[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE ULTIMATE CIVIL RIGHT:
EXAMINING THE HYDE AMENDMENT AND
THE BORN ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
AND CIVIL JUSTICE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-95
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia SCOTT PETERS, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida
MIMI WALTERS, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
DAVE TROTT, Michigan
MIKE BISHOP, Michigan
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Chairman
RON DeSANTIS, Florida, Vice-Chairman
STEVE KING, Iowa STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JERROLD NADLER, New York
JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida
Paul B. Taylor, Chief Counsel
James J. Park, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Civil Justice................................. 1
The Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Civil Justice................................. 3
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 7
WITNESSES
Giana Jessen, Abortion Survivor
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Statement............................................. 11
Genevieve Plaster, M.A., Senior Policy Analyst, Charlotte Lozier
Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, Unite for Reproductive and
Gender Equity (URGE)
Oral Testimony................................................. 20
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Arina O. Grossu, M.A., Director, Center for Human Dignity, Family
Research Council
Oral Testimony................................................. 26
Prepared Statement............................................. 29
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice............. 5
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Response to Hearing Question from Genevieve Plaster, M.A., Senior
Policy Analyst, Charlotte Lozier Institute..................... 56
Letter from Melissa Ohden, Founder, The Abortion Survivors
Network........................................................ 57
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary........................... 61
OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record but not Reprinted
Material submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. This material
is available at the Subcommittee and can also be accessed at:
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=105369
THE ULTIMATE CIVIL RIGHT: EXAMINING THE HYDE AMENDMENT AND THE BORN
ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION ACT
----------
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Constitution
and Civil Justice
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:10 a.m., in
room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Trent
Franks (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Franks, DeSantis, King, Gohmert,
Jordan, Cohen, and Conyers.
Also Present: Representative Chu.
Staff Present: (Majority) Paul Taylor, Chief Counsel; Jake
Glancy, Clerk; (Minority) Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director &
Chief Counsel; James Park, Minority Counsel; Matthew Morgan,
Professional Staff Member; and Veronica Eligan, Professional
Staff Member.
Mr. Franks. Good morning. The Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Civil Justice will come to order. And, without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the
Committee at any time.
We welcome everyone today to this hearing. We are calling
it ``The Ultimate Civil Right: Examining the Hyde Amendment and
the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.'' And I would
now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today, we will hear testimony on existing statutory
language prohibiting taxpayer funding from paying for the
taking of the lives of pre-born children through abortion.
There is concern that the Obama administration or a potential
Clinton administration may intend to reinterpret the plain and
longstanding meaning of the Hyde amendment. We will also
examine today the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,
which would protect human babies who are born alive.
On this day in the year 2016 in the land of the free and
the home of the brave, there are no criminal penalties in
Federal law for either negligently or deliberately killing born
alive human babies who are living and breathing on the table
after surviving an abortion.
More than 7 months ago, the U.S. House of Representatives
passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, with
bipartisan support, to protect these little children who are
born alive. More than 90 percent of the American people support
this kind of legislation, yet we have been unable to even get a
vote or even a debate in the United States Senate to protect
innocent born-alive babies from being deliberately subjected to
cruel and torturous death.
The people who came upon Kermit Gosnell's clinic in
Philadelphia and discovered a horrifying scene and several dead
babies, many of whom had been born alive before being murdered,
were told by their supervisor that the investigation of
abortion was not their business. This insidious sense has taken
hold that if we are dealing with abortion and any of its
aspects, we were dealing with a ``constitutional right'' which
overrode or trumped any local law that might protect the
victims.
Ashley Baldwin, one of Dr. Gosnell's clinic employees, said
she saw babies breathing and she described one as 2 feet long
that no longer had eyes or mouth, but in her words, was making
like this screeching noise. It sounded like a little alien.
The abortion industry has labored for all of these decades
to convince the world that unborn children and born children
should be completely separated in our minds, that while born
children are persons worthy of protection, unborn children are
not persons and are not worthy of protection. But those who now
oppose this bill to protect born-alive children suddenly have
the impossible task of convincing themselves and the American
people that a born-alive premature baby that has survived an
abortion is just a fetus that should be disposed of and not a
little human baby, not a little human child worthy of our
protection as a Nation.
To any compassionate human being who has not invincibly
hardened his or her heart or soul, an honest consideration of
this absurd inconsistency is profoundly enlightening.
I would earnestly implore in this moment in this Committee
that the majority leader of the United States Senate, and I say
this in the most personal of terms, asking him to hold in some
form a recorded vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors
Protection Act in the U.S. Senate to provide criminal penalties
at the Federal level to prevent monsters like Kermit Gosnell
from murdering innocent born-alive human babies.
Now, President Obama vetoed similar legislation--voted
against, forgive me--President Obama voted against similar
legislation four times before becoming President, and
astonishingly now has promised in writing to veto this bill if
it comes to his desk. And I am told Mrs. Clinton holds the same
position but intends at all costs to avoid revealing that
during the Presidential campaign.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not abortion. This is born
alive. Born alive. The American people deserve to know where
candidates for President stand on something so foundationally
intrinsic to the Republic founded on these core principles that
all of us are created equal and are children of God.
The American people still deeply hold themselves to be
protective of born children, and if those seeking the highest
office in the land are in opposition to a bill that would
protect born-alive children, then the American people have a
right to know this before the most important election in this
century, and in the last century, on which the core right to
live contained in the Constitution of the United States itself
hangs in the balance.
Turning our backs on helpless born-alive children is not
who we are as a people, and it is not who the United States of
America has become as a Nation. Yet it is one of the most
crucial questions now upon us in this divisive moment in
history, in this decisive moment of history as well, and the
implication for this country's soul and future are profound
beyond words.
And so I thank the witnesses for being here, and I ask this
morning that all of us just open our hearts to the truth.
And I would now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Cohen for
5 minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is undisputed that the Constitution guarantees women in
this country what I believe is the most fundamental and
personal decision they will ever make about their reproductive
health--whether or not to have children--and the Supreme Court
made that clear in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. The Court has
repeatedly reaffirmed the Constitution's guarantee of this
right, most recently, in June in Whole Woman's Health Clinic v.
Hellerstedt.
There are people, like Mr. Franks and myself, who have
strong opinions on the issue and diametrically opposed
positions, and we will not change each other's minds today or
tomorrow or probably ever.
So why are we here today when the House of Representatives
is in recess?
One week from today marks the 40th anniversary of the Hyde
amendment, and the Hyde amendment is a rider that is attached
to appropriations bills that fund the Department of Health and
Human Services. It bans Federal funding for abortion services
provided by Medicaid and other Health and Human Services
programs, with limited exceptions, and that was hard fought,
for mothers' lives or in the case of rape or incest. Medicaid,
of course, is the primary public health insurance program for
low-income Americans.
And this makes me think back to a program I attended last
Friday night where Gloria Steinem spoke. And Gloria Steinem
spoke about the fact that controlling women's reproductive
processes has been something that men have done for years, and
tried to do, and they have tried to control women and they have
tried to control people of different races and people of
different sexual orientations, because they liked the power
they had and they wanted to keep it that way.
And women, in the days of slavery, were very much
encouraged to have children, because that was good, because you
needed lots of more property to bring the crops to make the
money. Then when they came along with the mechanization, they
didn't need so many people, they started to think less of
having children. But it was the people at the top, the people
that owned the land and had the controls, determined a lot and
wanted to continue to control women's reproductive systems.
