Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. I am happy to yield to the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I rise today to support very strongly H.R. 1833, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995. I might also point out that this is identical legislation to legislation I introduced on the Senate side. It was originally cosponsored by Senator Gramm of Texas and had some dozen or so cosponsors, including the distinguished majority leader. But I decided that it would be just as easy to take the bill from the House side rather than to encumber the process with another piece of legislation. So I am delighted to be here, frankly, on behalf of small children who really do not have the opportunity to be here to speak for themselves. Last Wednesday, Madam President, was an extraordinary day in the history of the Nation's ongoing debate about abortion. There was a coalition of Members of the House from both political parties, from all across the philosophical spectrum. They were pro-choice. They were pro- life. They had different degrees of what their pro-choice or pro-life positions were--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, pro- choice, pro-life. But they came together to form a supermajority, a two-thirds majority to pass this bill in the House, H.R. 1833. Two of the highest ranking Members of the House minority leadership, Congressman Gephardt and Congressman Bonior, joined together with the two highest ranking leaders of the majority leadership, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, in voting to pass this bill. I point this out, Madam President, because this is quite different from the debates that we have had here in the past on the issue of abortion. I think it goes right to the heart of how different this particular bill is to some of the other debates. Perhaps even more significant, the House's two- thirds majority for this bill, again, transcended the usual voting patterns of abortion-related issues. It is interesting some of the names that came out of this debate: Pro-choice Democrats Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and Jim Moran of Virginia joined with pro-choice Republicans like Susan Molinari of New York and Charlie Bass and Bill Zeliff of my own State of New Hampshire to pass this bill to ban partial-birth abortions. This does not mean that anybody compromises their views to do that. What it means is people looked at this issue very carefully with an open mind and realized what a bad, disgusting process this really is and decided that America, in no way, should be a participant or in any way add the weight of this great country in this issue to this horrible, horrible process and procedure. So, Madam President, this great coalition, this supermajority-- Democrats, Republicans, pro-choice, pro-life, liberal, conservative-- came together. That does not very often happen around this place, and I think that says something about this issue and the seriousness of it. They came together because they came to see this bill as presenting a fundamental question, a very fundamental question, and that question is a question of human rights. The question of whether the very youngest, tiniest, most innocent of Americans, those babies whose living, moving bodies have been brought into the birth canal--into the birth canal--who, indeed are in the very process--the very process--of being born are deserving of the protection of the law of the United States of America, because that is the fundamental question we are going to face today when we vote on this issue: Is this baby, moving 90 percent through the birth canal, except for the head, is this little baby in the birth canal 3 inches from full birth--3 inches from full birth--is this baby deserving of the protection of the law as depicted in the Constitution of the United States? That is the issue we face today. No other issue. No other issue. No other issue do we face today other than that one. The House of Representatives, to their great credit, Madam President, answered that fundamental question, and they answered it with a very resounding yes, by a supermajority of 288 to 139. When you look at the numbers, you know that was not all Democrats on one side or all Republicans on one side or all pro-life people on one side or all pro- choice people on one side, it was a mix. They answered emphatically yes, yes, yes. These little children deserve the protection of the Constitution of the United States. I was never prouder, in the 11 years I have spent here in Congress between the House and the Senate, than I was that day when people on both sides of that issue came together. It was a magnificent day for the House and a great day for this Nation. It was a great victory for the cause of human rights, a great victory for the protection of an innocent child in the birth canal, three inches away from birth. It is hard for me to believe that it is necessary for me, or anyone else, to stand here on the floor of the Senate today and have to fight for that protection. It is hard for me to believe that. It has always been hard for me to believe that, but it is difficult for me to accept the fact that is necessary, that there are those who would deny that protection, as if somehow this was some generic process that did not impact young children. But beginning today, Madam President, the U.S. Senate, too, is going to face that same question. They are going to face the same question that the House faced: Will we vote to extend the protection of the law to the youngest of our fellow Americans, those whose little bodies have emerged from womb into the birth canal and are in the process of being born? That is the question we have to ask ourselves, and that is the question we are going to have to answer today. As we start this debate, I just want to say a word to my pro-choice colleagues. I do not agree with their positions on some matters of abortion, but I respect their right to have that position. This is America. This is not a pro-choice/pro-life debate as we know it under the other circumstances of the debate. It is certainly a life or death debate. As you listen to this debate, I say to my pro-choice colleagues, ask yourselves, why did Dick Gephardt, Patrick Kennedy, Susan Molinari, or any others, vote for this bill? You all know them. You are their pro- choice colleagues. You know them and respect them, and you understand their views. Why did they do this? Why did 73 House [[Page S 16732]] Democrats vote for this bill? I believe that if my pro-choice friends will keep an open mind and try to listen to this debate, as I try to honestly lay that debate out before you today, they will come to understand how and why that magnificent supermajority in the House came together to pass this bill. Madam President, the one and only purpose of H.R. 1833 is to ban a single method of abortion that is first performed--not last, but first--at 19 to 20 weeks of gestation. That is a 5-month-old baby in the womb. That is the beginning. It then goes beyond that. It goes to the 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, right on up to birth, right on up to 9 months--any particular time in this period. It is often later than 19 or 20 weeks that this process can be performed. These are late-term babies, the youngest of whom may have a fighting chance to live on their own outside of the womb, and the older of whom unquestionably could live outside womb. Those of you who are parents, or have been parents, have gone through the process of feeling the heartbeat of your child--if you are a woman, inside your womb, and if you are a man, feeling that heartbeat inside womb of your wife.

