[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SUSAN B. ANTHONY AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS PRENATAL NONDISCRIMINATION ACT
OF 2011
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 3541
__________
DECEMBER 6, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-74
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
----------
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERROLD NADLER, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia Virginia
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ZOE LOFGREN, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MIKE PENCE, Indiana MAXINE WATERS, California
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
STEVE KING, Iowa HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
JIM JORDAN, Ohio MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
TED POE, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah TED DEUTCH, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania [Vacant]
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina
DENNIS ROSS, Florida
SANDY ADAMS, Florida
BEN QUAYLE, Arizona
MARK AMODEI, Nevada
Sean McLaughlin, Majority Chief of Staff and General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on the Constitution
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Chairman
MIKE PENCE, Indiana, Vice-Chairman
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio JERROLD NADLER, New York
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
STEVE KING, Iowa JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
JIM JORDAN, Ohio ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
Virginia
Paul B. Taylor, Chief Counsel
David Lachmann, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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DECEMBER 6, 2011
Page
THE BILL
H.R. 3541, the ``Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act of 2011''................................ 4
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution................................................... 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, Ranking Member, Committee on the
Judiciary, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution........ 21
The Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on the
Constitution................................................... 23
The Honorable Mike Quigley, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution 23
The Honorable Mike Pence, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, and Vice-Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution................................................... 25
The Honorable Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee
on the Constitution............................................ 26
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Iowa, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution.... 26
The Honorable Steve Chabot, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution.... 28
The Honorable Jim Jordan, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution.... 29
WITNESSES
Steven H. Aden, Vice President/Senior Counsel, Human Life Issues,
Alliance Defense Fund
Oral Testimony................................................. 43
Prepared Statement............................................. 46
Edwin Black, Author and Historian, The Feature Group
Oral Testimony................................................. 54
Prepared Statement............................................. 56
Miriam W. Yeung, Executive Director, National Asian Pacific
American Women's Forum
Oral Testimony................................................. 63
Prepared Statement............................................. 66
Steven W. Mosher, President, Population Research Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 69
Prepared Statement............................................. 71
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 30
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Material Submitted by the Honorable Trent Franks, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Arizona, and
Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution..................... 96
Material Submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a
Representative in Congress from the State of New York, and
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution............... 179
SUSAN B. ANTHONY AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS PRENATAL NONDISCRIMINATION ACT
OF 2011
----------
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:12 p.m., in
room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Trent
Franks (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Franks, Pence, Chabot, Forbes,
King, Jordan, Conyers, Scott, and Quigley.
Staff Present: (Majority) Paul Taylor, Subcommittee Chief
Counsel; Jacki Pick, Counsel; Sarah Vance, Clerk; (Minority)
David Lachmann, Subcommittee Staff Director; and Veronica
Eligan, Professional Staff Member.
Mr. Franks. This meeting will come to order.
I want to welcome all of you here today. We are grateful
for your attendance, grateful to the people of this panel for
being here with us. And I am going to go ahead and recognize
myself for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
Given the subject of this hearing, it seems appropriate to
me that we all remind ourselves that the very bedrock
foundation principle that gave birth to America in the first
place was the conviction that all human beings are children of
God and created equal in his sight.
Throughout America's history, we have struggled to fulfill
that conviction in our national life. It took a civil war in
this Nation to make the 7,000-year-old state-sanctioned
practice of human slavery come to an end, and, ultimately, it
did so across the world. American women overcame the mindless
policy that deprived them of the right to vote in America. Then
this Nation charged into Europe and arrested the hellish Nazi
Holocaust. We crushed the Ku Klux Klan and prevailed in the
dark days of our own civil rights struggle.
And, in so many ways, we have made great progress in the
area of civil rights in this country. But there is one glaring
exception. We have overlooked unborn children and that life
itself is the most foundational of all civil rights.
The result is that today in America between 40 and 50
percent of all African American babies, virtually one in two,
are killed before they are born, which is a greater cause of
death for African Americans than heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, AIDS, and violence combined. A Hispanic child is
three times more likely to be aborted than a White child. A
Black child is five times more likely to be aborted than a
White child. Fourteen million Black babies have been aborted
since Roe v. Wade. It translates to fully one-fourth of the
African American population in America today.
Now, you add to that the thousands of little girls who have
been aborted in America simply because they are little girls
instead of little boys. And these are travesties that should
assault the mind and conscience of every American.
The Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act heard today by this Committee will help
prevent race and sex discrimination against the unborn by
prohibiting anyone from subjecting them to an abortion based on
their sex or race.
Now, there will be those who say that this bill has a much
larger agenda, and let me respond simply by saying that I
sincerely and passionately hope that they are right. I truly
hope that the debate and passage of this bill will call all
Americans, in and outside of Congress, to an inward and
heartfelt reflection upon the humanity of unborn children and
the inhumanity of what is being done to them in 2011 in the
land of the free and the home of the brave.
But, until then, can we not, at the very least, agree that
it is wrong to knowingly kill unborn children because they are
the wrong color or because they are baby girls instead of baby
boys?
You know, I have often asked myself what finally
enlightened and changed the hearts of those across history who
either perpetrated or supported or ignored the atrocities in
human genocides of their day. And while I probably will never
truly understand, I believe I caught a glimpse of that answer
during the Thanksgiving recess from my 3-year-old little girl
named Gracie.
As we were watching her favorite laughing baby videos on
YouTube, I inadvertently clicked on a video that showed a young
man from China playing poignant and beautiful music on the
piano with his feet because he had no arms. They had been
amputated when he was a child.
My little girl looked at me with wet little eyes and she
said, ``Daddy, he doesn't have any arms.'' I said, ``Yes, baby,
but look how well he plays the piano with his feet. Isn't that
amazing?'' And she said, ``Yes, but, Daddy, we have to help
him. We have to get some arms to give to him.'' And I said,
``Baby, there aren't any extra arms. They are all attached to
other people already.'' And she thought for a moment, and she
held up her own little arm and she said, ``Daddy, we can give
him one of my arms if it will fit on him, can't we?''
I believe the key to answering some of these seemingly
unanswerable questions facing the human family is in how we see
each other. On that video I saw an amazing young man who played
heart-stirring music with his feet, but my little girl saw a
child of God who had no arms and wanted to give him one of
hers. How very thankful I am that my little girl was not one of
the hundreds of millions of little girls whose lives and hearts
were taken from this world before they ever saw the light of
sunrise simply because they were little girls.
Across human history, the greatest voices among us have
always emphasized the critical responsibility of each us to
recognize and cherish the divine light of eternity shining in
the soul of every last one of our fellow human beings. In 1847,
Frederick Douglass said, ``Right is of no sex, truth is of no
color. God is the father of us all, and all are brethren.'' In
Matthew 25, Jesus said, ``Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.''
Thomas Jefferson said, ``The care of human life and its
happiness, and not its destruction, is the chief and only
object of good government.''
So, ladies and gentlemen, I know that when the subject is
related in any way to abortion the doors of reason and human
compassion in our minds and hearts often close and the humanity
of the unborn can oftentimes no longer be seen. But this is the
civil-rights struggle that will define our generation, and I
hope this hearing today will begin to open those doors again.
The bill, H.R. 3541, follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. And, with that, I would like to yield to the
distinguished former Chairman of the full Committee, Mr.
Conyers, for an opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman. I am happy to join you
today.
I begin with a question about the title of this bill. Is
there anybody on this Committee that can explain to me why this
is called the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act?
Mr. Franks. I will try to explain it as best I can, Mr.
Chairman.
First of all, you know, Frederick Douglass fought for equal
rights back in the days of slavery and was someone that had
great ability to speak into the heart of Abraham Lincoln and
probably made a profound difference today. And, secondly, Susan
B. Anthony was a tremendous advocate for women's right.
And we are convinced that, at the very heart of this bill,
that there is an effort here to try to carry on with those
traditions and felt like this would be a good way to honor
their service to mankind.
Mr. Conyers. Well, I have studied Frederick Douglass more
than you, and I have never heard or read about him saying
anything about prenatal nondiscrimination in the course of it.
And I would invite you to put into the record just exactly why
you put his name to this bill.
Susan B. Anthony I know less about, but I can--I know she
was a strong advocate for women's rights.
So I think this bill is a--the names are complete
misnomers. And I think when we find out more about their
careers, their speeches, their writings, their actions, I think
that we will all find out that there is no relation whatsoever
to the object of this measure and the two revered leaders whose
names are on the title of this measure.
What does the bill do? Oh, well, it makes it more difficult
for women of color to obtain basic reproductive health-care
services that should be available to all women. By threatening
health-care professionals with prison time--that is what the
bill does--it is inevitable that they will be reluctant to
treat some patients, namely people of color, including Asian
and Pacific Islanders, African Americans, interracial couples.
Where someone might suspect that race or sex selection may
have been a factor in the patient's decision, doctors will be
reluctant to perform any tests that might reveal the sex of the
fetus or to reveal that information to their patients--
information to which every patient has a right.
Now, in my view, this measure would provide an opportunity
for a conservative court to attack the very legal underpinning
of Roe v. Wade. And I was hoping that the distinguished
Chairman would suggest that that was one of the accusations
that are being made about the objective of this bill. And if he
had said this, he would be right, because I think that this is
a way of chipping away at Roe v. Wade.
Not since that decision has government ever arrogated to
itself the power to decide whether a woman's reason for a pre-
viability abortion is satisfactory. This bill would be the
first. And the reasons women have for terminating pregnancy is
something I am not able to, nor particularly care to, go into.
Indeed, some have long opposed exceptions for preserving the
life or health of women in legislation that otherwise restricts
the rights to abortion.
Take Henry Hyde, the former Chairman of this Committee. If
he didn't argue 100 times that health and safety of the woman
should be no reason for them to be permitted an abortion, he
didn't say it once. He said it all the time, from the first
time I met him in this Committee until his last day of service,
particularly when he was Chairman of the Committee. He was
wrong then, and those that argue that health and safety of a
woman would not be grounds for an abortion are still as
erroneous as this argument has always been.
Now, just recently, some in this Committee have opposed
requiring hospitals to perform emergency-room abortions even
when a woman's life is at stake--if you don't believe me, ask
them--in the ``No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.'' And
after public outrage forced many of my colleagues to remove
language in the text of that bill designed to eliminate
statutory rape for existing exceptions that permit a woman
raped to obtain an abortion, my colleagues tried to resurrect
the effort through Committee report language.
The measure before us does absolutely nothing to previde
women with the tools they need to get adequate prenatal care so
that their babies--female, male, Black, White, Asian, Latin--
can come into the world healthy, and so that both mother and
child can thrive. That is what we are here, or supposed to be
here, for.
