Author Archive Send to a Friend <% dim printurl printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Version

July 26, 2002 5:15 p.m. Lies Never Die Lowlights from the House debate partial-birth abortion. By Ramesh Ponnuru & Matthew Continetti

n Wednesday, the House debated Ohio Republican Steve Chabot's bill to ban partial-birth abortion. The debate was notable mainly for the mendacity to which the opponents were reduced.

The Democrats' major deception consisted of the assertion that a ban would endanger the health or even the lives of women. Californian Lynn Woolsey called the bill "a blatant attack on women's health." Carolyn Maloney of New York said that the bill put women at risk of losing "their fertility, their health, and even their lives." Diana DeGette of Colorado implied that partial-birth abortions were procured only for health reasons. New Yorker Jerry Nadler said, "This bill would sanction grievous bodily harm to a woman rather than let her and her doctor do what is necessary in their judgment to safeguard her health and her welfare." California's Jane Harman called the bill an "attack on a woman's fundamental right to protect her life and health."

Partial-birth abortions are so labeled by opponents because they involve the partial delivery of a fetus, followed by the crushing of its skull and the extraction of the rest of it from the womb. No medical authority has ever alleged that there are circumstances under which a pregnancy could threaten the life or health of a woman in such a way that this procedure would be necessary to protect her. The only debatable point is whether there are ever circumstances in which partial-birth abortion is the safest method of abortion, given that a woman has already decided, for whatever reason, that she must have one. Even on that narrow question, there is substantial evidence suggests that such abortions are never necessary.

Connecticut Republican Nancy Johnson added her own bizarre twist to the argument: "There are no late-term abortions of healthy babies that are legal. . . . I know of no case that shows a healthy child being aborted for purposes of destroying a child." For someone who has spent her political career arguing for keeping abortion legal, Rep. Johnson is remarkably ignorant of the law. The law does not prohibit abortions of "healthy babies" in the third trimester, nor is it allowed to do so by the Supreme Court. The Court has held that any abortion laws must allow abortion when necessary to preserve a woman's physical or mental health — even in the third trimester, and even if the baby is healthy.

Indiana Democrat Julia Carson seemed miffed that she was even asked to vote on the bill. She complained that she has had "to come down to this floor 109 times since I have been in Congress to vote on a matter of abortion." In point of fact, nobody is forcing her to vote on the bill; it's fine by us if she doesn't.

GREAT MOMENTS IN CONGRESS, CTD.
The Houston Chronicle reports that during a hearing of a House subcommittee dealing with NASA, California Republican Dana Rohrabacher mixed it up with Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee. According to the Chronicle, Jackson Lee was "in the middle of a long-winded question that. . . had covered seven topics." She was "well beyond" the five-minute limit for questions.

Rohrabacher, the subcommittee chairman, asked her "to be more disciplined in being able to ask a specific question" and to leave enough of her time for the witnesses to answer.

Taking offense, Jackson Lee said, "Only Congresswoman Jackson Lee gets cited by the chair and she will continue to be cited. . ."
An angry exchange ensued, during which Rohrabacher slammed the gavel and told Jackson Lee several times that she was not recognized and needed to stop talking.

"I'm the only member that you comment on," Jackson Lee firmly stated. "It may be that I'm the only African-American woman sitting here."
As the audience sat stunned, Rohrabacher lowered his voice to say, "Ms. Jackson Lee, that type of charge is beneath you. It's beneath your dignity."

Obviously, Congressman Rohrabacher was lying.

Five years ago, Rep. Jackson Lee made news during a subcommittee briefing when she asked a NASA scientist if the Mars Pathfinder had photographed the flag that Neil Armstrong had left behind. The flag was, of course, planted on the moon.

OUR UNCIVIL MASTERS
"Worker Rights Battle Snags Homeland Bill" is a front-page Washington Post headline today. Well, that's one way of putting it. But the Bush administration doesn't understand itself to be fighting the Democrats in order to reduce "worker rights." It wants to have flexibility to fire incompetent workers or reassign workers to where they're most needed. The Democrats may wish to make the fight turn on who's more committed to "worker rights," but the Republicans could just as well say that it's about who's more committed to Americans' security.

Perhaps we should make allowances for the fact that the Post has a lot of federal workers among its readers — but did both of the jump headlines have to frame the issue as one of "worker rights" as well?