Poor women experience five times the rate of unintended
pregnancies than more affluent women--five times more--with
abortion becoming more and more concentrated among low-income
women as a result. And women of color are disproportionately
likely to be poor and rely on Medicaid for health services,
health insurance, and this racial disparity is particularly
true among women of reproductive age.
Therefore, the Hyde amendment, when you really look at what
it does, it bans the funding for abortion services through
Medicaid, denying low-income and minority women the ability to
access a safe and legal reproductive health service.
Perhaps the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall,
one of the greatest men to ever serve on the Supreme Court, put
it most succinctly when he wrote in 1980 that the Hyde
amendment is designed to deprive poor and minority women of the
constitutional right to choose, because that, in effect, is
what it does.
Simply put, the opponents to the right to choose cannot get
what they really want, which is to repeal Roe outright, so
instead they have chosen to deny the right, as a practical
matter, to poor women and women of color.
Most Americans, whatever their views on the right to
choose, agree that politicians should not be allowed to deny a
woman health insurance coverage for pregnancy-related care just
because she is poor, and this includes coverage for abortion
services. The right to choose is well settled, and the amount
of money a woman has should not determine whether she could
exercise her fundamental constitutional right.
You know, before Roe v. Wade, wealthy women could make
their ways to Canada or Mexico, and they could get abortions,
but poor women couldn't. Money has always been a factor.
I am a cosponsor of H.R. 2972, the ``EACH Woman Act of
2015,'' introduced by the dynamic and great leader,
Representative Barbara Lee, who is in the audience and who has
a statement, which with the permission of the Chair, I would
like to introduce and make part of the record, without
exception.
Mr. Franks. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Cohen. That, too.
I thank you for being here. And thank you for all you have
done. When I was with Ms. Steinem, I asked her about her
heroes, and you and Maxine Waters were right there among them.
This bill, which Representative Lee has sponsored, would
ensure, among other things, that Federally funded medical
coverage extends to all pregnancy-related healthcare services,
including abortion services. The unjust burdens that the Hyde
amendment has imposed on low-income and minority women demand
that Congress pass H.R. 2972.
Mr. Franks, I don't know the poll, and I know that you can
have polls of all kind of natures. I don't know if 90 percent
of the people support this and how it was phrased. But I do
know that about 90 percent of the people support no fly, no
buy, and we can't get a vote on that in the House. And if you
take some guns from people who are considered too dangerous to
fly, you will save some people's lives for sure, people who are
here today, but we don't do it.
It is time to rescind the Hyde amendment and guarantee that
all women are able to access quality reproductive healthcare
services and exercise their constitutional rights without
regard to their socioeconomic status.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman.
And I would now recognize the full Committee Ranking
Member, Mr. Conyers of Michigan, for his opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I welcome the
witnesses for today's important hearing.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court recognized a woman's
constitutional right to make what is perhaps the most personal
of healthcare decisions--when to start a family--free from
undue government interference.
Unfortunately, though, since 1976, Congress has sought to
undermine this important constitutional right by attaching the
so-called Hyde amendment to annual appropriation measures
funding the Department of Health and Human Services. The Hyde
amendment, of course, is named after a former colleague on the
Judiciary Committee, Chairman Henry Hyde, which prohibits the
use of Federal Medicaid funds to pay for an abortion except to
protect the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest.
There are many reasons why this restriction should be
rescinded. To begin with, the Hyde amendment is a blatant
example of political decisionmaking inappropriately interfering
in women's healthcare decisions. For more than 40 years, Roe v.
Wade has been the law of the land, as has been indicated, yet
it is clear that the Hyde amendment's purpose is to undermine
the Roe v. Wade constitutional guarantee of a right to choose
to terminate a pregnancy by limiting low-income women's access
to safe, legal medical care.
Political people, elected officials, most of whom are not
doctors, have little or no business interfering in a woman's
constitutionally protected private healthcare decisions in
order to impose their own views about women's rights in health
care.
In addition, the Hyde amendment has a disproportionately
detrimental effect on the health of low-income women and the
well-being of their families. According to the Guttmacher
Institute, many low-income women lacking medical coverage are
forced to delay paying their utility bills, rent, groceries
even, for themselves or their children, to seek out financial
assistance from relatives or friends, or to sell personal
belongings in order to pay for an abortion.
Moreover, women who cannot afford abortion procedures may,
in desperation, resort to self-inducing an abortion or turn to
unsafe, untrained, unlicensed practitioners, heightening the
risk of injury or death from what is supposed to be a safe and
legal medical procedure.
Finally, the Hyde amendment disproportionately affects
women of color, which has been indicated. Medicaid provides
medical coverage to 20 percent of women of reproductive age,
but as a result of social and economic inequality tied to the
persistence of racism in our society, 30 percent of African
American women and 20 percent of Hispanic women of reproductive
age are enrolled in Medicaid compared to just 14 percent of
White women of reproductive age. Clearly, the consequences of
the Hyde amendment disproportionately fall on women of color.
While 15 States permit the use of their own funds to
provide abortion coverage for Medicaid enrollees, 60 percent of
reproductive age women enrolled in Medicaid live in States that
only cover abortion in limited circumstances. Rather than
undermine the constitutional right of low-income women and
women of color, Congress should look to these States as an
example and act to ensure that women, regardless of their
financial situation, have access to quality comprehensive
reproductive health services.
And so I am going to carefully listen to the testimony that
comes forth, and I thank the witnesses for being with us today.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman.
I will now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is
Ms. Giana Jessen. Ms. Jessen is an abortion survivor. Our
second witness is Ms. Genevieve Plaster. Ms. Plaster is the
senior policy analyst at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Our
third witness is Ms. Kierra Johnson. Mr. Johnson is the
executive director at the organization URGE. Our fourth and
final witness is Ms. Arina Grossu. Ms. Grossu is the director
for the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research
Council.
Now, each of the witnesses' written statements will be
entered into the record in its entirety, and I would ask that
each witness summarize her testimony in 5 minutes or less. To
help you stay within that time, there is a timing light in
front of you. The light will switch from green to yellow
indicating that you have 1 minute to conclude your testimony.
When the light turns red, it indicates that the witness' 5
minutes have expired.
And before I recognize the witnesses, it is the tradition
of the Subcommittee that they be sworn. So if you would please
stand to be sworn.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give
before this Committee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
You may be seated.
Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses responded
in the affirmative.
And I would now recognize our first witness, Ms. Giana
Jessen.
And if you would please turn that microphone on before you
speak. Pull it there close.
Ms. Jessen. Okay. Can you hear me?
Mr. Franks. Yes, ma'am.
TESTIMONY OF GIANA JESSEN, ABORTION SURVIVOR
Mr. Jessen. Pardon me. Thank you. Thank you very much for
giving me the opportunity to speak with you this morning.
I wish to appeal not only to those present within this
chamber today, but to my Nation. We are here to discuss
infanticide. I am greatly troubled that this hearing is even
necessary and that such a law to prevent infanticide must be
constructed in the United States of America at all.
Many Americans have no idea that babies can even live
through abortions and are often left to die, but this does
happen. I know this because I was born alive in an abortion
clinic after being burned in my mother's womb for 18 hours. My
medical records clearly state the following: Born during saline
abortion/April 6, 1977/6 a.m./2\1/2\ pounds. Triumphantly, I
entered this world. I added that part.
