Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the people who oppose this legislation that it infringes on Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the people who oppose this legislation that it infringes on Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade very clearly gives Congress and the several States the right to prohibit abortions on viable babies. There is one State in the Union, Kansas, that collects statistics on partial-birth abortions. Let me quote from page 17 of the committee report: ``The experiences of the State of Kansas, the only State to require physicians to report the performance of partial-birth abortions, are instructive on this point. Under its mandatory reporting scheme for partial-birth abortions, in 1998, 58 partial-birth abortions were performed, all of which were on viable babies and all of which were necessary to prevent a substantial or irreversible impairment of a major body function, which was the impairment of the patient's mental function. ``Similarly, in 1990, 182 such procedures were performed,'' all for the same reason, and again, all on viable babies. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.”