The measure before us, that we will hear from our
distinguished witnesses, doesn't do a thing to empower women to
make these important life choices free from any family or
community pressures that they may now face either to have an
abortion or to carry the pregnancy to term, or to not have an
abortion. Remember, the right to choose is not limited to the
right to end the pregnancy but includes the right to become
pregnant and the right to bring a healthy child into the world.
And so we must support women regardless of their choices and
give them the tools to exercise those choices.
I can't explain how the Chairman of this Committee feels
about these real issues behind the bill, but I, as usual,
always give him the benefit of the doubt. But the title really
ought to be changed, and I will be talking with him about this
after this hearing.
This bill will not liberate or empower women but will
further shackle them. This bill will not provide women with the
ability to have a healthy child or have the tools necessary to
raise that healthy child, well-educated, a full citizen of
society, but this bill will, however, deprive women of their
fundamental constitutional rights to personal and bodily
autonomy.
And so, we are all free to pursue our conscience, and I am
sure we will seek clarity and understanding from the
distinguished witnesses before us. And it is with that spirit
and that openness of mind that I attend and join these hearings
and welcome the witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentlemen.
At this time, other Members of the Subcommittee can be
recognized for opening statements. And I now recognize the
distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes, for an
opening statement.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for having this hearing.
And I want to thank you, also, for something else, and that is
for focusing your introductory remarks on the issue at hand.
Over and over again, we hear our friends from the other
side, when it benefits them, saying, why aren't we looking at
the actual provisions of the law? But we always have the same
type of comments that come out.
First of all, we see the comment about, we just don't like
the name of the bill. Well, I remember when we passed the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, many of us felt
that that had nothing to do with patient protection. In fact,
we hear from our clients over and over again how they feel it
is hurting them and it is costing them more money. But that was
the name. We would rather focus and debate the matters at hand
on the bill.
Then we talk about all the red herrings about what this
bill does not do. Because if we can't deal with the subject
matter here--which is, when you focus it down, how does anybody
really justify the sex selection or race selection for doing an
abortion? And you can't. So what you talk about is all the
things that the bill won't do.
And then the third thing we see, Mr. Chairman, is we love
to talk about, look at all the things that proponents or people
who might have been proponents, like the former Chairman, might
have done on something else, because it gets us away from the
focus of this bill.
And then, after we have said that, despite the fact of just
delineating all the atrocities that will occur if the bill
becomes law, we say the bill really won't do anything anyway.
And, Mr. Chairman, what I appreciate you doing is bringing
this hearing so we can actually focus on the provisions of the
bill and we can argue one issue, which is what is this bill
says: Is it permissible, should it be policy this of this
country, that we allow for sex-selection or race-selection
abortions? And that is what is before us today.
And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this hearing. And I
hope that is what ultimately our focus will be on.
And, with that, I yield back.
Mr. Franks. And I certainly thank the gentleman. And that
is, indeed, our hope.
I would like to recognize now Mr. Quigley for an opening
statement.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before we begin today's discussion, I want to make sure we
are clear on an important point: Race- and gender-based
abortions are two distinct issues and should be addressed as
such.
On the issue of the supposed race-based abortions, the
entire premise of the bill is wrongheaded. I must assume that
the writers of the bill don't mean to imply that women of color
would choose abortion as some sort of self-afflicted genocide.
Abortion rates are higher among Black women because Black women
face unintended pregnancies at a rate much higher than the
general population. And the reasons for these unintended
pregnancies that have led to abortions are a lack of
contraception access and proper use, according to a 2008
Guttmacher Institute report.
So if the proponents of this bill truly want to help
minority women, they would support Title X funding for family-
planning clinics like Planned Parenthood, comprehensive sex
education, and the myriad of preventive health benefits such as
free birth control and health-care reform. But they don't,
which should tell us something about their true motivations
behind the bill.
As for sex-selective abortions, I agree with this bill's
proponents that abortions based on gender are a problem around
the world. I agree that we must take action to stop these
abusive practices both at home and around the world.
But here is where my agreement with the proponents of the
bill stops. I haartily disagree with this remedy for this
serious problem.
First, criminalizing such practices simply will not work.
Banning sex-selective abortions has already been tried in
various countries around the world, and what expert agencies,
such as the World Health Organization, which operate in these
countries have found is that, rather than preventing such
abortions, bans simply result, ``in a greater demand for
clandestine procedures, which fall outside regulations,
protocols, monitoring, and basic safety.'' In other words,
rather than preventing abortions, which is what you want to do,
such restrictions serve only to drive them underground, making
them less safe. Our own history shores up this point, as well.
Second, criminalization of sex-selective abortions would
force physicians to question women about their reasons for
seeking an abortion and would likely compel physicians to
target certain groups of women from cultural groups where sex
selection is more prevalent. To avoid liability, physicians may
even cease providing such care to entire groups of women simply
because of their race. This bill would promote the very racial
discrimination it purports to combat.
Additionally, targeting such motivations in practice would
be nearly impossible. According to an analysis by the World
Health Organization and four other U.N. agencies, ``Prosecuting
offenders is practically impossible,'' and ``Proving that a
particular abortion was sex-selective is equally difficult.''
These expert international organizations do, however, offer
a viable solution to address sex-selection abortions, a
solution unmentioned in H.R. 3541: Address the root causes of
son preference.
The United Nations, through its work in nations where sex
selection is prevalent, has stated that the most effective way
to address son preference is by fighting the root economic,
social, and cultural causes of sex inequality. For instance,
South Korea successfully lowered its male-female ratio from 116
boys for every 100 girls in the 1990's to the 107 boys per 100
girls in 2007 by passing laws to improve the legal status of
women and by implementing a public education campaign
emphasizing the importance of women.
So if the supporters of this bill are truly interested in
preventing sex-selective abortions, I would like to invite them
to join us in supporting measures that will address the root
causes of such abortions and empower women. Such measures
include, but are not limited to, the Global Sexual and
Reproductive Health Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the
Violence Against Women Act.
Sadly, I fear that supporters of H.R. 3541 will not
champion these bills, because their true motivation behind this
bill is not equal rights but, rather, a restriction of women's
rights. This bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing which distorts
the language of civil rights in order to further an ongoing
attack on women's rights.
So I urge my colleagues not to be fooled by the rhetoric of
this bill and to instead work together to pass measures that
will empower women both at home and around the world.
Thank you.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman.
And I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from
Indiana, Mr. Pence, for an opening statement.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would ask
unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
Mr. Franks. Without objection.
Mr. Pence. Thank you.
I want to thank the Chairman for calling this hearing and
for his unwavering leadership on this issue broadly. Those of
us who have had the privilege of serving for a number of years
with Congressman Franks know that he has been an eloquent and
persistent advocate of the sanctity of life. And that is
evidenced very clearly by his authoring the bill that is before
us today.
I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally
wrong, an abortion. But I also believe it would be morally
wrong for American law to remain silent when that act is
motivated by discrimination based on race or gender. I am a
strong supporter and cosponsor of H.R. 3541, the ``Susan B.
Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act
of 2011,'' authored by this Chairman. And let us be clear on
this point: I believe that abortion is heartbreaking in any
circumstance, but it is particularly so when a child is aborted
on the basis of race or gender.
The legislation before us today, commonly referred to as
``PRENDA,'' would explicitly prohibit the coercion of either a
sex-selection or race-selection abortion, as well as the
solicitation or acceptance of funds for performing either
procedure. It would also prohibit the transportation of women
into the country or across State lines for the purpose of
obtaining a sex-selection or race-selection abortion.
Notably, the pregnant woman is explicitly protected in this
legislation from any penalties. However, those who coerce or
facilitate an abortion on the basis of race or gender would be
subject to all penalties under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Now, having glanced a bit at summaries of the testimony we
will hear today, I know that there will be arguments made from
this side of the panel and that, that this legislation is
unnecessary or even frivolous. But I have to say, Mr. Chairman,
the facts suggest otherwise.
Today, an African American unborn baby is five times as
likely to be aborted as a White baby. And abortion, according
to the Guttmacher Institute, I say with a heavy heart, abortion
is now the leading cause of death in the Black community, with
more than 450,000 Black abortions per year. More African
Americans are lost to abortion annually than are lost to
cancer, heart disease, diabetes, AIDS, and violence combined.
According to a 2008 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a Black
baby, as I mentioned, is five times as likely to be aborted,
and at least 42 percent of Black babies are aborted in this
country every year.
The facts cry out for action. And that is action that this
Nation and this Congress take a step one more time toward a
more perfect union.
And over the course of our history, America has had
anything but a perfect record on protecting civil rights. But
we have ever strived toward that more perfect Union, ending the
injustice of slavery through war and national travail, granting
civil rights to women and minorities. And now I believe it is
time for us to take the next step and extend those protections
against discrimination within the womb itself in our march
toward a more perfect Union.
One last note, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps the most compelling
fact before this Committee today should be the realization
that, while the United States has been on the record for some
time condemning sex-selection abortion around the planet, our
own laws are silent on the issue of sex- and race-selection
abortion. Thanks to your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and I hope
with the bipartisan support of Members of Congress, we will
change that and we will see the laws of this Nation reflect our
Nation's deep commitment to civil rights for the born and the
unborn.
And I yield back.
Mr. Franks. Mr. Scott, do you have an opening statement,
sir?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just briefly say that I would hope we would be
looking at a number of initiatives that would actually reduce
the need for abortions, including health care, education, job
training, and adoptions.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, sir.
I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
King, for an opening statement.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you personally
and professionally and from the bottom of the hearts of my
constituents for holding this hearing today and bringing
forward this piece of legislation.
I thank the witnesses in advance. I very much look forward
to your testimony.
I hear that phrase, ``women and minorities.'' It comes
through this legislation over and over again. If I had thought
ahead, I would have done a search through the Federal Code to
see how many times women and minorities are specifically
protected in Federal law. It is over and over again. Dozens and
dozens of times, this Congress, the voice the American people,
have specifically defined women and minorities as being the
very categories worthy of special protection, because,
throughout the history of civilization, women and minorities
have found themselves at a disadvantage and found themselves
often the targets of some type of annihilation.
And I find it ironic to hear the Ranking Member of the full
Committee's opening statement on this. When I go back and look
at the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, ``nor deny to any
person the equal protection of the laws.'' When this Congress
goes to such great lengths to specifically protect women and
minorities, and the bill that is named after Frederick Douglass
and Susan B. Anthony, it is very clear. The two people that are
icons, that have done a great deal, and perhaps the most in
each of their categories, for the rights and protection of
minorities--Frederick Douglass, completely eloquent, and Susan
B. Anthony--I don't think there is any question about why their
names are in the title of this bill.
And I sit here and I listen and I think, what if I had
advocated for a policy that would put 80 percent of the
abortion clinics in the inner city, in the heart of the
minority areas in this country, that resulted in half of the
African American pregnancies becoming aborted or a high
percentage of Hispanic pregnancies becoming aborted, if I
advocated for such a policy, let alone a publicly funded
policy, you all know what I would be called for such a thing. I
oppose those policies.
