Don Nickles: “as I am sure all of my colleagues know by now, the procedure banned by this bill--the partial-birth abortion…”

“as I am sure all of my colleagues know by now, the procedure banned by this bill--the partial-birth abortion procedure--defies description. I am not going to go into the terrible details of this procedure which is performed on a living child late in pregnancy. This is a truly shocking procedure--absolutely indefensible. The term ``partial-birth'' is perfectly accurate. Some prominent defenders of partial-birth abortions insist that anesthesia kills the babies before they are removed from the womb. This myth has been refuted by professional societies of anesthesiologists. In reality, the babies are alive and experience great pain when subjected to a partial-birth abortion. It has been asserted that this procedure is the only way to prevent serious health damage. However, partial-birth abortions are performed thousands of times annually on healthy babies of healthy mothers. Hundreds of ob-gyns and fetal/maternal specialists, along with former Surgeon General Koop have come forward to unequivocally state that ``partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect another's health or her future fertility.'' Thus, the first section of S. 3 contains Congress' factual findings that, based upon extensive medical evidence compiled during congressional hearings, a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman.”