Jerry Nadler: “Mr. Speaker, well, here we are with 2 days left before the August recess, and here is what we still have to do: Consider…”

“Mr. Speaker, well, here we are with 2 days left before the August recess, and here is what we still have to do: Consider expulsion of only the second Member of Congress in our Nation's history, have nine appropriation bills left to pass, establishing a Department of Homeland Security so we can protect our country against terrorism, and dealing with the financial crisis our country is facing. Instead, what are we doing? The Republican leadership has scheduled 2 hours of debate on so-called partial-birth abortion. What is going on? Well, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, it is an election year, and now it is time to bring up this hot button issue. But with a difference this year, with a twist, because this year the Supreme Court has held a bill almost identical to the bill up for consideration today unconstitutional. From the wild rhetoric we are hearing on the other side today, one would think that women wake up suddenly in their ninth month of pregnancy and say, 'You know, I am tired of being pregnant. I think I am going to go have a partial-birth abortion.' This is insulting to the women of this country and to the women whose tragic stories we have heard on the House floor today. It is simply not true. This is a very rare and tragic procedure which happens only under the most difficult of circumstances and which the U.S.…”