[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 85 (Thursday, June 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H5390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              LET US PASS THE CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Child 
Custody Protection Act. This bill is very important to any parent who 
has a teenage daughter, and I look forward to a vote on the bill 
shortly after the July 4 recess.
  Members may already know that people of several States have recently 
decided that a parent should know before their child has an abortion. 
We all hope that our teenage daughters have the wisdom to avoid 
pregnancies, but if they make a mistake, a parent is best able to 
provide advice and counseling. Also, more than anyone else, a parent 
knows their child's medical history. For these reasons, my home State 
of North Carolina requires a parent to know before their child checks 
into an abortion clinic, as does the State of Pennsylvania.
  Earlier, though, this month the Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
heard chilling testimony about how law-breaking citizens risk 
children's lives by taking them from their parents for out-of-State 
abortions. Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Joyce Farley, 
a mother from Pennsylvania, told the tragic story of her 13-year-old 
daughter.
  Three years ago this summer, a stranger took Ms. Farley's young child 
out of school, provided her with alcohol, transported her out of State 
to have an abortion, falsified the medical records at the abortion 
clinic, and abandoned her in a town 30 miles away, frightened and 
bleeding. Why? Because this stranger's adult son had raped Joyce 
Farley's teenage daughter, and she was desperate to cover up her son's 
tracks.
  Even worse, this all may have been legal. It is perfectly legal to 
avoid parental abortion consent and notification laws by driving 
children to another State. It is wrong, and it has to be stopped.
  According to the Reproductive Law and Policy Center, a pro-choice 
group in New York, thousands of adults across the country carry 
children over State lines to get abortions in States without parental 
notification laws. So-called men in their twenties and thirties coerce 
teenage girls to have abortions out of State and without their parents' 
knowledge.
  The Child Custody Protection Act would put a stop to this abuse. If 
passed, the law would make it a crime to transport a minor across State 
lines to avoid laws that require parental consent or notification 
before an abortion.
  Let us do something to help thousands of children in this country. 
Let us pass the Child Custody Protection Act, and put an end to the 
absurd notion that there is some sort of constitutional right for an 
adult stranger to secretly take someone else's teenage child into a 
different State for an abortion.

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