[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 116 (Tuesday, September 26, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8154-H8162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BORN-ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION ACT OF 2000

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the bill (H.R. 4292) to protect infants who are born alive.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 4292

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Born-Alive Infants 
     Protection Act of 2000''.

     SEC. 2. DEFINITION OF BORN-ALIVE INFANT.

       (a) In General.--Chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``Sec. 8. `Person', `human being', `child', and `individual' 
       as including born-alive infant

       ``(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or 
     of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various 
     administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the 
     words `person', `human being', `child', and `individual', 
     shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens 
     who is born alive at any stage of development.
       ``(b) As used in this section, the term `born alive', with 
     respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the 
     complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that 
     member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion 
     or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of 
     the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary 
     muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been 
     cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction 
     occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean 
     section, or induced abortion.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections at the 
     beginning of chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new item:


[[Page H8155]]


``8. `Person', `human being', `child', and `individual' as including 
              born-alive infant.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Canady) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady).

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4292, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act is a 
simple but critical piece of legislation that is designed to ensure 
that, for purposes of Federal law, all infants who have been born alive 
are treated as persons who are entitled to the protections of the law.
  We may ask why such a legislation is necessary. Has it not been long 
accepted as a legal principle that infants who are born alive are 
persons who are entitled to the protections of the law? Indeed it has. 
But the corrupting influence of a seemingly illimitable right to 
abortion has brought this well-settled principle into question.
  Mr. Speaker, in Stenberg v. Carhart, five Justices of the United 
States Supreme Court struck down a Nebreska law banning partial-birth 
abortion, a gruesome procedure in which an abortionist delivers an 
unborn child's body until only the head remains inside the mother, then 
punctures the back of the child's skull with scissors and sucks the 
child's brains out before completing the delivery. Every time I 
describe that horrible procedure, I wince because it is truly a horror. 
But that is what the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking 
through five Justices has found is protected by our Constitution.
  What was described in Roe v. Wade as a right to abort unborn children 
has now in Carhart been extended by five Justices to include the 
violent destruction of partially-born children just inches from birth.
  Even more striking than the simple holding of the case is the fact 
that the Carhart Court considered the location of the infant's body at 
the moment of death during a partial-birth abortion delivered partly 
outside the body of the mother to be of no legal significance in ruling 
on the constitutionality of the Nebraska law under challenge.
  Implicit in the Carhart decision was the notion that a partial-born 
infant's entitlement to the protections of the law is dependent not 
upon whether the child is born or unborn, but upon whether or not the 
partially born child's mother wants the child.
  On July 26, 2000, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third 
Circuit made that point explicit in Planned Parenthood of Central New 
Jersey v. Farmer, in the course of striking down New Jersey partial-
birth abortion ban. According to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals 
under Row and Carhart, it is, and I quote them, nonsensical, and 
``based on semantic machinations'' and ``irrational line-drawing'' for 
a legislature to conclude that an infant's location in relation to the 
mother's body has any relevance in determining whether that infant may 
be killed.
  Instead, the Farmer Court concluded that a child's status under the 
law, regardless of the child's location, is dependent upon whether the 
mother intends to abort the child or to give birth. The Farmer Court 
stated that, in contrast to an infant whose mother intends to give 
birth, an infant who is killed during a partial-birth abortion is not 
entitled to the protections of the law because, and I quote, ``a woman 
seeking an abortion is plainly not seeking to give birth.''
  Now, if we examine the logical implications of these decisions, I 
think we will be forced to the conclusion that they are indeed 
shocking.
  Under the logic of these decisions, once a child is marked for 
abortion, it is wholly irrelevant whether that child emerges from the 
womb as a live baby. That child may still be treated as a nonentity and 
would not have the slightest rights under the law, no right to receive 
medical care, to be sustained in life, or to receive any care at all. 
And if a child who survives an abortion and is born alive would have no 
claim to the protections of the law, there would appear to be no basis 
upon which the government may prohibit an abortionist from completely 
delivering an infant before killing it or allowing it to die.
  The right to abortion under this logic means nothing less than the 
right to a dead baby, no matter where the killing takes place.
  We are familiar with the logic of the Supreme Court case. There they 
said in order to protect the mother's health, the child could be killed 
in the process of being delivered. It is not a far stretch for the 
argument to also be made that it will help protect the mother's health 
to deliver the baby completely before the child is delivered in 
carrying out the decision for an abortion to be performed.
  As horrifying as it may seem, credible public testimony received by 
the Subcommittee on the Constitution indicates that this, in fact, 
already is occurring. According to our eyewitness accounts, some 
abortion doctors are performing live-birth abortions using a procedure 
in which the abortionist used drugs to induce premature labor and 
deliver unborn children, many of whom are still alive, and then simply 
allow those who are born alive to die, sometimes without the provision 
of even basic comfort care such as warmth and nutrition.

  On one occasion, a nurse found a living infant lying naked on a scale 
in a soiled utility closet, and on another occasion a living infant was 
found lying naked on the edge of a sink; one baby was wrapped in a 
disposable towel and thrown into the trash.
  Mr. Speaker, Jill Stanek, a labor and delivery nurse at Christ 
Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, testified regarding numerous live-birth 
abortions that she has witnessed at Christ Hospital in Illinois. Ms. 
Stanek described what happened after one of those abortions as follows, 
and I quote her testimony at length, because it is so chilling and so 
pertinent to the question that is before the House today. According to 
Ms. Stanek's testimony: ``One night, a nursing coworker was taking an 
aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our soiled utility 
room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have 
time to hold him. I could not bear the thoughts of this suffering child 
dying alone in a soiled utility room, so I cradled and rocked him for 
the 45 minutes that he lived.
  He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about one-half pound and was about 
10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy 
he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I could 
not tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see 
if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was 
pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped 
him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all 
of our dead patients are taken.''
  The Subcommittee on the Constitution also heard testimony from 
Allison Baker, who formerly worked as a labor and delivery nurse at 
Christ Hospital. Mrs. Baker testified regarding three live-birth 
abortions at Christ Hospital, the first of which she described as 
follows, this is what she told the Subcommittee on the Constitution: 
``The first of these live-birth abortions occurred on a day shift. I 
happened to walk into a soiled utility room and saw lying on the metal 
counter a fetus, naked, exposed and breathing, moving its arms and 
legs. The fetus was visibly alive and was gasping for breath.
  I left to find the nurse who was caring for the patient and this 
fetus. When I asked her about the fetus, she said that she was so busy 
with the mother that she didn't have time to wrap and place the fetus 
in a warmer, and she asked if I could do that for her.
  Later I found out that the fetus was 22 weeks old and had undergone a 
therapeutic abortion because it had been diagnosed with Down's 
Syndrome. I did wrap the fetus and placed him in a warmer and for 2\1/
2\ hours he maintained a heartbeat and then finally expired.''
  Mr. Speaker, statements made by abortion supporters indicate that 
they believe that Roe v. Wade denies the protection of the law to live-
born infants who have been marked for destruction through abortion. On 
July 20 of this year, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights 
Action League, or NARAL, issued a press release criticizing H.R. 4292, 
the bill that we are considering tonight, because in

[[Page H8156]]

NARAL's view extending legal personhood to premature infants who are 
born alive after surviving abortions constitutes an assault on Roe v. 
Wade.
  The gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) took a similar position in her 
testimony on H.R. 4292 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
  The principle that born-alive infants are entitled to the protection 
of the law is also being questioned at one of America's most 
prestigious universities. Princeton University Bioethicist Peter Singer 
argues that parents should have the option to kill disabled or 
unhealthy newborn babies for a certain period after birth. According to 
Professor Singer, and I quote him: ``A period of 28 days after birth 
might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right 
to live as others.''

