Louise Slaughter: “this is one of the most painful debates that this House has to face, but it does not compare with the decision facing…”

“this is one of the most painful debates that this House has to face, but it does not compare with the decision facing parents, a medical decision that few have had to confront. For some families, the only hope of retaining a woman's ability to have children is at stake in this Congress. It has been a tenet of privacy and citizenship in the United States that the doctor-patient relationship is sacrosanct. And yet for the first time in the history of this Republic, over 200 years, this Congress is trying to outlaw a medical procedure and to determine whether it should be used or not. What is next? Last week the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) in what I thought was a very poignant moment, when some were trying to outlaw contraceptives said, ``Is there no limit to where this Congress will go to insert itself into the most private decisions that human beings have to make?'' Perhaps we can go further. Perhaps the next procedure we will outlaw here will be hysterectomy during childbearing years. I submit that some of the people in this House think that should be outlawed. But most importantly, I want to ask my colleagues and the American public to consider this issue: When confronted with a medical decision that could break a woman's heart and destroy her future chances to be a mother, who would she prefer to consult?”