Apart from Jesus himself, the only reason I am alive is the
fact that the abortionist had not yet arrived at work that
morning. Had he been there, he would have ended my life by
strangulation, suffocation, or simply leaving me there to die.
Instead, I lived and have the gift of cerebral palsy as a
direct result of lack of oxygen to my brain while surviving an
abortion. And cerebral palsy, make no mistake, is a tremendous
gift. I don't know if any of you understand, maybe you do, what
a tremendous honor it is to have to lean on the strong arm of
Jesus all the way to heaven. It is my honor, in a country that
doesn't wish to speak his name, I will.
So by the grace of God, in my case, a nurse called an
ambulance and had me transferred to a hospital. That nurse
saved my life, and I am profoundly grateful to her for this.
Those who wish to justify such unspeakable evil, such as
leaving a baby without proper medical care to die, have become
masters of the manipulation of language, intimidation, and
defaming their opponents to achieve their wicked aims. As a
Nation, we are continuously exchanging the truth for a lie. We
have neglected our soul. And what will it take for us to awaken
from our numbness and indifference regarding this? Will we ever
awake?
I am confounded as well by the passivity so often
demonstrated by otherwise good and just men, by the fact that
we must plead with those in power to give the most vulnerable
infants among us even one moment of their attention.
This is a bipartisan issue, and I think it is important for
the American people to weigh at this hour whether or not they
wish to elect someone to the highest office in the land that
favors infanticide, because that is what we are speaking of
here, a child, exactly as I was, that had the audacity to live
through her mother's abortion and needed immediate and proper
care.
So I would like to ask Mr. Trump to tell me, and you, where
he specifically stands on this issue, and I would ask the same
of Mrs. Clinton. I would also ask Senator Mitch McConnell to
force a vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection
Act before the end of this September.
I have faced the consequences of our choices as a Nation,
as evidenced by my cerebral palsy. So if you choose to do
nothing, I believe I at least deserve to know why you find this
abhorrent practice tolerable, and I would respectfully,
respectfully ask that you tell me directly.
It seems in some ways we have lost our way in this
beautiful Nation. But it needn't be so. We have only to
remember that we are lent each breath, that we are all engraved
upon the hands of God, and therefore cannot for one single
moment be forgotten by him. We need only to remember Jesus, who
took me from my mother's womb to be his own.
Thank you.
[The testimony of Ms. Jessen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gianna Jessen, Abortion Survivor
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Ms. Jessen.
And I would now recognize our second witness, Ms. Plaster.
And if you would turn on your microphone, please.
TESTIMONY OF GENEVIEVE PLASTER, M.A., SENIOR POLICY ANALYST,
CHARLOTTE LOZIER INSTITUTE
Ms. Plaster. Chairman Franks, Ranking Member Cohen, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify before your Subcommittee during this
hearing on ``The Ultimate Civil Right: Examining the Hyde
Amendment and Born Alive Infants Protection Act.'' My name is
Genevieve Plaster, and I am a senior policy analyst for the
Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research and education resource
in Washington, D.C.
Today, I will focus on the Hyde amendment and its
measurable impact over the past 40 years. The Hyde amendment is
an appropriations rider that prohibits the use of Federal funds
for elective abortion or for health benefits that cover
elective abortion. As a rider, it is not a permanent law, but
it has been passed with bipartisan support in every Federal
funding bill since 1976.
Amidst legal challenges in its early years, the Hyde
amendment was reaffirmed as constitutional in 1980 by the U.S.
Supreme Court in Harris v. McCrae. Though a financial policy,
the most important measurement of the Hyde Amendment's real
world effects has not been dollars saved but lives saved. By
saying that the Hyde amendment has saved lives, I am referring
to the prevented abortions due to women deciding to continue
their pregnancies and give birth to their children in the
absence of Federal funding.
More than 20 peer-reviewed studies published in academic
journals have found a reduction in abortion rates following the
enactment of the Hyde amendment or other similar laws. Numerous
studies also examining State data show not only the abortion
rate decreased, but that the birth rate has increased.
In fact, the Guttmacher Institute, formerly Planned
Parenthood's research arm, which in prior years received
millions of funding from the business after still splitting
with them, conducted its own literature review on the impact of
the Hyde amendment on abortion rates in 2009. Because the
decline in abortion was so clear, even the study's authors were
forced to acknowledge that the ``best studies found 18 to 37
percent of pregnancies that would have ended in Medicaid-funded
abortion were carried to term when public funding was no longer
available.'' We then rightly acknowledge that the Medicaid-
funded births of these individuals are lives saved due to the
Hyde amendment.
In a forthcoming study, the Charlotte Lozier Institute's
associate scholar, Dr. Michael New, calculates the best
estimate for how many lives have been saved by the Hyde
amendment. With a rigorous methodology, Dr. New identified
solid appropriately designed studies that examine the decrease
of abortion rates following the enactment of a public funding
limitation.
Finding the average of decrease to be 1.52, he applies this
rate to State-specific data, namely the number of years and
months that each State has had the implementation, as well as
each State's abortion rate.
The study's major conclusion is that the Hyde amendment has
saved more than 2 million lives since 1976, 2 million
Americans. That is approximately the entire population of the
city of Houston, the fourth-largest city in the U.S. Two
million Americans is the entire population of the State of New
Mexico.
From another angle, the study also calculated that the Hyde
amendment saves approximately 60,000 lives each year. Among
just the seven States that each of you and your constituents
call home, the Hyde amendment has saved approximately 700,000
lives since its enactment. That is, in Arizona, 55,000 lives
were saved; in Florida, 166,000; in Iowa, 33,000; in Ohio,
131,000; in Tennessee, 66,000; in Texas, the highest number of
lives saved at nearly a quarter million, 248,000. And finally
in New York, regretfully, no lives have been saved due to the
Hyde amendment because the State has had State-funded abortion
since 1976 till today.
This real world impact bears repeating. In just these seven
States represented, 700,000 lives have been saved by the Hyde
amendment.
From another perspective, CLI scholar Dr. New explains that
we can also say one in nine people born under Medicaid in a
State that does not have a Medicaid-funded abortion program was
saved thanks to the Hyde amendment.
Lest we lose sight of the qualitative reality of 2 million
lives, let us consider a brief story of Claire, a young woman
who experienced an unplanned pregnancy at age 17. In a recent
news article that was just published the other week, she said
that at that time, ``I felt hopeless and alone.'' She explained
that if Medicaid funding for an abortion had been available to
her, it would have been very tempting to go ahead and have that
abortion.
Instead, she reached out for support, was accompanied to a
pregnancy care center, where she saw the first ultrasound of
her young son, and decided to continue this pregnancy. Now, a
year later, Claire reflects, ``I don't know what I would do
without him. That is my baby.''
Of the 2 million lives saved by the Hyde amendment, one can
only wonder how many other of the mothers were in a similar
situation.
In conclusion, the Hyde amendment has enjoyed bipartisan
support for 40 years, was reaffirmed as constitutional in 1980,
enjoys support from nearly 7 in 10 Americans, including even 51
percent of those who identify as pro-choice, 44 percent of
those who are Democrats, 65 percent of African Americans, 61
percent of Latinos, and finally and most importantly, has saved
an estimated 2 million lives.
For these compelling reasons, the protective language of
the Hyde amendment should not only be retained as enforced
policy but should also be codified as permanent law.
Thank you for inviting me to testify today.
[The testimony of Ms. Plaster follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Ms. Plaster.
