Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, the women who are the victims of the violence that has caused death or harm to their babies have already…”

“Mr. Speaker, the women who are the victims of the violence that has caused death or harm to their babies have already made their choice, and their choice was to carry their babies to term and to give birth and to raise those children in hopefully a nurturing and loving household. To say that this legislation takes away the choice of a woman is just flat-out wrong. Maybe some people disagree with the choice that that woman made, but that is a personal choice; and we ought to recognize that this legislation respects that personal choice. And then to hear that this legislation is an assault on the Constitution is completely missing the point. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld fetal homicide laws, two-victim crime laws. The Webster case, I think, was the most emphatic upholding of that, and that is a Supreme Court that has also consistently refused to modify Roe v. Wade or to overrule it. So the Court has been able to make a distinction which apparently some of the Members on the other side of this argument have not been able to make, that fetal homicide laws are constitutional, two-victim crime laws are legal as well.”