Political Quotes

“I wish to speak to how the bill was drafted and why. Senator DeWine articulated it well. You have to prove the pregnancy, and we defined the pregnancy like 16 other States. That is the dominant way of defining the child for the purpose of this statute. Thirteen States have a different view of it. In California, I think the law is at 6 weeks. If you can prove the child is beyond 6 weeks--not viable but beyond 6 weeks--the law kicks in. In 1999, when we first drafted this statute--Senator DeWine was carrying it in the Senate, I carried it in the House, and we are finally coming together to have a vote--it never made sense to me, if you believe this is not about abortion--because it is not; we wrote it so it is not--why would you give a criminal a break who destroyed a family's life in two ways, not one? You are not going to prosecute medical researchers under this statute. You have to hurt the mother. This is not about medical research. It is not about abortion. It is about criminals who attack pregnant women. Why would you give the criminal a break at 3 weeks? You could prove the baby has been around for 3 weeks. The criminal just totally gets away with it. The Feinstein amendment--as much as I like Senator Feinstein, and she is truly one of my favorites--nobody goes this way because this is not the way you would want to go if you are prosecuting criminals. You do not want to ignore the reality of what happened to this family and to these victims.”