Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 2003

Mr. President, I am dismayed and outraged that as we stand on the brink of war, as a quarter million of our finest soldiers gather in the Persian Gulf, the Senate is here this week discussing how to criminalize women's health choices. That is outrageous. I cannot believe the Senate leadership can find no more pressing national issue for the Senate to consider right now than abortion.

I cannot believe my colleagues are so out of touch with what is going on in America and the world that we should be debating this bill, S. 3. For anyone who hasn't had time to read a newspaper or talk to a constituent in the last week, I will read you some of the headlines. It will help demonstrate what else we are not doing right now.

This is from Friday's New York Times. Headline: "U.S. Payrolls Fall Sharply as Jobless Rate Rises to 5.8 Percent."

Employers shed more jobs last month at any time since the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Labor Department reported today.

Saturday's Washington Post is even more alarming.

    .    .    . [T]he report showed significant declines in a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, construction, retail trade, transportation, and some service.

    How about this revelation: "Chronic Budget Deficits Forecast," says the Washington Post.

    The Federal Government .    .    . faces chronic deficits that only dramatic policy shifts can reverse. .    .    . Altogether, the CBO concluded, the President's policies would leave the Government with $2.7 trillion in debt through 2013, which the Government would not realize if Bush's proposals were rejected.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the Dow Jones fell to a 5-month low. If it drops 400 more points, it will hit a 5-year low.

On Wednesday, we learned that "75 million Americans had no health insurance in 2001-02."

Today, the New York Times reported, "More Students Line Up at Financial Aid Offices."

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As the economic slump wears on, universities are awash in financial aid requests that dwarf those of earlier years, often from students who never thought of asking for help before and now find themselves scrambling for ways to stay in school.

On Saturday, the AP reported:

The Air Force Chief of Staff vowed to make the Air Force Academy safer for female cadets. The Air Force says it has investigated 54 reports of sexual assault since the academy began admitting women in 1976. Many of the alleged victims have said they were afraid to report the attacks because they feared they would be reprimanded.

Mr. President, this is a terrible situation. I commend Senators ALLARD and WARNER for their leadership in working to address that problem.

Unfortunately, the news overseas is no better than the news at home. The New York Times reported: "North Korean Fliers Said To Have Sought Hostages."

The North Korean fighter jets that intercepted an unarmed American sky plane over the Sea of Japan last weekend were trying to force the aircraft to land in North Korea and seize its crew, a senior defense official said today.

Today's Washington Post reports that "Iran's Nuclear Program Speeds Ahead; Making "Startling' Progress."

U.S. officials .    .    . described Iran's progress last week as "startling" and "eye-opening," so much so that intelligence agencies are being forced to dramatically shorten estimates for when Iran may acquire nuclear weapons. But equally striking is the extent to which Iran's breakthrough caught the United States and others by surprise.

Mr. President, these are the issues that I hear about when I am home in my State at the grocery store on Saturday morning. My constituents are terribly concerned about the economy, their jobs, their health care—or their lack of a job or health care. They ask about the war in Iraq and the threat posed by North Korea. My constituents have a vested interest in resolving the North Korean crisis, as do the Senators from California, since they have read news reports that the Western United States is potentially within range of a North Korean missile.

We are living in very trying times. It is challenges like these that test the strength of a nation and its leaders. But for the good of the country, shouldn't we now, more than ever, put aside the wedge politics and get on with the real business of the American people? That is what they elected us to do. That is why each one of us is here today.

Instead, we find ourselves on the eve of war facing a stagnant economy and the Senate is here debating a woman's right to choose.

Someone just tuning into C-SPAN right now might think this debate is taking place on another planet because it is dangerously out of sync with the real threats that are facing our Nation. It shows that nothing—not war, not the stagnant economy—will stop hardliners in Congress from trying to appease their political base by pushing an unconstitutional, deceptive, extreme agenda on American women.

But do you know what? If the Senate leadership wants to debate abortion on the eve of war, fine, bring it on, because it is time the American people see that they are using deceptive examples and misleading information to impose extreme, unconstitutional restrictions on a woman's health decision.

Throughout this debate, I want to show that the Republican proposal is based on misinformation and is skewed to undermine a woman's legal, constitutionally protected rights.

I am going to go a step further and offer an amendment that would actually reduce the number of abortions in America and ensure that low-income, pregnant women have access to health care that will reduce complications in their pregnancies and ensure healthy outcomes.

Like any debate on a sensitive issue, the debate on this measure is complicated. But it really comes down to one simple question: Who decides what is right for a woman's health? The woman and her doctor, or Senators she has never met? Who decides whether or not a woman will ever be able to have children? The woman herself, or a Senator who knows nothing about her?

When you ask Americans who they believe should be making health care decisions, the answer is overwhelmingly clear: The patient should decide.

We all bristle at the idea that an insurance company or an HMO would stand in the way of a doctor or patient making a decision about a medical test. Yet on this, the most sensitive and private and difficult decision a woman may ever face, the Senate is about to insert itself between a patient, her doctor, her family, and her faith.

This measure would gag a doctor who is about to offer a woman a choice in a potentially life-threatening or health-impairing decision. It would substitute a woman's own judgment about her life and her family for the judgment of the Senate leadership.

With all due respect, the Senate leadership does not know what is best for that woman, and neither do I, nor any other elected official. The Government should not be making a woman's health decisions for her. She should make them for herself, in consultation with her family, her doctor, and her faith.

Mr. President, I will have much more to say about this and the amendment I intend to offer, but again, I have to say that I find it so amazing this Senate would be so out of sync with the fear and the anxiety in this country not because of some late-term abortion bill that is brought out for political reasons, but because our country is on the edge of a war that could change things for a long time to come. We are on the edge of a war where we have thousands of young people standing ready to do what this President asks. We are on the edge of a war where no one knows what the consequences will be, and at the same time, at home, we are facing an economy that is truly becoming one in which many people fear for their job, their health care, their ability to send their kids to school, and the future of this country.

Those are the issues we should be debating tonight, Mr. President, not this issue. But we are here. We will debate it, and we will make the case that it is deceptive, it is extreme, and it is unconstitutional.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. I retain the remainder of our time.