Dianne Feinstein: “I myself find this a sad day. In a sense, it is a watershed debate, and I very much fear it is the first major…”

“I myself find this a sad day. In a sense, it is a watershed debate, and I very much fear it is the first major legislative thrust to set this Nation back 30 years with respect to freedom of choice. I am going to speak about what freedom of choice really means. Essentially, to me it means that Government will not become involved in these most intimate decisions that a woman has to make, not become involved in legislating a woman's reproductive system, what she must do, when she must do it, and how she must do it, but that government will essentially leave those intimate decisions to the physician, to a woman, to her faith, and to medicine. And here we have the Congress of the United States essentially saying that every woman in this country who may find out in her third trimester that she has a horribly, severely deformed child with anomalies incompatible with life, and if that child can be born, even if it is a major threat to her health, she must deliver that child. Unfortunately, no Member of this body is going to be present, no Member of this body is going to hold that mother's hand and tell her that it is OK if she jeopardizes her health perhaps for the rest of her life.”