Tom Coburn: “what we just heard was a very unfortunate story, but the most unfortunate thing about the story is the woman was lied to…”

“what we just heard was a very unfortunate story, but the most unfortunate thing about the story is the woman was lied to by her physician, for in fact there is never a medical reason to care for any anomaly associated with pregnancy in this way. This debate is not going to be centered around truth. It has not been. There is never an indication to use this procedure to save the life of a woman. And if, in fact, that were not true, the bill still protects for that. So it is a specious argument to say that partial-birth abortion is required to save the life of a woman. It is just absolutely untrue. Now, why would I say that? I have cared for every imaginable type of anatomic, genetic defect in the over 3,200 babies that I have cared for, let alone the other 1,000 or so pregnancies that did not come to fruition. Why? Why do we have the partial-birth abortion? We have the partial-birth abortion as a convenience to abortionists. Now, it makes good rhetoric to say that this saves the life of a woman; it makes good rhetoric to say that this is the only way we can in fact allow that choice for that woman in a very unfortunate situation, but it is not medically true, it is not scientifically true. But it philosophically supports the idea that no matter what we want, if we want to terminate a life at any time, for any reason, for any cause, then we ought to do this.”