And this bill defines a way that we can protect the
innocent, unborn human lives that are targeted because of a
bias against race and a bias against--we are calling it ``sex''
now, aren't we, instead of ``gender.'' Why is that? It is
because the definition of ``gender'' is what you think you are,
and the definition of ``sex'' is what anybody can observe, any
physician can observe, any layperson can figure out you are. Do
you know why we use the term ``sex'' instead of ``gender'' with
an unborn baby? Because they haven't had a chance to have a
voice. They haven't said, ``Here is my gender.'' So we identify
them by ``sex.'' That is the only way I know in this public
policy anymore that we discuss ``sex'' as opposed to
``gender.'' They don't have a voice for themselves.
And so we would have a discussion here about how we are
somehow biased bringing forward to protect unborn human lives
that are targeted because of race and gender, and that we
should instead address the root causes of this being in the
culture rather than put in law. Well, some will say you can't
legislate morality, but the law is a reflection of our
morality. It is the defined moral code of the United States of
America. And that morality that is defined here by this
Congress is a reflection of the culture and the people. And it
is a restraint, and it is a guideline. And it does put a stigma
in place, and it does advise the American people, who don't
agree, that there is a strong majority position that protects
the innocent, unborn lives especially of women and minorities.
From my standpoint, I wanted to take a lot of that special
protection language out of there for the born people, because I
think, to a large degree, it has served a successful purpose,
and most people now do have something much closer to equal
opportunity today than existed when I was a young man growing
up. But here is where I say we need to continue to make the
case. They don't have a voice for themselves. They never had
the opportunity to breathe free air, never had the opportunity
to go out and be successful, never had the opportunity to love
or live or laugh or study or work or play or contribute to this
country.
And I think that positions taken on the other side that
say, ``We can't criminalize it because it will just drive it
underground,'' is a modern version of the coat-hanger argument.
Yes, we can. We protect innocent, unborn human lives.
We need to have this discussion and this debate. The 14th
Amendment says, ``nor deny to any person the equal protection
of the laws.'' And we will get to the point of what a person is
in this discussion, in this debate. We need to protect and
define a person in law. That is a constitutional protection.
The only reason we allow abortion in this country and the way
that we do elective abortion is because we have not defined
personhood.
I would point out also that there is an industry in this
country that is establishing sex selection in industry and
advertising now worldwide and taking the claim that they are
100 percent efficient in identifying the sex, not the gender,
of the unborn baby. And that is bringing about some 37 million
more boys in China than there are girls in China. That is just
one country. This is global. This is America, with a moral
standard.
I thank the Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman.
And we will now hear the opening statement of Mr. Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I want
to especially thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today
and his leadership in pushing the passage of this much-needed
legislation.
Throughout the past several decades, our country has
struggled to eliminate gender discrimination in our schools, in
the courtrooms, in the workplace. Today, we face these types of
discrimination in abortion procedures. These abortions not only
terminate life, they also yield irreparable harm on the future
of our Nation's diversity.
The harm goes beyond the performance of the abortions
themselves; many of the women who have these abortions are
abused and coerced into the procedure. A 2011 study by the
University California at San Francisco interviewed Indian
American women in California, New York, and New Jersey who had
sought sex-selection abortions between the years 2004 and 2009.
Nearly half of the participants had already had a sex-selection
abortion, with some having as many as four sex-selection
abortions. The women in this study talk about the forms of
abuse and coercion they faced during that time.
When these Indian American women were asked why they sought
sex selections, they often described the suffering of female
relatives who had not given birth to sons. The pressure takes
the form of social stigma and a lack of economic support and
respectability, stability, et cetera. These concerns were found
to be consistent among all socioeconomic levels, even among the
23 percent that held advanced degrees in medicine and law and
scientific research.
In this study, women also frequently discussed instances
where their husbands were abusive because they were bearing a
female baby. Some husbands even reportedly withheld food and
water from their wives. Some hit, punched, choked, and kicked
the women in the abdomen, attempting to forcibly terminate the
pregnancy.
A growing body of research now documents the relationship
between intimate partner violence and reproductive coercion,
sometimes resulting in forced sex and denial of health-care
services if pregnant. One-third of the women in this study
reported that family violence was exacerbated when they did not
give birth to a son. As a result, many of these women
tragically faced psychological and physical morbidity.
What I find most heartbreaking is that many of these women
expressed guilt, shame, and sadness over their inability to
save the daughters that had been aborted. These women should
not have to stand alone to save their daughters. It is time
that we stand alongside them to protect life. And that is
exactly what this bill will do.
A courageous woman of her time, Susan B. Anthony, said,
``It was we, the people, not we, the White male citizens, nor
yet we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed
the Union.'' I believe the sanctity of life, all life, is
precious and should be protected. We must firmly challenge
these new discriminatory practices and stand for children of
all races and genders, for it is this very diversity of race
and gender that makes America great.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chabot, especially for quoting
Susan B. Anthony. That was very appropriate. Thank you, sir.
And we have no other opening statements on this side, so,
Mr. Jordan, I will recognize you, sir, for an opening
statement.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the Chairman.
I will just be brief, with just a couple thank you's. I,
too, want to thank the Chairman, not just for this legislation,
but for your commitment to protecting the sanctity of human
life and highlighting this issue throughout your career. We
truly appreciate that leadership and that hard work that you
have done so well on this most fundamental of issues.
And, secondly, I just want to take a moment to thank the
millions of pro-life people who, every single day, do things
that they never get credit for, who sit down and counsel a
teenager, who take baby supplies, who take clothes to the local
crisis pregnancy center, who will take in unwed mothers in a
difficult time. I want to thank all those people. They are the
ones who make such a difference in advancing and protecting
life.
This issue is going to highlight something that is terrible
that is going on, but it is those people across this country
who truly make a difference day-in and day-out. And I want to
take just a few minutes and thank them again for their tireless
efforts to recognize what the Founders understood, that all
life is precious and it truly is a gift from God.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this opportunity and
for this hearing.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman.
And, without objection, other Members' opening statements
will be made a part of the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. And, with unanimous consent, I would like to
submit for the record the December 5, 2011, statement of Dr.
Day Gardner on behalf of the National Black Pro-Life Union,
addressed to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution.
Without objection.
[The material referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. With unanimous consent, I would like to submit
for the record the statement of Dr. Alveda King, director of
African American outreach for Priests for Life, on the
reintroduction of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.
Without objection.
[The material referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. Also, without objection, I would like to submit
for the record the December 6, 2011, statement of Ms. Kristan
Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America.
[The material referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. Also, the June 24, 2011, Wall Street Journal
article, ``The War Against Girls,'' by Mr. Jonathan Last.
[The material referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. And then, finally, I would like to submit for
the record the June 26, 2011, New York Times article, ``160
Million and Counting,'' by Mr. Ross Douthat.
Without objection.
[The material referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. Our first witnesses--thank you all for being
here today. I am going read a little bit about you, and then we
will--our first witness is Steven Aden. He serves as senior
legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, home to the
country's most successful constitutional lawyers litigating the
most significant Federal cases that threaten America's
religious freedom and the sanctity of human life, with a near-
75-percent win rate.
I might need a lawyer here.
He is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court and
numerous Federal courts. He has earned a J.D. From Georgetown
University Law Center.
And thank you for being here with us, Mr. Aden.
Our second witness, Mr. Edwin Black, is a New York Times
best-selling international investigative author of 80 award-
winning editions in 14 languages, in 65 countries, with more
than a million books in print. His book, ``War Against the
Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master
Race,'' met wide acclaim from Mother Jones, the National
Review, and the New York Times Book Review, which described his
book as, ``chilling in its exposure of the shameless racism,
class prejudice, and cruelty of eugenic attitudes and practices
in the United States.'' Mr. Black is the child of Holocaust
survivors.
Our third witness, Miriam Yeung, is executive director of
the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, where she
guides the country's only national multi-issue progressive
organization dedicated to social justice and human rights for
Asian and Pacific Islander women and girls in the United
States. Current priorities include winning rights for immigrant
women, organizing nail salon workers for safer working
conditions, conducting community-based participatory research
with young API women, and ending human trafficking.
Our fourth and final witness, Steven Mosher, is an
internationally recognized authority on China and population
issues as well as an acclaimed author and speaker. In 1979, Mr.
Mosher became the first American social scientist to work in
mainland China on invitation by the Chinese Government, where
he had access to government documents and actually witnessed
women being forced to have abortions under the then-new one-
child policy. Mr. Mosher was a pro-choice atheist at the time,
but witnessing these traumatic abortions led him to reconsider
his convictions and eventually become a practicing pro-life
Roman Catholic.
Each of the witnesses' statements will be entered into the
record in its entirety, and I would ask each of the witnesses
to summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or less.
And to help you stay within that time, there is a timing
light on your table. When the light switches from green to
yellow, you will have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. When
the light turns red, it signals that the witness' 5 minutes
have expired.
Now, before I recognize the witnesses, it is the tradition
of this Subcommittee that they be sworn. So if you would please
stand to be sworn.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Franks. Please be seated. Thank you.
I would now recognize our first witness, Mr. Aden, for 5
minutes.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN H. ADEN, VICE PRESIDENT/SENIOR COUNSEL,
HUMAN LIFE ISSUES, ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND
Mr. Aden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Conyers, Members of
the Subcommittee. I am deeply privileged to have been asked by
the Subcommittee to testify today regarding the
constitutionality of this bill.
The bill would prohibit the practice of abortion committed
by reason of the gender or race of the pre-born patient. Gender
and the physical qualities that are construed as race are
immutable human genetic qualities that exist at conception,
like the innumerable characteristics that are woven together in
the womb to create each unique member of the human species.
Federal and State laws prohibit discrimination on the basis
of gender and race in housing, employment, education, lodging,
commercial transactions, and a host of other contexts. Human
life in the womb is recognized and protected by the laws of
many, if not most, of the United States against crimes of
violence.
In 2007, the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Commission on
Status of Women advocated for a resolution condemning sex-
selection abortion. The Secretary of State has also spoken out
against the practice. The U.S. Congress has passed multiple
resolutions condemning the People's Republic of China for its
failure to end sex-selection abortion. The American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists has likewise condemned the
practice.
In the case of racial-selection abortion, it is no
exaggeration to say that the African American population of the
United States has been decimated by the widespread availability
of abortion on demand in the last 40 years, and particularly by
the placement of abortion providers in predominantly minority
population centers. CDC data for 2007 shows that in the 25
reporting areas that reported cross-classified race and
ethnicity data, non-Hispanic Black women had the highest
abortion ratios, at 480 abortions per 1,000 live births. Non-
Hispanic Black women accounted for nearly as many abortions
proportionately, 34.4 percent, as non-Hispanic White women, at
37.1 percent.