And I would now recognize our third witness, Ms. Johnson.
And, Ms. Johnson, if you would make sure that microphone is
turned on.
TESTIMONY OF KIERRA JOHNSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITE FOR
REPRODUCTIVE AND GENDER EQUITY (URGE)
Ms. Johnson. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to speak about the Hyde amendment, one
of our Nation's most harmful and shameful policies, one that
singles out low-income women and interferes with their personal
decision about whether to end a pregnancy.
My name is Kierra Johnson, and I am the executive director
of URGE, Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, and as a
steering committee member of the All Above All campaign, a
campaign led by more than 150 reproductive health, rights, and
justice organizations united to lift the bans on abortion
coverage.
Safe quality abortion services should be available,
regardless of a woman's ability to pay, her source of
insurance, or where she lives. However, since the passage of
the Hyde amendment in 1976, the appropriations process has been
used as a vehicle to systematically deny meaningful access,
access to poor women, and has expanded to harm many others.
As a result of the Hyde amendment and its extended reach
into similar restrictions, nearly 29 million women of
reproductive age do not have insurance coverage of abortion.
Each restriction, each ban is intended by anti-abortion
politicians to further their ultimate goal of pushing abortion
out of reach for as many people as possible.
For those who are struggling to get by, disproportionately
women of color, low-income women, young women, immigrant women,
a coverage ban might as well be a ban on abortion altogether.
Studies have shown that restricting Medicaid coverage of
abortion forces one in four low-income women seeking abortion
to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
The Hyde amendment creates one of the most onerous barriers
to abortion care. Just listen to the voices of those who have
felt the impact of these bans.
Kendall from Colorado says, ``I found out I was pregnant,
and I was deceived by the center I visited because it ended up
being an anti-choice crisis pregnancy center. After that, I
struggled for weeks to find resources, the last $200. I have
been anxious, frantic, and terrified. My health has declined,
and I believed there was little to no hope until today when I
was finally able to access an abortion.''
A second woman recounts, ``Here is what it took for me to
gather the money for my abortion. It was hard. It took 3 weeks.
The payday loan I took out for my abortion wiped out my entire
account. I got a 3-day notice on my apartment door, and things
started to spiral out of control. And then, when I became
evicted, I lived in a shelter temporarily.''
As a Black woman, I am outraged that the morally bankrupt
Hyde amendment has been permitted to persist for so long. It is
a source of pain for many women and should be a source of shame
for those who support it.
The time for policies that visit indignity and deprivation
on women, including Black women is over. Last year,
Representatives Barbara Lee, Diana DeGette, and Jan Schakowsky
made history by introducing the Equal Access to Abortion
Coverage and Health Insurance Act, the EACH Woman Act. This
bold legislation respects that each of us, not just some of us,
should be able to make our own decisions about pregnancy and
prohibits politicians from interfering by withholding coverage
for abortion care. With this bill, we are saying that all of us
should have access to the same coverage and options,
independent of income, ZIP code, or source of insurance.
This legislation now has more than 120 cosponsors in the
House and the support of the American people. Polling released
last July shows that a majority of Americans would support a
bill requiring Medicaid to cover abortion.
A right without access isn't a right at all. In the EACH
Woman Act, I see the transformational power of centering the
lives, struggles, and aspirations of those for whom the legal
right to a safe abortion has not yet been made a reality. But
that reality is within our reach. We can work together to build
a future where women's decisions are treated with respect and
we can get the healthcare we need with dignity and compassion.
Thank you.
[The testimony of Ms. Johnson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
And I would now recognize our final witness, Ms. Grossu.
And if you make sure that microphone is on.
TESTIMONY OF ARINA O. GROSSU, M.A., DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR HUMAN
DIGNITY, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
Ms. Grossu. Chairman Franks, Ranking Member Cohen, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I am grateful and
honored to have been invited to testify today in support of the
Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
In 2000 and 2001, Jill Stanek testified before this
Committee about her experience as a registered nurse where she
discovered babies born alive after an attempted abortion and
left to die in the department's soiled utility closet.
In 2002, Congress responded by passing the Born-Alive
Infants Protection Act, which was signed by President George W.
Bush and is current Federal law. It passed by voice vote in the
House and with unanimous consent in the Senate.
Unfortunately, incidents involving born-alive children
being killed after an attempted abortion have continued after
this law and into the present.
Infanticide is unacceptable in a civilized society,
regardless of what one may think about abortion itself. Up to
2010, abortionist Kermit Gosnell operated his dirty and
dangerous abortion facility where he did hundreds of snippings
of born-alive babies as part of his abortion process. The grand
jury report noted many of the women ``gave birth before he even
got there. When you perform late-term 'abortions' by inducing
labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming
babies...Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies
he delivered: He killed them...by sticking scissors into the
back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord.'' See, for
example, the image of Baby Boy B, who was found in his
facility.
Federal and State authorities finally raided his facility
not because he was illegally killing born-alive infants, but
because of his illegal prescription drug activity.
While Gosnell's case was particularly gruesome, he is not
an outlier. A former employee of current Texas abortionist
Douglas Karpen described how he regularly killed babies born
alive by snipping their spinal cords, fatally injuring them
with blows to the soft spot on their heads, and twisting their
necks.
She said, ``I am pretty sure I was seeing at least three or
four large babies that were completely delivered in some way or
another daily...When the fetus would come completely out, of
course the fetus would still be alive, because it was still
moving. Of course you could see the stomach breathing, and that
is when he would do this.''
Yet despite the gruesome photo and eyewitness evidence,
Karpen was cleared in December 2013.
The Center for Medical Progress, in its investigative
videos, authenticated by an in-depth forensic analysis report,
revealed a lot of evidence of babies killed after being born
alive. For example, Perrin Larton, a procurement manager from
Advanced Bioscience Resources, said, ``The whole point is not
to have a live birth. I literally have women come in and say
they will go into the OR and they are back out in 3 minutes,
and I am going, 'What is going on?' Oh, yeah, the fetus was
already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the
stirrups. It just fell out.''
Holly O'Donnell, a former procurement technician with
StemExpress, recounted one incident where her supervisor said,
``'Want to see something kind of cool?' And she just tapped the
heart and it started beating. And I am sitting here, and I am
looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating.''
Data that the CDC collects also confirms that babies are
born alive after attempted abortions. Between the years 2003
and 2014, there were somewhere between 376 and 588 infant
deaths under the medical code P96.4, which keeps track of
babies born alive after the termination of pregnancy.
The CDC concluded that of the 588 babies, 143 were
definitively born alive after an attempted abortion, and they
lived from minutes to 1 or more days, with 48 percent of babies
living between 1 to 4 hours.
It also admitted that it is possible the number is an
underestimate. We know it is an underestimate because these are
just the reported numbers from hospitals, not from the abortion
facilities.
Gosnell is only one abortionist who is responsible for
hundreds of snippings of born-alive babies, yet he did not
report even one. His numbers alone exceed the definitive
numbers of the CDC.
Even one baby born alive after an attempted abortion who is
then killed is one too many, but we are talking in hundreds of
reported ones. Yet not one person, to date, has been charged or
convicted under the current Federal law.
Due to developments in technology, babies who are
considered extremely pre-term can now survive outside the womb
as early as 20 and 21 weeks post-fertilization, recent science
journals articles announced, with 67 percent surviving after
receiving active care.