  Mr. Speaker, now this is based on Professor Singer's view that the 
life of a newborn baby is, and again I quote him, ``of no greater value 
than the life of a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, 
self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, et cetera.''
  According to Professor Singer, and I again quote, ``killing a 
disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very 
often, it is not wrong at all.'' Mr. Speaker, now, these are the 
comments that are being made by a renowned philosopher holding one of 
the most prestigious chairs at one of this Nation's most prestigious 
universities.
  The purpose of this legislation is to repudiate the pernicious ideas 
that result in tragedies such as live-birth abortion and to firmly 
establish that, for purposes of Federal law, an infant who is 
completely expelled or extracted from his or her mother and who is 
alive is indeed a person under the law regardless of whether or not the 
child's development is believed to be or is, in fact, sufficient to 
permit long-term survival and regardless of whether the baby survived 
an abortion.
  H.R. 4292 accomplishes this by providing that, for purposes of 
Federal law, the word ``person,'' the words ``person, human being, 
child and individual'' shall include every infant member of the species 
homosapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. The bill 
defines the term ``born alive'' as the complete expulsion or extraction 
from its mother of that member of this species homosapiens at any stage 
of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has 
a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement 
of the voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has 
been cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs 
as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section or induced 
abortion.
  Now, I will point out to the Members of the House, and this is very 
important to put this bill in context, that this definition of born 
alive was derived from a model definition of live birth that has been 
adopted with minor variations in 35 States and the District of 
Columbia.
  So the principle that is embodied in this bill is a principle that 
has been codified by the majority of the States, and it is indeed the 
law in the vast majority of the jurisdictions in this land. It is also 
important to understand that this simply deals with the principle that 
the child is a person who is born alive. It does nothing to alter the 
applicable standard of care that is owed to a child in particular 
circumstances.
  Now, I urge my colleagues to look at this legislation, consider the 
recent decision of the Supreme Court, the recent decision of the Third 
Circuit Court of Appeals and support this important legislation and to 
reject, to unequivocally reject the movement towards the legalization 
of infanticide, which I submit to my colleagues is implicit in the 
recent rulings that I have referred to. As Members of this House, we 
should do everything we can to protect the most innocent and helpless 
members of the human family.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we have before us a measure which is one of the most 
puzzling bits of legislation to ever come out of the Committee on the 
Judiciary. To make it more interesting, the entire committee has 
supported this measure on a recorded vote except one person, one member 
of the committee.

                              {time}  1930

  As of a very recent date, we have taken out the manager's amendment, 
which had been creating a considerable amount of confusion. Now, the 
question at a threshold level is why do we have this bill before us. I 
cannot answer that question clearly because we are not doing anything 
new that is not already stated very clearly in statute and in the 
Supreme Court cases.
  Roe v. Wade is not affected by this bill. As a matter of fact, 
Stenburg v. Carhart, notwithstanding many interpretations of this more 
recent Supreme Court case, does not affect this measure either. So I 
leave to more fertile imaginations why it is we are here in the first 
place. But we are here.
  And trying to ignore the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady), the 
manager on the other side's sometimes hyperbolic rhetoric, this is 
still the same measure that this Member voted for in committee. I stand 
by my position, and I will continue to support it.
  It is my belief that people who introduce legislation in the Congress 
do it to get people to support it, they do not try to introduce 
legislation to get people not to support it. We hope that that common 
rule of long standing still applies this evening in this measure.
  The bill makes a useful clarification of existing law. The bill 
clarifies existing law to ensure that every protection for a child or 
person in the United States Code applies to a born-alive infant. I 
support that. Most of us believe that this bill is probably unnecessary 
for the simple reason that born-alive infants are already protected by 
existing law.
  However, we have accepted the representations of the bill's sponsor 
that this change is needed, that this legislation has a purpose in 
fact. The sponsor has indicated that the bill would only protect an 
infant who is completely separated from its mother. This is a most 
unusual and, I think, significant concession by the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  I must wholeheartedly applaud the majority for realizing at last that 
there are different stages of life and that, at each stage, a mother's 
right to privacy must be balanced against a State's interest and fetal 
life.
  Now, this measure bipartisanly has overwhelmingly passed the 
committee, which is unusual given the strong feelings on each side of 
the issue and on each side of the aisle regarding issues of 
reproductive rights. But it seems to me that this measure is now back 
to the precise original condition that was voted out by the committee. 
This leaves the manager on this side with no other recourse but to 
support the same measure that we passed in the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Florida for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of this 
legislation. I am very pleased to be able to support it, but I must say 
that it grieves me that I live in a Nation where it is even necessary 
for us to promulgate such legislation. Nonetheless, I believe this 
legislation is badly needed.
  We have a situation evolving in our courts where legal doctrines are 
being promoted that would countenance the practice of infanticide. The 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) I think very clearly in his opening 
statement cited many of those cases. I do not need to reiterate them 
here.
  Not only do we have a problem with legal doctrine, though, but we 
have a problem with medical practice. I as a practicing physician for 
years would unfortunately be asked to pronounce people dead. What we 
were typically asked to do is to make a determination of brain waves or 
a heart beat are present. These are clearly infants that meet those 
criteria. They are human. They are alive. There are numerous cases 
where they are being allowed to die. They are not being provided basic 
subsist steps, not even kept warm.
  I believe this is a tragedy that this should be evolving. Probably 
more concerning to me, and it should be a concern to people in the 
disabilities community, because if one hears all these cases, one hears 
that many of these