Mr. SMITH. That is correct.

Mr. SMITH. That is certainly my position. I think that if there were not to be any life there, there would not be any need to perform the action of abortion because there would not be anything to abort. So I draw from that conclusion that it is a life and, therefore, somebody had to take action to terminate that life.

Mr. SMITH. I have heard that statement, yes, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Yes.

Mr. SMITH. ``One can support abortion rights and still be horrified at such a procedure. The argument that this particular method could be essential to save the woman's life was unconvincing.''

Mr. SMITH. ``The House, by more than a 2-1 ratio, voted to outlaw a gruesome form of late-term abortion. It involves the pulling the fetus, feet first, through the birth canal and suctioning out the brains so the skull collapses and the entire fetus is more easily removed.''

Mr. SMITH. It involves the pulling of the fetus feet first through the birth canal and suctioning out the brain so the skull collapses and the entire fetus is more easily removed.

Mr. SMITH. That is correct.

Mr. SMITH. I think that my interpretation, were it 3 inches further, if it were 3 inches further, the head would be delivered through the birth canal and it would be a living child under the full protection of the law.

Mr. SMITH. Well----

Mr. SMITH. If it was intentional, that is correct.

Mr. SMITH. I thank the Senator from North Carolina for his comments and remarks. He has been a long-time supporter of the right to life. Since the Senator from North Carolina brought up the Chicago Tribune editorial, I will read a couple of other lines from it because I think it makes the point very, very well. ``While the majority in the Nation may support a woman's right to choose an abortion, most of the people who make up that majority do not take an absolutist view. Reasonable restrictions, such as parental notification requirements in the case of teen pregnancy, have significant national support. Public support for abortion also becomes much more tenuous in the case of fetuses that are near the point of viability outside of the womb.'' These are not my positions, but I believe a life is a life. I also believe that there are many in America who do not go to the extreme that this particular procedure does. In conclusion, the editorial writer says, ``Indeed this may cause moderates who generally support abortion rights to rethink their comfort level with other forms of late-term abortion, particularly when they see in this last week's debate there was a method to the madness.'' Madam President, a few weeks ago I took to the floor of the Senate and I used a series of medical drawings and a photograph of a child that was prematurely delivered. That is all I showed in terms of charts or graphs. [[Page S 16733]] From that particular presentation that I made I was amazed at the irresponsibility of the press in terms of how they reported that. Now, I assume that the media that reported on it either watched the tape from C-SPAN, saw the debate from the galleries, or took somebody else's word for it. Unfortunately, those who took somebody else's word for it did not get the truth. It was reported that I had shown graphic photographs of aborted fetuses--wrong. It was reported that I had somehow violated a woman's right to privacy by showing photographs of a woman with a child in the birth canal--wrong. Also photographs of an aborted child. It went on and on and on to the point of the ridiculous. Today I am going to try again to see if the press can get it right. I hope they can. These are medical drawings, medical drawings accepted by the American Medical Association. They are not photographs of women. They are medical drawings. They are straightforward depictions of the procedure as described in an 8-page paper written in 1992 by Dr. Martin Haskell who has performed over 1,000 of these abortions. In a tape recorded interview with the American Medical News on July 5, 1993, Haskell himself said ``The drawings were accurate from a technical point of view.'' During a June 15, 1995, public hearing before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee, Prof. J. Courtland Robinson, M.D., testifying on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, was questioned by Congressman Kennedy about the same line drawings displayed in poster size next to the witness table. Dr. Robinson agreed they were technologically accurate, and also added ``This is exactly probably what is occurring at the hands of the two physicians involved,'' just as we see this. Also Prof. Watson Bowes of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is an internationally recognized authority on fetal and maternal medicine, coeditor of the obstetrical and gynecological survey wrote a letter to Senator Kennedy: ``Having read Dr. Haskell's paper, I can assure you these drawings accurately represent the procedure described therein.'' I hope the media this time would get it right so I do not have to read editorials about me showing photographs of aborted fetuses and photographs of women in the birth position and all this other nonsense that people have been reporting. Get it right this time, please, those of you in the media. I will show my colleague with these charts what is done to these late-term babies in the partial birth abortion procedure, because you need to know. You are going to be voting on whether or not to stop this practice, so therefore you should know what you are voting on. Many, if not most of you, have already seen the illustrations. They have appeared in advertisements in Roll Call, Congressional Quarterly, the Hill, and other publications as well as medical journals all over the country. Now, some have tried to say that they are inaccurate and you will probably hear that, but they have been published in the American Medical Association's own publication, which did not question their medical