Commenting on this trend, The Washington Post observed
that, in the past 30 years, more mothers of color are opting to
abort and that, in 2004, there were 50 abortions per 1,000
Black women, compared with 10.5 per 1,000 White women. In other
words, African American infants were five times more likely to
be aborted than White infants. These are grave statistics for
the African American population. Tragically, the CDC observes
that, ``Abortion provides a proxy measure for the number of
pregnancies that are unwanted.''
Pursuant to Congress' authority to eradicate all badges of
slavery and eliminate all barriers to gender equality based on
invidious, archaic, and overbroad stereotypes, this bill would
prohibit the knowing commitment of abortion based on the sex,
gender, color, or race of the child or the child's parent. The
bill also prohibits the use or threat of force to intentionally
injure or intimidate any person for the purpose of coercing a
sex-selection or race-selection abortion and the solicitation
or acceptance of funds for the purpose of financing such an
abortion.
Congress has broad powers under the Commerce Clause to
enact the legislation at hand in furtherance of the rights of
equality secured by the 14th Amendment. As the Supreme Court
stated in the United States v. Lopez, ``We have upheld a wide
variety of congressional acts regulating intrastate economic
activity where we have concluded that the activity
substantially affected interstate commerce.''
Nor does the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence require
a different result. Although the Supreme Court in Planned
Parenthood v. Casey recognized the essential holding of the
Court in Roe v. Wade, that women possess the right to obtain an
abortion without undue interference from the State before
viability, that holding, Casey clarified, was based on the
Court's perception that the State's interests weren't strong
enough to support a prohibition at that stage.
However, the Supreme Court has made it clear in numerous
cases that States have a compelling interest in eliminating
discrimination against women and minorities. Moreover, the
Casey Court also affirmed the principle that, ``The State has
legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in
protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus.''
Nor is the absence of a medical necessity or health
exception in this bill a constitutional infirmity. By
definition, abortions conducted because of the sex or race of
the infant are elective procedures that do not implicate the
health of the maternal patient. The act clarifies that the
mother may not be prosecuted or held civilly liable under the
act. Thus, the private right of action provisions strike only
at the commercial activity of providing abortion, which clearly
substantially impacts interstate commerce. The debarment
provision is to the same effect. As the Supreme Court has
declared, ``It is beyond dispute that any public entity, State
or Federal, has a compelling interest in assuring that public
dollars drawn from the tax contributions of all citizens do not
serve to finance the evil of private prejudice.''
In conclusion, H.R. 3541 is conceived and drafted pursuant
to sound constitutional authority and the best tradition of
this Nation's commitment to civil rights and equality for all
of its citizens.
Thank you again for the privilege of appearing before this
Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Aden follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. And thank you, Mr. Aden, very much.
Mr. Black, you are recognized for about 5 minutes. And
thank you, sir, for being here.
TESTIMONY OF EDWIN BLACK, AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN,
THE FEATURE GROUP
Mr. Black. Thank you very much for having me, Chairman
Franks and the other distinguished Representatives. I was very
moved by all these remarks, but I was especially moved by yours
about the young child who was playing piano. I have had many
similar feelings.
So my name is Edwin Black, and I am here not as a Democrat
or a Republican or in favor of the bill or opposed to the bill,
but to give historical context to the discussion you are having
now. I am an expert on eugenics, and I have come here to
explain how America began the concept of the White master race
some 30 years before Adolf Hitler and, in doing so,
institutionalized through the rule of law the concept of race
selection and gender selection--in fact, these words were
deliberately used by them--as a context to Darwin in natural
selection.
So, basically, it all began, more or less--to condense this
into the 3 minutes and 34 seconds I have left--it all began at
the beginning of the 20th century, when millions of Jews and
Eastern Europeans were coming in from the east coast, the
Chinese laborers were coming in from the west coast. Mexicans
were now abundantly in the United States in the Southwest as a
result of the Treaty of Hidalgo, which means half of Mexico
became the United States' property. The Blacks were off the
plantation; the Indians were off the reservation. The agrarian
society was moving to a cosmopolitan industrial society, and
there was a huge dislocation in the United States in terms of
socio-ethnic and economic texture.
The men in power at that time decided that they wanted to
turn back the clock and they wanted to improve society. And
they thought that you were not born into prostitution, they
thought that prostitution was a genetic trait; that you were
not born into poverty, that poverty was actually born into you.
And so they decided to get rid of poverty and to get rid of the
social problems by subtracting the very people who they assumed
were responsible. These were the do-gooders, the liberals, the
progressives, who decided to subtract 10 percent of the
American population at a swipe. At that time, it was 14 million
people.
And the methods that they proposed included gas chambers.
The first euthanasia law was entered into Iowa in 1906. When
these euthanasia laws were not put forward, they went to
coercive sterilization, they went to marriage voiding, marriage
prohibition. Marriage prohibition between the races was not
decriminalized until the 1960's, Loving v. Virginia. And,
ultimately, some 27,000 individuals in this country, under the
rule of law sanctified by the Supreme Court, were coercively
sterilized, mainly women, mainly without knowing what was
happening.
And, therefore, when I speak to you, I speak to you about
the never-born, about the millions of people who have been
subtracted from our society. This always was genocide. It is
genocide today, legally. And now there is a move--and I am only
here for the eugenics side of this--to replicate this type of
social engineering in the United States by using advanced
medicine.
We all know that there are multi-millions of gendercide
around the world, especially in certain cultures where son
preference rules. The statistics have been given by these
individuals. The method of population and social engineering
there was murder. They would take the kid, they would put him
in a pail; they would take the kid, they would throw him in the
river. In Chicago, they did it by leaving children unattended
in the surgical suite. It was done time and time again.
Now we have the powers of observation, we have the powers
of measurement, we have the power to foresee into the future.
We don't have to wait for the first moments of life to murder
an innocent. We can do it beforehand by techniques.
My interest is only in the effort to manipulate society in
favor of one gender or one race or to de-emphasize the
existence of these people. There is a huge move afoot in this
country to design babies, to design societies, and to create a
new master race. Everyone can see it on the Internet. It is the
greatest minds and the greatest moneys that want to get this
done.
So this is the context, the historical context.
I am out of time. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Black follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Black. Thank you very much, sir.
And, Mrs. Yeung, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF MIRIAM W. YEUNG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN WOMEN'S FORUM
Ms. Yeung. Thank you all for having me here today.
My name is Miriam Yeung, and I am the executive director of
the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. We are the
country's only multi-issue organization dedicated to building a
movement for social justice and human rights for Asian and
Pacific Islander women and girls in the United States. I am
also a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong and the proud mother of
two wonderful daughters, who are doing a very good job of
staying quiet.
On behalf of NAPAWF and the dozen of women's rights, Asian
American and Pacific Islander, human rights, civil rights, and
reproductive groups that stand with me, I strongly urge the
Members of this Congress to oppose H.R. 3541, otherwise as
known as ``PRENDA.''
Forgive ME for allowing my Brooklyn roots to show just a
little bit when I say, ``PRENDA is nothing but a pretenda.''
PRENDA pretends to fight against racial discrimination by
actually perpetuating discrimination against women of color.
This bill undermines and calls into question our ability as
women of color to make decisions about our own bodies.
The truth is, most Americans believe that a woman knows
what is best for her and her family. But this bill places
unfair scrutiny on African American and Asian American women
around our motives for seeking abortion care. This scrutiny
promotes racial profiling by pushing doctors to assume African
American and Asian American women are seeking abortions because
of the race or sex of their fetus.
Women of color already face difficulty accessing health
care and have poorer health outcomes. African American women
are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-
related causes than White women, and their unintended pregnancy
rate is almost twice that of White women. Vietnamese women are
more than five times as likely to die from cervical cancer, and
Korean women have the highest uninsurance rates of any ethnic
or racial group. Unfortunately, this measure would make health-
care outcomes for women of color even worse. Making abortion
harder to obtain exacerbates racial disparities in health care.
PRENDA pretends to speak the language of women's equality,
but, unfortunately, the voting records of its supporters do not
strengthen civil rights, women's rights, or the rights of Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders. For example, this year alone,
sponsors voted to de-fund family planning, eliminate funding
for the United Nations Population Fund, ban abortion coverage
in State health insurance exchanges, and allow providers to
refuse abortion care even when a woman's life is in danger.
Sponsors of this bill did not support the Children's Health
Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. And some would even
require hospitals to report possible undocumented persons that
seek treatment, thus preventing immigrants from seeking
emergency health care.
PRENDA pretends to address the issue of sex selection but
does nothing to address the root causes of son preference or
gender inequity. Son preference is a symptom of deeply rooted
social biases and stereotypes about gender. Gender inequity
cannot be solved by banning abortion. In fact, the United
Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization, the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, and
U.N. Women have issued a clear joint statement that countries
have an obligation to ensure that these injustices, meaning son
preference, are addressed without exposing women to the risk of
death or serious injury by denying them access to needed
services such as safe abortion.
Asian American and Pacific Islander women know that gender
inequities do exist and are working in culturally competent
ways to provide long-term, sustainable solutions. We are
working with members of our own community to empower women and
girls, thereby challenging norms and transforming values. For
example, we are carrying out programs that build the leadership
of women, improve our economic standing, create better access
to health care, and end gender-based violence against us.
We need your support to put Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders back to work, since our community experiences the
longest duration of unemployment of all races and ethnicities.
We need your support on current bills such as the
reauthorization of the Violence Against Woman Act, the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the Health Equity and
Accountability Act. We need humane immigration reform and many
other policy efforts which would help my community.
In summary, PRENDA pretends to eliminate racial and gender
discrimination but is a thinly veiled attempt to limit abortion
access for women of color. Instead of curbing women's rights
and exacerbating racial discrimination, I welcome all Members
of Congress to work with NAPAWF and all other organizations
that stand with me to pass legislation that truly results in
racial justice and gender equality. Let's really work together
to improve the lives of women of color and to make this country
a better place for daughters like mine. But let's not continue
to pretend that this bill does that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Yeung follows:]
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__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Ms. Yeung.
Mr. Mosher, you are recognized, sir, for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN W. MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH
INSTITUTE
Mr. Mosher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Subcommittee.
Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans oppose abortion for reasons of
sex selection, but such acts of gender violence are neither
illegal nor uncommon in our country. Permissive abortion laws
and high resolution ultrasounds make it easier than ever for
parents to target and eliminate unwanted daughters before
birth.
Now, I have followed the issue of sex-selective abortion
for a long time. I was the first American social scientist in
China in 1979-1980 during the beginning of the one child
policy. I documented sex-selective infanticide in the Pearl
River Delta, the killing of little girls after birth by their
parents, who were under terrible pressure by the government to
end over-quota pregnancies.
I also testified before the Australian Senate in 1986
against shipping ultrasound machines to China because I argued
they would be used overwhelmingly to detect the sex of unborn
children and that girls would be targeted for elimination; 37
million baby girls in China have perished in this way. So this
is an issue of concern to me for a long time.
