[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 43 (Wednesday, April 17, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1345-H1373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT

  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 388 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 388

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order without intervention of any point of order 
     to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 476) to amend title 
     18, United States Code, to prohibit taking minors across 
     State lines in circumvention of laws requiring the 
     involvement of parents in abortion decisions. The bill shall 
     be considered as read for amendment. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage 
     without intervening motion except: (1) two hours of debate on 
     the bill equally divided and controlled by the chairman and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary; 
     and (2) one motion to recommit.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During the consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for 
purposes of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Committee on Rules met and granted a 
closed rule for H.R. 476, the Child Custody Protection Act. The rule 
waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. It 
provides consideration of H.R. 476 in the House with two hours of 
debate, equally divided and controlled between the chairman and ranking 
minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Finally, the rule provides for one motion to recommit, with or 
without instructions.
  Mr. Speaker, the Child Custody Protection Act is important to any 
parent who has a teenaged daughter. We all hope that our teenaged 
daughters have the wisdom to avoid pregnancy, but if they make a 
mistake, a parent is best able to provide advice and counseling. Also, 
more importantly, the parent knows the child's past medical history.
  For these reasons, my home State of North Carolina, along with 
several other States, requires a parent to know before their child 
checks into an abortion clinic.
  This law is needed because of stories chillingly similar to the story 
of a Pennsylvania mother and the tragic story of her 13-year-old 
daughter.

[[Page H1346]]

  Several years ago, a stranger took Joyce Farley's child out of 
school, provided her with alcohol, transported her out of State to have 
an abortion, falsified medical records at the abortion clinic, and 
abandoned her in a town 30 miles away, frightened and bleeding. Why? 
Because this stranger's adult son had raped Joyce Farley's teenaged 
daughter, and she was desperate to cover up her son's tracks.
  Even worse, this may all have been legal. It is perfectly legal to 
avoid parental abortion consent and notification laws by driving 
children to another State. In fact, many abortion providers in States 
where there are no parental consent laws actually advertise in the 
yellow pages in States where consent laws have been passed. It is 
wrong, and it has to be stopped.
  The Child Custody Protection Act would put an end to this child 
abuse. If passed, the law would make it a crime to transport a minor 
across State lines to avoid laws that require parental consent or 
notification before an abortion.
  Right now, a parent in Charlotte, North Carolina, must grant 
permission before the school nurse gives their child an aspirin. They 
have to call and give permission for their child to have an aspirin, 
but a parent cannot prevent a stranger from taking their child out of 
school and up to Maryland, for instance, for an abortion. It is total 
nonsense.
  So let us do something to protect the thousands of children in this 
country. Let us pass the child custody Protection Act, and put a stop 
to the absurd notion that there is some sort of constitutional right 
for an adult stranger to be able to secretly take someone's teenaged 
child into a different State for an abortion.
  I applaud my friend and colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Ros-Lehtinen), for continuously fighting this fight. I urge my 
colleagues to support this rule and to support the underlying 
legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this closed rule and I oppose 
the bill that underlies it. The Committee on the Judiciary has handed 
us yet once again a bill that is blatantly unconstitutional and will 
never see the light of day because the Senate is not going to touch it.
  The attempt here today is to interfere with the rights of American 
citizens to go from one State line across the other. It is never going 
to work. In addition, and the most surprising thing to me, is by a vote 
of 16 to 12, the rapist or person who commits incest has the right of 
court action if anyone interferes with a pregnancy that he has caused.
  I think I need to say that again. A subcommittee of the Committee on 
the Judiciary voted 12 to 16 to protect the right of a rapist or 
someone committing incest, and give them the right of court action if 
anyone interferes with the pregnancy that they have caused, taking away 
all the rights of the child.
  I want to reiterate again that abortion is legal in the country. To 
prohibit anyone's right to across a State line for a legal purpose in 
the United States is foolish on the face of it, and flies in the face 
of the freedom that we enjoy.
  Are we going to put border crossings at the State lines? Are we going 
to stop people and check their cars and make sure that no minor is in 
there? Are we really willing to put people's grandmother in prison? Are 
we really willing to allow a rapist or someone who commits incest to go 
to court to sue if a pregnancy caused by their action ensues? Surely 
not.
  But this bill, again, in addition to it being terribly bad policy and 
its flagrant unconstitutionality, is closed, so no one could even amend 
it. But frankly, I do not know why anyone would want to. It is hard to 
amend an unconstitutional bill in such a way that we could make it 
constitutional. But we are talking about a fundamental right here, not 
something superficial. This measure tramples that right by imposing 
substantial new obstacles and dangers in the path of a minor seeking an 
abortion.
  It violates the rights of States. And this Congress has gone on 
record time after time after time believing States are far more bright 
than we are. If they should have the right to pass their own laws, this 
tramples on the rights of States to enact and enforce their own laws 
that govern conduct within their own State boundaries.
  The assaults on the Constitution do not stop there. One fundamental 
principle of our Federal system is a State may not project its laws 
onto other States. Every citizen has a right to cross a border into 
another State, and it has been so since the founding of this Republic. 
But we can do it in favor of the laws of the State that we are 
visiting, as long as we do not infringe upon those laws.
  This bill undermines this fundamental principle, saying that young 
women are bound by the laws of their home States, even as they traverse 
the Nation. On the face of it, that is absolutely foolish. Because 
something is legal in New York and illegal in another State, should all 
New Yorkers be allowed to go there and freely fly in the face of a law 
of the other State? Absolutely not. The Supreme Court has consistently 
held that States cannot prohibit the lawful out-of-State conduct of 
their citizens. That is a simple premise simply put, but it is 
absolutely one of the basics of our freedoms. Nor may they impose 
criminal sanctions on that behavior. That has been the law of this land 
for a long, long time, about 200 years, I suspect. This bill does 
exactly that, imposing criminal sanctions on what is literally a 
freedom for a United States citizen.
  As Professor Lawrence Tribe of Harvard Law School and Peter Rubin of 
Georgetown University Center explained, the bill ``. . . amounts to a 
statutory attempt to force the most vulnerable class of young women to 
carry the restrictive laws of their home States strapped to their 
backs, bearing the great weight of those laws like the bars of a prison 
that follows them wherever they go.''

