Bob Filner: “Mr. Speaker and collagues, I rise to voice my opposition to H.R. 760, the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban. This is…”

“Mr. Speaker and collagues, I rise to voice my opposition to H.R. 760, the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban. This is a bill that immediately provokes strong feelings on both sides of the abortion issue. No one is in favor of abortion. I am not in favor of abortion, and in Congress, I am focused on making abortions less and less necessary. However, in a few situations each year, the procedure that this bill seeks to ban is necessary to protect the life or the health of the mother--or because of multiple abnormalities of the fetus, making viability virtually impossible. A woman, in this situation, has the constitutional right to an abortion, and there is a wealth of credible medical evidence that this procedure in some instances is much safer than other available procedures. H.R. 760 seeks to criminalize these safe, legal, and rare abortion procedures. A major problem with this bill is its name. The term, ``partial birth,'' is not a medical term. There is no medical definition of a ``partial birth'' abortion. It is a loaded, political term made up by the anti-choice movement to inflame the debate. It is not helpful to an enlightened discussion of this issue. In addition, as I have said, the bill is unconstitutional. In 2000, the Supreme Court found Nebraska's ``partial-birth'' abortion ban unconstitutional in Carhart v.…”