You know, until the recent spate of negative publicity
focused public attention on these crimes, it was not unusual to
find abortionists advertising the availability of sex-selective
abortions in newspapers like The New York Times. Now, anyone
who has lived in the Asian American community, as I have, is
aware that the practice of selectively aborting female fetuses
is disturbingly common. Women, as well as their daughters, are
both victimized.
Now, Congressman Chabot has already mentioned the study,
the very gripping and disturbing study by Sunita Puri, an Asian
American physician, but it is worth mentioning again because
she actually interviewed 65 immigrant Indian women who had
pursued fetal sex selection. She found that 89 percent of the
women carrying girls aborted during the study. That is to say
almost all of the women when they found out they were carrying
girls went in and ended the lives of their unborn baby girls.
She found that nearly half had previously aborted girls.
And she found something else. She found evidence of gender
violence. These women told Dr. Puri that they had been, by
their husbands or in-laws, they had been shoved around, kicked
in the abdomen, denied food, water and rest in an attempt to
make them miscarry the girls they were carrying. Even the women
who were carrying boys told of their guilt over past sex-
selection abortions, the feeling of being unable to save their
daughters.
So these episodes are not isolated tragedies. These are
common occurrences in some American communities. We have two
studies now by economists which document son-biased sex ratios.
I don't have time to go into the details.
But the one point that jumped out at me was this: Whether a
mother in some of these communities gave birth to a boy could
not be predicted by her immigration status alone. In fact,
mothers who are U.S. citizens were slightly more likely to have
sons than those who were immigrants. This means that sex
selection is not a tradition from the old country that easily
dies out. The enduring nature of sex-selection abortion further
underlines the need for the kind of legislative remedy that
PRENDA offers.
Those who argue against sex and race selective abortions do
so on the grounds that sex-selective abortion is not really a
problem here. In fact, Maria Hvistendahl, who wrote a book
about this, writes, ``the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act is not
such a bad law were it to be enacted in the countries that
actually need it.''
The implication here is that the United States doesn't need
it. I disagree. While it is difficult to say with any
exactitude how many sex-selection abortions take place in the
U.S. Each year, the number is not trivial. Consider that we are
talking about communities consisting of 3.9 million Chinese
Americans, 2.8 million Indian Asians--Asian Indians, 1.6
million Korean Americans, the highly skewed sex ratios found in
census surveys suggest among these groups alone, that tens of
thousands of unborn girls have been eliminated, for no other
reason than they are considered by some to be the wrong sex.
I disagree with Hvistendahl that the death of tens of
thousands of American baby girls does not constitute a problem
significant enough to be combated with legislation. Even one
death is too many.
Finally, this reasonable effort to rein in discriminatory
abortions has been mischaracterized by some as ``an attempt to
restrict health care for women of color.'' What this bill is
really talking about is allowing Indian, Chinese, Korean
American and other women the freedom to have babies of their
own choosing. Isn't that what reproductive choice is supposed
to be all about: allowing women the freedom to have the babies
of their own choosing.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mosher follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Mosher.
We will now begin the questions. I will recognize myself
for 5 minutes for questions, and I will direct my first
question to you, Mr. Black.
I keep trying to call you Dr. Black. I apologize, but you
talk like an Ph.D. here, better than most of them, I will tell
you.
Mr. Black, your testimony for me was so very compelling
because you seemed to restate one of humanity's oldest and
perhaps most evil practices in ways that help us understand the
consequences in real terms. I was particularly struck in your
comments about the early eugenicists' philosophy that it wasn't
advocated so much by the ``activists of the day'' that you
might consider the uneducated masses, but these were the elite,
the--I won't say do-gooders of society--but the ones that
considered themselves smarter than everybody else. And it
frightens me a little bit, because I think we think that they
weren't very bright back then and how could they have fallen
into that trap, but I wonder if sometimes today that we don't
do the same thing.
So my question to you, at the risk of sounding redundant,
would you capsulize again the eugenicist practices in this
country in the 20th century and what it led to in our country
and outside our country and who were the primary movers and
shakers behind it?
Mr. Black. Well, it is important to understand that the
genocidal actions of the American eugenicists were not
conducted by men in white sheets burning crosses at midnight,
but by men in white lab coats and in three-piece suits in the
fine corridors of our great universities, in the State House,
in the court house and in the medical society. This was all
subject to the rule of law, and the law was put into place by
the men in power to eliminate the existence of those they
believed had no right to exist.
You asked about the do-gooders. These were actually
Utopians, and they believed that they could form a Utopia by
cutting off 14 million Americans at a time, at a slice, and
eventually, there would be no one left except those who
resembled themselves. Unfortunately, as I am sure the Members
of the Committee know, the word ``Utopia'' in Greek means
nowhere, and even the ancient Greeks knew that Utopia was
unattainable.
But in their effort to create a Utopia, they decided to
corral and sterilize and stop the reproductive rights and
incarcerate White people with brown hair from Appalachia,
Hispanics, Jews coming in from the East, the Asians who had
come in to work on the railroads. These people were turned into
untermenschen, meaning subhumans, and this was pursuant to law
in 27 States, and was upheld by the Supreme Court no less than
Oliver Wendell Holmes, when he said three generations of
imbeciles are enough. Now, the kids up there think that the
words ``imbecile,'' ``moron'' and ``idiot'' are insults, but
the adults up there, the older ones, know that these were
scientific terms that were designed to measure intelligence and
to stigmatize.
What is important to understand is that while we invented
this race policy and eugenics, we empowered it into Nazi
Germany. It was decades of our funding of Nazi eugenics that
caused Adolph Hitler to praise the United States eugenics
policy in Mein Kampf, to write fan mail to the chair, to the
board members of Margaret Sanger, to say, your work is my
Bible, and to pursue American principles, laws, statutes, with
tremendous ferocity and velocity.
In fact, we are all in horror about what happened at
Auschwitz with Mengele. What most people don't understand is
that Mengele's twin research was in fact funded by the
Rockefeller Foundation when they made his boss, Otmar
Verschuer, their chief researcher on the Rockefeller twin
project. It was Adolf Hitler who said that national socialism
is just biology in action.
So we must understand that World War II was more than a war
of economic plunder and territorial conquest. World War II was
actually a genetic war backed up by a merciless military that
sought to eliminate the existence of all those deemed to be
socially unfit.
Mr. Franks. I am going to ask unanimous consent for one
more minute to just throw one quick other question at you. Can
you explain how the American eugenics movement influenced the
efforts of American population control or family planning
movement so that the racial minorities were targeted for birth
control, sterilizations and abortion?
Mr. Black. During what period?
Mr. Franks. It would be the----
Mr. Black. After the war or before the war?
Mr. Franks. Before the war.
Mr. Black. Oh, okay. Well, basically, they turned welfare
upside down. They turned education upside down. The best way to
give educational services was to train one of these social
misfits to care for themselves and then spend their resources
elsewhere.
The welfare departments thought the best thing you could do
for a socially unfit person was to deny their existence on the
planet. And remember this, please: It was never about your
education or your money, because these people, the American
eugenicists, the great legislators, the great judges, the
university presidents, the doctors, the scientists, from
Alexander Graham Bell all the way to Oliver Wendell Holmes to
the Chief Justice of the Chicago Municipal Court, they all felt
that they were doing something good for the country. What they
didn't realize was that they were in fact committing genocide
under Article II, Sub D, which specifically says in the
Genocide Treaty that organized efforts to restrict births
within a group constitutes genocide.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Black.
I now recognize Mr. Conyers for 5 minutes for questioning.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Aden, do you believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned?
Mr. Aden. Emphatically, yes, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. I heard you. I said thank you.
Mr. Aden. Yes, sir. I think that is a civil rights struggle
of this generation.
Mr. Conyers. Hold it just a minute. You answered the
question.
Now, Mr. Mosher, do you believe Roe v. Wade should be
overturned?
Mr. Mosher. Yes, I do.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
You ask Mr. Black. I am not going to ask him anything.
Mr. Black. Go ahead. What is your question?
Mr. Conyers. Ms. Yeung, I would like to talk with you for a
minute about what I consider the most critical part of Roe v.
Wade, and that is with respect to the State's important and
legitimate interest in life, the compelling point is viability,
because the fetus then presumably has the capability of
meaningful life outside the mother's womb, when you reach
viability. So that means to me that the Supreme Court has made
clear in this case from 1973 that the government may not
prohibit abortion prior to fetal viability.
Would you comment on that part of the case for me, please?
Ms. Yeung. Thank you, Mr. Conyers, for the question.
I will admit, firstly, that I am no legal scholar by any
means, but I do know that there are many of my colleagues in
the room who are from the Center for Reproductive Rights or the
ACLU that have submitted comments and testimony, who can talk
about the legal standing.
I was actually more of a science person in my upbringing,
and that may be a stereotype, but I actually was pretty good at
math and science, and what I do know scientifically is that a
fetus cannot live outside of a woman's body before 24 weeks.
Mr. Conyers. That is not bad for a person without medical
training or legal training.
Let me ask you this, Ms. Yeung. In the communities where
you work, what are some of the actual barriers to women's
comprehensive health care?
Ms. Yeung. Yes. I am really pleased that there is this
hearing which focuses on the needs of Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders. We have always wanted this sort of support
and attention, particularly, as many of us know, Asian
Americans and Pacific islanders make up only 6 percent of the
U.S. population, we often have to fight for our air time. And
there is a huge need, of course, for disaggregated information
about our community, so information that treats the different
ethnicities as separate.
So I am also pleased that this issue allows us to look at
how--to look at different ethnic communities, particularly
Chinese, Korean and Indian communities in this case. But we
have really serious issues that the Asian Pacific Islander
community have identified. As I mentioned in my testimony, we
know that Asian American women, particularly Vietnamese women,
suffer from cervical cancer at extraordinarily high rates. We
have disproportionate rates of hepatitis B infection, which
would require more attention. We know that Filipino women are
at higher risk for breast cancer than Black or White women.
We know also that Asian American and Pacific Islander young
people are targets for school bullying at disproportionate
rates and higher rates than other races and ethnicities. And
when do you do look at disaggregated Asian Pacific Islander
data, we see in many places that young API women and girls have
lower self-esteem than their counterparts. And, as I mentioned
before, we also have long-term unemployment to face.
These are all issues that are real issues that I would
submit and ask that the Congress really do help us address.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much.
Do you believe that this bill would help women, would
liberate them? I mean, after all, where we got the names of two
great civil rights people I will never know, but do you think
that this is going to help liberate women in their struggle?
Ms. Yeung. On the contrary, I believe that this bill would
hurt women, and women of color in particular.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman.
I now recognize Mr. Chabot for 5 minutes.
Mr. Chabot. I thank the Chairman for his recognition.
Ms. Yeung, it was mentioned--well, let me just make a
couple of comments.