                              {time}  1045

  Why is this body singling out young women for this treatment? I want 
to urge my colleagues to stop for a moment and think what are we doing 
here. We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, but instead we are 
abandoning it, and indeed we are trashing it to satisfy some of the 
most extreme elements of the majority party.
  Moreover, I want my colleagues to take a close look at this bill. As 
noted, it would criminalize the act to bring in the minor across State 
lines to obtain an abortion without parental consent, but the bill does 
not stop there. It goes on to provide prison time for grandparents or 
an adult sibling or members of the clergy who may have tried to help a 
minor obtain medical care and subjects them to civil action by a parent 
who may have raped and impregnated the minor. Even a cab driver, even a 
cab driver who drove this minor is subject to criminal penalty.
  We had one amendment trying to remove that in the Committee on Rules 
and it was not allowed.
  Let me put this another way: The bill allows the father who rapes or 
anybody who is carting this child, rapes or impregnates his minor 
daughter, to sue, to sue for damages. Can my colleagues imagine that? 
Do my colleagues want to go back home and tell people that that is what 
they voted for in the House of Representatives? It locks the victim of 
incest into requiring consent from an incestuous parent. That is the 
quality of the legislation we are considering today and the leadership 
ought to be ashamed.
  Several amendments were offered in the Committee on Rules to address 
some of these egregious provisions, but none were allowed. The closed 
rule is a final slap in the face of our colleagues, and the victims of 
these crimes.
  Vulnerable young women, deserve better. We all want active and 
supportive parents involved in their children's major decisions, but 
many young women have a justifiable fear that they will be physically 
abused if they are forced to disclose their pregnancy to their parent. 
Nearly one-third of minors who choose not to consult their parents have 
experienced violence in the family. Forcing young women in these 
circumstances to notify the parent of their pregnancies may only 
exacerbate the dangerous cycle of violence in these families.

