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What should Florida Baptists have to say about our United States Senators-Bob Graham and Bill Nelson-who voted with pro-abortion minorities three times last week in an attempt to prevent the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003? At the very least, "Shame on you."
In spite of a strong, bipartisan majority of 64 votes, and a recent public opinion poll which found that 70 percent oppose this particularly heinous method of killing unborn children, Graham and Nelson sided with pro-abortion radicals March 12 in protecting a procedure that is three inches short of infanticide.
What is partial-birth abortion? Although abortion by any method is immoral since it destroys innocent human life, this procedure is worthy of special attention because it involves the killing of a virtually delivered living child.
In clinically precise, yet chilling detail, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accurately described the procedure in his dissenting opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000):
"After dilating the cervix, the physician will grab the fetus by its feet and pull the fetal body out of the uterus into the vaginal cavity. At this stage of development, the head is the largest part of the body. ... The head will be held inside the uterus by the woman's cervix. While the fetus is stuck in this position, dangling partly out of the woman's body, and just a few inches from a completed birth, the physician uses an instrument such as a pair of scissors to tear or perforate the skull. The physician will then either crush the skull or will use a vacuum to remove the brain and other intracranial contents from the fetal skull, collapse the fetus' head, and pull the fetus from the uterus."
Graham and Nelson believe THIS is worthy of legal protection? Shame on Graham and Nelson.
The Washington Times illustrated in a March 12 editorial how close partial-birth abortion is to infanticide by noting that the distance between the complete delivery of a living child and the killing of that child by this abortion method is about the width of one column of the newspaper - about three inches. The width of the column of text you are now reading is about the same - about 50 characters of text is the approximate distance the child is short of being completely delivered alive when she is murdered.
Three inches from life, partial-birth abortion kills children. Shame on Graham and Nelson.
Twice before, in 1996 and 1997, the Senate joined the House in passing by overwhelming but not veto-proof majorities, this common sense legislation, only to have the bill vetoed by President Bill Clinton. Although the House was able muster the two-thirds vote to override Clinton's repulsive vetoes, the Senate could not. And so, the bill languished in Congress - until now.
President Bush hailed the Senate's adoption of the bill: "Partial-birth abortion is an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity, and I commend the Senate for passing the legislation to ban it. Today's action is an important step toward building a culture of life in America. I look forward to the House passing legislation and working with the Senate to resolve any differences so that I can sign the legislation banning partial-birth abortion into law."
With the assistance of Graham and Nelson, 52 senators adopted a "sense of the Senate" resolution amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act declaring the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy, as "appropriate and secures an important constitutional right; and such decision should not be overturned."
The fact that abortion-on-demand is already permitted in America is bad enough. That Graham and Nelson teamed-up with other senators to protect Roe while affirming partial-birth abortion is even more outrageous.
Shame on Graham and Nelson.
It's anticipated the U.S. House of Representatives will consider its version of the bill (H.R. 760) next month. We need to urge our representatives to oppose a similar pro-Roe amendment.
Although passage of H.R. 760 seems likely and President Bush has said he wants to sign the bill, the U.S. Supreme Court will undoubtedly be called upon to determine the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Having voted 5-4 in Stenberg v. Carhart against a similar Nebraska law, the high court's response remains unclear, even though federal lawmakers believe they have responded to the court's critique in Stenberg.
Even though the Partial-Birth Abortion Act has now cleared the Senate, let's not allow Graham and Nelson to rest easy in their reprehensible votes.
Shame on Graham and Nelson.
Letters to Senator Bob Graham and Senator Bill Nelson can be addressed to them at:
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510 or electronic mail can be sent via www.senate.gov.
Readers may determine who their representative is in the U.S. House of Representatives by visiting www.house.gov.