[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 111 (Tuesday, September 19, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7817-H7825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1700
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 4577, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH 
AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2001

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees on 
the bill (H.R. 4577) making appropriations for the Departments of 
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies 
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The Clerk will report the 
motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Coburn moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill, H.R. 
     4577, be instructed to recede to Section 517 of the Senate 
     Amendment to the House bill, prohibiting the use of funds to 
     distribute postcoital emergency contraception (the morning-
     after pill) to minors on the premises or in the facilities of 
     any elementary or secondary school.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) will be recognized for 30 minutes, and the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) will be recognized for 30 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair, who has the 
right to close on this debate?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma has the right to 
close.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this motion to instruct is to bring the 
House in line with the Senate's vote on this very issue, and we are 
going to hear a broad debate this evening about the pros and cons of 
postcontraception, but that is not what I think this debate is. I think 
the debate is whether or not parents ought to be made or allowed to be 
involved in significant decisions of their children, and what we are 
doing now in 180 schools in this country is excepting out parents from 
a decision that they need to know about, excepting out parents and the 
child's physician from a medical decision that is being made for that 
individual.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask, as we await some other Members who are a little 
better informed on this than I, I did have some questions for the 
gentleman from

[[Page H7818]]

Oklahoma (Mr.  Coburn). As I read the instruction, and I am not totally 
familiar with the Senate language, he said this was to protect the 
rights of parents. As written, the instruction would say that that was 
a prohibition, even if the parents consented. Is that the gentleman's 
intent that even if the parents consented this would not be allowed?
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I would not have any problem; that is their 
individual choice. I have a problem in destroying the life of an unborn 
baby; that is a different topic. But if, in fact, a parent is involved, 
but under the auspices of the HCSC planning guidelines and under the 
auspices of title 10, there is no obligation to inform the parents 
whatsoever.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank 
the gentleman for that, but the point is, as I read the instruction, if 
that is an accurate repeat of the language in the Senate bill, it does 
not allow for an exception where the parents want to. So it goes from 
saying the parents are not involved at all on both sides.
  I would say one other thing, and I see the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Porter) is coming, and I am prepared to yield the time to him, but 
I am struck, when we discuss the question of abortion and those who 
make it illegal talk about an unborn child, I think we ought to be 
clear when we are talking now about a morning after bill, because we 
are often told there is a heartbeat, there are feet, there are various 
representations of that unborn child.
  We are clearly here talking about a situation where there is no 
physical manifestation of the unborn child of the sort we have seen, 
there are no feet, there is no heartbeat. This is a philosophical 
objection. This is an effort to make illegal something which is 
philosophically expressed opposition to a form of birth control. It is 
very different than the kinds of representations we get.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the remainder of the 
time that was allocated to me to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the 
ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, for purposes of 
control.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will control the remaining time allotted to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
  There was no objection.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 28 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 14 minutes of my 
time be allocated to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Porter) for purposes of control.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Porter) will control 14 minutes of the 28 minutes 
allotted to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  There was no objection.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I frankly am of a split mind on this issue. I am fairly 
old fashioned, and I come from a part of the country where these kinds 
of subjects are not discussed much in public, and I frankly get uneasy 
when I walk into a lot of places and see condoms and other devices 
being made available on a wholesale basis. I am very uncomfortable 
about that. But I think it is also a complicated question.
  I have concerns about the motion of the gentleman from Oklahoma and 
actually there are a number of reasons. First of all, because I am not 
necessarily convinced that the best approach in my city, my hometown 
would be the best approach in New York or San Francisco or Lexington, 
Kentucky or other communities or vice versa. And I think one of the 
problems with the Coburn motion is that it gets in the way of local 
people being able to decide how they want to handle a very sensitive 
problem.
  Secondly, I think you do have conflicting views about which approach 
actually saves the most lives and prevents the most abortions. And I 
suspect that what the answer is to that question again depends on the 
community morals and practices and culture. And so while I understand 
those who say that they find issues like this distasteful and sometimes 
they get, in fact, angry.
  Mr. Speaker, I really wonder whether it is wise for the Congress to 
tell local school districts that one approach is better than another.
  The other thing I would simply say is that we are trying to close up 
this session, and that means we are trying to resolve differences; that 
means we are trying to keep as much language off appropriation bills as 
possible, and it seems to me that to the extent that these riders are 
attached, which are legislative in nature, they get in the way of our 
ability to finish our work before the end of the fiscal year, and that 
causes all kinds of turmoil.
  And also, frankly, if we are going to start making motions to 
instruct on this bill, then a number of us are going to have motions to 
instruct to try to accomplish policy ends that we think are important 
also. So if we are about to get into that business, then I guess we are 
going to have to get into it all the way.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I just say in response to the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey), there are 4,000 clinics, outside of school clinics, where 
you can get this done with Federal funds, what we are saying is, is 
this should not be happening in a middle school. There is plenty of 
places that if you want this service, you can get it, but it should not 
be occurring in the seventh and eighth grades in this country without a 
parent involved.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the motion of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) 
is certainly a proper motion and appropriate, but it is a very 
unfortunate motion for us.
  It contravenes instructions given to us by our own leadership, it 
attempts to circumvent the House rules and procedures, and it makes the 
completion of our conference more difficult at a time when we are 
trying to finish our work. In meetings in mid-July, I should tell the 
gentleman from Oklahoma, the bicameral majority party leadership 
decided that we should drop all controversial riders to the Labor, HHS 
and Education bill. The senior senator from Pennsylvania, the chairman 
of the Senate subcommittee, Mr. Specter, and I were instructed to do 
exactly that to move this process forward.
  Mr. Speaker, based on these instructions, the Senate receded from its 
position on this amendment; and all other similar riders were dropped 
in the conference.
  Mr. Speaker, the motion if offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma as 
an amendment to the bill would not be in order in the House. Thus the 
import of this action is to attempt to do by motion what the rules 
would have prevented him from doing by amendment on the House floor.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, this motion will only serve to sharpen 
differences within this bill and delay the completion of the final 
conference report.
  Mr. Speaker, of the funds made available in the bill, Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act funds are prohibited, by law, from being used 
for health clinics of any sort. Only Public Health Service funds 
provide a substantial source for the activities that the gentleman is 
alluding to.
  I note that the gentleman is a member, and a valued member, of the 
Committee on Commerce; he is, in fact, vice chair of the Subcommittee 
on Health. I also note that recently coming across my desk he wrote 
with others a dear colleague relating to the Ryan White AIDS program.
  Now, we support very strongly the Ryan White AIDS program; and we, in 
fact, have very substantially increased it over the President's budget 
request. I certainly applaud the bipartisanship on that matter. While 
amending the Public Health Services Act to reauthorize Ryan White, why 
could not the provisions included in the motion be included there? Why 
did not the gentleman simply add the provisions that