[[Page H8157]]

children have disabilities. I think any Member, any person in this 
country with a disability should support this legislation.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, the proponents of this bill say it is about 
protecting newborns. We can all agree that newborns deserve appropriate 
medical support and the fullest protection of the law no matter the 
circumstances of delivery. In fact, newborn infants already receive 
full legal protection in State and Federal law. Any attempt to harm a 
newborn can and should be subject to criminal prosecution. Everyone 
agrees on this.
  Yet, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady), my friend, has also 
said that this bill would not change existing law and would have no 
impact on medical standards of care. Then what is the rationale for 
this bill?
  Dr. Sessions Cole, who trained at Harvard Medical School, who is 
board certified in pediatrics and has cared for more than 10,000 
newborns directly, believes it would change the standard of care.
  In testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, Dr. Cole stated 
that the bill would ``impose on doctors and parents a universal 
definition of `life' or `alive' which is,'' he said, ``in my experience 
as a neonatologist, inconsistent with the harsh reality presented by a 
number of circumstances.''
  Dr. Cole went on to discuss the obligation of parents and doctors to 
minimize the suffering an infant might endure once the decision is made 
that life support or other measures would be futile for that infant.
  I share his concern about the impact this law may have on parents who 
desperately hope to bring home the healthy newborn and, instead, are 
confronted with a tragic situation.
  It is enough for these parents to listen carefully to the physician, 
seek second or third opinions, hear counsel from their rabbi, priest, 
or minister and discuss it with their families. Congress has no 
business adding to their anguish or extending their grief by forcing 
neonatologists to follow what Dr. Cole called an ``unnecessary and 
unrealistic definition of life.''
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) and other antichoice 
lawmakers could genuinely demonstrate concern about maternal and child 
health by promoting legislation that improves access to prenatal care, 
fosters research that reduces premature birth rates, and broadens the 
availability and affordability of health insurance.
  Instead, we have a bill on the floor, Mr. Speaker which has had one 
subcommittee hearing and a quick markup.
  I think Dr. Sessions Cole and others have raised important concerns 
about changing the definition of ``life'' or ``alive'' or ``person.'' 
In the end, it is families and newborns that will suffer.
  Because I strongly believe that we should not be playing politics 
with appropriate and compassionate care for all newborns, I will oppose 
the bill.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me adamantly 
disagree with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the previous 
speaker. Everyone does not agree on protecting newborns. We all know of 
cases where newborns have been killed or left to die.
  There was a piece done by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pulitzer 
Prize winning newspaper, called ``The Dreaded Complication.'' It talked 
about live births that resulted from failed or botched abortion 
attempts. Dr. Willard Cates is quoted extensively in that report. He 
was at the time the Chief of Abortion Surveillance for the CDC. He made 
the point that reporting that failed abortions resulted in live births 
is like turning yourself into the IRS for an audit. What is there to 
gain?
  The article talks about repeatedly, case after case, where 
abortionists tried to kill an unborn child, failed to do so, only to 
have someone else step into the gap, scoop up that child, and bring 
that child to some kind of life saving situation. The report notes that 
the common thread in all of the incidents, and they go through one 
instance after another, is that it was not the doctor but someone else 
who intervened to administer care to the child.
  Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding three decades of distraction, 
distortion, and deceit by the abortion lobby, I am happy to say a 
majority of Americans believe, and according to a recent nationwide 
L.A. Times poll, 61 percent of all American women regard abortion as 
murder. The violence of abortion should be self-evident: Chemical 
poisoning, dismemberment, brain sucking procedures.
  But the bill of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) seeks to 
protect newborns, kids that are already born. They, too, are now at 
risk under this slippery slope.
  If one looks and reads the Supreme Court decision on partial birth 
abortion, it should be a wake-up call. Partially born kids are not 
protected. Kids who survive late-term abortions are not protected. This 
legislation is absolutely vital to protect kids who survive and are 
born after a failed abortion.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a distinguished member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, during the meeting of the committee which 
approved the bill 22 to 1, when I asked minority members in the 
committee, pro-choice members of the committee, to support the bill, I 
did so partially in reliance on the words of the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Canady).
  I read from the transcript of the committee meeting, ``And let me say 
that I think that the gentleman from New York and I have substantial 
common ground on issues related to this bill. And the gentleman has 
properly stated the purpose of this bill as being to reaffirm existing 
legal principle.''
  This bill, as I read it, as I read it now does not change the law in 
any way. It is unnecessary. So why support it? Why vote for it? Because 
of its dishonest sponsorship, because of the dishonest purpose behind 
it. The purpose of this bill is only to get the pro-choice members to 
vote against it so that they can then slander us and say that we are in 
favor of infanticide. If I had any doubts about that, the manager's 
amendment and the Dear Colleague letter with it --
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NADLER. I will not yield at this point.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. You are imputing the dignity of the chairman 
by suggesting his motive is dishonest. We have better comity in this 
place than that.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Nadler) controls the time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I believe the only real purpose of this bill 
is to trap the pro-choice Members into voting against it so that they 
can slander us and slander the pro-choice movement as being in favor of 
infanticide.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. NADLER. That is why I voted for the bill in the committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) 
controls the time, and he is not yielding for that purpose.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, that is why I voted in the committee in 
favor of the bill. That is why I will vote again and urge my colleagues 
to vote in favor of the bill so we do not step into this trap.
  Now, the manager's amendment, which was withdrawn, but certainly the 
rhetoric of the sponsors, which we heard again today, are full of 
untruths. They say that newborns do not receive full legal protection. 
But there exists a common law born-alive rule imposing liability to 
anyone who harms a person who was born and was alive at the time of the 
harmful act.
  The Federal statute known as the Baby Doe law already requires that 
appropriate care be administered to a newborn.
  They say that the Carhart decision, they grossly distort the Carhart 
decision, striking down Nebraska's ban on abortion procedures, Stenburg 
v. Carhart. The Supreme Court found the Nebraska ban unconstitutional 
because it imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to choose by 
banning safe and common abortion procedures and it lacked an exception 
to protect women's health.

[[Page H8158]]

  To suggest that Carhart is about the legal rights of newborns is 
deceptive and irresponsible; and it is untrue, outrageous, and 
insulting to suggest that pro-choice Members of the Congress wish to 
deprive newborns of legal rights.

                              {time}  1945

  Carhart did not expand Roe, and recent court rulings have not put 
newborns in jeopardy. They deal only with pregnancy. They do not have 
any bearing on newborns.
  In summary, Mr. Speaker, this bill is unnecessary. I am not sure it 
is harmful in any way; but the real harm it does, the real purpose of 
it, is to get us to vote against it so they can go out and campaign and 
produce newspaper articles, such as the column by Mr. Will and Mr. Leo 
that say that pro-choice supporters are in favor of infanticide. We are 
not in favor of infanticide. The right to life begins, if not earlier, 
certainly at birth. No one disputes that. And we are, not many of us, 
are not going to fall into the trap by voting against this dishonest 
bill.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a copy of 
the statement dated July 20, 2000, from the National Abortion and 
Reproductive Rights Action League in opposition to the bill.

