PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 2003 CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today because it is difficult for me to understand how anybody could support this barbaric, heinous approach toward abortion. The Senate passed S. 3, the partial-birth abortion ban of 2003, with strong bipartisan support, 64 to 33, back in March of this year. The legislation passed the House in June with similarly strong bipartisan support, 282 to 139. We were then forced to debate the motion to go to conference in September.
We completed the conference in September. Now we are finally able to vote on passage of the conference report. Let's get on with it. This has taken a long time in this Congress, but it also has taken 7 years to get to this point. Even though the Congress has passed similar legislation before, finally we will be able to send it to President Bush, who will sign it into law.
I know the people of my home State of Utah recognize the importance of this effort. The vast majority of people in Utah and, I believe, in our country, recognize that the practice of partial-birth abortion is immoral, offensive, and impossible to justify. This procedure is so heinous that even many who consider themselves pro-choice cannot defend it.
Senator Santorum should be applauded for his tireless efforts to achieve this goal. His leadership has been essential and very much appreciated. I admire his efforts to protect innocent human life, especially here, where it is so graphically obvious this procedure cannot be defended.
By now we have all seen Dr. B. Benoit's film of the 3-dimensional ultrasound of the baby in utero, yawning and even smiling. This appeared in the Evening Standard in London. It is a picture of an unborn baby smiling inside the womb. It says: "Picture Exclusive, Proof Babies Smile in Womb." It is truly amazing and enlightening what advancing technology has enabled us to see. This truly is an incredible window into the mother's womb, where it has to be clear to all who view it that this is a living human being, a living baby.
Yet there are those who want to protect the ability to violently crush this young life. In the case of the procedure we seek to ban with this legislation, it is a baby just inches away from being born. Yes, inches away from being born.
For those who may not have a clear understanding of this procedure, let me describe it. This is a little graphic, I agree, but we need to ensure that the American people understand what is going on. How anyone can justify this barbaric procedure is beyond me. A baby is almost fully delivered with only her head remaining inside the birth canal when the doctor stabs scissors into the base of the baby's skull to open a hole into which he then inserts a suction tube and sucks out the brain so the skull collapses. Then they pull the baby out and say it is not a living human being even though just seconds before this was a full human being, a living human being with legs dangling and kicking. I honestly do not know how anyone can avoid being truly sickened when they see a baby being killed in this gruesome manner. It is not done on a mass of tissue but to a living baby capable of living outside the womb, capable of feeling pain, and at the time this procedure is typically performed, capable of living outside the womb.
All this legislation does is ban the one procedure. As the testimony in the House made clear, the fact is, there is no medical need to allow this type of procedure. It is never medically necessary, it is never the safest procedure available, and it is morally reprehensible and unconscionable.
As I mentioned when we debated the bill in the spring, we have all heard in recent years about teenage girls giving birth and dumping their newborns into the trash can. One woman was criminally charged after giving birth to a child in a bathroom stall during the prom and strangling and suffocating the baby before leaving the body in the trash. Tragically, there have been several incidents around the country in the past few years. This should not surprise us. This is what happens when we continue, as some would do here, to devalue human life-those who would like to stop this bill by and large.
William Raspberry argued in a column in the Washington Post:
. . . only a short distance [exists] between what [these teenagers] have been sentenced for doing and what doctors get paid to do.
He got it right. When you think about it, it is incredible that there is a mere 3 inches separating a partial-birth abortion from murder. Partial-birth abortion simply has no place in our society and rightly should be banned. President Bush has described partial-birth abortion as "an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity." With that, I wholeheartedly agree.
Basic human decency, I hope, will prevail. I pray that never again will it be legal in this country to perform this barbaric procedure. Unfortunately, I am sure the opponents of this measure will seek to challenge the law in court where I hope good judgment will ultimately prevail.
In Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court confirmed:
. . . by no means must physicians [be granted] unfettered discretion in their selection of abortion methods.
The House has already passed this conference report. It is time for this Congress to finish its work and send this bill to the
President for his signature.
Oddly enough, young girls out there, young women, are becoming more and more opposed to abortion. I believe it has been this debate, this barbaric procedure that is the cause for them to think it through and to acknowledge that inside that womb of the mother is a living human being, a living baby, and especially one capable of living outside the mother's womb.
This is a serious debate. This is as serious a bill as we can have before the Senate. I hope our colleagues will vote overwhelmingly to pass the conference report as we simply have to get rid of this barbaric and inhumane procedure.
I yield the floor.