[[Page H7819]]

he is attempting now to attach to an appropriation bill, where it is 
not appropriate, to the authorizing bill that he had before him at that 
time?
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if he would respond to that. 
It seems to me that the Commerce Committee is where it ought to be 
taken up. Over and over, authorizers tell appropriators to stay off of 
their turf, to not do what they are authorized to do in their 
jurisdiction. I agree with that. We include no authorizing provisions 
in the House bill without the express approval of the authorizers. But 
the gentleman from Oklahoma telling let us get into their jurisdiction 
and put this Provision on the appropriations bill.
  It does not belong in this bill. It should not be discussed here. The 
motion simply attempts to put legislative language into an 
appropriation bill, we do not want to do that. We wanted the 
authorizers to do their work.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, number one, I would thank the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Porter), I wished the gentleman would have given me the idea 2 
months ago or 3 months ago, and I would have been happy to put that in 
the bill.
  Number two, I find it somewhat ironic. I want to stay on the issue. I 
find it somewhat ironic that we cannot use direction in terms of 
spending with the motion to commit, but yet we are funding hundreds and 
hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of programs that never 
have been authorized by any of the authorizing committees.
  What I would ask the gentleman is, does he believe it is right that a 
12-year old should get a morning after pill in a school clinic and a 
parent never know anything about it. I mean, that is what this issue is 
about. Whether or not we are going to give a prescription drug to a 
young adolescent female without her parents ever knowing in school; 
that is what the objection is. That is why this rider is there.
  The Senate passed this 54-41. This is not a pro-life, pro-abortion 
debate. This is a debate about parents being involved. As we look at 
the young people in our country today, the one problem we are seeing 
and we are trying to solve in many of the programs that the gentleman 
has graciously funded through his appropriation to re-empower parents.

                              {time}  1715

  This bill tears them down. This bill separates by not having this. So 
the Senate did want this. They voted it. All we are asking is for the 
committee, should the House accept this motion to instruct, to follow 
that and give parents back some of their power.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this motion 
to instruct. The Helms amendment, which my colleague urges the Labor-
HHS conferees to accept, was, in fact, voted on and rejected during the 
conference meetings in late July.
  Our colleagues who opposed it understood that supporting this motion 
would interfere in locally made decisions.
  There are roughly 1,200 school-based health clinics serving young 
people across the country, a partnership between local schools and 
community health providers. Three of four middle- and high school-based 
clinics do not offer contraceptive services at all.
  Of the 25 percent that provide these services, the decision to do so 
has been made collectively by the schools, the parents, community 
organizations and the young people themselves.
  The community works together to decide what is best for their young 
people and Congress should respect these local decisions. For those 
communities that choose to offer contraceptive services, access to 
contraception, including emergency contraception, just a double dose of 
a regular oral contraceptive, is crucial to helping teens avoid 
unintended pregnancies.
  I am the co-chair of the Congressional Advisory Panel to the National 
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, along with my colleague, the 
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle). We have worked very hard in a 
bipartisan way to find community-based solutions to the epidemic of 
teen pregnancies that we have experienced in the 1990s. The good news 
is that the teen pregnancy rate has fallen for 7 straight years. The 
bad news is that American teenagers still experience 1 million 
pregnancies each year.
  In fact, teen pregnancy rates in this country are higher than in all 
other industrialized countries, twice as high as in England or Canada, 
nine times as high as in the Netherlands or Japan. Sadly, the risk of 
unintended pregnancy is only part of the problem facing our young 
people. There is also an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease among 
young Americans, but they do not even know it. Kids think it cannot 
happen to them, but it can and it is.
  Kids are getting STDs like chlamydia, which years later can rob them 
of their fertility; HPV, which can lead to cervical and penile cancers; 
and HIV for which tragically there is still no cure.
  Young people may visit a school-based clinic for information about 
pregnancy prevention, but leave with facts about STDs that can save 
their lives.
  I believe that if we continue to deliver strong and consistent 
messages about the importance of abstaining from sex, the risk of STDs, 
accurate information about contraception, we can continue to make 
continued progress in the fight against teen pregnancy and STDs; but 
since we know from recent data that three-quarters of the decline in 
the United States teen pregnancy rate is attributable to improved 
contraceptive use among teenagers, denying teens access to 
contraception will only jeopardize this progress.
  It does not make sense. That is why we should leave decisions about 
providing contraception and other important health services to local 
communities and schools. School-based clinics have an enormous job to 
do, and they are doing a world of good.
  Let us continue to support our communities, as they work to protect 
the health and safety of their kids. I urge my colleagues to defeat 
this terribly misguided motion.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond. The awareness of the sexually 
transmitted disease epidemic is one of the things that I think that I 
have brought to this body. It was denied, obscured and covered up over 
the last 6 years. The fact is, as a postcoital morning-after pill, 
administration does nothing to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. 
The other thing is the gentlewoman who just talked has been against 
informing people of the fact that a condom does not prevent someone 
from getting the largest incurable, sexually transmitted disease that 
we have, that will infect 6 million people this year. So if we want to 
talk accurately about the medical facts, I will; but this issue is when 
a child at school cannot get an aspirin without a parent being 
involved, but we can give them a prescription pill that will have a 
long-term impact on them. I think we need to have a full and fair 
discussion on that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
(Mrs. Myrick).
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I support this motion. As a mother and a 
grandmother, I would be furious, literally furious, if my child were 
given this pill because I as a mother have to be notified if my child 
is given an aspirin. So it really upsets me that this decision is made 
by other people and not by the parents.
  There is very little risk involved in taking a simple aspirin, but 
the morning-after pill does have several possible side effects. While I 
do not support this as a means of emergency contraception, it is a 
legal choice, and those who choose to do it should do it under the 
supervision of a doctor.
  Currently, any school that does receive Federal funds for family 
planning is authorized to distribute the morning-after pill, and right 
now 180 school clinics offer it. The most disturbing fact is that the 
Federal laws and regulations overrule State parental consent and 
notification laws so school nurses can distribute this pill without the 
parents ever being involved.