[[Page H1347]]

  This is the cruel lesson of one young Idaho teenager who was shot to 
death by her father after he learned she was planning to terminate a 
pregnancy caused by his act of incest. Shot to death by the man who had 
raped her. Despite our noblest intentions, Congress cannot legislate 
health and family communications.
  The political cynicism this rule embraces today would be comical if 
young women's lives were not at stake. Congress once again is placing 
its political agenda ahead of a woman's ability to have access to safe 
and appropriate medical care.
  As a Member of Congress and mother of three daughters and long-time 
advocate of women's health, I strongly believe that the health of 
American women matter, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on this rule 
and on the underlying bill. Please do not go home and say that we put 
the rights of the rapist or the perpetrator of incest above other 
citizens of the United States and tried to restrict their right to move 
across State lines.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart), who also serves on the Committee on Rules.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The Chair would ask the 
visitors in the gallery to desist from conversations.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend, first of all, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for yielding me the time 
and my dear colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) 
for introducing and shepherding and leading the effort on this 
important legislation.
  When I was listening to my distinguished friend on the other side of 
the aisle, I thought that at times she was referring to another piece 
of legislation. Twenty-seven States require parental notification, 
recognizing the need for parental involvement when daughters face the 
confusing and sometimes frightening reality of an unexpected pregnancy. 
Strangers should not be allowed to deprive parents from the right to at 
least try to protect their daughters from harm by taking these children 
to another State in violation precisely of the State laws that have 
been passed to protect the parents' rights and to try to protect the 
rights of their daughters.
  What this legislation tries to do is to punish those who smuggle 
children across State lines to, in effect, dodge the home State laws 
which are designed to protect the health and safety of children and the 
rights of the parents. In essence, what we are trying to do today with 
this legislation is to protect as much as possible the States' rights 
to have their wishes, as made law by their legislatures, enforced. That 
is, in essence, what we are trying to do.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman).
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter) for yielding the time to me, and I want to commend her on 
her extraordinary testimony. I think no one could have addressed more 
carefully and better the issues underlying this bill than she did. I do 
not want to repeat what she said. I just strongly endorse it and hope 
that our colleagues are listening and will oppose this bill.
  I want to speak personally for just about a minute, Mr. Speaker. I am 
the mother of a 26-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old daughter. I am 
also the mother of a 28-year-old son and a 19-year-old son. I work very 
hard to earn their trust, and I try very hard to provide for them a 
moral framework in which they will make wise choices for their lives.
  When I first learned about this issue some years back, my immediate 
instinct was to oppose the notion that parents could not or should not 
be consulted when a daughter makes a decision about an abortion, not 
just across State lines but in a State. I then consulted my own 
daughters and they said, Mom, we would talk to you, but think about all 
the kids who cannot talk to their parents.
  Our colleague from New York has spelled out those circumstances. They 
are dreadful and shameful, and my view after consulting my own children 
is that for the children of others, we must stop this vicious 
legislation. For children of others, to make sure that in safety they 
can seek out their constitutional right to an abortion in an emergency, 
for the children of others who will seek adult consultation but 
possibly not from dysfunctional or evil parents.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the position of the gentlewoman from 
New York. I urge us to think about the children of others. I urge a no 
vote on this legislation.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).
  Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 476, the Child 
Custody Protection Act.
  Unfortunately, we are hearing lots of dramatic stories about young 
women who may be victims of incest and young women who may be victims 
of other terrible crimes as a motivator for us to prevent what so many 
States think is important and what so many people think is important, 
and that is, that children and their medical care and their guidance be 
in the hands of their parents.
  This bill would simply respect that. It would respect what 43 States 
have already done in requiring parental consent or notification before 
a young woman can receive an abortion. So this is not a dramatic change 
of any kind. In fact, this is something that would respect States' 
rights.
  This bill has nothing to do with consenting adults who have made a 
decision about what to do with a pregnancy. It solely focuses on young 
girls who are the most susceptible to confusion and difficulty of 
making a decision on their own health care and decision about ending a 
pregnancy.
  Most of these young women are not in situations that have been 
presented dramatically to us. As a State senator, I worked on 
legislation in Pennsylvania where parental consent requirements gained 
wide support, and I know that they have obviously gained wide support 
throughout the Nation because of those 43 States with such laws.
  The Child Custody Protection Act would make it a criminal offense to 
transport a child across a State line to avoid parental consent for the 
purpose of having an abortion. That means a person who is not the 
parent is taking a child that is a minor across a State line to violate 
the law basically. I am not sure why anyone would support that, but 
unfortunately, many here today are.
  It is important for us to stand up for families in the United States. 
It is important for us to stand up also for the rights of parents to be 
counselors to their children.
  Some of the opponents have argued that our approach is wrong and 
these young girls who are involved in these tremendous life-altering 
decisions should be taken away from their parents, transported across 
State lines for a very serious medical procedure, without their parents 
notification consent, without any necessarily records of their health 
in the past. This defies all logic. It usurps parents' vital role, and 
I think it is playing a dangerous game with the lives of young girls.
  These girls should not be whisked away from their problems. We should 
not be finding more ways for them to avoid getting help from their 
families. We should be focused on finding ways where we can help them 
and their families.
  This bill would certainly lead us in that direction as 43 of our 50 
States have already gone. It is not for the Federal Government to 
change that.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me the time, and 
let me add my appreciation as well for her very eloquent defense and 
advocacy for issues of choice and particularly her work in the 
Committee on Rules.
  It is interesting that my colleagues speak about States' rights and 
are very apt to involve themselves in the rights of Oregonites who have 
supported euthanasia through State law, but yet the Federal Government 
and Republicans want to intrude upon those State rights.
  On the other hand, in this instance, dealing with an individual's 
probably

