Fourteen Years of Devotion and Dedication.(partial-birth abortion)

"This isn't really an abortion issue," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, as she walked the Capitol on Friday. "That is what really saddens me about what the justices said" [in Gonzales v. Carhart, the decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act].-- April 22 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle

"Not five feet away, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum turned to face the opposition and in a high, pleading voice cried out, 'Where do we draw the line? Some people have likened this procedure to an appendectomy. That's not an appendix,' he shouted, pointing to a drawing of a fetus. 'That is not a blob of tissue. It is a baby. It's a baby.'

"And then, impossibly, in an already hushed gallery, in one of those moments when the floor of the Senate looks like a stage set, with its rich wooden desks somehow too small for the matters at hand, the cry of a baby pierced the room, echoing across the chamber from an outside hallway.

"No one mentioned the cry, but for a few seconds no one spoke at all." -- September 27, 1996, Washington Post, from a Marc Fisher story about the unsuccessful effort to overturn President Clinton's veto of a ban on partial-birth abortions

No sooner had I written the first two paragraphs than a colleague forwarded me the transcript of remarks made by former President Bill Clinton on the Larry King show. In their breathtaking cynicism and dishonesty, they reminded meas if I needed any reminderof what an amazingly nimble politician Clinton remains and how he was able to emerge from two terms (which included being impeached) with high approval ratings.

Clinton told the always gullible King that the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was not a "pro-life decision." Why? Because Clinton had vetoed it twice, and for the best of reasons (of course).

Clinton reminded King that on one occasion when he vetoed the bill, he'd had three women alongside him for whom having a partial-birth abortion was a "medical necessity" without which they might compromise their chances to bear future children. "And they told me that they would otherwise never want to use this procedure, that no one would want to do this unless there was some medical necessity for it," Clinton said.