[[Page H7820]]

  I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion and vote to make sure 
that parents have more rights over their children than the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).
  (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Coburn 
motion to instruct. It is no secret that many who support this motion 
would not only take contraception from schools but would also remove 
the option from all health clinics. So to say that school health 
services are not needed is just another anti-choice action.
  We know that numbers of teenagers across the country rely on school-
based health clinics for their health services and for health care 
information. Local decision-makers and community representatives, those 
who know their teenagers' health needs, not the Federal Government, 
should have the right to decide the services their school health 
clinics will offer. These individuals are elected by the local 
constituencies. These schools will tell their school districts what 
they want. Local decision-makers are the ones who know the needs of 
their teenagers. They deserve the right to address those needs.
  Allowing access to emergency contraceptive care gives teens the 
ability to act responsibly; act before they become pregnant so that 
they do not become pregnant. Let us help teens prevent unintended 
pregnancies. Let us give our local schools and local health clinics the 
right to decide for their communities.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose the Coburn motion to instruct.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Coburn motion 
to instruct conferees. Frankly, I do not know how any Member could 
disagree with this motion that simply prohibits the distribution of the 
morning-after pill at schools. This is a pill that can cause an early 
abortion. So our kids can go to school, be given an abortion pill 
without their parents' consent. Well, unbeknownst to most parents, this 
is happening in at least 180 schools across America.
  Why is this so surprising to parents? Because parents are required to 
sign a note or permission slip for everything. If their daughter needs 
an aspirin, the parent writes a note; if she needs an allergy shot, 
another note; cold medicine, a note from home; insulin, parental 
permission; penicillin, more permission; Ritalin even more permission. 
Then logically our daughters should not be given something as 
potentially harmful as the morning-after pill at school.
  This is a pill that can have side effects such as risks of developing 
blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular disease. Obviously, 
one should not just be able to go to a school nurse to get it. The 
Coburn motion is a logical protection for our daughters and for the 
right, as parents, to help make important health decisions for them.
  Some will argue that our daughters need the morning-after pill in 
schools if they have been raped or abused. If something as tragic as 
rape or abuse has violated a young girl, schools are required by law to 
report this to the authorities. Then proper care can be given to them 
in a hospital, not at their school.
  I urge my colleagues to support this motion.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado (Ms. DeGette).
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about here is not 
abortion and it is not RU-486. It is a high dose of oral 
contraceptives. We are talking about contraceptives here. School-based 
clinics provide health care professionals an ideal opportunity to 
counsel teens about the importance of delaying sexual activity and the 
risks of unprotected sex.
  I would hope, we would all hope, that all girls would consult their 
parents if there has been a terrible mistake made; but unfortunately 
that communication does not happen in every family. Would we not want 
then to prevent an unwanted pregnancy and to prevent perhaps even an 
unwanted abortion? Certainly many State and local governments want to 
give their school-based professionals that option.
  I always thought that this Congress was for local control. It seems 
to me we are for local control if it is our views but not the other 
guy's views. I do not think that is right. Let our local governments 
decide whether they want their school-based professionals to counsel 
girls and to be able to give them these contraceptives. Vote no on this 
motion to instruct.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, there are 4,000 other places in the United States that 
they can get these pills if they want them. We do not need it in the 
school. It amazes me that our whole goal is to help somebody keep a lie 
in our school-based clinics when we use a morning-after pill. The fact 
is there is a lot of freedom when young women go to their parents after 
having made a mistake, and are encouraged to do that.
  Know what? If we cannot do this in the school, that is what will 
happen is the school nurse will encourage the young woman to talk with 
her mother and if she has a father and say we need to talk with them 
and get their permission to do this.
  There are 4,000 other places funded by the Federal Government where 
this can happen. What we are saying is this should not happen in 
schools.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the 
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge Members to support the Coburn motion to 
instruct conferees, to accept the Senate-passed amendment to protect 
young girls from being given powerful abortion drugs at school.
  I say again, we are talking about a school setting, and that is no 
place. It is bad enough that this kind of action takes place in 
abortion mills. To think that we would sanction in any way or shape or 
form the prescribing of this kind of death to an unborn child at school 
is outrageous.
  It should be noted that these abortion drugs not only destroy a newly 
created life, but they do indeed carry significant risks for the young 
student.