accuracy. Moreover, medical witnesses before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on this bill, even those who opposed the bill, conceded the illustrations are accurate from a technical point of view. So remember that. Now, in this first chart, with the aid of ultrasound, the abortion doctor or the abortionist, the aid of ultrasound, finds out what the position of the baby is. Then using forceps--remember now, these children, these babies, this is 20-week minimum, 19 to 20 week, 5-month fetus and beyond; it could be 6 months, 7 months, 8 months; that is the beginning--reaches into the womb with the forceps, takes the child by the foot, as you can see in this picture here and pulls the leg around. Why do they do that? To turn the baby around so that the baby is delivered by the feet first. Why? Because if the child comes through the birth canal feet first, the child is not breathing. If it is head first, that is a birth--a live birth, my colleagues, and we have a living baby under the protection of the law. So we have to turn it around and do it feet first. That is what the abortionist does. Put the forceps on the tiny leg of this little child, turn it around in the womb so that it can be delivered feet first. In the third chart, Madam President, we see that the abortionist here is pulling the child all the way out of the womb and into the birth canal with the exception of the child's head. That is what is happening in this particular chart. Now, I want to pause for a moment. I hope that everyone will think very seriously. I want everyone to think very seriously about what is happening here. I have witnessed the birth of my three children. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed in my life, and I am proud to say I was there. I am glad I was and I will never forget it; three children born into the world. It happens every day. Many will be born while I am speaking. Many will be aborted while I am speaking. But here we have the hand of what could be a doctor but it is not a doctor. It is a doctor, but his goal or her goal is not to save a life; it is to take one. Picture, if you can, those of you who have witnessed a birth or can imagine what it might be like, these hands taking this child--little feet, little legs, little torso, little behind--the arms, the fingers moving as they do move. Oh, yes, there are fingers and toes at 5 months and beyond. You bet. And there is a heartbeat. It is a living, breathing child. That little body 90 percent through the birth canal, everything but the head, is 3 inches from the protection of the Constitution of the United States, in the hands of this doctor or abortionist; totally at their mercy. Were it to be a doctor who was trying to deliver this child, it would be a beautiful thing. If it were a premature baby, we would rush that baby to what is called the preemie ward, hook it up to whatever tubes and essentials were necessary for life support to try to bring that child to where they can come home with their mother. But that is not the case here. That is not the case here. You see there is a different objective. The next part is the worst part. It is very difficult for me, frankly, to talk about it. That I have to stand here on the floor of the Senate and talk about it is necessary because by standing here on the floor of the Senate and talking about it, I might save one or more of these children from this horrible procedure. Let us look at what happens, my fellow Americans. Let us look at what happens. In the hands of the abortionist, the feet, the legs, the torso, the arms right to the neck--in the hands of the abortionist--moving feet, moving hands, beating heart--you can feel it. The abortionist takes a pair of scissors, no anesthetic--takes a pair of scissors, inserts the scissors into the back of the skull, pulls the scissors apart, opens up a hole in the back of the skull, inserts a catheter and sucks out the brains of the child so that the skull compresses and then he removes this dangling lifeless form from the womb. Think about it. Yes, I have to stand here and defend this life, and I am proud to do it. I am proud to do it, because this child cannot do it. We can get off into the generic concept of abortion and talk about the generalities of abortion, a woman's right to choose and all that. That is not the issue here, folks. That is not the issue here. This is not the way to do it--a lifeless form. I had occasion, a couple of occasions, frankly--many of you have--to take a pet that was old--it was very difficult. I had a dog one time, most recently, that I had to do this to, named Muffin; 12 years old. You know how close you get to pets. They are like--only they are not-- children. But they are like children. I took that dog, who was so old that she could not get around anymore, to the vet and I said, ``I have to do this. I don't know if I can handle it.'' He said, ``You know, you ought to come in and watch me do it rather than leave her here, because you will feel better when you see it because it is peaceful. It is not painful. We give this dog a needle and she goes to sleep. No pain.'' So I did. I am glad I did, really, because I feel better about it. Can you imagine--could you possibly imagine the pain of this child, without any anesthetic, having scissors put in the back of its neck and having its brains sucked out? Can you imagine [[Page S 16734]] the pain? This is the United States of America. Why are we doing this to our children? Could somebody please tell me why we are doing this? Why are we doing this? Give me a reason. I cannot wait until I hear the other side. For what? Why are we doing this? At the beginning of this process we had an unborn child, an unborn child safe in her mother's womb. And yes, it could be a her, I say to my colleagues, pro-choice women of the Senate, it could be a her. We tend to use the word ``him'' but it could be her. We had an unborn child safe in her mother's womb.