[[Page H1348]]

necessity to secure assistance somewhere, the child who may happen to 
be 16 or 17, this legislation that we have today undermines the very 
sense of privacy and the rights of a child to secure help from a 
grandparent, an uncle, an aunt or a sibling who is that child's 
confidante, who is able to take them somewhere to assist them in a 
choice that is intelligently made.
  This has nothing to do with programs that deal with abstinence or 
deal with the issues of not engaging in premarital sex. This is not 
what this legislation is about, and I am very disappointed that the 
Committee on Rules would argue for a closed rule so that those of us 
who had amendments dealing with others who would give advice to our 
young people so that we would not have a murderous condition, a child 
losing their life because of a back room botched circumstance and 
procedure.
  This is absolutely, I believe, without mercy because what it says is 
that if a child has someone that they are able to confide in and they 
can assist them in a very troubling time of their life, to make a 
choice about their body, an intelligent choice, comforted with the 
counsel of their religious person, and that particular individual that 
they have confidence in, they cannot do it.
  This is a bad rule. I hope my colleagues will support the motion to 
recommit, and I would hope that we would be a consistent Congress. If 
we are fighting the Oregonites, and we are overlooking their State 
laws, then why are we now making a Federal law or insisting that we 
have to affirm Federal laws or State laws that intrude on the right to 
privacy?
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield so much time as she may consume to 
the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen). She is the author of 
this legislation and we thank her for that.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, abortion is perhaps one of the most 
life altering and life threatening of procedures. It leaves lasting 
medical, emotional and psychological consequences and is so noted by 
the Supreme Court, particularly so when the patient is immature.
  Although Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, it did not legalize 
the right for persons other than the parent or a guardian to decide 
what is best for our child nor did it legalize the right of strangers 
to place our children in a dangerous situation that is often described 
as being potentially fatal.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. Speaker, my legislation, the Child Custody Protection Act, will 
make it a Federal misdemeanor to transport an underaged child across 
State lines in circumvention of State local parental notification or 
consent laws for the purpose of obtaining an abortion. It is very 
simple.
  Last year in the 106th Congress, I introduced this legislation; and 
it passed the House with a vote of 270 to 159, almost a two-thirds 
majority.
  In the 105th Congress, this legislation also passed with a vote of 
276 to only 150 against. Significant support for this legislation is 
not surprising because according to Zogby International, 66 percent of 
people surveyed believe that doctors should be legally required to 
notify the parents of a girl under the legal age who requests an 
abortion.
  In addition, a 1999 fact sheet created by the Planned Parenthood 
Federation of America, one of the most adamant opponents of my bill 
entitled, ``Teenagers, Abortion, and Government Intrusion Laws'' cites: 
``Few would deny that most teenagers, especially younger ones, would 
benefit from adult guidance when faced with an unwanted pregnancy.''
  Mr. Speaker, few would deny that such guidance ideally should come 
from the teenagers' parents. Parental consent or parental notification 
laws may vary from State to State, but they are all made with the same 
purpose in mind, to protect frightened and confused adolescent girls 
from harm. This historical legislation will put an end to the abortion 
clinics and family planning organizations like Planned Parenthood that 
exploit young, vulnerable, frightened girls by luring them to 
recklessly disobey State laws with advertisements such as the ones that 
we will show later today which shout: ``No parental consent, no waiting 
