Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the chairman for allocating so muchtime to me. I hope and pray I do not use it all. I know I express the feelings ofeveryone in the chamber that I do not use it all.

I also want to say at the outset that I will not yield, and I would appreciate thecourtesy of not being interrupted, because I do not choose to yield.

I also want to briefly respond to my good friend, the gentlewoman from New York(Ms. Lowey). I do not know anyone I admire more than she. This is asoul-wrenching issue. Your passion, your commitment, is respected on my side,and certainly by me, and all I ask is that you respect our passion and commitment,because people of goodwill can be on both side of this issue.

That is the wonder and the beauty of this debate, that we are here today talkingabout the most fundamental issues, life and death, health verses a life. That is theproblem. You are trading apples and oranges, or chickens and horses. A life andhealth.

To me if you put those on the scale, life weighs heavier. Health has been definedby the Supreme Court almost amorphously. It is a state of well- being. Roe v.Wade and the other case, Doe v. Bolton, they defined health for us in the mostpoetic way, a state of well-being.

So the problem is, if health is an exception and the abortionist defines what is animpairment of health, I would suggest that the little unborn ought to have anIndependent Counsel, because there is a conflict of interest there between theabortionist finding that a woman's health will be impaired. So it is not a simplequestion.

Demeaning to women? Over half the children that are aborted are women. I do notwant to demean women; my God, no. I was married for 45 years. I have had amother, a sister, a daughter. I never would want to demean women. But I do notwant to trivialize the unborn either.

Now, I go through life trying to offend as few people as possible, and I do notalways succeed. I may offend some people today, because I want to talk aboutslavery. I am keenly aware that there are some people who resent bitterly anydiscussion of slavery or the Holocaust, emphasizing the uniqueness, the singularityof those two realities that are a part of our human history, and saying that nothingcan compare to them in evil, and I agree.

I think slavery is absolutely unique in its horror and in its evil, and I think theHolocaust similarly is unique. But there are lessons to be learned. History isnothing if it does not teach us something. I analogize, I do not compare; I look forthe common thread in slavery, the Holocaust and abortion, and, to me, thecommon thread is dehumanizing people. I intend to make that point, because Ithink we have to learn from history, so that at least in this context, past will not beprologue.

So I would like to tell you about a recent movie you may have seen, calledAmistad, named after a Spanish sailing ship used in the African slave trade in1839, where some 39 survivors of a mutiny find themselves in a legal battle beforethe United States Supreme Court. Based on a true story, they are represented by anelderly infirm John Quincy Adams' (played magnificently by Anthony Hopkins)whose summation to the court struck me as remarkably appropriate to the issuebefore us today.

Adams tells the Justices that this is the most important case ever to come beforethe court, because it concerns "the very nature of man."

Of course, that was the central issue in debating the legitimacy, morality ofslavery, namely, humanity of the slave. Is the slave a chattel, mere property, to bebought and sold? Or is he or she a human being with human rights?

We here today make the same argument that that little, almost-born baby, whosearms and legs flailing, whose little chest harbors a beating heart, is a human being,with human rights, even if his or her human life can be snuffed out by the plungeof the abortionist's surgical scissors into the back of the tiny neck.

Yes, partial birth abortion also concerns the very nature of man.

Later, Adams stands near a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence andhe asks the question that we who support life for the preborn have been asking foryears. Looking at this Declaration, he says "What of this annoying document? ThisDeclaration of Independence? What of its conceits, all men created equal,inalienable rights, life, liberty and so on.

What on earth do we do with this?"

He then says he has a modest suggestion, and he takes a copy of the Declarationand tears it up .

A tall, impressive man, Cinque, exuding strength, is the leader of the slaves, andhe has told John Quincy Adams that in his tribe in the Sierra Leone, the Mende,when they encounter a hopeless situation, they call on their ancestors.

Adams tells the court this belief that if they summon the spirits of their ancestors,their wisdom and strength will come to their aid. He then points to Cinque andspeaks of his ancestors, from the beginning of time, and tells the court that thisman, Cinque, is the whole reason his ancestors have ever existed at all.

When you think about it, each of us have ancestors that go back to the beginningof time, and we, here, now, are the whole reason they ever existed. We are theirprogeny, we are their culmination.