Mr. SMITH. I am not going to yield.

Mr. SMITH. I am not going to yield. I want to finish my remarks.

Mr. SMITH. I do not know. I honestly do not know.

Mr. SMITH. I do not know.

Mr. SMITH. We had an unborn child safe in the womb of her mother, in that little protected area. A watery mass, if you will--safe. Safe. You know, late-term babies have sleep cycles and wake cycles. They hear their parents. They hear their mother. You can feel them kick when they are excited, when they are awake. Any expectant mother knows that. They are moving. They are kicking. They are happy. They suck their thumb. Their little hearts are beating. Their little brains are working. It is a living thing. Many experts will testify that newborn babies hear their mother's voice. Not only do they hear it, they recognize it. It soothes them. It calms them down. Suddenly, however, Madam President--suddenly the baby's safe, warm, watery world is invaded by the forceps of an abortionist. The journey from the womb through the birth canal to birth, the miraculous journey, the so beautiful journey which so many of us have witnessed--especially women who give birth to those children, and those of us husbands who have been lucky enough to witness it--this miraculous journey that every one of us, every single one of us, we have all taken this journey on our birthday. (Mr. COATS assumed the chair.)

Mr. SMITH. The Senator from Indiana, in the chair, took that journey. The Senator from California took that journey. We all took that journey down that birth canal. And in most cases we needed a little help, we needed a little help. But, when I look at that fourth picture--I am 54 years old. Maybe I do not look it but I am. I have seen a lot of rough things. I served in the Vietnam war. I have seen people die. I have seen people in agony, in near-death situations, with horrible diseases. I have seen quite a lot. But I cannot imagine a country as great as this one is where a people would sanction--I do not care what you call yourselves, pro-choice or pro-life. I do not care. How could you sanction this? How could you sanction that? Did those of us who are veterans fight to defend that? I did not. Mr. President, if this baby, if the head of this little baby, comes through the uterus, the child would slide right out of the mother's body and straight into the protection of law, just so easy--not so easy for the woman. But that little child comes out and is born kicking, hands and fingers and feet moving--you can picture that little baby-- straight into the protection of law. But, you know, that is a problem in this procedure for the abortionist. Do you know what they call it when the baby manages to come out? The dreaded complication. That is what they call it. That is the term that the abortionists use, the ``dreaded complication.'' That is a live birth, a live birth--the dreaded complication. That is the last thing an abortionist wants. So what do they have to do? They stop the child's head from coming through the birth canal. They have to. Otherwise it is a live birth and then they have a problem--the dreaded complication. I just want to remind my colleagues that when this procedure is taking place with the scissors and with the catheter, this child is alive. This is a child that moments before was happily kicking, moving its fingers and hands, listening to the sounds in the womb. In the final illustration, Mr. President, the scissors are then removed from the baby's head, and the abortionist inserts the suction catheter, completing the partial-birth abortion procedure--sucks the child's brains out, the skull compresses, collapses, and the baby's small lifeless body is then removed from the birth canal, and it is over. The work is done. Is it not interesting--the contrast? Is it not interesting? What could have been, but for somebody's decision? God knows it was not the baby's decision. It could have been a beautiful birth. We could have had nurses scrambling running to get the baby into the incubator, into the preemie ward. No. That was not to be. What we have seen that could have been a beautiful birth is now an unspeakable, brutal, ugly death, more brutal and more ugly than the way you would put any pet. Even livestock today that we eat are killed more humanely than that. A doctor who took the Hippocratic oath to do no harm--to do no harm-- has done the worst possible harm to the most innocent and defenseless little person, little patient, that he could possibly have. Here in America--700, 400, 500 times a year. Who knows? It happens. Mr. President, we know all about the partial-birth abortion procedure in all of its sickening and grotesque detail because two doctors who have performed it hundreds of times, Dr. Martin Haskell and Dr. James McMahon, have spoken and written frankly about it in the past several months. But the most moving testimony of all comes from a registered nurse, a beautiful lady. Her name is Brenda Pratt Shafer. This is her picture. She is here today for this debate, and I had the privilege of meeting her just an hour or so ago. She assisted Dr. Haskell in performing a partial-birth abortion. She was a nurse, pro-choice, and assisted Haskell in performing a partial-birth abortion. Brenda Shafer described what she saw in a letter to her Congressman, Representative Tony Hall, Democrat of Ohio. This is what she said. I hope the cameras can pick this up. Listen. These are not my words. These are the words of a nurse who took basically the same pledge to save lives as doctors to. But this is what she said: The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. If you can think of your child in that situation. That is what she described the procedure as. She further states that: I am a registered nurse with 13 years of experience. But one day in September 1993 my nursing agency assigned me to work at a Dayton, Ohio, abortion clinic, and I had often expressed strong pro-choice views to my two teenage daughters. So I thought this assignment would be no problem for me. But I was wrong. I stood at a doctor's side as he performed the partial-birth abortion procedure--and what I saw is branded forever in my mind. The mother was 6 months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor went in with the forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms--everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping. And his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to that clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy--it was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen. America, Mr. President, America this is happening in--6 month child. God bless Brenda Pratt Shafer for having the courage to come forward [[Page S 16735]] with her testimony and her story because, without people like her, we would not know it happened. I have been in the Congress for 11 years, Mr. President, and until just a few months ago--I must confess my ignorance--I did not know that this procedure was performed in America. A registered nurse, very moving testimony, self-described pro-choice, who witnessed this procedure at the hands of Dr. Haskell. Thankfully, Nurse Shafer did tell Congressman Hall what she saw. I might just say to my colleagues, Nurse Shafer is here today. If you would like to talk with her, she is off the floor. You can talk with her. I think my colleagues now may have some understanding as to why the House voted to ban this barbaric, brutal, gruesome, inhumane procedure. By the 19th or 20th week of gestation, the point at which this unspeakably brutal method of abortion