                    [NARAL Statement, July 20, 2000]

Roe v. Wade Faces Renewed Assault in House--Anti-Choice Lawmakers Hold 
       Hearing On So-Called ``Born-Alive Infants Protection Act''

       Washington, DC--The basic of tenets of Roe v. Wade were the 
     subject of yet another anti-choice assault today, as the 
     House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a 
     hearing on H.R. 4292, the so-called ``Born-Alive Infants 
     Protection Act.'' The Act would effectively grant legal 
     personhood to a pre-viable fetus--in direct conflict with 
     Roe--and would inappropriately inject prosecutors and 
     lawmakers into the medical decision-making process. The bill 
     was introduced by well-known abortion opponent Rep. Charles 
     Canady (R-FL) and has been endorsed by the National Right to 
     Life Committee.
       Roe v. Wade clearly states that women have the right to 
     choose prior to fetal viability. After viability, Roe allows 
     states to prohibit or restrict abortion as long as exceptions 
     are made to protect the life and health of the woman. In 
     proposing this bill, anti-choice lawmakers are seeking to 
     ascribe rights to fetuses ``at any stage of development,'' 
     thereby directly contradicting one of Roe's basic tenets.
       This bill also attempts to inject Congress into what should 
     be personal and private decisions about medical treatment in 
     difficult and painful situations where a fetus has no chance 
     of survival. It could also interfere with the sound practice 
     of medicine by spurring physicians to take extraordinary 
     steps in situations where their efforts may be futile and 
     when their medical judgment may indicate otherwise.
       This is not the first time we have seen Rep. Canady and his 
     anti-choice colleagues attempt to chip away at the foundation 
     of Roe v. Wade in just this manner. Last year, this same 
     subcommittee held a hearing on the so-called ``Unborn Victims 
     of Violence Act,'' which also sought to ascribe certain 
     rights to a fetus at any stage of pregnancy. Rep. Canady is 
     also one of the chief architects of the federal ban on safe 
     abortion procedures used prior to fetal viability, which 
     directly undermines the fundamental principles of Roe. With 
     all these bills, anti-choice lawmakers purposefully set 
     America on a path they believe will ultimately lead to the 
     overturn of Roe v. Wade. In keeping with this goal, the 
     subcommittee has put the ``Born-Alive Infants Protection 
     Act'' on the fast track and has scheduled a markup for 
     Friday, July 21, 2000.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, a woman's right to privacy and parental 
rights, which we will hear about, does not include the right to kill 
one's live baby.
  We heard some of the chilling words during the testimony of Jill 
Staneck, who presented testimony before the subcommittee. We only heard 
part of it, so let me read a little bit more. She said,

       Other coworkers have told me many upsetting stories about 
     live aborted babies whom they had cared for. I was told about 
     an aborted baby who was supposed to have spina bifida but was 
     delivered with an intact spine.
       A support associate told me about a live aborted baby who 
     was left to die on the counter of the soiled utility room 
     wrapped in a disposable towel. The baby was accidentally 
     thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going 
     through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the 
     towel and onto the floor.
       I was recently told about a situation by a nurse who said, 
     ``I can't stop thinking about it.'' she had a patient who was 
     23-plus weeks pregnant, and it did not look as if her baby 
     would be able to continue to live inside of her. The baby was 
     healthy and had up to a 39 percent chance of survival, 
     according to national statistics. But the patient chose to 
     abort. The baby was born alive.
       If the mother had wanted everything done for her baby, 
     there would have been a neonatologist, pediatric resident, 
     neonatal nurse, and respiratory therapist present for the 
     delivery, and the baby would have been taken to our neonatal 
     intensive care unit for specialized care. Instead, the only 
     personnel present for this delivery was an obstetrical 
     resident and my co-worker. After delivery, the baby, who 
     showed early signs of thriving, was merely wrapped in a 
     blanket and kept in the labor and delivery department until 
     she died 2\1/2\ hours later.

  It is a sad day in America that we have to vote for a bill to protect 
infants born alive, but this bill is necessary. We should vote to 
support the bill.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), a member of the Committee on 
the Judiciary.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from 
Michigan for yielding me this time.
  I had really intended not to participate in this debate, but it 
sounds like I got injected into it whether I was in it or not because I 
am the one vote who voted against the bill coming out of committee 22 
to one. My name is one, I guess.
  This bill reminds me of a neighbor of mine who, when I was growing 
up, had a dog who used to chase his tail. He would run around and 
around in circles chasing his tail. It seems to me that that is what we 
are doing with this bill. Because if, as my colleague from Florida has 
indicated, the bill does nothing to change the law, then why are we 
doing it? There is no compelling reason to pass a piece of legislation 
that does not do anything, and the sponsors of this bill submit that 
the bill does not do anything.
  So at the end of the day, what we have done is add to the litany of 
terms in our statute; that litany being person, human being, child, 
individual, and another term which has no definition either, that term 
being born alive.
  The concern that I have about it is the concern that has been 
expressed by the Congressional Research Service in its letter to the 
House Committee on the Judiciary. In that letter it says, ``A computer 
search indicates that there are 15,000 sections in the United States 
Code and 57,000 sections of the Code of Federal Regulations that make 
reference to these various terms that are used; human being, child, 
individual, and now, born alive I guess is the new term, and nobody has 
made an assessment of what impact this bill has in those 15,000 
sections of the United States Code or those 57,000 sections of the Code 
of Federal Regulations because nobody cares.
  All this is about is politics, and so we should be like my friend's 
dog, chasing his tail around in a circle.
  I am going to vote against this bill again, not because I am not 
sympathetic to children who are ``born alive,'' but because I have no 
idea what implications this bill has in the other 15,000 sections of 
the United States Code and the 57,000 sections of the Code of Federal 
Regulations. And if, as my friend submits, the bill does nothing 
anyway, we will be no better or worse off as a result of my negative 
vote.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Canady) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Conyers) has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, this has been called many 
things, but I call this a rollback of Roe v. Wade, since the real goal 
here is to roll back a woman's constitutional right.
  Earlier this year, the Supreme Court rejected an abortion law in 
Nebraska. But I do not ask my colleagues to take my word for it. I will 
place in the Record quotes from anti-choice organizations. One called 
this ``A viable legislative option for pro-lifers that will not be 
struck down by the Supreme Court.'' Another called it, ``A starting 
point from which we can roll the point of legal protection back.''

[[Page H8159]]

  But it is truly the statements of neonatologists and doctors, who 
have submitted letters to my office and others, that I would like to 
submit into the Record. One states, ``It would impose on doctors and 
parents a universal definition of life or alive which is inconsistent 
with the harsh reality presented by a number of circumstances.''
  As my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) pointed 
out, we do know that it changes the definition of a person in 72,000 
places in the law; 15,000 in the U.S. Code and 57,000 places in the 
Code of Federal Regulations. Quite frankly, I do not know what the 
long-term impact of this bill will be, but I do know the intent, 
because I have the internal documents from the pro-lifers, which I will 
put in the Record, and I do know that doctors who deal with the painful 
decisions of trying to help save the life of a child, many of them have 
said that this does not help; it merely complicates and makes the hard 
process of dying even harder on doctors and nurses and parents when 
they have children who, for whatever reason, modern technology cannot 
save that child's life.
  I submit for the Record, Mr. Speaker, a number of letters from 
doctors and other documents I referred to earlier.