And just think of what our ancestors had to endure through the long and bloodycenturies, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, conquest, slaughter, famine anddeath, wars and plagues, natural disaster. And they survived it all, so that we mightbe born here and now to debate this issue of partial birth abortion.

So we have this little infant, arms flailing, legs squirming, little heart poundingaway, and, with the plunge of the abortionist's surgical scissors, in a painful andcruel instant, that ancestral odyssey through the centuries is extinguished.

Think of Whittier's great lines:

"Of all the sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddesst are these;

'It might of been.'"

Loneliness. We all know something about lineliness. It is one of life'smost mournful experiences. We have all been lonely, and it teaches ushow much we humans need each other. What a special loneliness it mustbe for that little almost-born baby to be surrounded by people who want tokill him.

I stand in awe of anyone who could perform, much less participate in,such a grisly inhuman act. It must take a heart of stone and a soul of ice. Avote against this motion to override is to legitimate thousands of acts ofappalling cruelty, not to an animal, a creature of the sea or the forest, but afellow human being who has the misfortune to be temporarily unwanted.

You have this chance today to put an end to a process of unspeakabledestructive cruelty, unworthy of a civilized society.

Our beloved America is becoming "The Killing Fields." One state hasaccepted euthanasia, so the elderly can be killed legally, and the abortionculture has resulted in 35 million abortions since Roe v Wade in 1973. Killthem in the womb, and now, with partial birth abortion, kill them out ofthe womb, but keep killing them!

Those whose real agenda is to keep all types of abortion legal, at anystage, for any reason, have built their case on one lie after another.

There is no polite way to say this. Deceptive? Misinformation? If onewants to be intellectually honest, you have to call a lie what it is. First theyclaim this procedure did not exist. When a paper written by the doctorwho invented it surfaced, they changed their story, asserting it was onlyused when the woman's life was in danger. But then the same doctoradmitted that 80% of his partial birth abortions were elective.

Then they lied about the anesthesia. Planned Parenthood told us the babydoes not feel any pain. The anesthesia given to the mother transfers itselfin the womb to the baby, and the baby does not feel any pain. Theanesthesiologists went off the wall, because that frightened women intothinking their babies are at risk if they get anethesia, and theanesthesiologists came in and testified that was a falsehood, and they shotthis down in a hurry.

The Executive Director of the National Abortion Federation admitted onNightline, and these are his words, that he had "lied through his teeth"about this procedure, thousands of them are performed on healthy littlebabies, and he was distressed at the loss of credibility the abortion causewas suffering because of the lies.

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reacted to the President's vetowith this statement: "I believe that Mr. Clinton was misled by his medicaladvisors on what is fact and what is fiction." Such a procedure cannot betruthfully called "medically necessary" for either mother or the baby.Gee, the Administration listens to Dr. Koop on tobacco -- I wish theywould listen to him on partial birth abortion.

For over two centuries of our national history, we have struggled to createa society of INCLUSION --- we keep widening the circle of those forwhom we are responsible -- the aged, the infirm, the poor. Slaves werefreed, women were enfranchised, civil rights and voting rights acts werepassed, our public spaces made accessible to the handicapped, SocialSecurity for the elderly -- all in the name of widening the circle ofinclusion and protection.

This great trajectory in our national history has been shattered by Roe v.Wade and its progeny. By denying an entire class of human beings thewelcome and protection of our laws, we have betrayed the best in ourtradition.

We have also put at risk every life which someday someone might findinconvenient.

Madame Speaker, we cannot repair the damage to our culture done by Roev. Wade -- we cannot undo the injustice done to 35 million tiny babieswho have been exterminated, because seven Justices, strip mining theConstitution, found a right to abortion that no one had seen for 200 years.

We cannot unring the bell, we cannot undo that injustice, but we can stopthe barbaric butchery of partial birth abortion.

We betray our own humanity if we do not.

Matthew 25 is often read at Catholic funeral masses. It is a lovely passage.

"I was hungry and you fed me

I was naked and you clothed me

I was a stranger and you took me in".

That is what I ask here today,

WELCOME THE LITTLE STRANGER