is used, the child is clearly capable of feeling what is happening to her. This is a living human being, one who, as I said before, if it had been born alive, would be called a preemie. If you read the commentary from neurologists, they would tell you that premature babies born at this stage of pregnancy actually may be more sensitive to pain stimulation than others. Earlier this year, I attended a press conference at which a neurologist spoke to that effect. He later so testified before the House Judiciary Committee's hearings on this bill. He does surgery on babies all the time, and he indicated there is really no doubt--no doubt, he said--that the unborn child who is attacked and killed in the partial-birth procedure suffers not just pain but horrible, intense, excruciating pain. I would ask you, all of us, as human beings, a few seconds, a few inches, and you are a living being, human being protected not only from pain but protected by the Constitution of the United States, and yet for a few inches, a few moments, you are the victim of the abortionist procedure, how could you not be appalled at this procedure? How could you possibly justify this procedure? As I said, I did not even know this took place 6 months ago, but I know it now. And if it takes the last breath in my body, I am going to stop it. I am going to stop it. Do you know why I am going to stop it, Mr. President? Because I believe in my heart that the American people will no longer tolerate this. I believe in my heart that people of good faith who differ on this issue, who listen to this debate, listen to this procedure, are going to make a decision. They are going to take the heat from the militant pro-choice people, and they are going to vote with us. We are going to stop this horrible procedure, as the House did. We are going to put it on the President's desk. President Clinton, I hope that you will pick up that pen and put your signature on that bill to stop it. It is very interesting; President Clinton was at one time an unborn child, like the rest of us, and his mother was in a very difficult situation, and his mother chose life. It is very interesting. I just say to my colleagues, this is the greatest country in the world, founded with a Declaration of Independence that speaks of a God- given and ``unalienable'' right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What happened to the right to life of this child? What happened to it? Why cannot she be given the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty? Why cannot she be given the chance to laugh, to cry, to get married, to have children, to go to college, to be in a high school play? Why? Why does she not have that right? The tragedy of accidents in life are bad enough. You lose a child to an accident because of alcohol; some alcoholic runs over a child. Those kinds of things happen every day in America, and they are terrible. But this is a deliberate act that stops this child from ever having the opportunity to do these things. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. If freedom has come to this, if freedom has come to meaning the freedom of abortionists to execute children--because that is exactly what they are doing. Let us call it exactly what it is. That is exactly what they are doing in this case. They are executing little children just as they emerge in the birth canal, inches away from birth. If that is what freedom means, then we ought to be brave enough to do what the House of Representatives did last Wednesday and pass this bill and stop this horrible, horrible procedure. Defenders of this partial-birth abortion, whom you will hear from shortly, have a big job to do. They really do. It is almost an impossible job in trying to rationalize how you can be in favor of this process, because you will hear it all: We are getting in the way between a woman and a doctor. They will do everything they can to talk about something else other than this. They are not going to talk about this because they cannot talk about it. So they have to go use some other issue. They try to get you on to something else. As you listen to the debate, they will be off on something else because they cannot be on this. One of the ways is to say partial-birth abortions are rare; they are obscure; they are almost never used. Well, Dr. Martin Haskell, the abortionist whose brutal handiwork Nurse Shafer witnessed, had claimed personally that he did 700 of them as of 1993. So I do not know what ``rare'' means--700 babies by one doctor. As I look at that depiction of that little baby in the womb, hanging there limp, you know what I say to myself? How many U.S. Senators are in that 700? How many doctors, lawyers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, teachers? How many? I do not know. We will never know. We will never know. The first black President, is he or she in there? We will never know. First Hispanic President? We will never know. First woman President? We will never know. Cure for cancer? It may be 1 of those 700. We will never know. They will never have had a chance to be that little human being, to develop from that little human being to the ultimate that they are allowed under the Constitution of the United States. We will never know that that little life could have been a life like this. We all grow up to be our own personal beings. We are all different--a lot of life but very different little personalities. We will never know. We will never know. They are gone. Gone. Not by accident, not in an automobile accident, not in war. No. Stabbed in the back of the neck with a pair of scissors with their brains sucked out by a catheter. There was another abortionist by the name of James McMahon who died a few days ago. He made late-term abortions his specialty. He was profiled in a 1990 article in the Los Angeles Times. In that article, McMahon coldly claimed credit for having developed the partial-birth method, and this is very interesting. He did not call it partial-birth abortion. He called it ``intrauterine cranial decompression.'' In English, that means crushing the skull while it is inside of the womb. That is a nice clinical description, is it not? But you see, we have to use terms like that because we cannot talk about this, because this is so obnoxious and so sickening and so disgusting and so outrageous that we have to talk about something else. So we use terms like ``intrauterine cranial decompression.'' I like plain English. Killing a child in the womb that is 90 percent born, that is what it is. Dr. McMahon continued, saying ``I want to deal with the head last because that's the biggest problem.'' That is what he said. Those are the feelings he had. When I read that, I thought to myself, ``That little baby in the womb who happens to have Dr. McMahon, if it had been Dr. Frist or Dr. anybody else, they would have been allowed to be born, they would have been allowed to grow, to become a President, to become a lawyer, to become a father, a mother, but through no choice of their own, it was Dr. McMahon who was there, not with gentle loving caring hands but with the hands of destruction,'' this physician who took the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. Sadly and perversely, he came to see it as his role as a doctor to deal with the problem of the head of a little baby in the manner that I described here today--a problem. According to the American Medical News, Dr. McMahon performed abortions through all 40 weeks of pregnancy. Think about that. It made no difference to him--8\1/2\ [[Page S 16736]] months, 