in a few moments. Everybody knows what happens, and you will notice the opponents do not talk about that. ``What we are talking about here is broad legal concepts, legalese,'' I hear from the Senator from Pennsylvania. This is not legalese. Three inches from the head coming into the world with the rest of the baby's body, 3 inches and maybe 3 or 4 seconds, the difference between when that needle or if that needle, Mr. President, is injected into the head of that child. That is what we are talking about here, I say to my colleagues. That is what the issue is. That is why nobody wants to talk about it on the other side. Of course, they do not want to talk about it because it is a horrible, grisly, grotesque, gruesome killing of a child that is 3 inches from completion through the birth canal. So 3 inches and 3 seconds before that happens, you insert the scissors in the neck, you open up a wound, you insert the catheter and you suck the brains out. But for 3 more seconds and 3 more inches, that child is under the full protection of the Constitution of the United States and, as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out, under the protection of the law. Three seconds and 3 inches; 3 seconds and 3 inches. The opponents voted down an effort to send the matter back to the Rules Committee and did the job the American people sent them here to do in the House of Representatives 288 to 139--288 to 139. The House of Representatives had the courage to face this issue. It was debated, they had hearings, they had markups, subcommittee and full committee hearings, votes, full floor debate, committee report. As if the American people would not know, as if the Senators here do not know what is going on. Does anybody really believe some Senator is going to change their vote as a result of 19 more days? Give me a break. I have been called an extremist for pointing this out, I say to my colleagues--an extremist. It was said on the floor yesterday, not directly attributed to me, but it was said on the floor that those of us who support this bill are extremists. Senator Kennedy said it. Senator Boxer said it. Others have said it. Well, here is a list of some of those extremists: The Democratic leader in the House, Richard Gephardt; Democratic Whip David Bonior; Representative John Dingell, ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee; Representative Lee Hamilton, ranking Democrat on International Relations; Representative David Obey, ranking Democrat on Appropriations; Representative Joe Moakley, ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee; Representative John LaFalce, ranking Democrat on the Small Business Committee; Representative Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island; Representative Blanche Lambert Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, and on and on and on. Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, all extremists. Welcome aboard. This is not an extremist issue. If we are extremist for wanting to stop this, what are the people who do it, who commit this act? It is really fascinating to hear the defense of this procedure on the floor of this Senate. Let me tell you how they defend it. Listen carefully, I say to my colleagues, as you listen to the debate. Find one individual, just one, who will point to these charts that I am going to show you in a minute and talk about what happens to this baby when it comes out of the birth canal. Find me one. No, no, we are not going to hear about that. We are going to hear about legal procedure, legalities, hearings. That is what we hear about, because nobody wants to accept reality here, and not only that, they do not even want to vote on it. The Senator from Pennsylvania does not even want to vote on it. I want my colleagues to know what it is. I want them to know what this procedure is and, as I said yesterday on the floor of the Senate, I hope this time the press will get it right because last time, in case you missed it--I said this yesterday, I will repeat it--the press accused me of showing photographs of aborted fetuses, showing photographs of women giving birth, showing photographs of dead babies. None of it was true but, of course, that does not matter, just put it out there. Here is what I am showing you: A medical drawing approved by the American Medical Association. A medical drawing. Here is what happens. This is supposed to be an emergency, I hear the Senator from California say, and others, to save the life of a mother. If it is an emergency to save the life of the mother, why does the process take 3 days? Can anybody tell me that? Why is it that when the head is ready to come through the birth canal, the abortionist stops the child from being born by holding it, not letting the child come out of the birth canal, and stops it to kill it? Tell me how that helps preserve the life of the mother. My God, this is the United States of America. Do we not have more important things to do than this? This is not a simple debate about pro-choice and pro- life. There are people who differ on this issue, and I respect that. That is not what this debate is about. This is about a specific, brutal, cruel way to kill a child. But for 3 inches, or 3 seconds, it is a child--after 3 inches more and 3 seconds. Here is a fetus that we can destroy. I ask you--anyone, any of my colleagues, any American citizen listening to me now, if tomorrow morning you picked up your newspaper and the announcement in your community was on the headline of your paper that the local humane society, with a surplus of pets, reluctantly had to come to the conclusion to destroy surplus pets because nobody would adopt them, and they said they would use this method to destroy them, no anesthetic, open up the back of the skull with a pair of scissors, insert a catheter, suck the brains out of the dog or cat or horse, whatever it is; how would you feel about that? You would be outraged. There would be people screaming. But do