Wayne Allard: “I commend the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum, and Senator Frist for their leadership on this particular issue.…”

“I commend the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum, and Senator Frist for their leadership on this particular issue. Both have worked extremely hard. I also commend the Presiding Officer for his leadership for the rights of the unborn. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which is S. 3. This legislation is designed to help protect unnecessary suffering of the unborn child and also to protect the mother. It prohibits a partial-birth abortion, which is a partial delivery of a living baby, the killing of a baby before complete delivery. The bill allows partial-birth abortion except for the life of the mother, and in cases where there is endangerment by physical disorder, illness, and injury. I will go through some of the bill's definitions, which I think say a lot about what this bill is all about. The term 'partial-birth abortion' means an abortion which, first, 'the person performing the abortion deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus.' That is the way it is defined in the bill.”