Dianne Feinstein: “we do not address when life begins. I just read Justice Blackmun's opinion in Roe v. Wade. It is interesting, because he…”

“we do not address when life begins. I just read Justice Blackmun's opinion in Roe v. Wade. It is interesting, because he goes back to the Stoics, the Catholic Church, to the Middle Ages, and discusses the difference of opinion of when life begins, the difference of opinions in science. Then he reaches his conclusion that because these differences are so vast, the law generally does not directly enjoin that point of when life begins. That is the problem we have here. That is the dilemma the Senate faces. This bill is on a fast track. This bill has passed the House. This bill has been subject to a Rule XIV, without a hearing, from the year 2000. You have heard the most poignant, disturbing, heartrending stories on this floor. I respond to them like everybody else does. But I also know if you give a fertilized egg rights in the Federal law, it is going to have repercussions downline. If you declare in this bill you can prove a 1-day-old fertilized egg was a victim and therefore murdered, how do you turn around and say in another law you can proceed with embryonic stem cell research? You have the same 1-day-old fertilized egg. If it is murder here, is it not murder there? What are the repercussions of doing that? They are enormous. The other side doesn't talk about this. They talk about women who are 7 or 8 or 9 months pregnant. They talk about the most heinous and brutal assaults. But the bill does much more.…”