you know what? Not here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We cannot even get a vote on it. We want to refer it back to committee, let alone stop it. Let us look at what happens. They hate to hear this. I have to say it again, as I said it yesterday, because you are not going to hear this from the other side, but you need to know. This baby is inside this womb, anywhere from 20 weeks on, snug and warm inside womb. You know that baby has feelings, moves its fingers, its feet, kicks, it hears its mother. It is in that womb, snug and warm. Then come the forceps. Those forceps go up there and they take the feet of that child and turn the child so that the feet come out first. As you can see in the next picture, why do we do that? Why do we do that? You know why? Because if the child is born head-first, it is breathing, it is alive. Now we have a problem, do we not? We cannot have a live birth. Oh, no, we cannot have that. So the baby, tiny little legs, moving toes--moving--clamp it on and pull the child from the birth canal. The third illustration. This is the part that is the worst, the most sickening. If you think I enjoy standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate having to talk about this, you are wrong. If you think I enjoy standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate having to defend against this, to stop this, you are wrong. We should not have to be doing this. This is a basic right for this little baby to come into this world. It is a basic right. I do not care what Senator Specter says about all his legal jargon. This is a baby. This is not some vague concept about choice. This is a baby. And that doctor, or abortionist--call him what you may--takes that child in his hands and those of you that have had children--and I have witnessed the birth of all three of mine and know what a beautiful thing that is--he takes that baby, moving feet, moving legs, moving fingers, holds it in his hands, feels the legs, feels the feet, feels that little bottom, soft as they are with these little babies, takes the torso, brings the arms and shoulders out and then stops it--stops it firmly, holds it. Do not let the baby be delivered. The next picture. Then what? No anesthetic, no painkiller at all. Scissors are inserted into the back of the skull, open up the scissors, insert the catheter, and that little moving child is now hanging limp, dead--in the United [[Page S 16778]] States of America. People here on the Senate floor--it is bad enough they would vote not to stop it; they do not want to vote. The Senator from Pennsylvania and seven of his colleagues do not want to vote on it. They want to have more hearings on it. One baby a day dies like this that we know of. So 19 will die by the time we get the bill back here, if we do not stop it. As I said yesterday, 19 babies--who knows who might be in that 19, the first black President, the first woman President, another Senator, somebody who cures cancer or AIDS? Who knows? We will never know, will we? Snuffed out. But that is choice, is it not? That is the nebulous concept of choice. That is what that is. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a brutal procedure that is not necessary. We have statements everywhere that it is not necessary to do this. If it is truly an emergency, why do we stop the baby from being born? Why do we stop it from being born? Why do we hold the head, refuse to allow the head to be delivered? It has nothing to do with the life of the mother--nothing. It has to do with the life of the child because when this child is born, that is the problem for the abortionists. I am absolutely amazed--amazed--at the number of people who have taken the floor and spoken on this issue and have talked about deformities, as if we had the right to play God on deformities. What do you tell a young man or woman today with Down's syndrome, or some other deformity--perhaps a missing limb, perhaps they had some disease and they are in a wheelchair, but they are human beings and they are contributing to their country, making a life for themselves? What do they tell them? ``Gee, if we only thought of this procedure when you were in the uterus, we could have gotten rid of you and would not have had to deal with you.'' I am absolutely flabbergasted that we would make those kinds of decisions--that anybody would want to make those kinds of decisions. Down's syndrome--what do you use? What is the excuse? Let me be honest with you. Even though the deformity case is a horrible reason, the truth of the matter is that 80 percent of these types of cruel abortions--80 percent, and this is testimony from the doctors who perform them, not my numbers--80 percent of these types of abortion, they say, are elective. They are elective. It has nothing to do with deformities or anything else. It is just elective. We do not want the child and we are going to do it this way. Now, that is Dr. Haskell himself. He stated, ``I will be quite frank. Most of my abortions are elective in that 20-to-24-week range. In my particular case, probably 20 percent are for genetic reasons, and the other 80 percent are purely elective.'' Pamela Smith said, ``In the situation where a mother's life was in danger, no doctor would employ the partial-birth method of abortion, which, as Dr. Haskell carefully describes, takes 3 days.'' It is all a phony argument. It is a phony argument to keep from getting to the facts of what is happening. I say to my friends who claim to be pro-choice, let me repeat and go back to the basic issue here: 3 inches, 3 seconds. That is what we are talking about, the difference between living and dying. What is the difference, Senator Specter, what is the difference between a child whose head is in the womb 3 inches from birth, 3 seconds from birth, and a child whose head is removed from the womb, 3 inches and 3 seconds later? Who are we to say that one should live and one should die? What is the difference?