Here, for example, is Lucas Moore, who was born at 21 weeks
post-fertilization and 1 year later. Dr. David Burchfield, the
chief of neonatology at the University of Florida, said, ``It
confirms that if you don't do anything, these babies will not
make it, and if you do something, some of them will make it.''
This is why we need the proposed Born-Alive Act. It
explicitly requires healthcare practitioners to treat born-
alive abortion survivors with the same care they would treat
any other born-alive baby and admit such babies immediately to
the hospital. It provides enforcement mechanisms, such as
criminal sanctions and penalties, to hold abortionists
accountable for killing born-alive infants. And the bill also
expressly excludes any prosecution of the mother of a baby born
alive, and it gives her a private right of action to seek
relief if the abortionist were to kill her born-alive baby.
The White House has promised that it would veto the born-
alive legislation, citing it would have a chilling effect. I
cannot think of a more chilling effect than continuing to let
U.S. abortionists commit infanticide.
Born-alive babies after attempted abortion are already
recognized as legal persons since the 2002 born-alive law. The
proposed Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act simply
recognizes the obligations that follow from this reality, to
ensure that babies born alive after attempted abortions will be
given the best medical care available and full and equal
protection under our laws. I earnestly ask that you support
this bill to stop infanticide in the United States.
Thank you.
[The testimony of Ms. Grossu follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Ms. Grossu.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. Does the gentleman have a question?
Mr. Jordan. Would you yield for just a second. Mr.
Chairman, I have got to run to a different Committee. I just
wanted to thank our witnesses.
Mr. Franks. Could I yield to the gentleman first? I think
that there was a video that the gentleman was going to allow.
Could I yield to the--I will yield to the gentleman first for
questions. We will not begin our question time, and I will
yield to the gentleman first.
Mr. Jordan. I don't have a question. I just have to be at
another hearing.
Mr. Franks. Then would you yield for the video?
Mr. Jordan. I will yield for the video, sure.
Mr. Franks. All right. If you will start the video there.
Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
What we will do, I will go ahead--what we are going to do
is we are going to go ahead and suspend for the moment, and I
will recognize Mr. DeSantis for 5 minutes.
And thank you, Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chair, I have got to run out of here. I
want to just thank all our witnesses, in particular Ms. Jessen
for her powerful and compelling story. I have got to run to
another hearing.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, sir, for being here.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 clarifies
that infants who are born alive during abortions or attempted
abortions are afforded all legal protections enjoyed by other
persons in the United States.
Would you support amendments to that Federal Born-Alive
Infants Protection Act to protect infants born into these
incredibly vulnerable circumstances by providing a requirement
that abortion providers or their staff immediately call 911 for
an emergency transfer to a hospital of an infant born alive at
a clinic in those circumstances?
Ms. Johnson. I am not a medical professional, and what I do
know is that there are leading medical organizations that have
come out in opposition to this bill. I know that there has been
testimony that has been provided for the record, and I think,
for me, yielding to their expertise is where I would go.
Mr. DeSantis. But why would you--I mean, to me, it is not a
question of--I mean, if you have an infant that is born alive,
I mean, we have obviously had very powerful testimony, what
would you lose by providing the infant treatment at that point?
Ms. Johnson. We currently have laws that hold doctors to
high standards of care in this country. So, for me, I don't
understand why we would necessarily need an additional law
around this. But again, I am here as a witness around the Hyde
amendment, and like I said, I think there is testimony around
this.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, let's talk about the Hyde amendment.
Would you agree that from a policymaker's perspective, if there
is something that you don't like and you tax it, you are likely
to get less of it, correct?
Ms. Johnson. I am sorry. Can you restate that?
Mr. DeSantis. If there is something that you don't like as
a policymaker, cigarettes, let's say, and you tax it, you will
get less people to buy cigarettes, correct?
Ms. Johnson. Not necessarily
Mr. DeSantis. Okay. So if you tax something, you get less
of it. You disagree with that. I have think most economists
would say that is connect.
If you subsidize something, you then get more of it. Do you
agree with that or no?
Ms. Johnson. What I agree with is that women choose
abortion services, and abortion----
Mr. DeSantis. That is not what I asked, though. I asked
that by providing taxpayer subsidies for something, you are
likely to get more of that, correct?
Ms. Johnson. I am not sure--I mean, are we talking about
public insurance?
Mr. DeSantis. I am talking about generally. So, for
example, I think your testimony, after listening to it, it
seems to be that you are upset that there is not public money
being provided for abortions, and to me, the takeaway from that
is the policy outcome that you are seeking is to increase the
number of abortions that are done in the United States. Is that
accurate?
Ms. Johnson. No.
Mr. DeSantis. Why would you not get more if you are
subsidizing the conduct?
Ms. Johnson. Women choose abortion as a part of their
health care.
Mr. DeSantis. But that has nothing to do--but that is a
different question from whether the taxpayer should subsidize
it. Yes, people have the ability to choose one way or another.
People have the ability to choose to do other things in other
aspects of life. The question is, is by putting the weight of
the taxpayer behind something, you will inevitably lead to
increases in abortions, will you not?
Ms. Johnson. Well, the American public is in support of
Medicaid covering a full range of pregnancy options.
Mr. DeSantis. That wasn't the--that is not the question. I
didn't ask what the American public is for. I am saying, what
you are arguing, I just want to tease out the implication, is
that you are effectively arguing that we need to increase the
amount of abortions that are conducted in the United States.
Ms. Johnson. We need to increase the ability for women to
make the decisions that they want to make.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, the ability is there. The question is,
how you are going to apply the taxpayer's use of tax dollars?
And I think that by not answering the question, I think you
have answered it, which is effectively, under your testimony,
you would see more abortions in the United States.
And it is a difference between whether you can get one or
not. I think most people, even people on either side of the
pro-life issue, there has been a general consensus in society
we would like to reduce the number of abortions in any way that
we can.
So one final question just, Ms. Grossu, before my time has
expired.
Ms. Johnson, she said she wasn't here to talk about the
born alive, but she said, why would that be necessary? So I am
going to ask you, why would we need to do amendments to the
Born-Alive Act?
Ms. Grossu. Thank you, Congressman.
Essentially, there have been no prosecutions under current
Federal law. So the Born-Alive Act, which passed in 2002, not
one abortionist, not one facility has been convicted under
this, although the CDC reports that there are at least 143
born-alive infants after attempted abortions. So what happened
to those infants? Were they given care?
And so the question is, this bill, what this bill does is
it requires and it creates an enforcement mechanism so that if
an abortionist does not provide immediate care to a born-alive
infant, that that abortionist is going to have to face
violations and fines and criminal penalties for this, and it
protects the mother, too, from any kind of criminal penalties.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. My time has expired. I yield back
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman, and I now recognize the
Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to introduce for the record letters
from 18 health provider organizations, different religions,
different medical specialties, et cetera, into the record.
Mr. Franks. Without objection.*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Note: The submitted material is not printed in this hearing record
but is on file with the Subcommittee, and can also be accessed at:
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=105369
Mr. Cohen. And then I would like to yield my time to the
only woman who is here on the panel that can most appropriately
ask questions on behalf of the majority----
Mr. Franks. All four of our panelists are women, of course.
Mr. Cohen. I apologize, on the congressional panel, and who
represents the majority population sexually in this country,
Ms. Chu.
Ms. Chu. Thank you, Congressman Cohen. I appreciate the
time. And please excuse me. I will have to leave right after
this because I have to catch my flight back to Los Angeles.