period.'' The translation: do not worry about your parents. You are a 
mature 13-year-old, and you know best.
  Our society is filled with rules and regulations aimed at ensuring 
the safety of our Nation's youth through parental guidance. At my alma 
mater, Southwest Miami High School, and in many of our schools, a child 
cannot be given an aspirin unless the school has been given consent by 
at least one parent or guardian. In some States, a minor cannot operate 
a vehicle until the age of 18. Most schools require permission to take 
minors on field trips; and in many schools, parents have the ability to 
decide whether or not to enroll their children in sex education 
classes.
  In fact, a student cannot play football, soccer and even a noncontact 
sport such as chess without parental consent. Every one of these 
principles emphasizes that parents should be involved in decisions that 
can seriously affect our children. And the decision of whether or not 
to obtain an abortion, a life-altering, potentially fatal and serious 
medical procedure, should be no exception to these rules. Safety of our 
Nation's youth is precisely why over 20 States in our Nation have 
parental consent or notification laws on their books.
  Most would agree that the violation or circumventing of any law 
should be punished. But by making the circumvention of State parental 
consent and notification laws a Federal misdemeanor, this legislation 
will do more than just uphold the laws of our country. It will give 
back to parents the right to be a parent. It will strengthen family 
bonds; and most importantly, Mr. Speaker, it will ensure that America's 
youth have a safer, healthier and brighter future.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), as well as the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), for their hard work on 
this legislation; and I thank the prolife caucus, the bill's 98 
cosponsors, and all of the organizations which have supported H.R. 476 
and have worked tirelessly to secure consideration today.
  Today, as the House once again votes on this bill, I am hopeful that 
in reflection of the views of most Americans, the Child Custody 
Protection Act will pass once again. Passage of this bill will 
demonstrate our commitment, Congress' commitment to protecting both 
parents and children, and I ask that my colleagues vote in favor of 
this rule and later on for the bill itself.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Nadler).
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, passage of this bill once again by this 
House, which we do every Congress, knowing the Senate will not even 
look at it, will once again demonstrate the conviction of the 
Republican leadership that this is a good subject to exploit 
politically; and that is all it will demonstrate.
  Mr. Speaker, I will not talk too much about the merits of the bill 
right now; I will save that for general debate, but let me say a few 
things.
  I am in my 10th year in the House. My first 2 years there was a 
Democratic majority, and the Republicans used to complain about closed 
rules. How dare the Democrats refuse to allow Republicans, or anybody 
else, to bring amendments to the floor.
  Well, for the last 8 years, the Republicans have refused to allow 
amendments of any note to come to the floor on any bills except 
appropriations bills. Let us take this bill, for example. This bill, 
which ostensibly is designed to protect young women in situations where 
they are being lured across State lines by evil people to get them to 
have abortions without consulting their parents, which is an absurdity, 
but forget that for a moment, there were a number of amendments 
introduced in committee but not permitted on the floor, such as an 
amendment to say this bill should not apply if the person accompanying 
the minor across State lines was doing so because the reason the minor 
was pregnant was because she had been impregnated by her father.
  Picture a situation where the mother is dead and the father is guilty 
of incest and rapes the daughter, and now he refuses permission for her 
to get an abortion, and we are going to prosecute her grandfather or 
her brother or sister for helping her to go to a State which has a more 
enlightened law and allows