9 months, a couple days overdue, call Dr. McMahon, he will take care of it. He said he would only do elective abortions through the first 26 weeks. How thoughtful of him. Mr. President, you see, when you hear this discussion, and my colleagues, about how rare this is, it is not rare. It is not rare. It is rare if you want to compare it to the number of births in America. A few hundred versus several million who are born in America. That I suppose you could call rare, but it is not rare to the 700 or so babies who have had that procedure, is it? After last week's House vote, an article in the New York Times, relying on data from the pro-choice National Abortion Federation, among others, estimated that the partial-birth abortion procedure is performed more than 400 times a year. In other words, on the average, more than once a day, and that is a conservative number. Those are the ones we know about. That is 400, more than 1 a day. I do not think that is rare. That is 400 babies. It is certainly not insignificant. Yesterday, the New York Times ran another article that indicates that the number of partial-birth abortions performed each year may, in fact, be much higher. The New York Times quotes a physician who it identifies as a gynecologist at a New York teaching hospital who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this article from the New York Times.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, here is what this doctor said on the condition of anonymity: ``Of course I use it''--partial-birth abortion procedure--``and I've taught it for the last 10 years.'' ``I've taught it,'' said a gynecologist at a New York teaching hospital who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ``So do doctors in other cities. At around 20 weeks, the fetus is usually in a breech position. If you don't have to insert sharp instruments blindly into the uterus, that's better and safer. ``Even in earlier abortions,'' the doctor continued, ``it can happen that after you prepare the patient by dilating the cervix, the feet move down, and the procedure might be covered by this law. This legislation would be a disaster for women's health. . . .'' [[Page S 16737]] Not a word about the baby. And by the way, we cannot find much evidence of any concern at all about women's health in this particular issue. It is clear that the doctors that we referred to, McMahon and Haskell, respectively, are not the only abortionists who employ the partial-birth abortion procedure. You see, we do not know. People are not going to come out and admit this. So we do not know how prevalent it really is. In fact, given that Times story yesterday, we may be sitting on the tip of an iceberg we do not even know about. Besides trying to rationalize the opposition to this bill by claiming that partial-birth abortions are rare and insignificant, although I find it difficult to understand how insignificant that would be for the child, you are also going to hear on the floor of this Senate opponents that are going to try to rationalize their position by saying that the bill interferes with the doctor's professional discretion and invades the doctor-patient relationship. You are going to hear that because, again, we have to talk about things like that because we cannot talk about this. That is why I am talking about it. Mr. President, the American Medical Association's council on legislation did not see it that way. They voted not once but twice to endorse this bill, to stop this practice. Twelve doctors on that board, practicing physicians, AMA members all, leaders of their profession voted unanimously to endorse H.R. 1833--unanimously. A member of the AMA council later publicly commented that the partial-birth abortion procedure used by Drs. Haskell and McMahon is simply not even recognized as a medical procedure. Think about that, it is not recognized as a medical procedure. They got it right. You know why? Do you know why it is right? Because medicine is supposed to heal people, that is why they got it right. Thank God they had the courage to vote the way they did. Even though they could not get the rest of the AMA to do it, the council did. They got it right. A doctor is supposed to heal. A doctor who does a partial-birth abortion is not practicing medicine. Can any reasonable person take the floor of the Senate and tell me this doctor who does this is practicing medicine, healing? He is playing executioner, that is what he is doing. I ask my colleagues to keep the AMA legislative council's action in mind as the opponents of this bill try to argue, and they will, that this bill interferes with the practice of medicine. You are going to hear it. The American Medical Association council on legislation carefully and thoughtfully considered it and they said it does not. They endorse this bill, because they recognize that partial-birth abortions simply do not constitute the practice of medicine. It is not a medical procedure that they do not agree with, they do not even think it is medicine at all. And yet you are going to hear all about it, how this interferes with the doctor and his patient and this is a medical process. They will tell you it is not even necessary. Mr. President, the opponents of this legislation try to rationalize their opposition by claiming that the grotesque and inhumane partial- birth abortion procedure is only used in the most extreme circumstances. This is where we get right down to the nitty-gritty and hear a lot about this, such as when the mother's life is in danger or her health is at serious risk or when the unborn child has what they call ``severe congenital abnormalities incompatible with life.'' I do not know what that means. We will talk about that in a few minutes. Once again, the facts belie their claims. McMahon and Haskell, doctors--I hesitate to use that term--are the only two abortionists with the brazen temerity to go public. They went public because they were proud of it. That is why they went public. They had no problem with it. They were not trying to hide it. They went public about their use of this procedure and to identify themselves personally with it. They advocate this partial-birth abortion method as the ``preferred method for elected late-term abortions.'' Haskell advocates the partial-birth abortion method for 20 to 26 weeks of pregnancy and Haskell told the American Medical News that most of the partial-birth abortions he performs are, in fact, elective. Speaking with what I would call chilling candor, Haskell told the AMA News, ``I'll be quite frank, most of my abortions are elective in that 20- to 24-week range and probably 20 percent are for genetic reasons and the other 80 percent are purely elective.'' For genetic, 20 percent and the other 80 percent are purely elective. So there you have it, I say to my colleagues. You will hear it all. You will hear some of our colleagues claim this hideous and cruel procedure is only reserved for the hard cases, the tough cases. Now we know the truth. Now we know that is not true. So when you hear it, I just gave you the facts. You have it straight from the horses mouth, from the people who do it. We heard from Martin Haskell--the proud practitioner of partial-birth abortions, the one Nurse Shafer witnessed in his grisly work--who told the American Medical Association's own newspaper that 80 percent of the partial-birth abortions that he performs are ``purely elective.'' He does them. It would be interesting to see where the other facts come from when we hear the other side of the argument. The National