                              {time}  1730

  As the gentleman from Pennsylvania said a moment ago, with Preven, if 
we look at the conditions, what the manufacturer itself says, and I 
quote, ``These conditions can cause serious disability or even death.'' 
We are talking about this being given out in a high school or junior 
high or elementary school setting. Our elementary and secondary schools 
should be the last place, Mr. Speaker, the last place where legitimate 
parental rights are trampled and usurped, especially when the health or 
the life of their daughter is at risk. Our elementary and secondary 
schools should be the place where life is affirmed and respect for life 
is affirmed; again, the last place where abortion drugs are used.
  Years ago, many of us warned that school-based clinics would be 
misused to facilitate abortions for minors, especially by way of 
referrals to abortion mills. We know that is going on. Planned 
Parenthood alone does over 200,000 abortions in its own clinics each 
and every year, many of them by referrals from schools. But now we know 
that at least 180 schools across the country offer abortion drugs at 
their school-based clinics. That is outrageous for parents and for 
their daughters.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to speak up loud and clear. Support the 
gentleman's very, very smart and wise motion.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Camp).
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that schools are an inappropriate place to 
dispense morning-after pills, so I rise in support of the Coburn motion 
to instruct. I think more importantly, not only current law allows this 
to be done without parent's consent, this is done without parent's 
knowledge. I think to have in place a law that says, all parents are

[[Page H7821]]

bad parents. If parents know that their daughter is expecting a child, 
that would be bad for their daughter. I think we definitely need to 
make this change, and I think that is probably why a majority of the 
Senators supported this change when this issue came up in the Senate.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that the motion to instruct is a start, because 
parents should be the first to know if their daughter is pregnant, not 
the last. There are so many things parents should and would want to do, 
and I do not think we can have in Federal law a situation where we just 
assume the worst about every parent in this country. That is why I 
strongly support this motion to instruct, and I urge everyone to vote 
for it.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been said over and over again here that this is a 
question of parental consent. I do not see any of that in this. This 
simply prohibits the distribution of these contraceptives on school 
promises. It does not say that if the parent consents, you can do it. 
It says, you cannot do it under any circumstances. So the whole issue 
of parental consent is not contained in this motion to instruct; it has 
nothing to do with this motion to instruct whatsoever.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).
  (Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time. I rise in opposition to the Coburn motion to 
instruct conferees.
  Mr. Speaker, school-based health centers are partnerships. They are 
partnerships within a community, and they are organizations in which 
school personnel, parents, community leaders, health professionals set 
policy governing what health care is available and under what 
circumstances. Mr. Speaker, 94 percent of school-based health centers 
require parental consent forms before a student can be seen. Two out of 
every three allow parents to choose which services their child cannot 
receive.
  Those centers in which children have most access on their own are 
located in those communities where teen pregnancies are the highest, 
and they are the communities where supervision of these children, 
support for these children, community options for these children, 
public education for these children is frankly the worst. There are 
children in our communities who never see their parents for days, and 
who are basically on their own. There are also lots of young women in 
high schools who are really actually the victims of what we would now 
call date rape. But nobody has talked to them about how to say no. 
Nobody has educated them about how to prevent pregnancy. So we are 
saying that they should have, through their high school clinics, if the 
community board has determined that this is appropriate, they should 
have access to a morning after pill or emergency contraception. This 
kind of contraception is only a high dosage of birth control pills, the 
same kind of pills that millions of Americans take every day. This is 
not RU486. This is just a high dosage of normal contraceptive pills.
  If a woman is already pregnant, the emergency pill has no effect on 
her pregnancy. But if a young person takes this within 72 hours of 
unprotected sex, date rape, rape, which is sometimes the case and more 
often than we actually like to acknowledge, or is the victim of incest, 
she can actually prevent herself from being pregnant.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not understand why my colleagues who oppose 
abortion, although I do understand why they oppose abortion, but I do 
not understand why they are so opposed to preventing pregnancy, 
particularly for young girls who are not going to be able to support 
this child economically and are almost by definition unready to support 
this child emotionally.
  My concern for the children of America is that they be born into 
stable, loving families that can give them the emotional and economic 
support and guidance over decades that children need. I can understand 
the difference of opinion in our Nation about how to manage abortion or 
what role abortion should play. But this, frankly, has nothing to do 
with abortion at all. It has everything to do with preventing 
pregnancy; it has everything to do with communities, health 
professionals, parents, educators, merely giving young women the 
knowledge and the tools and the power to prevent pregnancy.
  Now, is it wise for young women to be intimate sexually when they are 
in high school? I would tell them no, because on a peer development 
basis, you are transferring power to this young man that frankly women 
should not transfer because they get more into the web. I mean, I could 
go on and on. I tell high school kids this. I tell kids all the reasons 
why being sexually intimate prematurely is not a good idea, how it 
disempowers them, how it limits their ability to develop and gain 
control over their abilities, their future, their hopes and their 
dreams.
  However, by the same token, I want those young women who nobody told 
that to, I want those young women who had nobody advising them and 
helping them to at least know and understand what their choices are for 
responsible action. Frankly, I think it is more responsible for a young 
woman who has either been the victim of date rape, been the victim of 
rape, how many of these young people are the victims of incest, we do 
not know, but we are cavalier, cavalier about denying them access to a 
contraceptive that simply prevents implantation. It prevents pregnancy. 
That is a good thing. If you cannot economically and emotionally 
support a child, frankly, it is wise and responsible not to have one.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the gentleman's motion, 
because this House has no business passing this provision.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
As somebody who has delivered 3,500 babies and who has cared for every 
complication of pregnancy, I want to clear up the medical facts. A 
pregnancy, regardless of when Planned Parenthood says it occurs, occurs 
when a sperm and an egg unite. Because of where it is located, they 
have arbitrarily picked to say that is not a pregnancy is the biggest 
misstatement that I have heard.
  Number two is we are talking about high dose oral contraceptives. We 
are not talking about a small dose. The reason that we have many 
dosages of pills today is because the risks associated with the high 
doses were so great that they caused major complications for women. 
Now, to do morning after pills, we are reverting back to levels of 
hormones that we have not seen in 20 years in this country in single 
doses. That raises significant complications for these young women.
  The final thing that I would say is if this fails to work, which 25 
percent of the time it fails to prevent the pregnancy, there is a 
concept known as limb reduction deficits, and if we look that up, what 
we find is babies born without hands, without fingers, without ears, 
without toes, and without their limbs. That is one of the causative 
factors from high-dose oral contraceptives at the formative stage of an 
early fetus. So medically, what was just stated is inaccurate.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. DeMint).
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this motion to 
instruct conferees offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), 
my friend.
  Mr. Speaker, public schools should not use our taxpayer dollars to 
distribute the morning after pill to the children of this Nation. This 
is serious business. We are talking about whether or not the schools of 
America hand out emergency contraceptives to the children of America. 
There are many factors in play here, but I fundamentally believe that 
it gets back to what schools are supposed to be about.
  Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, schools are supposed to be 
about education. This is their stated purpose, and I think we should 
all agree that schools have a lot of work to do in that area just to 
get our children educated.
  It is unimaginable to me what I just heard on this House floor, that 
it has been suggested that a girl who is date raped or suffered from 
incest should go to school the next morning to get a pill to make sure 
she is not pregnant, instead of being with her parents in a hospital 
with police and counselors

