Political Quotes

“Why are we here today? What are we doing here? The advocates of this legislation have said that we are here to save lives, to prevent abortions. But that is not true. It is not what we are doing here. This bill is going to be vetoed, as it has before. And there are not the votes in the United States Senate to override that veto, and there is no one in this Chamber who will honestly argue otherwise. No one will stand up after I do and say, oh, this is going to become law; this will have an effect in America, because they know it is not true. No, this is all about politics. It is not about saving lives. It is not about winning hearts. It is about saving seats in the Congress. It is about winning seats in the Congress. It is not about making law. It is about making noise. If the advocates of this bill wanted to make law, they had their chance earlier today. They would have supported the right of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and myself to offer our amendment. That is how we make law. Our amendment would ban the so-called partial-birth abortion and all form of late-term abortions. But it would have made exceptions, reasonable exceptions that Americans support; exceptions to prevent the loss of life of the mother and exceptions to protect the health of the pregnant woman when it is seriously, seriously, and that was the emphasis of our amendment, seriously at risk.”