[[Page H1349]]

her to get an abortion that she wants because she is 17 years old, and 
she wants an abortion lest she bear a child fathered by her father in 
an act of incestual rape.
  Maybe some people can come up with a reason against this amendment; I 
do not know. There are twisted minds in this world, but not to allow 
that amendment on the floor because they are afraid it will pass, they 
are afraid Members in this House will not have twisted minds and the 
amendment will pass?
  The real purpose of this bill is not to protect women, girls 17, 16 
years old, not to protect them in situations such as I have just 
mentioned, the real purpose of this bill is simply to cut away at the 
right to abortion to the extent possible without falling afoul of Roe 
v. Wade.
  A second amendment not permitted on the floor is the amendment that 
would exempt clergy and grandparents and aunts and uncles from 
accompanying a person. I would simply point out also that even in 
committee the majority refused to allow amendments to be introduced by 
moving the previous question, an almost unheard of procedure.
  Mr. Speaker, what is the Republican majority afraid of?
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would remind the House that the minority does have a 
motion to recommit, as always.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Shimkus).
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution 
and the rule that we have in front of us, and I would like to commend 
the sponsor of the legislation, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-
Lehtinen), for introducing the legislation. I am also proud to be an 
original cosponsor of this legislation.
  This legislation makes it a Federal offense to knowingly transport a 
minor across State lines with the intent to obtain an abortion in 
circumvention of State law and parental consent or parental 
notification law. This legislation is specifically important in my 
district, which lies on the border between Illinois and Missouri, and 
has an abortion clinic nearby that serves people from both sides of the 
Mississippi River.
  The problem is that Missouri has a parental notification law and 
Illinois currently does not. A young woman can cross the border into 
Illinois to have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her 
parents.
  I would like to relay a quick story. This is not a hypothetical 
story. This is a true incident which recently took place in Illinois 
because of Illinois' failure to have a parental notification law in 
place, and reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and I include the 
entire article for the Record.
  In February of this year, a mother from Granite City got a call from 
her daughter's high school that her daughter had not shown up for 
school. After checking with friends, she learned her daughter was at a 
local clinic getting an abortion. The mother quickly ran over to the 
clinic to try to talk to her daughter. The woman was not allowed in the 
clinic to be with her daughter. When she contacted the police to help 
her, they told her there was nothing they could do. Instead, she had to 
sit outside the clinic and wait while her daughter underwent a major 
medical procedure.
  How many Members here today would like to be sitting outside a 
hospital while their child underwent a medical procedure, prohibited by 
law from being next to them, from being able to care for them, from 
holding their hand to ease the pain? Any other operation, any other 
treatment, any other reason for a minor to be in a hospital or clinic 
would require that the parent be present and consulted. But not for an 
abortion.
  We should strengthen and protect the family. We should also protect 
life, the life of the minor child and the life of her unborn child. In 
our Declaration of Independence it states we hold these truths to be 
self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by 
our creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life.
  Mr. Speaker, let us protect life and strengthen families by 
supporting this rule and this legislation.

   Abortion Clinic Blocks Mother From Daughter Inside; Girl Was 16; 
    Granite City Police Say Law Gives No Voice to Parents of Minors

                          (By Colleen Carroll)

       A woman who tried to enter a Granite City abortion clinic 
     to see her 16-year-old daughter last week was stopped by 
     clinic officials and police.
       Granite City Police Chief David Ruebhausen said the woman 
     was seeking entrance to the private Hope Clinic on Thursday 
     morning when she went across the street to the Gateway 
     Regional Medical Center and found one of his officers. 
     Ruebhausen said she asked the officer to help her get inside 
     the clinic. The officer called the station, and he was 
     instructed not to bring the woman into the clinic. ``Parental 
     consent is not necessary,'' Ruebhausen said, explaining that 
     the Illinois abortion law allows minors to undergo abortions 
     without the permission or knowledge of their parents.
       Ruebhausen said such incidents--of parents asking police to 
     help them intervene in abortions or speak with their children 
     who are inside abortion clinics--happen occasionally. But, he 
     said, the law does not allow his officers to intervene on 
     behalf of the parents. The woman could not be reached for 
     comment.
       A group of abortion protesters who were at the clinic 
     Thursday morning said the woman told them that she had 
     received a call from her daughter's high school alerting her 
     to her daughter's absence. The woman then learned from her 
     daughter's friend that her daughter was at the Hope Clinic, 
     said Angela Michael, one of the protesters. Michael said the 
     woman was not allowed into the clinic until several hours 
     after she first requested to see her daughter. ``I just stood 
     there holding her and praying with her,'' Michael said. Hope 
     Clinic executive director Sally Burgess said she would not 
     comment on the cases of specific patients for legal and 
     privacy reasons. She said uninvited visitors rarely come to 
     the private clinic looking for patients during a procedure, 
     ``but it does happen.'' When it does, she said, ``We're going 
     to tell the patient what's going on.'' ``We always encourage, 
     our patients to talk to their parents,'' Burgess said. ``But 
     if the teenager is adamant, we're going to respect her 
     privacy.''