[[Page H7822]]

that could help her. That is where this type of idea leads when we 
operate in secrecy from parents. Some would say that schools cannot 
teach if kids are worrying about life's outside pressure. Well, that 
may be true, but I believe that if schools were really focused on 
education and teaching, some of life's worries and outside pressures 
might fade away.
  Studies have shown that high educational expectations and goals keep 
kids focused on their future and their education, and they are not so 
easily sidetracked. Like it or not, when schools pass out emergency 
contraceptives, it sends a signal to kids. It says, there is no need to 
talk to your parents or involve them in decisions which are of immense 
importance to your physical and emotional well-being. It also says that 
schools will help students bypass their parents and help make life-
changing decisions for them. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but this is not 
what our schools are supposed to be about. I think kids, parents and 
folks all across this Nation know it. Schools are supposed to be about 
reading, writing, arithmetic and educational experience, not social 
projects funded with taxpayer funds which bypass parents and harm 
children.
  It seems to me that it is not okay for a child to even sneeze in 
class without a parent's permission, and rightly so, you need parental 
permission to go on field trips and for a variety of other reasons. You 
often need parental permission just to take an aspirin. Yet, providing 
emergency contraception is of more serious medical consequences and 
parents are specifically not involved.
  The Congressional Research Service looked into the prevalence of 
providing emergency contraceptives in school-based clinics and they 
found at least 180 schools across the country already are handing out 
emergency morning after pills in their clinics. This is just part of 
their sample.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, schools should be about education, teaching, and 
learning. Let us keep the focus there. I urge my colleagues to support 
this motion to instruct conferees.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).
  (Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, in a former life, I had a 
Ph.D. I guess I still have it. Coming here does not remove that. I 
taught medical school. I taught nursing students. I have about 100 
papers in the scientific literature. So I know something about the 
process that we are talking about today.
  We also have 10 children in our family and 11 grandchildren and one 
great grandchild. And I will tell my colleagues from the perspective of 
a professor, a teacher, a parent, a grandparent and a great 
grandparent, that I think this policy of using taxpayer money to fund 
the morning after pill without parental consent is obscene and insane.
  My colleagues should just stop to think about this. A child in school 
cannot get an aspirin without parental consent, and yet this 
legislation, this legislation that we are talking about, that we hope 
to somehow modify with this amendment, would permit the school, without 
the parents' knowledge, without parents' consent, with taxpayer money, 
to give a serious medication to a student which will terminate a life.
  I say again: As a professor, as a father, as a grandfather, as a 
concerned citizen of this country, this is obscene and insane. Support, 
please, the Coburn amendment.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Maloney).
  (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time.
  Here we go again. Although this session is about to wrap up, the 
attacks on reproductive health care keep coming. Today, we have a 
motion that strips away local control over school-based health clinics.
  My dear friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
constantly talk about the importance of local control. These clinics 
are currently run by communities, and they are not asking for 
interference by the Federal Government. But this motion steps in and 
prohibits school-based health clinics from dispensing emergency 
contraception.
  What we are talking about is not an abortion pill. What we are 
talking about is a contraception pill that a young woman can take the 
morning after an evening where she may have had an emergency situation, 
such as rape or incest. Why should Congress make this decision for 
every single community and every single school and every single child?
  If my colleagues believe in local control, vote ``no,'' and for many 
other reasons.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The Chair would ask Members to 
heed the gavel.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on my side. I 
would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 2 
minutes for him to use on his side if he would like.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, emergency contraception has been 
portrayed as equal to abortion on this floor. Let us set the record 
straight. Emergency contraception is oral contraceptive used at higher 
doses.
  This is oral contraception, taken once a day, prescribed by a health 
professional. And this is emergency contraception, taken within 72 
hours of unprotected intercourse. Emergency contraception is not 
abortion. Same drug, same formulation, higher dose, one time. Passes 
through the system in a couple of hours.
  Both oral contraceptives and emergency contraception work the same 
way: They prevent pregnancy. If a woman is pregnant, neither oral 
contraceptives nor emergency contraception will disrupt that pregnancy. 
Let me repeat: If a woman is pregnant, neither oral contraceptives nor 
emergency contraception will disrupt that pregnancy.
  I urge a ``no'' vote on the Coburn motion.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, this issue of health care in school-based 
clinics was already dealt with by the conference and it was rejected. 
This motion would deny Federal funding to any school-based clinic that 
provides emergency contraception.
  Emergency contraception is not abortion. It cannot terminate a 
pregnancy. It prevents pregnancy in critical hours after unprotected 
sex. Emergency contraceptive in a school-based clinic is prescribed 
only by a doctor to young people seeking to act responsibly to prevent 
unintended pregnancy.
  School-based health clinics are different across this country. They 
have been set up with the input of local officials, school personnel, 
parents and students. All of these interested parties participate in 
the decisions about what services they believe are appropriate and how 
the clinics will be run. Let us leave these decisions to the 
communities and to the local officials who are involved.
  As I said, this conference has already agreed to reject this 
proposal. It is wrongheaded and I urge my colleagues in the full House 
to reject this motion.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Moran).
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Porter) has 2 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is 
recognized for 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, across the river about 10 years 
ago, when I was mayor, we set up a school-based health clinic. It was 
very controversial and difficult to do. But now that it has been set 
up, it has saved countless lives. It has helped teenagers to act more 
responsibly.