Abortion Federation--the official national organization of the Nation's abortion industry--has publicly acknowledged that partial-birth abortions are routinely done for purely elective reasons. Here is what they say. They told their members this in this memorandum. In anticipation of this debate, this was sent out to their members: Don't apologize. There are many reasons why women have late abortions . . . lack of money or health insurance, social [or] psychological crisis, lack of knowledge of human reproduction . . .'' That does not sound like dire emergency to me, Mr. President. Maybe I am missing something. What is the emergency about that? I told you what a partial-birth abortion is. I have read you Nurse Shafer's haunting eyewitness account. I have told you what the abortionists who have done partial-birth abortions have said about them. I have given you all that. Let me tell you what H.R. 1833--the bill in question--actually does because you are going to hear that distorted, too. They are going to have all kinds of lines on what this bill does and does not do. What it does do: The barbaric and brutal partial-birth abortion procedure that I have described and illustrated on the floor of the Senate today can, should, must and will be outlawed. It will be because I am not going to leave this Senate until it is outlawed. If we lose the vote today, it is going to come back. I am going to bring it back until we win it. Simply stated, H.R. 1833 does that. It outlaws that procedure. If you did not like what you saw on those charts, that is your vote. There is nothing else. Do not be swayed by the other arguments because they are not relevant. If you think what we saw in the charts is appropriate, then you should vote against me and this bill. If you think that process is OK, vote against me. I would not want you to vote otherwise. If you agree with me that this is wrong, then vote with me for H.R. 1833. It amends title VIII of the United States Code and provides that ``whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.'' The abortionist, not the woman. The abortionist is fined. That is the punishment for killing the child in this manner. You will probably hear that the woman is going to be punished. Not true. Read the law. H.R. 1833 defines a ``partial-birth abortion'' as ``an abortion in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery.'' That is what they do. Can anybody who sat here and listened to this debate honestly tell me that inserting scissors in the back of the head and sucking the brains out of a living, breathing child is not killing it? Beats me. But you will probably hear that it is not. H.R. 1833 would ban not only the brain suction, partial-birth abortion that I have described, but any other abortion that involves the partial delivery of the child into the birth canal [[Page S 16738]] before he or she is killed. So the abortionist who commits this horrible act will not be able to escape culpability under the law by pulling the baby into the birth canal and stabbing her through the heart rather than sucking her brains out through a hole. There are any number of ways. Would that be any more barbaric? They could have stabbed her in the heart with the scissors. Let me say it again. H.R. 1833 authorizes the prosecution only of the abortionist. When you hear otherwise, not true. Not the mother of the child upon whom the partial-birth abortion is performed. That woman is the innocent victim because she was advised to do something that was barbaric or to agree to do something that was barbaric. This bill is aimed at the abortionists; it is aimed at the brutality of this act; it is aimed at the gross violation of just basic human rights that are protected under the Constitution of the United States of America, for everybody, including a baby who comes out of that birth canal. Finally, Mr. President, even though you are going to hear otherwise, H.R. 1833 provides a life of the mother exception. Absolutely, it provides a life of the mother exception. Frankly, my jaw has dropped every time I heard one of the opponents of this bill try to say with a straight face that there is no life of the mother exception in this bill. They are going to say there is no life of the mother exception, and they will say it with a straight face, and they will give you all kinds of documentary evidence. There has always been such an exception since the day the bill was first introduced. I introduced it on this side. I know what it says, and it is in there. The life of the mother exception is in the form of what we would call an ``affirmative defense.'' You will find it in section ``e'' of H.R. 1833. Look at it. You will see it. So when you are told it is not in there, read it, and it is there. Look it up. The next time somebody says it is not there, read it. It is right there. That is the way this situation is dealt with in the United States Code. There are 31 affirmative defenses in the United States Code. Under H.R. 1833, if a doctor reasonably believes a mother's life is in danger and that a partial-birth abortion is the only procedure he can employ to save her life, he has an affirmative defense--written right into the statute. In other words, if what the doctor faced truly was a life-of-the-mother circumstance, he cannot be convicted of violating the law. I might also say there are very few, if any, opportunities where the life of the mother would be threatened here. Let me say it again. No doctor who reasonably believes that a mother's life is in danger and a partial-birth procedure is the only way to save it can be convicted of a crime, period. The key word in subsection ``e,'' Mr. President, is ``reasonably.'' No doctor who reasonably believes that the mother's life is in danger and that no other procedure could have saved her life can be successfully prosecuted under this bill. The word ``reasonably'' provides protection against an abortionists like Dr. Haskell or Dr. McMahon, who may otherwise try to abuse the life of the mother exception by claiming that every partial-birth abortion they do involves a threat to the life of the mother. We are not going to let them get away with that. Doctors have a way of projecting themselves as absolute. The doctor says it, so it must be true. The doctor says you have to have an abortion this way; it must be true. No. Doctors are human like everybody else. They are not God, and they are wrong sometimes. They are wrong when they say this is necessary procedure to save the life of the mother in all cases. A doctor against whom charges were brought under the new law would be required to demonstrate that his judgments were ``reasonable.'' He can have other medical doctors who are in the area, who are there, who can testify to that effect, that it was an emergency that had to be done. A doctor who abused the life of the mother exception in this bill obviously could not meet that burden. By the same token, a doctor acting in good faith to save the life of the mother obviously could and would meet that burden. To those who try to argue that this specific, carefully drafted life of the mother exception--in the form of an affirmative defense--somehow does not adequately protect doctors who act to save the life of the mother, I say that the American Medical Association's Council on Legislation formally voted on whether to endorse this bill twice. They endorsed it, flat out, with the affirmative defense as it is written in the bill before us, H.R. 1833. They did not qualify their endorsement by saying that the life of the mother provision