I want to thank Kierra Johnson for testifying today and for
bringing to light the negative impact that the Hyde amendment
has on women all across the United States. For 40 years, the
Hyde amendment has been used to deny a woman coverage for
abortion just because she is poor; and because of social and
economic inequality, women of color are even more
disproportionately impacted.
A low-income woman is able to use Medicaid for her
healthcare needs, except in one area, abortion, due to the Hyde
amendment. Because of the lack of funds, she is crippled from
making one of most critical health decision she could ever
make, a personal decision best made by her and her doctor and
not politicians.
In order to pay for the abortion, she may forego paying
utility bills, rent, or food, or sell personal belongs, but
then, due to the time she uses raising the funds, she risks
delays and a more difficult abortion.
If that does not work, she may, in desperation, decide to
seek a dangerous illegal abortion from an untrained or
unlicensed practitioner. And if she cannot find the funds at
all and goes on to give birth, she stands a greater chance of
slipping deeper into poverty, finding no way out.
Even though all American women have the constitutional
right to an abortion, the Hyde amendment is a law that
objectively stops low-income women from being able to exercise
their full rights.
We must ensure that every American woman can access their
constitutional right to an abortion. We must end the Hyde
amendment.
Now, there are 15 States that have done this with a policy
to cover abortion with State funds and who do so in practice.
Women in these States are so fortunate because they can
actually make decisions over their own lives. Unfortunately,
this leaves the women who live in the rest of the 35 States
with no alternative.
But there is a bill in Congress that remedies this
situation. Congresswoman Barbara Lee is the author of the EACH
Woman Act. Her bill would ensure that abortion coverage is
available not just for wealthy women, but for all women. Her
bill would ensure that the constitutional rights of all women
are upheld.
I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill and to be one of
120 cosponsors of this bill in the House of Representatives,
all of whom believe that it is time for the Hyde amendment to
end.
And I would like to ask Kierra Johnson two questions. For
one thing, there was a witness who said that the public
supports the Hyde Amendment; however, it is my understanding
that the public agrees that the Hyde amendment should end and
that a woman should be able to determine her access to health
care and abortion services. That is question number one.
My other question is, under the Hyde amendment, States are
permitted to use their own funds to provide abortion coverage
to Medicaid recipients. Of course, 15 States have chosen to do
this. Do you find that in these States that use their own funds
women have overall better healthcare outcomes because of better
access to family planning?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Congresswoman.
It is true, the majority of Americans support the lifting
of abortion bans, including the Hyde amendment, and they
support that Medicaid cover a full range of pregnancy options,
including abortion services.
And when women have access to abortion, when they can
afford abortion, the quality of life of women and their
families improves. Studies are showing that.
A woman who seeks an abortion but is denied is more likely
to fall in poverty than one who obtains one. And I mentioned
earlier in my testimony that the burden does fall hard on low-
income women. Restrictions on Medicaid coverage of abortion
forces one in four women, poor women, seeking an abortion to
carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. This also compounds other
health disparities facing women of color and low-income women
of color across the Nation.
And so the short answer is, yes, we do see improved quality
of life for women, but not just women, for their families and
for their children and for their communities.
Ms. Chu. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentlelady.
And I would now yield to Mr. King from Iowa for 5 minutes.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witnesses for your testimony.
I would start with, as I listened to Mr. Cohen's opening
remarks, he said that, ``Women have an undisputed right to
abortion.'' And that caught my ear, because I dispute that. I
dispute the decision of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. I
dispute the rationale that they contrived to or arrive at the
decision that I think was preconceived, and then they created
the legal rationale to get to their conclusion.
And one of the rebuttals that I would offer for such a
thing is that we know this: America was founded on the concept
that our rights come from God. And when our rights come from
God, how would it be possible that those rights could confer a
right to kill a baby?
And so I pose that question for deliberation, and I hope a
lot of people across this country begin to think about the
sacred nature of human life and about the moment that life
begins.
This right to choose being well settled is also a component
of that opening statement, with which I disagree. It is not
well settled. It has been a fight for 43 years, and it will be
a fight until it is over. But what we are seeing is for the
ultrasound, science expanding, watching babies move, burp,
laugh, react to outside stimuli in the womb, the personalities
that one can discern by seeing the ultrasound.
I have a staff person in my Sioux City office, and I will
give you his name. He is State Senator Bill Anderson. On his
bookcase, he has framed the ultrasound of his first born. And
he knew he was a father when he saw that.
I would turn, first, to Ms. Plaster. And you gave us some
valuable data, I believe. And some of this data--I would ask
this question, of the roughly--and I don't remember the name--
the number you gave us, but roughly 60 million abortions have
been committed in this country since Roe v. Wade or in that
zone. If you have a more precise number, I am happy to hear it.
But I wanted to ask you, what percentage of those abortions
were Black babies?
Ms. Plaster. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
I do think I have a more--I think it is closer to about 55,
56 million abortions now since Roe v. Wade was decided.
And to your question about how many of those, I can't say
that I have it in front of me at this moment, but I would be
happy to look that up and provide it to the Subcommittee.
Mr. King. I would ask you to enter into the record if you
would provide that information to this Committee.
Ms. Plaster. I will.
Mr. King. Thank you. And how soon do you think you can do
that.
Ms. Plaster. Today.
Mr. King. That would be excellent.
And would your estimation be that if the Black population
is 12 to 13 percent of the overall U.S. population, would you
expect that that percentage of Black abortions would be greater
or lesser than the representation in the overall population?
Ms. Plaster. Thank you. Studies have shown that it is
greater, according to the CDC. And the Guttmacher Institute has
even more accurate information, because the abortion centers
give their information directly to Guttmacher. Many States do
not have a mandatory law to submit abortion records to the CDC
or their State health department. So according to Guttmacher,
yes, it is, African Americans are disproportionately
represented in the abortion.
Mr. King. Would you have any idea why that is not being
called genocide by the Black community?
Ms. Plaster. Thankfully, I know that there are good pro-
life organizations that--good pro-life Black organizations that
are calling attention to this. And I know that, for instance,
Ryan Bomberger has done a great job in calling attention to
this as genocide.
Mr. King. Thank you.
Ms. Johnson, if one were to be there at the delivery of a
litter of puppies, and as a puppy was partially delivered took
a device and either crushed the skull or sucked the brains out
of that baby, would you be committing a crime in most States?
Ms. Johnson. I couldn't speak to what is considered a crime
with puppies.
Mr. King. If I asked you to research that and come back to
this panel with a response in the fashion that Ms. Plaster has
promised, could you do that? Would you do that? I know you
could do that. Would you?
Ms. Johnson. I could, and I could also talk to you about
the research and the anecdotal information I have about Black
communities.
Mr. King. And I think that is valuable information. Not the
subject of this hearing.
Ms. Johnson. I would love to talk about Black communities
if you would like me to.
Mr. King. But I am asking you a specific question. Would
you deliver that information to me? I have asked you if you
believe that would be committing a crime in the several States.
And I am going to ask you to answer this formally back to this
Committee.
But I would tell you the answer, and the answer is, yes, it
would be. And the contrast is that as it stands, as you are
advocating, you cannot do to a puppy what is now currently
legal to do in America to a baby created in the image of God,
and that is the center of this topic here today.
I thank all the witnesses, and I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman.
And I would now yield to the Ranking Member of the full
Committee, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been a fascinating subject here that I didn't
realize was so emotional to so many people both on the panel
and in the audience.