First of all, I think Mr. Conyers, who I consider to be a
friend, even though we don't agree on a whole lot of issues, I
still think he is a gentleman and a scholar, I just think he is
very wrong on this particular issue.
But I think asking some of the panel members relative to
their position on Roe v. Wade, I think the implication is that
they are somehow biased because they do believe that Roe v.
Wade ought to be overturned.
I strongly believe it ought to be overturned as well,
particularly when you consider that there is about 50 million
or so Americans who aren't here because of that decision that
happened on the day--my birthday actually is on January 22nd,
1973, and every day on my birthday, I think about how many--and
we have nice thoughts, other than getting older, which isn't
necessarily all that great, but I think of all those who never
experienced life, the opportunities that I have had and our
kids have had and many other people have had because of that
decision. Fifty million Americans aren't here, don't exist,
because of that decision. So there is an awful lot of us that
think that that was a horrific decision.
And I happen to be the principal sponsor of the ban on
partial birth abortion, which was originally Stenberg v.
Carhart and then Gonzales v. Carhart, which was upheld by a 5-4
decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.
I guess, Mr. Aden, I would like to ask you that question if
I could to begin with.
In the light of that particular decision, are you confident
that this legislation, should we be able to pass it in the
House and the Senate and get it beyond this President's veto,
because I am sure--well, I can't say I am sure he would veto
it, but assuming he would veto it, we probably wouldn't have
the two-thirds to override the veto.
But if we got it there to the Supreme Court, do you feel
confident on a legal basis that this would be upheld?
Mr. Aden. Yes, I am confident of that.
Mr. Conyers asked about Roe v. Wade. As I quoted earlier,
the Supreme Court in Roe affirmed the principle that the State
has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in
protecting the life the fetus. It reaffirmed that principle
recently in Gonzales v. Carhart.
In point of fact, the partial birth abortion procedure, as
you probably know, was not restricted to post-viability
abortions. It was also performed before viability. But that was
of no moment to the Supreme Court in determining that the
Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act was constitutional, despite the
absence of a health exception.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you.
Ms. Yeung, you had mentioned--well, let me just comment.
You had mentioned that, you know, a fetus or a baby or unborn
child, whatever terminology one prefers, can't survive outside
the womb, the womb beyond--before 24 weeks. That is why I
believe that we shouldn't remove those babies from the womb
before 24 weeks. In fact, we ought to let them go to term and
then be delivered naturally and enjoy the same life that we all
have.
Let me ask you this: Do you think it is okay to determine
the sex of the child and you find out it is a girl and then to
terminate that life? Do you think that should be the law?
Ms. Yeung. Thank you for the question.
And thank you also for inviting Mr. Black to be part of the
panel. As a reproductive----
Mr. Chabot. I have got a limited amount of time, if you
could get to my question. Do you believe it is okay to
terminate the life of that child simply because you found out
that it is a little girl? Yes or no?
Ms. Yeung. Because eugenics is an issue that reproductive
justice organizations have really cared about, and coercive
actions on the part of any person to make or force a woman to
make a decision that she cannot--or that she is not asked about
making----
Mr. Chabot. Yes or no, that is what I am asking. Do you
think it should be okay?
Ms. Yeung. I believe is just as bad. So I would believe
that coercing or a woman to become a parent when she knows it
is not the best thing for her----
Mr. Chabot. Let's talk about coercion. I think you heard
this study about Indian American women that showed that a
significant proportion of those women were coerced, either
beaten, or even food and water oftentimes withheld from them
because they wanted to continue to proceed to have their
daughter, but they were forced, there was coercion there. Do
you think that that coercion should affect the decision as to
whether one should have that abortion or not?
Ms. Yeung. This bill does not address anything on coercion,
and I would submit that we have the support of many South Asian
organizations, including the South Asian Americans Leading
Together----
Mr. Chabot. I think my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. And
I would just note that the witness still hasn't the question
yes or no.
Mr. Franks. Well, the coercion statement is in the first
and second section of the criminal part of the bill, so
coercion is definitely addressed in the bill.
I now recognize Mr. Quigley for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aden, I respect your viewpoints. I just want to ask you
about the racial aspect of this. The study I saw with
Guttmacher is that only 1 in 10 abortion clinics in the United
States are in predominantly Black neighborhoods. African
American women have less access to sex education and
contraception. Isn't it more likely that that is the reason
there are more unwanted pregnancies and abortions among the
Black community than among the White community?
Mr. Aden. Actually, Mr. Quigley, I am not sure I agree with
the statement. That is not in the record. Planned Parent and
other organizations have poured millions and millions into
predominately minority neighborhoods in the last 40 years.
Mr. Quigley. That is a 2008 Guttmacher study, 1 in 10.
Mr. Aden. Well, sir, there are a couple of studies that
indicate that predominately abortion clinics are located in
disproportionately minority neighborhoods, somewhere between 70
and 80 percent. A lot of us believe that has been intentional;
that has been a policy on the part of Planned Parenthood and
other abortion providers.
What this bill does, sir, is not target the mere placement
of an abortion clinic in a predominantly minority neighborhood.
It targets the purposeful termination of a baby's life because
that baby is of a disfavored race.
Mr. Quigley. It is the fundamental premise of the
legislation, as we are reading this, is we are concerned with
African Americans having more abortions and that somehow it is
a race-based decision. There is a deliberate attempt out there
to have more Blacks have abortions.
When you mention Planned Parenthood, if that is their grand
plan, why would they offer contraception? Why would they
promote sex education, which you have to believe reduces the
number of unwanted pregnancies? You have to agree. I don't know
of any studies that show that African American women have more
access to these things and have fewer unintended pregnancies as
a result.
Mr. Aden. Well, I think that shows the failure of those
family planning policies, that so many millions have been
poured into contraceptives for minority populations and yet
they still have abortions at a much higher rate.
Mr. Quigley. And I am not trying to rush you, talk as long
as you need to on that point, but you don't believe in a
woman's right to choose. That is your point. Do you believe a
woman should have access to contraception on an equal basis?
Mr. Aden. I am sorry, would you repeat the question,
please?
Mr. Quigley. Should women have a right to contraception on
an equal basis?
Mr. Aden. I don't think my opinion on that subject is part
of this hearing or one of the issues.
Mr. Quigley. It helps me understand----
Mr. Aden. It is not about family planning, Mr. Quigley.
It has nothing to do with clinics that provide
contraception, chemical or otherwise, or family planning. It
has to do with clinics that provide abortion. Family planning
doesn't reduce the numbers of, for example, African Americans
by 14 million over the last 40 years.
Mr. Quigley. Do you believe that contraception, if
available, reduces unintended pregnancies? I guess it is the
other way----
Mr. Aden. I think the jury is out on that question, Mr.
Quigley. I don't think that has been proven. I think that is
the Guttmacher Institute's position, but as you know,
Guttmacher is financed by and was started by Planned Parenthood
and recites the party line. So I don't think it can be trusted.
Mr. Quigley. You don't believe Black women want to have
abortions because they don't like having Black babies.
Mr. Aden. No, sir.
Mr. Quigley. So they have abortions because they have
unintended pregnancies disproportionate to the White
population.
Mr. Aden. That is not what this bill targets, sir. This
bill targets providers who provide abortions based on race,
just as it targets abortionists that provide abortions based on
sex. If the abortionist knows that the mother desires to abort
the baby because of the sex or because of the race, for example
in a case in Maine, where the parents of a minor girl tried to
force her to have an abortion because the father was African
American. A perfect example.
Mr. Quigley. So the physician would say to an African
American woman, to follow a process that you are thinking here,
are you having this abortion because your child is Black? That
is what they would have to ask?
Mr. Aden. That would be an example of private racial
discrimination that would be the subject of this legislation,
yes, sir, if that were the case.
Mr. Quigley. So you would have a physician ask a woman of
color if she is having this abortion because her child is
minority?
Mr. Aden. There is nothing in the bill, sir, that requires
the abortionist to go into a lengthy inquiry about the
patient's state of mind.
Mr. Quigley. How will they make the decision then?
Mr. Aden. If the patient made that statement to them,
``Doctor, I can't have this baby because it's Black or because
this baby is my third daughter.''
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr.
King--I am sorry, Mr. Iowa.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witnesses for your testimony.
I listen to this discussion and the disproportionate number
of female babies that are aborted, I think of a story that I
recall hearing some years ago, and it referenced some of the
British occupation of India 200 years ago, when a British
general found himself on a location where there was an Indian
man who had died and they were getting ready to build the
funeral pyre to force the widow to die on the funeral pyre,
because that was what they did. And the British general began
building a gallows. And they said, what are you doing? He said,
I am building a gallows. They said, why? He said because you
are about to burn this widow on the funeral pyre. And they said
that is our custom. And the British general said to them, that
is your custom. When you burn the widow on this funeral pyre, I
will follow our custom, and I will hang you all. That was 200
years ago.
During World War II, I had a friend, who has since passed
away, his name is Gill Copper, Fort Dodge, Iowa. He went down
under the bridge in the Ganges River in India, and when he had
any leave time during the Second World War, just stood there or
sat and listened and waited for the splash, for the splash of a
little girl baby being thrown off the bridge into the Ganges
River, because it was still their custom to disrespect the
little female lives in their culture.
So here we are, the modern version of this, the modern
version of this that is identified by what we call science, and
a way to bypass the guilt of listening to that widow scream or
that baby gurgle in the river, and now it is a science-selected
death of an innocent little baby.
I just saw the little children in the back, and it warms me
to see them.
And I hear your testimony, Ms. Yeung. But I just ask you,
you testified that you did well in science, and I accept that.
You said that a fetus can't live outside the womb short of 24
weeks. But I don't think that has been upheld by science. I
think there are hundreds of little babies that have survived
outside the womb before 24 weeks.
So I would just ask you, you know, when did those little
girls' lives begin? At what instant was it? And could you
actually take their life the minute before they were born or
the day or the week or the month? Could you really take them
back and say viability, and if you don't know that moment of
viability, doesn't it have to be an instant, an instant that
life begins? Because if not, aren't we playing guessing games
with innocent unborn human lives? How can you be a mother and
not think about those things as learned as you are in science?
Ms. Yeung. Respectfully, I am a very good mother.
I think, you know, this bill purports to address gender
inequity and gender discrimination, which is a driver of your
preference, and we have been on record very concerned about
gender inequities. And all of the international agencies that I
have mentioned before have all talked about----
Mr. King. Ms. Yeung, I apologize for having to interrupt
you, but I do recall that you didn't answer the question from
the gentleman from Ohio, so I don't think I want to let the
clock tick down on this.
I will just ask you, have you contemplated the instant that
your child's life began? Do you think of that in the terms of a
instant in the way I framed the question to you?
Ms. Yeung. I think that is a question of a very personal
nature.