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
in response to the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I know of no Federal law that prohibits a parent from 
being with a child; but if this law passes, a grandparent could 
certainly be prohibited from doing this. Fortunately, we know this 
legislation is not going anywhere.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. 
DeGette), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, this bill is unconstitutional because it 
would restrict the movements of citizens across State lines for legal 
purposes. And I guess the previous speaker said our Constitution says 
all ``men'' are created; some Members do not think that young women 
should have those same rights. I think this bill would be struck down 
by a court for that reason.
  But equally importantly and to the underlying bill, it is terrible 
public policy; and it is an ineffective attempt by Congress to control 
people's lives. Every parent in this Chamber feels the same way about 
his or her children. I also have two daughters. One of them is 12 years 
old, about to be going through the morass of middle school and high 
school. I love my children unconditionally, just like every other 
parent in this country; and when it comes to making big decisions, I 
would hope my children would come to me. I think that they would come 
to me. But sadly, this is not true for every young adult across this 
country. For myriad reasons, thousands of adolescents and young adults 
do not feel that they can turn to their parents with problems like an 
unplanned pregnancy. Victims of incest, victims of rape, child abuse 
victims, they have good reasons why they cannot go to a parent. Of 
course we should encourage teenagers to seek their parents' advice and 
counsel when facing difficult choices about abortion and other 
reproductive health issues. But folks, there is a reality in this 
country, and that reality is sometimes there are desperate kids who we 
need to help from making a bad situation even worse.
  The government cannot mandate open and healthy family communication 
if it does not exist, and the fact of the matter is most young women 
considering an abortion do involve one or both parents. Let me say it 
again. Most young women in this country involve one or both parents 
when making this decision. But not everybody talks to their parents 
because not everybody can. It is these young women who most

[[Page H1350]]

need the advice of a trusted family friend, a minister, a sympathetic 
grandmother.
  When a young woman cannot involve a parent, public policies and 
medical professionals should encourage her to involve a trusted adult 
because the result of laws like this will be deaths from illegal 
abortions and unsafe abortions, and that is wrong.
  Most major medical associations including the American Medical 
Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
the American College of Physicians, and the American Public Health 
Association all have long-standing policies opposing mandatory parental 
involvement laws for this reason.