But let's start with you, Ms. Johnson. I want to begin by
asking you just to go over the impact that you think women of
color receive and are affected by the Hyde amendment itself.
Could you do that for me?
Ms. Johnson. Certainly. Thank you, Congressman.
Women of color, young women, low-income women are
disproportionately affected by the Hyde amendment. The reality
is that healthcare disparities exist for women of color, for
people of color, across healthcare issues, and reproductive
health is no different. A lack of health insurance, a lack of
affordability of health care, meaning a lack of an ability to
even think about paying out-of-pocket, a lack of sexual health
information, a lack of access to contraceptive services, in
addition to stigma and shame, right, compounds these issues.
And that means higher rates of unintended pregnancy for
women of color, which means we have to make sure that a full
range of options, including abortion, are accessible, because
when they are not, particularly for low-income women of color,
there is a greater chance of them falling further and deeper in
poverty.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you. Does the Hyde amendment, in your
view, affect the quality of health care that low-income women
receive?
Ms. Johnson. The Hyde amendment prevents women from even
being able to make a decision about their health care. So, yes.
I mean, that alone, not being able to access, right,
economically access the decision that you have made, the health
care that you have chosen, of course that impacts the quality
of health care.
We just heard about how does this affect Black women and
Black families and Black communities. The reality is that we
cannot possibly think that helping Black women is going to
happen by taking yet another opportunity to take decisionmaking
away from them. That is not the way for us to support and
respect Black women and Black families.
Women of color want more access to health care, not more
barriers to health care. They want more child care and
affordable options of child care. Women want, particularly
Black women, an answer to the high maternity mortality rates in
our communities.
And so the Hyde amendment means adding, right, it means
providing a full range of options for women so that women can
make the best decisions for their health care.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
My last question is how do you think legislators, we in
Washington, are we best positioned to make decisions about a
woman's health and well-being, and how do we get better at it?
Ms. Johnson. Abortion can be a complex issue, and people
have opinions. People have feelings. People have thoughts. But
however we feel about abortion, we should not deny poor women
access to it because they are poor.
So as legislators, creating ways that give decisionmaking
back to women is a positive step forward. And the
decisionmaking around reproductive health and rights issues,
right, when we are making decisions about whether to be
pregnant and whether to parent, give us the space and
opportunity to be able to do that with our doctors, with our
loved ones, with our families, and in the context of the
situations and circumstances we are in.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much for your responses and for
being with us at this hearing. I think this is one of the ways
that we will become more thoughtful about the complexity of
abortion and what it means to low-income women. Thank you so
very much.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. Conyers. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman.
And I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I won't be cheering today or clapping when I hear that,
basically, the propaganda campaign that Margaret Sanger
started, because she believed, she knew in her heart we will be
better off if women who are poor and women of color are
encouraged, pushed to have abortions, basically convince them
to have genocide. It has worked. Of course, it
disproportionately affects women of color and poor women. That
is the design of abortion. That is the design of eugenics.
And I would like to yield the rest of my time for a video.
[video shown.]
Mr. Gohmert. I yield back.
Mr. Franks. I thank the gentleman.
I am going to recognize myself now for 5 minutes for
questions.
I have had both the privilege and the burden of dealing
with this issue for a very long time, because a long time ago I
came to a very stark realization that these were really babies.
And if I believed that we are all created equal, if I believed
that every child is a child of God, if I believed that every
child was important, then it became important to me to try to
do what was possible to live out that ideal of the Founding
Fathers that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that we
are all created equal and that every person would have a chance
to live.
EDTR ROSEN
Mr. Franks. And I don't know how this debate has developed
the way it has where Americans seem to be so at each other,
because we have been here before. You know, a lot of times, my
friends on the left, they attack us for using the example of
Dred Scott. The reason that it is used so often is because it
is so profoundly parallel. The Supreme Court comes along and
says, the African American slave is not a person. And there
were those who believed that wasn't true. There were those that
believed that this was a human being worthy of protection, and
they stood up and did everything that they could to do that, to
change that. And, finally, we changed.
And now we look back, and there is not too many people that
would argue that case anymore. They see the personhood. And
sometimes when we finally see the humanity of the victim and
the inhumanity of what is being done to them, somehow it begins
to dawn on you.
And I--I pray that somehow when we are talking about born-
alive children, that a light goes on. That we realize if we are
not going to protect born-alive babies, then we have allowed
ourselves to be dragged into that Samarian night where the
light of human compassion has gone out, and the survival of the
fitness has prevailed over humanity. And I pray that day has
not come to America.
And I heard a testimony today that gave me great hope,
because, Ms. Jessen, you are living proof that when babies
survive abortion, they go on to bring a loving, noble message
to humanity. And I just--I know you have said some things to
our Committee here, but I would just ask if you have anything
else that you would like to tell America regarding the
protection of babies born alive that have survived abortion?
Ms. Jessen. Thank you, Congressman. I would like to thank
you for being such a man of such great courage.
And I would--I have been listening in the hearing today,
after speaking, after explaining that I lived through an
abortion. Often, when I am in the midst of abortion advocates,
they never can answer this one question, and it is this: If
abortion was merely about--is merely about women's rights, then
what were mine? And I have been listening to the great round of
applause for the ending the lives of these children, but these
very same people behind me applauding, I would like to tell you
that if need be, I would lay my life down for you, because no
greater love has a man than this, than to lay down his life for
his friend. And so as I listen to you applaud for--for--for
death, I want to tell you how valuable you are.
And to America, I would say this, wake up. And, you know,
we are so worried about every single other issue under the sun,
and we--we don't talk about this one. We are embarrassed by the
social issues. We are embarrassed by the people that love God,
and we are embarrassed by defending the most vulnerable among
us, and we wonder why we have people killing each other. We
have got our priorities wrong. We have abandoned God. We are
embarrassed by him, and we will not remain free without him.
So I would call on my Nation to repent. What a word. We
don't say that anymore. But I would call on my Nation to have--
to--that God would wake us up. And--and--yeah. That is what I
would say. I don't feel it was quite articulate, but here you
are.
Mr. Franks. Your message is heard in the context of your
life, my lady.
I would like now to begin a second round of questions.
And I would recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Gohmert, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you. And I appreciate our witnesses
being here, and I mean all of them. It is important that people
have a chance to speak what they believe.
As a former attorney and judge and chief justice, I look at
the way the law in America has developed. Most of us think the
Dred Scott decision was perhaps the worst decision in American
history. How in the world could people prevail before our
highest court in the land by saying these slaves are my
property. I paid for them. I own them. The U.S. Government has
no right whatsoever to tell me what I can do with my own
property any more than they can tell me what I can do with my
own body. It is my right to own another person. And the Supreme
Court, to their great shame, said that is right. This is your
property. The U.S. Government has no right to interfere with
what you choose to do with your property.
I would encourage, Mr. Chairman, people who think Margaret
Sanger was a hero, to go back and look at the things that she
advocated in the way of eugenics. She believed that people who
were poor, people of color, were genetically flawed and,
therefore, it was a good thing to push them to have abortions.
And if they couldn't be convinced, then, you know, forcibly
sterilize them, because we need to be moving toward a higher
plain of human being, not realizing that by what she advocated,
she was bringing humanity down to the lowest possible level,
the level of the animal kingdom where you can kill or destroy
if it suits you.