[[Page H7823]]

  Ultimately, the community concluded that while it would be wonderful 
if we could convince teenagers never to have sex, if we could eliminate 
unintended pregnancies, unwed pregnancies, the reality is that we have 
to deal with human nature. We have to improve the lives of people. We 
decided that as a community, which is the way that these issues should 
be decided, where people can accept the accountability for decisions 
that they make for the people they serve directly.
  I do not think we are particularly successful in trying to mandate 
morals. We have an opportunity now for professional people, school 
health nurses, generally, to be able to prescribe a way in which an 
abortion is not affected; whereas we can prevent pregnancy by providing 
pills that ensure that women can take control of their lives.
  Through our schools and other community institutions, we can help 
them become more responsible over their future, and we will not see as 
many children being aborted or being born into unwed situations where 
they suffer. We do not; they do. Let us not make them suffer; let us 
defeat this instruction.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reminds the House again that he 
requested that Members honor the gavel.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New 
York (Ms. Slaughter).
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to quote from a letter from the 
National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.
  ``School-based health care centers represent a partnership between 
community health care organizations, such as local hospitals, health 
centers and public health departments, school systems and parents. The 
programs are designed by the community. The scope of service, including 
reproductive health, is determined by what health care providers, 
school officials, parents, and other community members feel is 
necessary to combat health-compromising behaviors and inadequate and 
unaffordable access to competent and caring physical and mental health 
services for school-aged children. The ability to provide these 
services with public family planning and primary care resources is 
vital to these few programs. Their ability to offer adolescents needed 
reproductive health care should not be constrained by Congress. This 
decision should remain one of local control and oversight.''
  And that letter is signed by John Schlitt, Executive Director of the 
National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, someone certainly to 
whom we should listen before we take away the right of the parents and 
the health providers in a community to set up such a clinic.
  Mr. Speaker, I am providing the full letter for the Record, as 
follows:

                                                 National Assembly


                                  On School-Based Health Care,

                                               September 18, 2000.
     Hon. Nita M. Lowey,
     U.S. House of Representatives, 2421 Rayburn HOB, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Representative Lowey: I understand the Helms amendment 
     to the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, which was defeated in 
     conference last month, is resurfacing through a motion by 
     Congressman Coburn to instruct the conferees. I urge you to 
     reject the motion and speak in its opposition.
       The National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, which 
     represents the nearly 1200 school health centers across the 
     country, opposes the Helms amendment to the Labor-HHS 
     appropriations bill (S. 6094). The amendment would prohibit 
     the use of federal funds from Section 330 and Title X of the 
     Public Health Services Act, as well as Titles V and XIX of 
     the Social Security Act, to support the distribution of, or 
     prescription for, the emergency contraceptive pill on the 
     premises of elementary and secondary schools.
       School-based health centers represent a partnership between 
     community health care organizations (such as local hospitals, 
     health centers and public health departments), school 
     systems, and parents. These programs are designed by the 
     community. The scope of services, including reproductive 
     health, is determined by what health providers, school 
     officials, parents, and other community members feel is 
     necessary to combat health compromising behaviors and 
     inadequate and unaffordable access to competent and caring 
     physical and mental health services for school-aged children 
     and adolescents.
       Three in four school-based health centers are prohibited by 
     state and/or local policy from prescribing and dispensing 
     birth control on site. In a very small number of communities, 
     school boards and school health advisory groups, which 
     include parents, have made the decision to offer birth 
     control on site because of troubling teen pregnancy and 
     sexually transmitted disease rates.
       The ability to provide these services with public family 
     planning and primary care resources is vital to these few 
     programs. Their ability to offer adolescents needed 
     reproductive health care should not be constrained by 
     Congress. The decision should remain one of local control and 
     oversight.
       Thank you for supporting community decision-making.
           Sincerely,
                                                     John Schlitt,
                                               Executive Director.

  (From the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care--Sept. 2000)

            School-Based Health Centers and Family Planning


 What is a school-based health center, and how is it different from a 
                             school nurse?

       School-based health centers are partnerships between 
     community health care organizations, typically a health 
     department, primary care center or hospital, and a school. 
     The services provided in the health center are similar to 
     that which is delivered in standard medical clinics: 
     assessment and screenings, immunizations, diagnostic and 
     treatment services laboratory, well child health supervision, 
     etc. There are an estimated 1200 of these unique health 
     centers in schools across the country.


         Is family planning included in the scope of services?