  Testimony of F. Sessions Cole, M.D. to Committee on the Judiciary, 
       Subcommittee on the Constitution, United States House of 
                     Representatives, July 20, 2000

       Mr. Chairman, Honorable Representatives, Staff, and 
     spectators. My name is Francis Sessions Cole, and my family, 
     including our two daughters, ages 16 and 14, and my wife of 
     28 years resides in St. Louis, Missouri. I appear before you 
     to offer testimony concerning Representative Canady's Born 
     Alive Infants Protection Act of 2000 (H.R. 4292) as a 
     physician whose specialty is care of newborn infants. My 
     testimony is not sponsored by any organization. I completed 
     my pediatric residency training at Boston Children's Hospital 
     and my specialty training in caring for newborn infants in 
     the Joint Program in Neonatology at Harvard Medical School. 
     Since my Board certification in Pediatrics in 1981, I have 
     cared for more than 10,000 new-born infants directly, and I 
     currently have administrative responsibility for 
     approximately one half of all the babies born in St. Louis 
     annually (approximately 13,000 babies). I also have an active 
     clinical practice that focuses on caring for babies whose 
     transition from womb to world is complicated by one or more 
     problems like prematurity, birth defects, infections, or 
     problems with the afterbirth or placenta. I routinely 
     encounter babies whose problems place them on the edge of 
     viability.
       The language of H.R. 4292 would impose on doctors and 
     parents a universal definition of ``life'' or ``alive'' which 
     is, in my experience as a neonatologist, inconsistent with 
     the harsh reality presented by a number of circumstances. The 
     fact is that the indicia identified in the bill--breathing, 
     or a beating heart, or pulsation of the umbilical cord, or 
     definite movement of voluntary muscles--are not themselves 
     necessarily indicative of life or continued viability. 
     Frequently, the heartbeats of infants will be maintained by 
     medicines, not nature; their breathing may be present but 
     ineffective as they die; they may move voluntary muscles 
     during the dying process.
       As a physician who cares for ill newborn infants, I feel 
     that I have the greatest practice in medicine, because my 
     practice permits me to participate in miracles everyday. 
     Thanks to significant advances in technology over the last 20 
     years, babies whose parents could have been offered no hope 
     can now see their babies survive and, for the most part, 
     exceed both their parents' and their doctors' expectations as 
     they develop. Unfortunately, even today's most advanced 
     medical science is still a long way from being able to offer 
     every sick infant a reasonable chance for survival. In fact, 
     in our neonatal intensive care unit, approximately 10% of the 
     infants do not respond to advanced technology and pass away. 
     These deaths result from accidents of nature that are no 
     one's fault, and they are excruciatingly difficult for 
     parents, doctors, and nurses. Frequently, the emotional pain 
     of the decision to terminate treatment in such cases is 
     compounded by the fact that the technology that we provide 
     babies requires painful, invasive procedures. When parents 
     and physicians together decide that life support technology 
     is futile for an infant and is only prolonging the pain of 
     the dying process, parents have a moral and legal obligation 
     to minimize the suffering of their baby, regardless of the 
     pain such a turn of events brings to them in their loss.
       The language of H.R. 4292 will, in my view, significantly 
     interfere with the agonizing, painful and personal decisions 
     that must be left to parents in consultation with their 
     physicians. Imposing the proposed definition of ``alive'' or 
     ``life'' for statutory purpose may cause parents to prolong 
     the medically inevitable dying process of their infants out 
     of fear that terminating that process might be deemed to be, 
     for legal purposes, the termination of a life, when in fact 
     all that would be terminated would be the painful process of 
     death. Prolonging treatment in such cases would be not the 
     saving of a ``life'', but the prolonging of the pain and 
     suffering of inevitable death. As a physician whose career 
     has been dedicated to the welfare of newborns, and especially 
     critically-ill newborns, I urge the Subcommittee not to 
     inject an unnecessary and unrealistic definition of ``life'', 
     with all its legal implications, into the already agonizing 
     and heart-breaking situation faced by parents of infants in 
     the dying process.
                                  ____

                                                    July 19, 2000.
     Ranking Democrat, Judiciary Committee
     The House of Representatives.
       As a physician and neonatologist with 40 years of practice 
     experience, I write to express my concern with HR 4292 IH, 
     the ``Born-Alive Infants Act of 2000.'' My credentials 
     include authorship of a major textbook, Neonatology: 
     Pathophysiology and Management of the Newborn, the fifth 
     edition of which was published in 1999 by J B Lippincott, Co. 
     I have also been Professor of Pediatrics for 30 years at the 
     George Washington University School of Medicine and Health 
     Sciences.
       The powerful tools of neonatology (respirators, total 
     intravenous feedings, life support systems, etc) have reduced 
     neonatal mortality and saved countless infants. But they are 
     also subject to overuse in futile situations which inflict 
     pain and suffering on the infant, agony on the families, 
     prolongation of dying, extreme cost and resource utilization, 
     all without changing the fatal outcome. The humane and 
     successful management of these situations requires a delicate 
     balance in decision making, which has been recognized by the 
     Congress in the amendments to the Child Abuse Act, the 
     judiciary, including the Supreme Court, and various 
     Administrations. I enclose an article I recently published, 
     entitled Futility Considerations in the Neonatal Intensive 
     Care Unit, to illustrate some of these issues.
       The current proposed legislation defines as ``born alive'' 
     any product of conception with a single muscle twitch or any 
     indication of heart beat, regardless of stage of development. 
     The term ``born alive'' is then declared equivalent to 
     ``person,'' ``human being,'' ``child,'' and ``individual.'' 
     Presumably every miscarriage, even in the first trimester, 
     would be considered a child and would require a birth and 
     death certificate. The definitions make no distinction as to 
     whether there is any possibility of survival or not. Needless 
     to say, rather than clarifying things, this set of 
     definitions will immensely cloud the work of medical 
     personnel and families in determining what measures are 
     indicated and what would be futile and actually dehumanizing.
       For centuries, different terms have been used to denote an 
     embryo, a fetus, a neonate, an infant and a child. An embryo 
     is pre-viable outside the uterus, and is in such a 
     rudimentary stage of development that a human embryo more 
     closely resembles the embryo of a pig than it does a term 
     newborn of either species. Yet embryos have beating hearts 
     and muscles which can twitch.
       A fetus has reached third trimester and still has much 
     growth and development to achieve before normal birth. 
     However, many such fetuses can be stabilized and supported 
     after premature birth and even discharged home as infants who 
     can take their place in families. To blur these distinctions 
     seems to work against tradition, sound medical practice, and 
     the struggle of parents to understand what is facing them and 
     what the practical alternatives are.
       I strongly urge you to oppose this measure, which I 
     consider regressive and ill considered.
           Thank you for your consideration.
                                     Gordon B. Avery, M.D., Ph.D.,
     Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics.
                                  ____

