Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for New York (Ms. Slaughter) for her steadfast work to preserve a woman's right to choose, as this bill does not, and to keep us from endangering that right from the thirteenth week on. And that is what this bill does. I want to speak to the constitutional issues. I understand where many Americans are on what they think is misnamed partial birth abortion. You know, that is a 1984 gamut, call something what it is not, trying to focus the American people on a viable baby being aborted as it comes out of its mother's womb. My friends, that is not this bill. This bill is a virtual twin of a bill in Nebraska law that was struck down 3 years ago by the Supreme Court in Stenberg versus Carhart. This is a redux of that unconstitutional law. And though there have been some attempts to fiddle with the bill in those terms, there is not a dime's worth of difference between this law and the Nebraska law. Now, the Republicans are not as dumb as they look. They have read the decision. They are not even trying to ban one procedure. They are trying to dip into the second trimester, and, boy, have they done it. And Ms. and Mrs. America do understand that, beginning with the thirteenth week, the procedures most commonly used and understood to be the safest procedures for performing abortions after the thirteenth week would be banned by this bill. In the law we say it is unconstitutionally vague.”