       While the majority of health centers located in middle and 
     high schools provide services such as pregnancy testing 
     (85%), HIV counseling (77%), and STD testing and treatment 
     (73%), services related to birth control are most often 
     contained to counseling. Three in four school-based health 
     centers are prohibited by state law or school policy from 
     dispensing contraception on site.


 Do parents provide consent for access to school-based health centers?

       Nearly all (94%) school-based health centers require signed 
     parental consent forms before a student can be seen. Two-
     thirds of school-based health centers allow parents the 
     option of selecting specific services that their child cannot 
     receive.


Do school-based health centers practice within accordance of state laws 
            regarding minors' access to sensitive services?

       One-third of health centers reported to the National 
     Assembly on School-Based Health Care that adolescents may be 
     seen for family planning related services (except 
     contraceptive services where prohibited) without parental 
     consent. This policy is often communicated to the parent 
     through the consent process so that the right of adolescents 
     to confidential services is understood.


    Do school-based health centers dispense the morning after pill?

       In a survey of school-based health centers, 16% of centers 
     serving adolescents reported that emergency contraception is 
     available on site. This represents approximately 130 school-
     based health centers, or one-fifth of one percent of schools 
     in this nation.


        Do federal dollars support school-based health centers?

       Federal financial support for school-based health centers 
     comes through Medicaid reimbursement, public health grants 
     through Title V of the Social Security Act, and grants made 
     by the Bureau of Primary Health Care under its Healthy 
     Schools, Healthy Communities initiative.

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 
3 minutes remaining, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has no 
time remaining, and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) has 11 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the very troubling motion 
to instruct of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), which would 
direct, as my colleagues know, the Labor-HHS conferees to revive the 
already-rejected ban on emergency contraception in school-based health 
clinics.
  In July, the House-Senate conference rejected this harmful proposal 
because it endangers teenagers' health and undermines the national 
effort to reduce unintended teen pregnancies. This ban confuses 
emergency contraception with abortion. And its attempt to ban abortion 
pills would instead ban emergency contraception.
  I think it is important for our colleagues to understand the 
difference. ECPs, emergency contraception pills, which are FDA approved 
ordinary birth control pills, do not cause abortion. They inhibit 
ovulation, fertilization, or implantation before pregnancy occurs.
  School-based health centers provide a private, safe place for teens 
to access health care services, including contraception and related 
services. Certainly

[[Page H7824]]

we would hope that children would engage in abstinence, but they do not 
always, and that is why I join the American College of Obstetricians 
and Gynecologists in opposing the Coburn motion.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.
  Mr. Speaker, this motion is going to pass by a large vote. I 
understand that. When the vote comes, I personally am going to vote 
``present.''
  As some Members have noticed from time to time, I on numerous 
occasions have voted ``present'' as a matter of protest in order to 
suggest that the House is dealing with an issue which I believe ought 
to be dealt with on another level of government. Often that has been 
the District of Columbia with respect to its own affairs, and on 
occasion it has been other local units of government. This is another 
such occasion.
  I simply do not think that the same rules apply in a district which 
is very largely composed of white, middle-class, fairly prosperous, 
well-knit families and then, in contrast to other districts where you 
have huge amounts of poverty, childhood neglect, loosely knit families, 
areas such as the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) described 
where children literally often do not see their parents for days at a 
time.
  And so I think that this matter is best left to local school 
officials because they are the people on the frontlines trying to weigh 
the conflicting equities that they so often face not just in schools 
but in police work and in a number of other areas, as well.


Notice of Intention to Offer Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 4577, 
  Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and 
               Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001

  Mr. OBEY. If this motion passes, I want to note, Mr. Speaker, 
pursuant to clause 7(c) of House rule XXII, I hereby notify the House 
of my intention tomorrow to offer the following Motion to Instruct 
House conferees on H.R. 4577, a bill making appropriations for fiscal 
year 2001 for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
Education:

       I move that the managers on the part of the House at the 
     conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the 
     bill, H.R. 4577, be instructed to insist on the highest 
     funding level possible for the Department of Education; and 
     to insist on disagreeing with provisions in the Senate 
     amendment which denies the press the President's request for 
     dedicated resources to reduce class sizes in the early grades 
     and for local school construction and, instead, broadly 
     expands the Title VI Education Block Grant with limited 
     accountability in the use of funds.