                                                   August 9, 2000.
     Representative Jerrold Nadler,
     2334 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Congressman Nadler: As a neonatologist and author of 
     the textbook, Neonatology, I am very concerned that the bill 
     under consideration, referred to as the ``born alive'' bill, 
     will significantly interfere with clinical practice. In 
     setting definitions for being born alive, the issue of 
     viability is completely bypassed. For the clinician, 
     viability is crucial as it determines whether or not drastic, 
     invasive and burdensome care is indicated. Neither grieving 
     parents nor dying immature fetuses are served by futile chest 
     pounding and attempts at ventilation. Thus ``alive'' is not 
     relevant if it is not accompanied by plausible ability to 
     survive outside the mother. Up to the moment of birth, even 
     very immature birth, the baby's vital systems are supported 
     by the mother. Thus one might better seek to define 
     ``independently alive.''
       The definitions in the bill--a single gasp, a muscle 
     twitch, any pulsation of the umbilical cord--may identify 
     living tissue, but not independent life, even with strong 
     medical assistance. Any farmer will testify that you can cut 
     the head off a chicken and the heart will still beat, for a 
     time, the muscles twitch, and gasps may go on for several 
     minutes. Yet there is no sustained viability.
       One might better use terms like ``sustained heartbeat and 
     respirations'' and ``maturity within the gestational ages 
     regarded as viable.'' Parents, health care givers, and the 
     general public will much better understand the meaningfulness 
     of such definitions.

[[Page H8160]]

       I hope that these thoughts are helpful in your 
     deliberations, and would be glad to answer questions or make 
     further comments should they be needed.
           Sincerely yours,
     Gordon B. Avery, M.D., Ph.D.
                                  ____


   [From the Associated Press, Cybercast News Service, July 14, 2000]

       The question remains: Are their any viable legislative 
     options for pro-lifers that will not be struck down by a 
     Supreme Court that in a series of decisions--Planned 
     Parenthood v. Casey, Danforth v. Reproductive Health Services 
     and now Carhart--has shown no inclination to curtail abortion 
     on demand articulated in Roe v. Wade?
       In terms of legislation, Senate pro-life leaders are 
     planning to introduce new legislation in place of the bill on 
     partial birth abortion, which had passed the Senate last year 
     but was vetoed by President Clinton, that would make it 
     illegal to kill a child that survives an abortion.
       The virtue of the bill, said Hadley Arkes, a professor of 
     jurisprudence at Amherst University in Massachusetts and a 
     prominent pro-life writer, is that it stops what he sees as a 
     ``terrible drift toward making the right to abortion the 
     right to a dead child.''
       According to Arkes, by the logic of the decisions on 
     partial birth abortion, there is no way to distinguish 
     legally between partial-birth abortion and actual 
     infanticide, which he feels opens the way to allowing the 
     destruction of infants who survive abortions. ``This 
     establishes a bright line of legal protection,'' Arkes said.
       The proposed law also would provide a starting point ``from 
     which we can roll the point of legal protection back,'' 
     according to one Senate staffer for a pro-life floor leader 
     who may introduce the bill.

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a cosponsor and a strong 
supporter of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. There is a lot of 
confusion about who qualifies as a person today, so this is an 
important bill.
  This bill says if a child, a little human being, is born and is 
showing signs of life, this child is entitled to the full protection of 
law. We are talking about babies who are breathing or have a beating 
heart or whose muscles are moving.
  Now, I must admit that I believe that life begins at conception, and 
a child exhibiting these signs in the womb deserves the same protection 
out of the womb, but that is not what this bill is about. This bill is 
about a born, living, breathing little boy or girl being treated as a 
precious human being and receiving the full protection of law, rather 
than being thrown away to die in a linen closet, a plastic bag, or the 
bottom of a trash can.
  Mr. Speaker, what has happened in America when we even must have this 
discussion on the floor? I believe this bill is something that we can 
all agree on. Please support this bill.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute 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 rise in firm opposition 
to this bill. It is not innocuous, but it is unnecessary.
  Protecting newborns is the law. Every single example the gentleman 
has given should have been reported and prosecuted, because every 
newborn in America is entitled under Federal law to all medically 
indicated treatment, and the gentleman knows that.
  This is not about protecting newborns. Listen to the words of a 
neonatologist. ``When parents and physicians together decide that life 
support technology is futile for an infant, and is only prolonging the 
pain of the dying process, parents have a moral and legal obligation to 
minimize the suffering of their baby, regardless of the pain such a 
turn of events brings to them in their loss.''
  What the gentleman is doing in this bill is to deny parents and deny 
doctors the right to make decisions about premature infants. An infant 
born at 3\1/2\, 4\1/2\, 5\1/2\ months is a tragedy, and parents in a 
free society in America deserve the right to determine what medical 
care they will have, recognizing that the law requires newborns receive 
all medically indicated treatment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  My colleagues, the one thing that I really want to make clear, and I 
think there has been a little misstatement here, no one has found in 
the committee during the hearings, or in the course of this discussion, 
any example of where this measure would change existing law.

