Even more lamentable than President Clinton's apparent inability to pick a policy and stick with it is his allegiance to certain extreme elements within the Democratic party. Clinton's enthrallment to some of the more fanatical members of his own party is so complete that even he, the great policy-switching escape-artist, is coerced on some occasions into sacrificing political expediency and common decency so that he can appease the elements which hold him captive. While the vast majority of Americans are opposed to keeping partial-birth abortions legal and are repulsed when they understand what takes place during a partial-birth abortion, President Clinton must kowtow to the demands of abortion advocates and abortion providers who view any legislation on abortion as an erosion of the right to choose.
The partial-birth abortion ban bill, HR 1833, was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate version differed slightly from the House version, necessitating a conference committee to reconcile the differences before the bill is passed on to President Clinton for his signature or veto. President Clinton has already stated through his spokesman that he will veto the bill when it reaches him. This executive intransigence is a grave error. In order to minimize the public outcry against the human rights betrayal that a veto of HR 1833 is, the public must be kept in the dark about partial-birth abortions and the ban which has been passed by Congress.
The partial-birth abortion is "an abortion in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery." As the procedure is most commonly practiced, the live baby is extracted feet first until the entire body with the exception of the head has been delivered. The abortionist then inserts scissors into the base of the skull and uses a suction catheter to collapse the head before finally completing the delivery of the now dead baby. The debate over HR 1833 in the Senate was particularly heated. Pro-abortion senators made use of what former Senator Margaret Chase Smith referred to as the Four Horsemen of Calumny: fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear. Senator Smith was speaking in reference to the tactics of McCarthy and other rabid anti-Communists, but her words are just as applicable to the tactics used by pro-abortion senators during the Judiciary Committee hearings concerning the partial-birth abortion ban.
These senators raised the false fear that HR 1833 had no provision for the life of the mother, even though the bill does indeed make provisions for the life of the mother. These senators attempted to conduct hearings and debate in ignorance by moving to block medically accurate line drawings of the partial-birth abortion procedure. These senators provided sufficient evidence of their bigotry against pro-lifers and others testifying against HR 1833 in their attempts to smear them and discredit their testimony.
One instance of a pro-abortion smear attempt occurred during the testimony of Brenda Shafer, a nurse who describes herself as "very pro-choice." Mrs. Shafer testified in favor of HR 1833 by relaying her disturbing experience with partial-birth abortions. She was assigned by her nursing agency to work at the Women's Medical Center, an abortion-provider that performs partial-birth abortions when necessary. Initially, she had no problem with the job due to her "very pro-choice" views. This changed.
Speaking of the horror which she felt at seeing the babies pulled kicking and struggling from the womb and the look on their faces as the procedure was performed, Mrs. Shafer concluded, "I have been a nurse for a long time and I have seen a lot of death -- people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it. I have seen surgical procedures of every sort. But in all my professional years, I had never witnessed anything like this ... After I left that day, I never went back."
After relaying this obviously difficult and trying testimony, Mrs. Shafer was forced to endure Senator Kennedy's futile, yet nasty, attempts to cast doubt upon her testimony. Apparently, Washington feminists have no problem with antics such as Senator Kennedy's as long as they are directed against anti-abortionists and not someone such as Anita Hill.
How unfortunate it is that President Clinton wishes to veto the ban on partial-birth abortions. In doing so, President Clinton declares that he supports pulling a baby from her mother's womb only to destroy it. Such a position is to be expected when our Chief Executive allies himself with the most dogmatic and uncompromising of abortion advocates.
