Ellen Tauscher: “I rise in opposition to reconsidering this bill, and I urge my colleagues to join me in sustaining the President's veto.…”

“I rise in opposition to reconsidering this bill, and I urge my colleagues to join me in sustaining the President's veto. We all agree that healthy women with healthy fetuses should not have post-viability abortions. But the authors of this bill do nothing to address this issue. Instead by focusing on medical procedures, the Republican leadership's partial birth abortion ban fails to fully address abortions performed post-viability and overreaches by banning abortions pre-viability. The Republican leadership has refused to bring up a bipartisan bill that accomplishes, in fact, what their bill only achieves in nasty rhetoric. H.R. 1032, which was introduced by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) at the beginning of the 105th session, would ban all late-term abortions unless it was necessary to save the life of the mother or to avert serious adverse health consequences. Unfortunately, the House leadership has presented us with the singular option of voting on H.R. 1122, which is believed by many to be unconstitutional.”