                              {time}  2000

  This bill has nothing to do whatsoever with ``Roe v. Wade.'' ``Roe'' 
deals only with pregnancy. This bill deals with newborns.
  And so, as we examine all of the Federal Code and the controlling 
Supreme Court cases, there is nowhere that we have found any changes 
that I could report to my colleagues. If there were, I would report 
them. If there were, other Members in this body would bring that to our 
attention.
  And so, I urge, even though there may not be changes, that this 
measure be supported.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of the time 
to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick).
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, babies born alive, babies no longer in the 
mother's womb, babies that show obvious signs of life should be 
recognized as living babies.
  The testimony from Allison Baker, a registered nurse who worked in a 
high-risk labor and delivery unit, tells the fate of a baby whose 
parents requested an abortion at 20 weeks because the baby had spina 
bifida.
  ``My shift started at 11 o'clock,'' she said, ``and the patient 
delivered her fetus about 10 minutes before I took her as a patient. 
During the time the fetus was alive, the patient kept asking me when 
the fetus would die. For an hour and 45 minutes, the fetus maintained a 
heartbeat. The parents were frustrated and obviously not prepared for 
this long period of time. Since I was the nurse of both the mother and 
fetus, I held the fetus in my arms until it finally expired.''
  Can my colleagues imagine being that nurse or those parents and the 
pain they felt just waiting for that baby to die?
  How often does an abortion fail and a living baby struggle to stay 
alive? No one knows. No one has that information.
  Mr. Speaker, it does seem that abortions fail much more frequently 
than anyone cares to know.
  If an abortion is successful, a dead baby is delivered. But when an 
abortion fails, that means that there is a live baby, a baby is 
delivered alive.
  Mr. Speaker, does a woman still have a right to a dead baby even if 
the abortion fails? These innocent babies have the same God-given 
rights as my colleagues and I do.
  I urge my colleagues to please vote yes in support of this important 
bill.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 4292.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on the 
merits of H.R. 4292, which is erroneously titled ``To Protect Infants 
Who are Born Alive.'' I would challenge my colleagues for what they 
suggest in the title of this legislation, because our country and its 
people are not corrupt and morally bankrupted. Our commitment as 
leaders, parents, grandparents, humanitarians and public servants is 
the support of human life. However there are considerable concerns with 
this bill; I hope it is not done for political purposes.
  What this legislation does is not protect any child that is born 
alive, because there is no law in this nation that would do otherwise. 
What this bill would do if it becomes law is open states and local 
municipalities to the burden of documenting all births of infants 
regardless of their stage of development or opportunity for survival. 
The ultimate result would be a ballooning of the mortality rates of 
infants born in the United States.
  The most important predictor for infant survival is birthweight; 
survival increases exponentially as birthweight increases to its 
optimal level. The nearly twofold higher risk of infant mortality among 
blacks than among whites was related to a higher prevalence of low 
birthweights, to higher mortality risks in the neonatal period for 
infants with birthweights of greater than or equal to 3,000 g, and to 
higher mortality during the postneonatal period for all infants, 
regardless of birthweight. Moreover, the black-white gap persisted for 
infants with birthweight of greater than or equal to 2,500 g, 
regardless of other infant or maternal risk factors.

[[Page H8161]]

  Each year, approximately 40,000 U.S. infants die before reaching 
their first birthday. The 1990 Objectives for the Nation call for an 
infant mortality rate of no more than 12 deaths/1,000 live-born infants 
of any racial group for an overall national infant mortality rate of no 
more than 9 deaths/1,000 live-born infants. In 1986, the infant 
mortality rate was 18.0/1,000 live-born black infants and 8.9/1,000 
live-born white infants. It is thus unlikely that the United States 
will achieve the 1990 objective for black infants, especially since 
black infant mortality rates decreased only 15.9 percent from 1980 to 
1986; to meet the 1990 objective, the rate for these infants would have 
to be reduced by 33.3 percent within the 4 years that remain in the 
period.
  These numbers are already poor when considering the material death 
rate of African-American and Hispanic women and the mortality rate of 
their children when compared to the majority populations. A slowdown in 
the decline of infant mortality in the United States and a continuing 
high risk of death among black infants, twice that of white infants, 
prompted a consortium of Public Health Service agencies, in 
collaboration with all states, to develop a national data base of 
linked birth and infant death certificates for the 1980 birth cohort. 
This project, referred to as National Infant Mortality Surveillance 
[NIMS], provides neonatal, postneonatal, and infant mortality risks for 
blacks, whites, and all races in 12 categories of birthweights. 
Neonatal mortality risk = number of deaths of infants less than 28 days 
of age/1,000 live births; postneonatal mortality risk = number of 
deaths of infants ages 28 days up to 1 year/1,000 neonatal survivors; 
and infant mortality risk--number of deaths of infants less than 1 year 
of age/1,000 live births.
  The language in this legislation is very similar to the 1974 
regulations which was promulgated by the Department of Health and Human 
Services, which outlined the viability of a newborn. It was outlined in 
the regulations that two conditions have to exist are 20 weeks of 
gestation and 500 grams of birth weight to survive. There has not been 
any child born in recorded history that did not have at least these two 
minimums to support the life of a child. One or both can be greater, 
such as a child older than 20 weeks or over 500 grams of birthweight, 
but no child is known to have survived with either of these being lest 
than stated.
  I commend the members of the House Judiciary Committee who have spent 
many hours in debate and discussion on this issue. For this reason, I 
invite them to join me in support of continued increases in funding to 
the National Institute of Health's Child Health and Human Development 
division, which is charged with federal research in the area of infant 
viability. My greatest concern with this legislation is not that it 
will not save the life of a child, but that it would have serious 
implications for the mortality statistics of infants born in our 
Nation. Should this bill become law it may require that states based on 
the language of their own statutes regarding births and deaths may be 
required to collect information on the birth and death of nonviable 
infants born in the conditions that would be defined as ``born alive'' 
under the language of this bill. Finally, I believe that physicians 
will do the appropriate thing for a new born infant with or without 
this law.
  Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the 
Born-Alive Infant's Protection Act of 2000. H.R. 4292 is a critical 
step in protecting human life. In the past, I have spoken of the 
criticality of reversing Roe v. Wade. That horrendous decision has 
given us early abortion of demand, late abortion on demand, partial-
birth abortion, and now its precedent has given us outright 
infanticide.
  Why do we need this legislation? It is needed for the simple reasons 
that live birth abortions are already occurring. It has now become the 
practice in some cases to induce labor, fully deliver a child, and then 
provide no medical treatment, thus resulting in its death. This is live 
birth abortion. This is infanticide. This is sick.
  For our nation to heal, we need to recognize that life is a 
continuum. We won't be able to do this until Roe v. Wade is overturned. 
However, until then, we should at least make absolutely clear that 
children are protected by the law once they are born. This now seems to 
be an unfortunate necessity.
  Mr. Speaker, our forefathers saw fit to found our government in the 
form of a constitutional republic. In doing so, our Founders declared 
in the Declaration of Independence that government existed to secure 
``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Furthermore, our 
Constitution enshrined the principle of equal protection of the laws.
  If there is just simply one thing that this Congress should 
recognize, it is our responsibility to protect the innocent. And, make 
no mistake about it. These children are innocent. To allow for the 
cruel execution, by non-treatment of those children who were delivered 
early by induced labor is to be complicit in infanticide.
  Mr. Speaker, when Roe v. Wade was made the law of the land eminent 
theologians, philosophers, and public servants predicted this was the 
first step on a slippery slope that would affect our concept of the 
value of human life. We have come to see this prediction realized. Mr. 
Speaker, we are no longer on a slippery slope. We have stepped off the 
cliff. Reverse this sickening trend and vote yes on H.R. 4292.
  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4292, 
the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. This legislation codifies in 
federal law that babies born alive are human beings who are legally 
alive with constitutional protections.
  It is important that babies are ensured of this common sense 
protection. In two different instances in my district last year, two 
babies were born after surviving preparatory procedures for a partial-
birth abortion. In one case, the baby received no medical care and 
died. In the other case, the baby received medical care and lived.
  In both cases, the women were planning on having a partial-birth 
abortion at the Women's Med Center of Dayton. This medical clinic is 
one of the few places in the country which preforms this procedure. In 
order to have a partial-birth abortion, a woman must go to the clinic 
about 2 days before the abortion is performed and have her cervix 
dilated as an outpatient. Pregnant women react differently to these 
drugs and in these two instances, the women went into labor and 
delivered their babies prematurely at their local hospitals.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that the article titled, 
``Ohio Baby Survives Abortion Procedure'' which appeared in The 
Washington Times on August 21, 1999, be printed in the Congressional 
Record. This story highlights the details of these two cases in which 
one baby survived and the other died.
  Finally Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to support the Born-
Alive Infants Protection Act to ensure that babies receive legal 
protection and medical care once they are born.