So we have heard about the inappropriate intervention into
healthcare decisions. And I struggle with the disparity in the
argument that says no one should ever inappropriately intervene
in a healthcare decision on behalf of a woman, and yet, we will
tell that same woman later in life, Sorry, under ObamaCare, if
you are too old to get a pacemaker--as the President himself
said, you are better off just saying take a pain pill. You
don't get a pacemaker. There seems to be a disparity in
thinking that you--we would advocate you can't intervene and
say the life you are carrying, if delivered alive, even if you
are trying to destroy that life, or as the doctor indicated for
late-term abortions, you pull one leg off then you pull the
other leg off then you pull the arm off then you pull the other
arm off. And as you have heard him describe before, you reach
in with the clamps for something bulbous, and you know you have
the skull. You rip that off.
And as Mr. King was trying to point out, anybody who does
those things to a puppy, everybody in the country would be
demanding they go to prison. But we have elevated this
procedure to such a high level that the highest court in the
land could say, Hey, that baby is your property. You can do
whatever you want with it.
So I won't be cheering today. I will remain broken hearted
for my country and for the success Margaret Sanger has had in
advocating for eugenics and genocide and this country's
participation in what she hoped to achieve.
I yield back.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman.
And I now yield to Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been an unusual hearing in a number of respects,
but I would like to ask Ms. Johnson just one question, because
over the past several years, there have been a marked increase
in the number of States passing targeted regulations for
abortion providers making it practically impossible, certainly
a lot, lot more difficult for safe abortions to occur and other
legislative measures designed to impede women's safe and legal
medical care.
Can you discuss the impact, in your view, that such laws
have had on low-income women?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Congressman, for your question.
You are right, there are trap laws. Women have to often
travel hundreds of miles because over 89 percent of counties
don't have an abortion provider. There are also waiting periods
which force women to wait additional days after they have
already made a choice in health care.
And the Hyde amendment exacerbates the barriers that
already exist for low-income women or any woman who is seeking
abortion services.
It is interesting that we are bringing up slavery in this
space. When you own somebody's decisionmaking, you own them.
When you get to decide for them whether or not their body has
value, you own them. When you decide they are valuable as black
or not, you actually don't get to make that decision. We are
valuable, and women are valuable.
The Hyde amendment simply says set us free. We are not
simple minded. We are not being duped. Women are choosing to be
pregnant and have children. The majority of women who have
abortion are parents. They care. They care about their
families.
The Hyde amendment is about increasing coverage of
insurance. It is about returning decisionmaking back to women.
It is about setting us free.
Mr. Conyers. Do you think we should consider repealing the
Hyde amendment or move forward with other legislation since--
since we are closing out this subject?
Ms. Johnson. Yes. We should repeal the Hyde amendment.
There are a lot of support from the American people.
As a matter of fact, there's strong support among
millennials, among African Americans, and Latino voters in
particular, with millennials supporting the EACH Woman Act at
66 percent; African American supporting at 68 percent, and
Latinos supporting at 55 percent. So, yes, I think we need to
repeal the Hyde amendment. And I think we need to pass the EACH
Woman Act, and the American people agree.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Franks. And I thank the gentleman. And I will now yield
to myself for 5 minutes.
Ms. Grossu, I will begin with you. Will you, please, talk
about the ironic juxtaposition between the amount of medical
care available to a premature baby who is wanted and a live
premature baby who is as a result of an abortion and deemed
unwanted.
Ms. Grossu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for sure.
I would, first, like to make the distinction too that
abortion is not health care. Killing your own child is not
health care, and American taxpayers should not be funding this.
And there is no such thing as a safe abortion either. Abortion
is a very dangerous procedure. Having said that, I will go to
your--your question.
Essentially, a premature baby now can survive at 20 weeks
post realization if given proper care and treatment, is--is
able to make it. And this kind of care is being held in an
incubator or being given oxygen using a little infant oxygen
mask, even being kept warm to maintain body temperature of the
baby. These types of treatments are given to babies because a
woman decides that she wants that child. So that child's value
is dependent on a person--another person's opinion of that
child.
So if the woman wants her child, that baby is going to be
given the absolute best care that our medical communities have.
And if that woman deems that she does not want that child, that
child is thrown in the trash, as we have seen time and time
again, as Jill Stanek has expressed, as the videos--we have
seen the videos that the child is taken apart and the baby's
body parts are being sold on the market.
And so we are asking under this born-alive bill, that
abortionists be required to give basic immediate care to a baby
once that baby has taken his or her first breath. This--these
are children who are outside of the vaginal canal. They are
recognized as legal persons under our laws, and they should be
protected.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Ms. Grossu.
You know, I think that is--the profundity of all of this at
times for me is that somehow, how do we separate the wanted
child from the unwanted child. It occurs to me that if we say
that that child is unwanted, that we say nothing about the
child. We say only about something about those of us around the
child.
And if, indeed, we have come to the point where what gives
a child the right to live and the right to protection is being
wanted or unwanted, then all the dreams of the Founding Fathers
are lost, and all of the things that those people out in
Arlington National Cemetery died to preserve are lost. Because
America's founding dream was this notion that all of us were
created equal and these were rights given by God that this
thing was a miracle, and that to secure that right, that is the
reason governments came about. And that it had its power from
consent of the government.
You know, there is no way to articulate the tragedy of even
losing even one little child. But I would suggest to you that
something else is lost here, and that is it is not the dying
that leaves scars, it is the killing. And when we create this
stone in our hearts and in our conscious to where we are able
to say this born-alive child is only protectable if they are
wanted.
Do you understand where we have come to as Americans? Do
you understand what's left? If we don't want to protect a born-
alive child, then who--who should we protect? If killing a
born-alive child is not wrong, then on what basis do we say
anything is wrong? What protection do any of us have when, as a
society, we harden our hearts to the extent that we will stand
by and advocate and say it is a right to kill a born-alive
child, and there should be no protection for that child?
I do fear for my country. And I pray that somehow in the
days ahead, that our country will begin to consider who we are.
I would call upon Donald Trump to say who he is on this issue
on born-alive protection. I would call on Hillary Clinton to do
the same thing. I would call on the U.S. Senate to bring this
bill up for a vote. Because if--if we are no longer committed
to protecting born-alive children, then it is time to board the
place up that we are in and go home, because the battle is
lost. And this ideal that all of us were created equal and are
children of God have slipped from us. And I for one do not
believe that.
I believe that Americans are still protectors of children.
I believe that America's best days are still ahead. And I
believe that some of the testimony we have had here today is
the most compelling that I have heard in a long time.
And I would just say to those of you that disagree, there
is no hate in my heart toward you. But I would also say to
something that William Wilberforce said a long time. He said--
and he was talking about slavery. He said, you can turn away,
but you can never again say that you did not know. Today, you
know that born-alive children are dying, and there are those of
us trying to protect them. And I only pray that somehow that as
it has happened somehow in the past in America, that we come to
the conclusion that, you know what, this is not who we are, and
we still hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are all
created, and that makes us a miracle, and that is worth
protecting.
So thank you, all, for coming today. That concludes this
Committee hearing.
And I have a little script here. Without objection, all
Members will have 5 legislative days to submit additional
requests for the witnesses for additional materials for the
record.
And with that, God bless you all. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:53 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Response to Hearing Question from Genevieve Plaster, M.A.,
Senior Policy Analyst, Charlotte Lozier Institute
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Letter from Melissa Ohden, Founder, The Abortion Survivors Network
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]