  If we are going to start providing motions to instruct at this late 
date in the session, then I am going to have a number of motions which 
I think are germane to the operations of the committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The notice of the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will appear in the Record.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, in spite of what the Members of this body might think, 
the intention of this motion to instruct was not to create havoc in the 
process as we attempt to go home.
  I want to describe my medical practice to all of my colleagues for a 
minute so they have a perspective. I just heard the ``white, middle-
class'' statement; and I think it is very important. Most of my 
patients are minorities. Most of them only have one parent. And let me 
tell my colleagues, every one of those parents want to know what is 
going on with their kids in school. And the assumption, the racial 
implication that if they happen to be a single mom and they have a 
child that gets in trouble that they do not want to know as much as 
everybody else is absurd and wrong and implies an absolute lack of 
knowledge about what is going on in this country with that valuable 
segment of our population. So I want to set that aside.
  The other thing is I want to tell my colleagues a story, one of the 
reasons I offered this amendment. I was in a town hall meeting in the 
southeast portion of my district. A 38-year-old father came in, and I 
have never seen anybody so mad in my life. I was the object of his 
rage, because his 12-year-old daughter had just shown him what she had 
been given at a clinic, 12 years old, no knowledge. She was given 
Preven. In case she needed it at some future time, she was given a bag 
of condoms. She was given noxonol nine. And she was given oral 
contraceptives. No exam, no instruction sheet on how to use them, but 
she was given them.
  Mr. Speaker, what the father was mad about is that somebody would 
dare be able to invade on the rights of his child and her health care 
without him knowing about it. And in front of 50 people, he stood there 
balling, to say what has happened to our country that parents are last? 
We heard about local control. What about parent control? What about 
putting the parents back in charge?
  We cannot take an aspirin at a school without a permission slip. If 
their child has an antibiotic, they have to have permission to give 
that child his antibiotic at the school. We are so wrong-headed and so 
out of sync in terms of the priorities for our children in this country 
it is not a wonder that we are having difficulty with these issues.
  The third point I want to make: we have had title X clinics for 25 
years in this country. We have been teaching safe sex for 25 years. We 
are the highest nation in the world in sexually transmitted diseases. 
Nobody comes close to us. We will have 15 million new cases of sexually 
transmitted disease this year of which 9 million are incurable, 9 
million in which the methods that we teach at our title X safe-sex 
clinics will not protect our children from. But we are going to dig our 
heads in the sand, and we are going to ignore it.
  The number one cause of cervical cancer is one of them. We now know 
that one of those is involved with prostate cancer, the number two 
cancer with men. But we are going to ignore that. We are going to keep 
doing the same thing. We are going to dumb down to the level of the 
lowest possible explanation and rationalize that that is the way to 
treat our children.
  It is not good enough. No wonder our kids are failing. We are not 
expecting enough of them. We are looking the wrong direction.
  There is no reason for a parent never to be involved unless incest is 
involved. And then, in every State in this country, it is a law that 
they have to notify the authorities. Otherwise they go to jail if they 
do not notify the authorities.
  This has nothing to do with school-based clinics. This has everything 
to do with parents, re-empowering parents.
  The final point that I would make that my colleagues consider is that 
every one of us has told a lie; and when we finally get past that lie 
and tell the truth, every one of us feels good about it. When we 
confess that lie, there is a great feeling. It is liberating. We have 
told the truth, that burden we are carrying.
  When we enable our children to be deceptive, we lessen their 
potential for the future. We should not be involved in that. We should 
be enabling them to reconcile with their parents, not become deceptive 
partners in alienating the children from their parents.
  For goodness sakes, let us really think about children.
  I know we are going to have the debate on abortion and pro-life; but 
as we solve this problem, let us empower parents to do the right thing, 
let us encourage the positive and discourage the negative, let us go 
for reconciliation between children and parents.
  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express to my colleagues my 
great concern with this motion to instruct conferees.
  First, it should be clear that this motion is about contraception, 
not abortion. Like other contraceptives, emergency contraception can 
prevent--but not terminate--a pregnancy. Access to contraception can be 
a vital part of local efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy and reduce 
the number of abortions--a goal shared by members on both sides of the 
aisle.
  Second, this motion restricts the decision of local leaders. School-
based clinics vary greatly across the country, and the services that 
they provide reflect community standards, reflected by local advisory 
boards made up of parents, young adults, community representatives and 
youth family organizations.
  Emergency contraception may not be an appropriate or advisable option 
for many schoolbased clinics. It may be, however, both necessary and 
appropriate for some clinics and some communities. For many low-income, 
uninsured students, school-based health clinics provide their only 
access to necessary

[[Page H7825]]

health care. Restricting contraceptive options only for these low-
income students is wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I am ashamed to say that our country has more unintended 
teen pregnancies than any other industrialized country in the world. I 
challenge my colleagues to reject election-year politics and work with 
me toward policies that prevent unintended pregnancies before the 
morning after.
  As for me, I will redouble my efforts to help our kids and their 
parents get the information they need about the consequences and costs 
of unintended pregnancy and the benefits of abstinence, good 
reproductive health and smart choices.
  Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion to 
instruct conferees. It is not the business of the federal government to 
provide any form of birth control to minors. Furthermore, to do this 
without parental consent and involvement is especially egregious.
  When Senator Helms asked the Congressional Research Service to 
investigate whether ``Morning-After'' pills were distributed to minors 
at school clinics, CRS found that 180 schools did precisely this.
  Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable, violative of parental rights, and 
immoral.
  It is always instructive to closely examine the rhetoric of the pro-
abortion movement. And make no mistake, the pro-abortion movement 
supports providing the ``Morning-After'' pill to minors through school 
based clinics.
  So, lets examine their rhetoric. The ``Morning-After'' pill often can 
result in causing an abortion of a human child in its earliest stages. 
Yet, the pro-abortion side will consistently argue that this is not an 
abortion. They will claim that this is just normal birth control. What 
hogwash.
  Anyone can tell you that ``birth control'' occurs before a baby is 
conceived. Otherwise we would happily call abortion ``birth control.'' 
It's not. It never has been. And, it never will be.
  Mr. Speaker, our Founders saw fit to say that government exists to 
secure ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'' for its 
citizens. Let us not execute the smallest of our citizens by providing 
these misnamed abortifacient pills to our minors.
  Vote ``yes'' on the motion to instruct conferees.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Wilson). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 250, 
nays 170, answered ``present'' 1, not voting 12, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 481]

                               YEAS--250

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Gallegly
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kildee
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Maloney (CT)
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Myrick
     Neal
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Ortiz
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Salmon
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Turner
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--170

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barrett (WI)
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gibbons
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holt
     Hooley
     Horn
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     Lantos
     Larson
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Olver
     Ose
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Porter
     Price (NC)
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--1

       
     Obey
       

                             NOT VOTING--12

     Campbell
     Dooley
     Franks (NJ)
     Klink
     Lazio
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     McNulty
     Murtha
     Nethercutt
     Vento
     Wise

                              {time}  1832

  Ms. RIVERS, Mr. GIBBONS, and Mr. DINGELL changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. POMEROY and Mrs. FOWLER changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the motion was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________