Barbara Boxer: “Mr. President, what I have done in this part of my presentation, and I am almost finished with this first part and I…”

“Mr. President, what I have done in this part of my presentation, and I am almost finished with this first part and I will save the rest for the rest of the debate, I have tried to make the case that the reason the President vetoed this bill, and the reason I am here asking my colleagues to support his veto, is because the bill in its form is extreme. It is extreme because it does not have, first of all, a clear life exception, which I will go into this afternoon. It does not have the usual high life exception. It has only an exception for preexisting conditions which might threaten the woman, but not the actual pregnancy itself. And it has no exemption for health. I do believe that this President, who has really taken a tremendous amount of time to lay out his reason for vetoing this bill, is very, very clear and very willing to work with all sides to craft a bill that he can sign. I think, again, we can do that pretty easily. So the issue that is before us today is not about choice, it is not about a woman's right to choose. A woman doesn't have a right to choose at the end of her pregnancy to have an abortion. It is not allowed under Roe versus Wade. No physician I ever heard from ever performed such an abortion. No Senator I know condones such an abortion.”