[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S751-S752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ABRAHAM (for himself, Mr. Lott, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Inhofe, 
        Mr. Nickles, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Helms, Mr. Coats, Mr. Sessions, 
        Mr. Enzi, Mr. Craig, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Faircloth, Mr. 
        Brownback, Mr. Santorum, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. 
        Bond, and Mr. Grassley):
  S. 1645. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit 
taking minors across State lines to avoid laws requiring the 
involvement of parents in abortion decisions; to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.


                the child custody protection act of 1998

  Mr. ABRAHAM, Mr. President. I rise today to introduce legislation 
protecting the most important relationship of all: that of parents and 
their children. All of us know that the family is the fundamental, 
crucial and indispensable basis of our civilization. Without strong 
families our children will grow up without role models, without a sound 
knowledge of how they ought to behave and for what they ought to 
strive. As a consequence, the data shows quite clearly that children 
deprived of strong family lives are more likely to suffer from 
depression, substance abuse, crime, violence, poverty and even suicide.
  Yet, when it comes to one of the most important decisions in life, 
Mr. President, children are being kept from the guidance of their 
parents. I am talking, of course, about the decision whether or not to 
have an abortion. The American people recognize how crucial it is for 
minor children to involve their parents in this life-changing decision. 
74 percent of Americans in a 1996 Gallup poll favored requiring minors 
to get parental consent for an abortion. People quite reasonably 
believe that parents should be involved in deciding whether their 
daughter should undergo an abortion. As the Supreme Court noted in H.L. 
v. Matheson, ``the medical, emotional, and psychological consequences 
of an abortion are serious and can be lasting; this is particularly so 
when the patient is immature.''
  Convinced of the soundness of this reasoning, at least 22 states have 
enacted laws requiring consent of or notification to at least one 
parent, or authorization by a judge, before a minor can obtain an 
abortion. Unfortunately, this wise policy is being undermined.
  Thousands of children every year are taken across state lines by 
people other than their parents to secure secret abortions. As we 
speak, Mr. President, abortion providers are taking out large 
advertisements in the Yellow Pages in cities like Harrisburg and 
Scranton, Pennsylvania, trumpeting the fact that their clinics, across 
the Pennsylvania state line, do not require parental notification as 
Pennsylvania

[[Page S752]]

does. In essence, these abortion providers are encouraging people to 
circumvent Pennsylvania's parental notification law by crossing the 
border into New Jersey, New York or Maryland for a secret abortion.
  And thousands of times every year this suggestion is taken up by non-
related adults who want to circumvent the law. One example of this 
conduct made headlines recently. The case involved an 18 year old 
Pennsylvania man who got his 12 year old neighbor pregnant. 
Pennsylvania law requires parental consent prior to an abortion on a 
minor. To circumvent this law, Rosa Hartford, mother of the 18 year 
old, secretly took the girl to an abortion clinic in New York, a state 
with no parental notification requirement. Her actions discovered, Mrs. 
Hartford, whose son pled guilty to two counts of statutory rape, was 
convicted of interfering with the custody of a child.
  The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CLRP), a prominent 
proabortion legal defense organization, appealed Mrs. Hartford's 
conviction on the grounds that she merely ``assisted a woman to 
exercise her constitutional rights'' and as such was herself protected 
from prosecution by the Constitution.
  Mr. President, this reasoning cannot stand. To say that, because the 
court in Roe v. Wade declared most abortions constitutionally protected 
during the first trimester, that therefore minors have an absolute 
right to abortion without so much as notifying their parents, and that 
third parties--whatever their motives--have the right to secretly 
transport them across state lines for a secret abortion, is to stand 
constitutional protections on their head. It is to strip children to 
the natural protection of their parents.
  For the sake of our children and our families, this must stop. We 
must uphold the law and uphold the family tie. That is why I am 
introducing the Child Custody Protection Act. This legislation is 
simple and straightforward. It will make it a federal offense to 
transport a minor across state lines with intent to avoid the 
application of a state law requiring parental involvement in a minor's 
abortion, or judicial waiver of such a requirement.
  Children must receive parental consent for even minor surgical 
procedures, Mr. President. The profound, lasting physical and 
psychological effects of abortion demand that we help states guarantee 
parental involvement in the abortion decision. That means, at a 
minimum, seeing to it that outside parties cannot circumvent state 
parental notification and consent laws with impunity.
  America is in the midst of a profound debate over the nature and 
status of abortion. But, even as many of us disagree over a number of 
crucial issues, we all should be able to agree that duly enacted laws 
must be upheld. Those who would undermine these laws in the name of 
unfettered abortion on demand damage the rule of law by subverting 
legitimate statutes. They also undercut our Constitutional liberties by 
stretching them beyond all rational bounds and using them to sap 
parental rights and family ties.
  We can no more afford to allow state laws to be flouted than we can 
afford to allow family ties to be further undermined. For the sake of 
our families and our rule of law, I urge my colleagues to defend both 
by supporting the Child Custody Protection Act.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, today I rise as a cosponsor of the Child 
Custody Protection Act sponsored by my colleague, Senator Spencer 
Abraham, to whom I am grateful for introducing this important 
legislation. The purpose of this legislation is to make it a crime to 
transport a child across state lines if this circumvents state law 
requiring parental involvement or a judicial waiver for a minor to 
obtain an abortion.
  In a well-publicized case in Pennsylvania, a 12-year-old girl became 
pregnant after a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old man. As 
parental consent is required under Pennsylvania law before a minor can 
receive an abortion, the man's mother took the pregnant girl to New 
York for an abortion, where there is no such parental involvement law. 
The baby was aborted. The girl's mother did not consent to her daughter 
having an abortion; in fact, she did not even know her daughter was 
pregnant. Unfortunately, parents and guardians have no clear recourse 
when another adult circumvents the law of the state where the parent 
and child live by transporting a child to another state.
  Twenty-two states have laws that require either notification or 
consent of a parent before a minor child receives an abortion. 
Currently, in my State of Ohio, a parent or guardian must be notified 
before a child receives an abortion. However, the State Legislature has 
recently passed a law requiring both parental consent and a face-to-
face meeting with the doctor performing the abortion at least twenty-
four hours before the procedure. Clearly, the citizens of Ohio have a 
compelling interest in making sure that parents are involved in a 
minor's decision to have an abortion, and that women have a full 
opportunity to consider the medical implications of their decision to 
abort an unborn child.
  The right of citizens to pass and enforce laws regarding the rights 
of parents is completely abrogated by the ability of strangers to 
surreptitiously transport children to another state to obtain a 
surgical or drug-induced abortion. By introducing this bill, we are 
sending a clear message that Roe v. Wade does not confer a ``right'' on 
strangers to take one's minor daughter across state lines to obtain an 
abortion when the involvement of a parent or a court is required. In 
H.L. v. Matheson, the Supreme Court correctly stated, ``the medical, 
emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious 
and can be lasting; this is particularly so when the patient is 
immature.''
  In my view that strangers should be barred from circumventing the 
rights of parents to be involved in life and death decisions faced by 
their children. I believe the vast majority of Americans will never 
want to relegate the well-being of our children to a situation where 
life-altering decisions are made without the guidance and support of 
caring parents.
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