Lisa Murkowski: “in March, the House of Representatives--in a bipartisan manner--overwhelmingly voted 295-136 to end the horrible…”

“in March, the House of Representatives--in a bipartisan manner--overwhelmingly voted 295-136 to end the horrible procedure known as partial birth abortion. That strong endorsement for the ban came in the wake of a confession by a prominent proponent of abortion who admitted that he lied through his teeth when he said that partial birth abortions were very rare and only performed in the most dire of circumstances. On February 27, 1997, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, an association of over 200 abortion providers, recanted his earlier statements that partial birth abortions were used only in extreme medical circumstances. Fitzsimmons admitted that: In actuality, 5,000 partial birth abortions are performed every year as an elective procedure on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. Fitzsimmons justified his lie by saying that he just went out there and spouted the party line. The party line Fitzsimmons referred to, of course, is the party line agreed on among the Washington-based pro- abortion groups. Unfortunately, President Clinton justified his veto of this ban by spouting the same party line lies--that this procedure is medically necessary in certain compelling cases to protect the mother.”