George Voinovich: “I reiterate the fact that this is not an issue that gets to the basis of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. I…”

“I reiterate the fact that this is not an issue that gets to the basis of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. I predict that just as in the past on the floor of the Senate, there are going to be people supporting the outlaw of this gruesome procedure, which is not necessary, who are very much pro-choice, pro-abortion, and who will probably have amendments on the floor of the Senate, a sense of the Senate, in terms of Roe v. Wade and many of the people who will vote to sustain Roe v. Wade will be some of the same people who will vote against this procedure because they understand how gruesome it is. I point out one other fact. You just cannot give the back of the hand statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is a very respected institute, which is an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, that published a survey of abortion providers showing--these are abortion providers, OK--showing that the number of partial-birth abortions more than tripled between 1996 and 2000. So this procedure is not one that is being practiced in some of the examples that my colleague from California has presented on the floor of the Senate but, rather, has become a regular procedure in the offices of many OB/GYN doctors in this country--a procedure that is not necessary.”