Mr. SMITH. I yield for a response to that particular question.

Mr. SMITH. No. The Senator from New Hampshire believes wherever that fetus is, that is a life. That is not what we are talking about here. I assume from the Senator's response that he assumes that this process is acceptable, that this process is acceptable because the head still remains in the vaginal canal; therefore, this is an acceptable procedure.

Mr. SMITH. Is it acceptable?

Mr. SMITH. This is a very specific, I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, this is a very specific procedure that is so cruel in the way that it is performed that it ought to be outlawed. The Senator knows, and I think I know his position--he knows mine--on the issue of abortion. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a specific process, procedure, which is cruel, which is used to abort a child. And indeed, some would say, to kill a child. I say to kill a child. That is the issue. I do agree, I say to the Senator, I believe it is the taking of a life, yes, when it is a C section. That is my personal opinion. I am not engaging in that personal opinion in this debate. I am engaging in the particular procedure that we are talking about. This procedure, when a child is that close to being born, whether or not this is not a cruel procedure to use against an unborn child that is 90 percent born, with feeling. That is the issue here.

Mr. SMITH. The answer to that question is yes, but that is not what we are talking about here.

Mr. SMITH. I am smarter than that. I know what will happen when it goes back to the Judiciary Committee. I know full well what the Senator's position is. The issue here is whether or not this type of abortion, and indeed whether it is an abortion--is that what we define as an abortion--a child that is brought purposely into the birth canal, 90 percent of which comes into the world with only 10 to 15 percent of the child still remaining in the birth canal, whether or not that is a birth or not. So we talk about partial birth.

Mr. SMITH. I yield the remainder of my time to the only physician in the U.S. Senate, Dr. Frist.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. If Senator Kennedy gets down, or Senator Ashcroft, I would be happy to yield. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

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

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

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be debate only during the remainder of today's consideration of H.R. 1833, and at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow Senator Specter be recognized to make a motion to commit the bill to the Judiciary Committee, and that a vote occur on the motion at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader, with no amendments in order during the pendency of the motion to commit; and further, that the time between 9:30 and 12:30 tomorrow morning be equally divided between Senator Smith and Senator Specter.

Mr. SMITH. That is correct. We anticipate a vote sometime in the vicinity of 12:30, not before 12:30. It could be 12:45 or 1:30. But there is no intention to delay matters beyond that. It is our intention to have any speakers who may wish to speak this evening or tomorrow morning on the bill on either side, and we would divide that time equally.

