Ernest Istook: “I was surprised to hear the statements of Bill Clinton and Al Gore attacked as extremist. For when Bill Clinton was…”

“I was surprised to hear the statements of Bill Clinton and Al Gore attacked as extremist. For when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, he sent this letter in which he said he supported a constitutional amendment for the people of Arkansas to say abortion should not be funded with public money unless the life of the mother were at risk, and he wrote in the letter, ``I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortions.'' Al Gore voted repeatedly for the same type of amendment that is in the bill that the gentlewoman from New York seeks to strike. When he was a Senator in 1987, he wrote, ``During my 11 years in Congress, I have consistently opposed Federal funding for abortion.'' Why is this now being attacked as extremist? We have had this vote before. We voted on this identical issue, this identical language, in August. Some people are not willing to abide by that decision and they are out here to try again. But 36 States have had their State laws overturned by a Clinton administration directive misinterpreting what Congress has done, and there is no other remedy to uphold the States which have provisions in their statutes and their constitutions against using public money for abortion except to save the life of the mother. The language which we desire to keep in the bill is the language that simply says if they wish to fund those rape and incest abortions, they may do so.”