                 Ohio Baby Survives Abortion Procedure

                        (By Joyce Howard Price)

       A premature baby girl is listed in serious but stable 
     condition at an Ohio hospital after surviving preparatory 
     procedures her mother underwent for a late-term abortion--
     reportedly a partial-birth abortion.
       Maureen Britell, government relations director for the 
     National Abortion Federation, yesterday confirmed that a 
     woman gave birth at a Dayton hospital earlier this month 
     after ``experiencing premature labor at home following an 
     earlier cervical dilation'' she underwent at the Women's Med 
     Center, a Dayton abortion clinic.
       The baby in question, born Aug. 4 at Good Samaritan 
     Hospital, was born 25 or 26 weeks into the 40 weeks of a 
     full-term pregnancy, said Mary K. McCelland, spokeswoman for 
     the Montgomery County [Ohio] Children Services Board. The 
     board has temporary custody of the infant.
       ``Her condition is still very tenuous because of her size. 
     She was born several months early . . . and this can lead to 
     a lot of complications,'' Miss McClelland said in a telephone 
     interview yesterday. She was unable to provide the baby's 
     weight but said the child is in an incubator and on a 
     respirator.
       The county has filed for permanent custody of the baby and 
     will make her available for adoption if no one in the 
     mother's family wants her. Miss McClelland said.
       ``The recent birth of this very premature baby . . . 
     appears to be the result of a partial-birth abortion gone 
     awry,'' said Peggy Lehner, executive director of Dayton Right 
     to Life.
       ``The baby . . . escaped the final, fatal stage of the 
     three-day late-term procedure because the mother started into 
     labor before the third day.'' the pro-life leader added.
       Mrs. Lehner said her organization received an anonymous 
     call about the baby's birth when the mother showed up at Good 
     Samaritan Hospital in labor. Mrs. Lehner said she 
     consequently talked with some hospital officials who 
     privately confirmed that the baby survived what was to have 
     been a partial-birth abortion.
       In the two days before such a procedure, a pregnant woman 
     undergoes dilation of her cervix as an outpatient. ``The 
     abortionist inserts a drug into the woman's cervix, which 
     causes it to dilate [and expand]. The woman goes home, or in 
     many cases to a local hotel, during this phase of the 
     procedure. Some women apparently react to this drug much more 
     rapidly than others, and premature labor begins,'' said Mrs. 
     Lehner.
       On the third day, a doctor, using forceps, delivers the 
     baby feet-first, except for the head. The physician then 
     punctures the baby in the back of the neck, suctions out the 
     brains and collapses the skull, killing it.

[[Page H8162]]

       This is, at least, the second time in four months a woman 
     about to undergo a late-term abortion at the Women's Med 
     Center of Dayton has experienced premature labor and 
     delivered a live child. But, in the previous case, which 
     involved a 22-week-old female fetus known as ``Baby Hope,'' 
     born in a Cincinnati hospital, the infant lived for only 
     three hours.
       ``Baby Hope's'' mother had been slated to have a partial-
     birth abortion. And doctors at the hospital elected not to 
     provide her baby with medical care because of her 
     prematurity.
       The Women's Med Center of Dayton is actually the home of 
     partial-birth abortion. Its owner, Dr. Martin Haskell, 
     developed the procedure, which he initially called ``dilation 
     and extraction.''
       Dr. Haskell first described it at a National Abortion 
     Federation convention in 1992. The National Right to Life 
     Committee and other pro-life groups learned of his remarks 
     and quickly spread the word to the media.
       Public outrage over this procedure--which pro-lifers dubbed 
     ``partial-birth abortion'' since it involves killing an 
     already partially delivered child--led Congress and at least 
     28 states to pass legislation banning most such procedures. 
     But the laws have been blocked in 20 of those states as a 
     result of court challenges.
       The ban enacted in Ohio in 1995 was the nation's first. But 
     it was later struck down by a federal judge as being too 
     vague. A rewritten version of the legislation is being 
     considered by the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee.
       And while Congress has twice approved a national ban, 
     President Clinton has twice vetoed it. The federal ban 
     measure was reintroduced in Congress in late April and is 
     expected to be considered in the Senate in October.
       Dr. Haskell testified as an expert witness in a trial 
     resulting from a legal challenge of a partial-birth abortion 
     ban passed in Wisconsin. He said he has performed 
     approximately 2,000 D&X procedures, which he now calls 
     ``intact D&E (dilation and evacuation) abortions.''
       Traditional D&E abortions, the most common type of 
     pregnancy termination during the second trimester, involve 
     dismembering the fetus. Dr. Haskell said he prefers doing the 
     ``intact D&E'' or ``D&X'' procedure after 20 weeks gestation 
     because bones and ligaments become tougher and stronger at 
     that age and are more difficult to pull apart.
       Ohio pro-lifers were shocked to learn that the mother of 
     the premature baby girl now recovering at Children's Medical 
     Center in Dayton was into her 25th or 26th week of pregnancy 
     when the child was born. Dr. Haskell has previously testified 
     he does not do abortions after 24 weeks. And he told the 
     court in the Wisconsin trial he does not perform abortions on 
     viable fetuses.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 4292.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the 
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a 
quorum is not present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 380, 
nays 15, answered ``present'' 3, not voting 35, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 495]

                               YEAS--380

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (FL)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     Kuykendall
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Largent
     Larson
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Ose
     Owens
     Oxley
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pease
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--15

     Carson
     Dingell
     Fattah
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Hastings (FL)
     Jackson (IL)
     Johnson (CT)
     Lee
     Lowey
     Maloney (NY)
     McKinney
     Velazquez
     Waters
     Watt (NC)

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--3

     Hinchey
     Schakowsky
     Slaughter

                             NOT VOTING--35

     Bereuter
     Boehner
     Brown (OH)
     Campbell
     Clay
     Ewing
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Gillmor
     Hall (OH)
     Houghton
     Jones (OH)
     Kilpatrick
     Klink
     Lazio
     Lewis (GA)
     Martinez
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Packard
     Paul
     Pickett
     Porter
     Quinn
     Rogan
     Rush
     Sandlin
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Smith (MI)
     Stark
     Vento

                              {time}  2024

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ changed her vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. OWENS changed his vote from ``present'' to ``yea.''
  So (two-thirds having voted in favor thereof) the rules were 
suspended and the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________