Mr. King. You are here to testify though as an expert
witness and as a mother and you identified that in your
testimony.
Ms. Yeung. Sure.
Mr. King. So are you here now saying that you would
advocate that we not limit the abortion of little baby girls
based on your testimony that I shouldn't ask you personal
questions? Isn't it personal to those little unborn babies?
Ms. Yeung. I am here to testify for--against racial
discrimination and against gender discrimination. I will not
submit myself to personal questions of that nature and
insinuations that I am not a perfectly fine mother.
Mr. King. Then I would say that you are disqualified here
as a witness, and I am done with my questions of you.
And I would turn to the gentleman Mr. Black, and I ask you,
Mr. Black, you have done some research or written a book, and I
am interested in the genesis of the Planned Parenthood. Who
were the people that formed it, the years prior to World War
II, the first half of 20th Century, what were the names of the
organizations that emerged from those leaders, the names of the
leaders, the names of the organizations that emerged from those
leaders and how that morphed into Planned Parenthood?
Mr. Black. You want the history of Margaret--Planned
Parenthood and Margaret Sanger before Hitler, before the Third
Reich?
Mr. King. Yes, the names of the American players in
particular.
Mr. Black. Well, this is a very, very sensitive matter, so
it is important to put the truth in context, and I am not
seeking to judge modern day organizations by what happened 60,
70, 80 years ago. But since you have asked me the history, I
should tell you that Margaret Sanger was one of the leading
eugenicists in the United States. She was a racist. She
believed in saving humanity, the historical record and her own
writings show, and saving it by eliminating two-thirds of it.
She referred to the people she wanted to get rid of as
human weeds. She was never, contrary to some suggestion that
she was a good face for eugenics, he was never accepted in the
eugenics circles by the American Eugenics Society, et cetera,
because she was a woman. And she was trying to find a humane
alternative to gas chambers, coercive sterilization,
confinement, et cetera, et cetera.
She did have midnight meetings with the Ku Klux Klan. Adolf
Hitler did write fan mail to her colleague Lothrop Stoddard,
who wrote ``The Passing of the Great White Race,'' and Adolph
Hitler wrote to him, your book is my Bible. And she maintained
her identity as a eugenicist long after World War II finished
and long after eugenics was codified into international law,
the Genocide Treaty, as a crime against humanity and as a
violation under Article II, Sub D, of the Genocide Treaty as
genocide because a particular group was being identified.
That's the facts of the history.
I can give you lots of facts about this institution, which
also enabled these very same people, such as Harry Laughlin
during the National Origins Act created the Federal Eugenics
Officer who then devised the formula that Hitler employed to
have the Nuremberg laws, for which Harry Laughlin from the
Carnegie Institution received an award from the Hitler regime
in 1937.
Where did they get this idea of a half Jew and a quarter
Jew and a 16th of a Jew? That all came from the Congress of the
United States. That all came from Harry Laughlin, Federal
Eugenics Officer. That all came from the Carnegie Institution.
That is who invented this stuff.
So the short answer to your question, was Margaret Sanger a
racist with an organic connection to Nazism, the short answer
is yes. The long answer is, the short answer isn't as good as
the long answer.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Black.
I appreciate it and I yield back.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. King.
And I recognize Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aden, is it legal in America to force someone to have
an abortion?
Mr. Aden. No, sir.
Mr. Scott. Is it legal to force someone to have an
abortion?
Mr. Aden. To the best of my knowledge, there is no Federal
law that prohibits it. A number of States have passed laws that
do. Of course, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade said something
about it being a woman's choice and actually upheld in Roe v.
Wade, affirmed the right of pro-life doctors and nurses not to
participate in abortions. So, from the beginning, it was
intended that it be a woman's choice, which is why it is so
important for this legislation to target coerced abortion. To
my knowledge, this will be the first time that it is addressed
in Federal legislation.
Mr. Scott. So if you forced a woman to undergo an abortion,
that would not be a crime in the United States?
Mr. Aden. It might be kid--I am not an expert on criminal
law, sir, but I do believe it would be kidnapping. It would be
battery.
Mr. Scott. You can't imagine that forcing someone to have
an abortion and not looking at civil--criminal liability?
Mr. Aden. Yes, sir. It would also be battery on the part of
the doctor if he knew that the woman was not giving her
consent.
Mr. Scott. Okay, that would be forced and coercion. If you
forced someone to have abortion, would that be a crime in the
United States?
Mr. Aden. If it took those forms that fall under those
criminal statutes, yes.
Mr. Scott. Because in your perfect example, you had parents
who forced their daughter to have an abortion because of the
race of the father. If the parents forced their daughter to
have an abortion for any other reason, wouldn't that be a
crime?
Mr. Aden. It could be.
Mr. Scott. It could be.
Mr. Aden. It could be. And, again, on the part of the
doctor if he knew the minor didn't give her full informed
consent, it would be battery.
Mr. Scott. So the situation that you--perfect example you
gave where they forced her to have an abortion because of the
race of the father, that has already got to be a crime?
Mr. Aden. Depending on the circumstances, yes, sir, it
would be. But civil rights legislation has not waited for all
of the particulars of private action to add up to a Federal
offense in order to prophylactically address activity, like
excluding African Americans from lodging, lunch counters,
education and other places like that.
There is a place appropriately for broad prophylactic
measures that the Congress has said many times and the Supreme
Court has affirmed in addressing----
Mr. Scott. In those cases, it was not illegal to decide--
you could decide who you wanted in your hotel and who you
didn't want in your hotel, and what the civil rights laws did
was to establish protective classes, where you could not
exclude certain people because of those characteristics.
Mr. Aden. That is right, sir.
Mr. Scott. And we made something that was legal illegal.
And the question was whether or not forcing someone or coercing
someone to have an abortion is already illegal, whatever the
purpose. How would you ascertain what the purpose was if there
was no comment made as to the purpose of the abortion?
Mr. Aden. The same way that the Justice Department's Civil
Rights Division ascertains that fact in enforcing a variety of
civil rights legislation; the statements of the perpetrator,
the circumstances of the action, the usual tools that a
prosecutor has in proving the elements of a crime or offense.
Mr. Scott. Well, if a doctor is performing abortions, and
someone comes in for a sex-selected abortion and nothing is
said one way or the other--I mean, we have heard a lot about
the numbers of abortions and the race and location. How would
you--if a lot of abortions are going on, in an individual
abortion, how would you prosecute a doctor for performing
abortions that had the effect of being racially biased?
Mr. Aden. Well, in the case of a sex-selection abortion,
for example, there is a requirement that a doctor ascertain
that he or she has obtained full informed consent from the
patient. It is under common law. It is under State statute. If
a woman comes in and she has had, for example, two abortions in
a row of a female baby, that might raise an inference in the
mind of the doctor and might impose on the doctor an obligation
to inquire about the circumstances to ensure that the patient
has not been coerced into this abortion, particularly if she
comes from one of the populations, subpopulations, that has a
proclivity toward this kind of coerced abortion for gender.
Mr. Scott. If he doesn't do that due diligence, he is
guilty of a criminal offense?
Mr. Aden. I am sorry, sir?
Mr. Scott. If he does not do the due diligence to ascertain
why the woman is having an abortion, he would be exposed to
criminal prosecution?
Mr. Aden. If the circumstances are patent to the average
reasonable doctor, it might be a matter for an inquiry by the
Justice Department, yes, sir. That is the seriousness with
which we take racial and gender discrimination in this country.
Ms. Yeung. Mr. Scott?
Mr. Franks. In the interest of not having to come back here
after votes, we are going to have a second round here. I think
there are only three of us left and maybe we can do this
without having could to come back after votes. So I am going to
go ahead and recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
You know, I think it is important to remind ourselves here
that we have talked about a lot of different things here, but
this bill essentially says that you can't discriminate against
the unborn by subjecting them to an abortion based on their
race or sex.
Ms. Yeung, you testified that you were here to address
racial or discrimination inequities against women or different
races. And I would just suggest to you that being aborted
because you are a little girl is a gender inequity. And I know
you are having a hard time with that. It is unfortunate. It
doesn't seem like you have read the bill, because you didn't
know there was a section in there on coercion, and it was one
of the main parts of the bill.
Be that as it may, to address Mr. Mosher's concern or
question here earlier that was asked, Mr. Mosher, isn't it true
that on the State level, that battery like that would be like a
State misdemeanor, and this would make coercing a woman to
abort her child because the child is a little girl then would
become a felony? That is one of the distinctions in the bill,
is that correct?
Mr. Mosher. Yes, I would agree with that.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, sir.
Let me, if I could, return to you, Mr. Black. You know,
when I look back at the effect of eugenicist ideas, sometimes
ideas have pretty profound implications. From your testimony
today, I am sensing that--and you can correct me if I am wrong
when you respond--that the abortion-birth control establishment
early on in this country had roots in eugenics, and it appears
that those eugenic goals were tantamount to genocide. And it
appears that they achieved those goals, if you look at some of
the numbers today. Also it is clear to me that some of these
eugenicist ideas were part of the tragedy that took place in
Europe, that catalyzed the genocide in Europe and the ultimate
ensuing war that took place because of it. And if I remember
right, about 50 million people died in that war.
So these ideas are not trivial ideas. Fifty million unborn
children have died since 1973 in this country. And when they
talk about has it liberated women, I am not sure we have
liberated women by killing 50 million children. It seems like
there's better ways to help mothers than killing their children
for them.
But my question is this: We are never quite so eloquent as
when we decry the crimes of a past generation, and we are never
quite so blind as when we assess genocide in our own time, and
sometimes we don't know what present policies like a eugenicist
attitude portend for future generations.
So, can you tell us in your mind if we don't draw a line
here at sex selection and race selection, what does the future
portend? What are the policies going forward? What are the
possibilities? Where are we going as a people if we allow this
to be sewn into our policies regarding some of these new
technologies and some of these new ways that we are delving
into the very deepest elements of life?
Mr. Black. Thank you for the question. First of all, I
should mention that I had unrestricted access to all the files
of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, published and
unpublished, to a large extent when I did my research, as well
as all of her writings.
Planned Parenthood at that time, not now, but at that time
was not rooted in eugenics. It was eugenics. It was open
eugenics. The cause and effect of what the United States race
policy did here and what we did in--what we funded in Germany,
what we inspired in Germany, with Nazi Germany, we know exactly
what books Hitler was reading in his prison cell when he was
writing Mein Kampf and which editions they were and which
eugenics books and which publishers and translations. I have
all of that down.
Now, we are moving, and let me just bring out the Genocide
Treaty here. I always carry it with me. The reason that Article
II, Sub D, imposing measures intended to prevent birth within
the group, and the group here being women or any race or any
gender, the reason that is important is because eugenics is an
attempt to affect bloodlines.
You know, they used to say that you can take a Negro and
you could dress him up in a toga and teach him Latin and that
would not make him a Roman. It was the descendants of this
society that they were always worried about based on Mendel's
principles of heredity with the striped pea and the smooth pea.
