Bill Clinton: “Legislation April 10, 1996 Dear Cardinal Bernardin: I want to thank you for your letter on H.R. 1833. I appreciate and…”

“Legislation April 10, 1996 Dear Cardinal Bernardin: I want to thank you for your letter on H.R. 1833. I appreciate and considered the strong moral convictions you expressed. This is a difficult and disturbing issue, one which I have studied and prayed about for many months. I am against late-term abortions and have long opposed them, except where necessary to protect the life or health of the mother. As Governor of Arkansas, I signed into law a bill that barred third trimester abortions, with an appropriate exception for life or health, and I would sign such a bill now if it were presented to me. Indeed, when I first heard the procedure referred to in H.R. 1833 described, I thought I would support the bill. But as I studied the matter and learned more about it, I came to understand that this is a rarely used procedure, justifiable as a last resort when doctors judge it necessary to save a woman's life or to avert serious health consequences to her. In the past months, I have learned of several cases of women who desperately wanted to have their babies, who were devastated to learn that their babies had fatal conditions and would not live, who wanted anything other than an abortion, but who were advised by their doctors that this procedure was their best chance to avert the risk of death or grave harm which, in some cases, would have included an inability to ever bear children again. For these women, this was not about choice.…”