should be changed or modified. They endorsed it. The life of the mother affirmative defense was fine with them. Again, all 12 doctors, the AMA legislative panel, voted unanimously, voted twice to endorse H.R. 1833--every last word. Every last provision. No exceptions. Why would they endorse the bill if they thought the life of the mother--affirmative defense does not adequately protect doctors who try to save the life of the mother? Why would they do it? They are in the business of protecting doctors. They did not do it. They said the bill was OK. This is a historic piece of legislation Mr. President, that originated, was voted on in the people's House, from Representative Canady. It is the most representative body of our Nation's democracy, and as the House considered this bill as I indicated in my earlier remarks, a magnificent majority, a supermajority, a two-thirds supermajority came together--liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, pro-choice, pro-life--many voted for this bill. Susan Molinari to Patrick Kennedy to Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich. We can do the same here in the Senate, Mr. President. We can look at this for the brutal act that it is and end it--never mind getting off into the generic discussion of abortion. Look at the facts--a baby about to enter from the birth canal into the world, denied that opportunity. Put aside the other differences; put aside where a life begins. I happen to believe it begins at conception. Others of my colleagues do not agree with me. That is not the issue today. Or whether there are fetal brain waves at such-and- such a month. That is not the issue today. Some say abortion should be legal for sex selection. That is not the issue today. They may think a couple who have a girl unborn child and prefer a boy can go ahead and abort the girl. That is not the issue today. The partial birth ban will protect girl and boy babies alike. That is the issue today. We can all agree that a 19- or 20-week fetus in gestation at the onset of viability outside the womb is a human being. I would be interested to hear why it is not. I would like to know what it is if it is not a human being. We should put aside the other differences. I had debates here with the Senator from California and others on the abortion issue. That is not the issue here today. The issue is this process. The bill is about abortion in the late second and into the third trimester of pregnancy-- a brutal, horrible way. Poll after poll consistently shows that the divisions among Americans over a abortion narrow and narrow as the pregnancy progresses into the second and third trimester. Even the most pro-choice Americans become pro-life at some point in the process. That is not the issue today. This bill is about basic human rights, fundamental human rights, Mr. President. The right of a little baby to be born, grow up, to have a life. They do not depend on the polls. Do we really have to take a poll to find out whether a little baby should have the right to proceed and develop his little personality? They do not depend on politics. What do they know about politics? What do they know about polls? Do you know what they know? They know that they hear sounds outside their mother's womb and they have sensed that protection. They are in that little fluid sac where they have protection, but they invade that. The abortionist invades that--pulls them feet first to their death. Even the Supreme Court in the Roe versus Wade decision recognized that a born child--a born child--is a person entitled to the equal protection of the laws under our Constitution. Now we are starting to talk a little bit differently. Now we have a problem [[Page S 16739]] with the semantics. What is a partially-born child? Feet out? Nothing else? Feet-knees? Feet-knees-behind? Torso? All the way to the neck? What is a partially born child? What is it? What makes it a nonchild while it is inside, while its inside is inside the womb or its shoulders or its torso? A few inches? A few moments. Does that make it something else? Is not a partially born child one whose entire body, except for her little head, is already in the birth canal, just as much a human being? Is she no less a human being? Is the line of a baby a nonentity who can be brutally slaughtered really just a matter of a few inches? A few moments? This is the world's greatest deliberative body, Mr. President. I am proud to be a Member. I hope and I believe that because we are the world's greatest deliberative body that we will rise to the challenge that the House has given us. That is the reason why I did not touch that bill. I did not use my own. I wanted that bill to come right over here and bring it right up without amendment. I want to pass it today if I can, tomorrow if necessary, whatever it takes, whatever time it takes, I want to pass it and I want to put it on the President's desk. Once it gets there, I hope that President Clinton will sign it into law. I hope that he will look at this brutal act and put an end to it because after all, his pen, William Jefferson Clinton--will stop the process. One signature, done. No more partial-birth abortions. Hundreds of innocent children saved. President Clinton, you were an unborn child once. The President's father died, you know, while his mother was pregnant. Is that not interesting? She faced a very tough decision. Do I raise a child alone without a father? Bill Clinton's mother chose life. Regardless of party, regardless of ideology, I think we could say we are thankful. He became a President of the United States. He could have been a victim. Bill Clinton could have been a partial-birth abortion. We never would have known. We never would have known. Think about it, my colleagues, because this is a very personal matter. Each and every one of us--each and every one of us--started out in life as an unborn child. Just like the one depicted in the first illustration that I showed earlier today. When you were born as you came through that birth canal your little fingers moved, your little feet moved, you kicked your legs, you moved your arms, and when you finally came into the world with a little slap on the behind, you started to cry. Every one of us came down that birth canal the same way--little bit differently sometimes but we came down the birth canal. We slept, we woke, we felt pain, we were happy, we were sad, our quarters were close, but we always heard our mother's voice. Our mother's voice was always there to soothe us. As I close, I am reminded of a great maxim. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You and I deserved to be protected by law from a partial-birth abortion when you and I lived in our mother's womb. There are two reasons why we are here today. Either/or: one, because our mothers chose life and had no concern about aborting us; second, because there was no abortionist there to end our lives. We had value. We had worth. We had rights. We became U.S. Senators. And those little babies have the same rights that we have under the Constitution. As the Old Testament tells us, Almighty God knew us even then, and He loved us. Our fellow human beings, these youngest of Americans, deserve no less. My colleagues, I implore you for the sake of God, for the sake of life, for the sake of innocent children, pass this bill. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I believe Senator Ashcroft will speak momentarily, and I will be happy to yield to the Senator when he gets here.

Bob Smith

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