And right now, today, this minute, the transhumanist movement,
which is well-funded and well-established, and corporations who
have run afoul of the genetic anti-discrimination statutes both
in the U.K. and the U.S. are trying to manipulate and create a
society.
I would defer to Mr. Mosher, who knows more than I about
this, but if I am not mistaken, in approximately 8 years, as a
result of son preference and this subtraction of women, in
approximately 8 years, some 40 to 45 million Chinese young men
under the age of 20 will not have brides because of the gender
imbalance. He can correct me.
Mr. Franks. Would you like it address that, Mr. Mosher?
Mr. Black. And just one other thing; 40 to 45 million, it
is in 8 years. It just two more terms, that 40-45 million is
approximately the same size of the male population in the
United States of America at that particular age, 18, 19 and 20.
And this data comes from the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, to which Mr. Mosher is far more qualified to talk
than I do.
So the reason I am here is because you are attempting to
address a doorway that our society is going into because we are
moving from organized and systemic, and that is the key word,
systemized, organized and systemized subtraction of a group, in
this case women or Black people or whatever gender it is, to
create, to socially engineer. If we just let it keep going this
way, there is reason to believe that we won't really have a
society because we will have gone against the biological
imperatives and the biological opportunities that are a balance
between the genders provide in a natural society. So, actually,
you are slightly ahead of the game, because, I assure you, it
is coming.
Mr. Franks. Mr. Mosher, did you want to follow up? More.
Mr. Mosher. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would say that
those numbers are approximately right. The selective
elimination of little girls in China continues apace, more so
by sex-selective abortion now than by female infanticide, and
that is going to cause huge social problems in China in the
future. And you can already see those problems arising now with
tens of millions of young men not being able to find brides.
But I must say that I think that the insouciance of some of
the people on the other side of this issue who are not
enthusiastic about the PRENDA bill must derive from the fact
that they think these are transitory phenomena, that, yes,
these immigrant populations will practice this now, but the
problem will disappear over time. And I would remind people
here that the study that looked into that question by Almond
and Edmond pointed out that women in those minority populations
who were born here actually had higher rates, not lower rates,
but higher rates of sex-selective abortion.
So this is not a problem that is likely to simply disappear
over time. And indeed, with our reckless genetic engineering,
as in the future, we start selecting for hair color, height,
IQ, eye color and everything else, and against eye colors and
skin colors that we don't like, that sex-selective abortion and
race-selective abortion is probably going to become more common
rather than less common as the technology becomes available.
Violence against women will become more common in this regard
rather than less common. So the time, I believe, to legislate
against this is now.
Mr. Franks. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. King.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to inquire of Mr. Mosher, you went to study in
China in the late 1970's. Was it right before the beginning of
the one child policy that you arrived there or right after?
Mr. Mosher. Well, I arrived in China in March 1980, about 2
months after we normalized diplomatic relations with the
People's Republic of China. I was teaching at the University of
California at Berkeley at the time. And the program descended
upon the area that I was in, in the spring of 1980, in March
1980.
Quotas went out from the provincial government reflecting
new directives from the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party, directing that the population of Canton
Province not increase by more than 1 percent in 1980, and they
carried out that dictate by arresting women for the crime of
being pregnant. These were women who in many cases were 7, 8,
and 9 months pregnant, who had gotten pregnant when it was
legal to have a second or a third or fourth order child, and
now all of a sudden, the state was declaring their pregnancies
illegal. And then I went with them as they were taken in for
forced abortions.
Obviously, you will understand that I am very sensitive to
issues of coercion because I am an eyewitness to coercion in
China. I saw women taken in by force and given cesarean section
abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, which is not a
pretty sight.
But there are levels of coercion and there are levels of
abuse, and, unfortunately, we see elements of the coercion that
takes place in China, not just on a cultural level or a social
level, but actually on a physical level, in some populations,
some communities in the United States. So there is coercion
involved in sex-selective abortion in the United States.
Mr. King. Mr. Mosher, I am just very curious. It is a
gruesome story, and I understand that, but how you transpose
that into the United States, I can't imagine this public
accepting something like that. What goes on in the culture or
the minds of the Chinese to allow something like that to
happen, forced abortions and cesarian-section abortions in the
7th, 8th and 9th month. How did the public react to that? What
existed within their culture that allowed that to happen?
Mr. Mosher. That is a very interesting question which would
probably take--the answer to which would take more time than we
have at our disposal. But I can say that the brunt of the one
child policy has fallen on girls. It is girls who are
discriminated against in the womb. It is girls who are
discriminated against after birth. It is girls who fill the
orphanages of China, being abandoned by their parents in the
hope that they can then go to the officials and say, my
daughter is no longer here; may I have permission to have
another child?
Mr. King. Do you accept the number of 35,000 forced
abortions a day in China?
Mr. Mosher. Absolutely. The number of abortions in China
ranges from 7 to 15 million each year. Many of those abortions
involve elements of coercion. Some of them, not an
insignificant number, involve out and out coercion, out and out
physical force.
Mr. King. And that number is probably reduced over years
because they have been adapting to the policy of one child in
different ways to avoid the gruesomeness of the way it abruptly
entered upon the society that you were in?
Mr. Mosher. Well, there are two factors. One is that
subsequent to a forced abortion, the women in question are
generally sterilized, so they will not be back illegally
pregnant in years to come. That has reduced gradually over time
the number of abortions. China's economic development with
urbanization and modernization has reduced the desire of young
people in China who live in cities for children. So that has
lowered the level of abortions and coercion in China.
But the policy still continues. We have been in China. We
at The Population Research Institute carry out periodic
investigations in China. We do work in China. And there are
still high levels of coercion in that country.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Mosher.
I would like to turn to Mr. Aden, who hasn't had a lot of
action here today and ask you this question--I posed it a
little bit in the earlier round. But this practice that exists
in this country with regard to sex-selected abortions and race-
selected abortions, if this Congress were to advocate for such
a policy in the affirmative, if we passed a law in this
Congress that brought about sex-selected abortions, race-
selected abortions, and promoted them, as was the law in China,
what do you think the results would be in the streets of
America and how would you respond to that?
Mr. Aden. Well, as a lawyer, I would have to say that in
the corridors of the Supreme Court it would not fly, because it
would be racial and gender discrimination. And I cannot imagine
the Congress passing such a policy like China's.
Mr. King. But can only government discriminate by race and
gender, or can individuals do that? Doesn't the 14th Amendment
protect all by the same standard?
Mr. Aden. Well, sir, the Constitution applies directly, of
course, to government officials--Federal, State, and local
public officials. It does not directly apply to the acts of
private individuals.
But the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases like Heart of
Atlanta Motel and Katzenbach v. McClung that the Commerce
Clause is an appropriate authority for eradicating badges of
slavery. And in other cases involving gender discrimination,
the Court has applied that rule to gender discrimination based
on outmoded, archaic stereotypes.
So what the Supreme Court has said is that it is not--
Congress is not bound to sit and wait until racially
discriminatory and gender discriminatory policies make
themselves manifest. They can act--the Congress can act
proactively in addressing them, as it has many times.
Mr. King. And haven't we also acted, at least by
resolution, to reject the genocide in China that Mr. Mosher
talked about, as an act of Congress?
Mr. Aden. Oh, certainly, yes. The resolutions there, the
words of the Secretary of State condemning China's sex-
selection policy, and the efforts of our delegation to the
United Nations Committee on the Status of Women would point to
that.
Mr. King. Then would it be consistent of Congress to pass
this legislation that is the subject of this hearing today
consistent with the previous acts of Congress that have
condemned the genocide in the other countries?
Mr. Aden. Yes, sir, it would be quite consistent with
Congress' previous statements on these issues.
Mr. King. All right. I thank you, Mr. Aden.
And I thank all the witnesses for your testimony and the
Chairman for the hearing.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Franks. Mr. Black, you have heard a lot of numbers here
today. And I hear you talking about the never-born. Do you
believe that the numbers here related to up to 200 million baby
girls worldwide, do you believe that the numbers are overstated
as to the impact of the policies that we have discussed this
morning, or this afternoon?
Mr. Black. From the historical perspective, I think that
these numbers are not overstated; they might be understated.
You know, when you attempt to wipe away the stars and there
are no stars left and you say, ``Now I have counted all the
stars, I will wipe them away,'' what about the stars you cannot
see that are beyond your plane of sight? I believe that we
can't fathom or measure what has been lost from any genocide.
We cannot fathom or measure what is lost from any society by
subtracting the young man that you spoke of playing piano with
his feet, a Stephen Hawking, a bad mathematician like Albert
Einstein, a guy with a bad back like me, and lots of other
people. For heaven's sake, there was a guy on one of these TV
shows; he was competing for the best singer. And he was found
in a shoebox in an orphanage in Iraq.
None of us may judge the value of a human being. We don't
have the measuring sticks, and we don't have the right,
historically speaking, to do this to another person. And that
is why the genocide laws indicate the group, any group, whether
it is Biafrans; whether it is American Indians, who were
imposed upon by the BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs, to get
abortions and to get forcibly sterilized. None of us can decide
what is best for humanity. That is what nature is about. That
is what the Almighty is about, if I can use the historical
term, okay?
Mr. Franks. Well, I don't know how to add a great deal to
that or what other questions I could ask that would bring more
relevance to the central point here.
The fact is that when we consider historically some of the
great struggles of our past, whether it is World War II that
cost us 50 million people or whether it is 50 million abortions
since 1973 or whether it is 200 million little baby girls that
have been aborted because they are little girls--I think
someone would say the civil war in our country had something to
do with racial inequity--it does call out to each of us that
this notion that we can just have ideas that suggest that
another group or another person is less than we are or that
somehow they can be discarded and that it not have a tremendous
impact on the greater whole of humanity is a failed notion.
And the implications are pretty profound. I heard a
gentleman earlier today say, you know, the most dangerous three
words in the world now are, ``It's a girl.''
And I just want to thank all of you for being here.
I believe, Mr. Black, your comments about some of the
challenges that we face are so very relevant.
And I hope that somehow we can end this hearing where we
began, and that is the notion that, in America, everyone is
created equal and endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. And that pretty much covers all of us.
And if we can hold on to that, I think there is hope for
humanity.
And, with that, I would just say, without objection, all
Members will have 5 legislative days to submit to the Chair
additional written questions for the witnesses, which we will
forward to the witnesses and ask them to respond as promptly as
they can so their answers may be part of the record.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
in which to submit any additional materials for inclusion in
the record.
And, with that, again, I thank all the witnesses.
And I thank all of the people that have joined us here
today in the audience. There wasn't any fighting or cussing or
throwing bricks or anything. It was wonderful. I appreciate you
all being here.
And this hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Material Submitted by the Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Arizona, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Material Submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New York, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on the Constitution
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]