Louise Slaughter: “Mr. Speaker, first I want to say that the statistics on the clinic in Pennsylvania were really quite shocking. I thought…”

“Mr. Speaker, first I want to say that the statistics on the clinic in Pennsylvania were really quite shocking. I thought these were all done in hospital situations. I have never heard those kinds of figures for anything. That aside, let me read about a woman who terminated a pregnancy that, they are very rare, I still believe that. The decision to terminate a pregnant late in term is an agonizing decision for the women and their families. Listen to the story of Viki Wilson and her family as she told it in her own words: ``In the spring of 1994, I was pregnant and expecting Abigail, my third child. My husband, Bill, an emergency room physician had delivered our other children and would do it again this time. At 36 weeks of pregnancy, however, all of our dreams and happy expectations came crashing down around us. My doctor ordered an ultrasound that detected that all of my previous prenatal testing had failed to detect. Approximately two-thirds of my daughter's brains had formed outside her skull. What I had thought were big, healthy, strong baby movements were, in fact, seizures. ``My doctor sent me to several specialists, including a perinatologist, a pediatric radiologist, and a geneticist, in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her; but everyone agreed she would not survive outside my body.…”