Mr. SMITH. I have no objection to that.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, on behalf of the majority leader, I will announce that there will be no more votes during the remainder of today's session. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Missouri for his comments on the bill and on the procedure and for his comments with regard to my involvement in this issue. I appreciate it. No one in the Senate is more committed to this issue and a more honorable man. I appreciate very much his friendship and support on this bill. Mr. President, I would like to make a couple of comments on this motion to refer back to the Judiciary Committee. As a recap here, bear in mind that the House Judiciary Committee held a number of hearings. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing. They had a subcommittee markup, a committee markup, they had a committee report. The House had a full debate. It passed after that full debate by a vote of 288-139. And so to say that somehow we need to refer this bill back to committee, back to the Judiciary Committee, is nothing more than a dilatory process. And really the reason for it is quite simple. It is an effort not to have to make this vote. It is a reason to avoid the tough question. It is a reason for those who basically want abortion on demand to not have an opportunity to vote on this procedure, which we have all heard is the most outrageous procedure. In addition, the AMA Legislative Council voted twice to endorse it. They did not need further study. They are the experts. We are having a full debate here on the Senate floor. I just want to point out to my colleagues, if you do not approve of this process, this motion to refer is a hostile motion to that issue. If you refer this matter to the Judiciary Committee, you are saying that you want this process to continue. That is really what you are saying. Some will say that is not true, we want to study it more and have more hearings. How much more study do you have to have [[Page S 16751]] than what we have already had with the process that we see? Why do we have to study something as obvious as this is? We have all the medical experts, we have all the testimony from people who worked in abortion clinics, who have observed Dr. Haskell and others. We have the nurse's testimony. We have the testimony of the abortion doctors. We have the testimony of other medical doctors. It is an effort to make sure that the full Senate does not have to face this matter. This is one of the things about politics and politicians that just turns the American people off. Whatever your position is, if you feel that taking the life of a child with only its head in the womb is right, then vote that way. Go ahead and vote that way. That is your right. You have the right. That is your vote and I respect that. But to delay it further and send it back to the Judiciary Committee-- the chairman of the Judiciary Committee does not want the bill sent back. Yet, apparently, Senator Specter is going to try to send it back there against the wishes of the chairman. I hope that we will respect the wishes of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, not some member of the committee, who simply supports this process, who wants this bill to be delayed. This is the reason for it. It is not to have hearings. We can have hearings until hell freezes over. It is not going to change anything. How many more hearings do you have to have? How many more people do you have to have testifying saying that we are killing babies this way? How many more times do you have to hear it? How many more times do you have to see these charts? How many more times? So I want my colleagues to understand when you come in here tomorrow and we deal with this issue between the hours of 9:30 and 12:30, that there will be an effort here to send this bill back to Judiciary Committee--not to have hearings. That is just a facade. It is to delay the bill and eventually kill it so that we do not have to vote on it. You are killing more than a bill if you do this, you are killing hundreds of children. On average, remember, there is at least one partial-birth abortion per day. So every day we delay it, there is one more child. We are not talking about the debate. I happen to believe that, after conception, it is a living child. That is not what we are talking about. We have been through this before. I will not repeat it all. But we are talking about a child in the birth canal, and one a day is killed. So I just say to my colleagues, is there really anything that you are going to hear or see in the Judiciary Committee hearings that is going to change your mind? You either support this procedure or you do not. If you do not support it, do not delay it by sending the thing back to the Judiciary Committee. So I encourage my colleagues, if you have something to say on this, to be here tomorrow and be prepared to express yourself. Please bear in mind that delaying this accomplishes nothing except delay. That is what the American people get so upset with us about--that we do not make decisions. We just debate and talk. Let me tell you, if debate and words could solve the world's problems and America's problems, we would sure do it here on the floor of the Senate because we are all good at debating. But that does not get the job done. Do you support this process of taking the life of an unborn child--partially-born child--or do you not? If you do not, then do not vote to delay further the vote to stop it. That is the issue, pure and simple. The American people, I think, are up to here, Mr. President, with everybody dodging issues. I really think they are up to here with it. Why do we not just face up to it? I would respect that. Let us face up to it and just say that we are going to have an up-or-down vote, we are not going to have these phony issues of sending it to the Judiciary Committee or maintaining that there is not a life of the mother exception when there is one, or that there is deformity, or that somehow it is right to take a child that is deformed from the womb. Let us deal with the issue at hand, which is this process, this procedure. Let us have an honest up-or-down vote on it, tomorrow hopefully, and get it to the President's desk. That is what the issue is about. Mr. President, at this time, I yield the floor. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mr. SMITH. Well, the answer to that question, from the perspective of the Senator from New Hampshire, is, I say to the Senator from North Carolina, that it is the process which interrupts the life of an unborn child.

Mr. SMITH. Yes, this is the Chicago Tribune editorial of November 5 of this year, entitled ``Method and Madness on Abortion.'' It starts: In the national debate on abortion, the activists on both sides invariably stake out absolutist positions. In so doing, they often harm their respective causes by distancing themselves from the people who make up the vast, ambivalent middle ground of America. Those who champion the pro-choice position fell into that trap last week.

Mr. SMITH. I answer that yes, and I have it right here.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 7, 1995, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed briefing on intelligence matters.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full Committee on Environment and Public Works be granted permission to conduct a hearing Tuesday, November 7, at 2:30 p.m., hearing room (SD- 406), to receive testimony from Dr. Phillip A. Singerman, nominated by the President to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development, Department of Commerce; and Rear Adm. John C. Albright, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, nominated by the President to be a member of the Mississippi River Commission.