                              {time}  1115

  Because of the dangers they pose to young women and the need for 
confidential access to physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics 
and Society for Adolescent Medicine oppose this bill. We should, too. 
Oppose the rule. Oppose the bill.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, America is a wonderful and diverse country. 
We have people of every kind living here, who belong to different 
political parties and go to different kinds of churches. Likewise we 
have many kinds of families. But there is one thing just about every 
family has in common. Parents love their children. The job of a parent 
is to raise and nurture his or her child until that child reaches 
adulthood. The way parents do this is by setting rules and making 
decisions that will affect their kids for the rest of their lives. They 
teach values and principles. They teach their kids the difference 
between right and wrong. They teach them manners and pass on their 
faith to them. As a child grows and gets older, mom and dad begin to 
help their teenagers make their own responsible decisions. Eventually, 
when a person turns 18 or so, we treat them as an adult. Even the law 
recognizes that when a person turns 18, they can make their own 
decision about just about everything except perhaps purchasing alcohol. 
This is the way it is. This is the way it should be.
  Mr. Speaker, my wife and I had three wonderful kids who long ago left 
the nest, who are now full grown and responsible adults. When they were 
little my wife and I did our very best to teach our kids the values 
that we had learned, that we had learned from our parents. Our greatest 
desire was that our own kids by the time they left home would be ready 
to make their own choices and not get themselves in trouble. I think 
most parents feel that way. Every parent wants their kids to be able to 
make good decisions. But until they are full grown, they want to be 
there to help them make the hard decision. And, if need be, to step in 
and prevent their son or daughter from making a bad decision they will 
regret for the rest of their lives.
  Sometimes kids get into trouble. That is just the way it is. Parents 
should be there to help them learn the lessons that will keep them from 
getting into trouble again.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not just a parent's right. It is a parent's 
duty. This bill was written to protect that right and that duty.
  As you can see in this advertisement from the Yellow Pages in my 
district, abortion clinics go out of their way to advertise to girls 
that they do not need their parents' permission to have an abortion.
  I am pro-life. We are not here today to debate pro-life versus pro-
choice. We are here today to protect America's families. We are here 
today to guarantee the right of mom and dad to act as the legal, moral 
and ethical guardian of their children.
  I served in the Pennsylvania legislature when we passed this parental 
consent law. In Pennsylvania, we require the consent of one or two 
parents. And in case there is a breakdown between the partners and 
child, we have a judicial bypass where the child can go confidentially 
before a judge to get a decision. This law was designed because of a 
case that occurred in Pennsylvania in 1995. At that time, a 12-year-old 
young girl was impregnated by an 18-year-old male. The mother of that 
boy took the 12-year-old girl to a neighboring State, New York, without 
her parents' consent or knowledge for an abortion, secretly. It is 
outrageous that in America, a stranger who does not know the child or 
her medical history can take that child out of State for a secret 
abortion.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for this important bill and to show the 
moms and dads of America that Congress still knows what it means to be 
a loving, caring family.
  In closing, if you look at the ads, this is taken from the Yellow 
Pages in the State capital of Harrisburg. It says, no parental consent, 
no parental consent. They are doing this in violation of our State law. 
I urge the adoption of the bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 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 this rule 
because it shuts out an opportunity to offer another side of the issue. 
The other side would address what is best for young women.
  In an ideal world, teens talk to their parents if they find 
themselves in trouble. In fact, in an ideal world, our teens would not 
be having sex at all. But let us face it, that is not the world we live 
in. Many teenagers live in a world that is quite the opposite and they 
would do anything not to tell their parents about an unintended 
pregnancy, even if it means putting themselves and their life in 
jeopardy.
  Make no mistake, I strongly support measures that help to foster 
healthy relationships between parents and their children. I would like 
to think that I had that kind of relationship with my own four 
children. But just because I consider myself an approachable parent 
does not give me the right, or anyone else the right, to assume that 
all teens find their parents approachable and understanding. Those out 
there who believe this is a good family-friendly bill are out of touch 
with reality. This bill is not going to encourage teens to talk to 
their parents and it is not going to curb abortion. Rather, this bill 
will encourage young girls who cannot or will not talk to their parents 
to seek unsafe, illegal abortions. For that reason alone, I cannot 
support this bill.
  I urge my colleagues, vote responsibly. Oppose the Child Custody 
Protection Act.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York 
for her leadership in opposition to H.R. 476. I associate myself with 
her remarks.
  One of the most moving experiences of my life was when I met with the 
parents of Becky Bell, a 17-year-old who died from an illegal abortion 
after the passage in her State of parental notification laws. We have 
talked a lot about why children, why girls from families where there is 
violence and it is, according to the AAUW, about a third of the teens 
that do not involve their parents in the decision to make an abortion 
have already been victims of family violence and fear it will recur 
with the news of a pregnancy.
  But I want to talk about the Bell family because this was in many 
ways the ideal family. That is what Karen Bell thought, that they were 
very close with their children, they were a middle-class family, 
everything was going great. She favored parental notification laws 
because she thought certainly Becky, if she had a problem, would come 
to her as she should, and everyone in this Chamber agrees that that is 
the way it should be, that children should go to their loving parents.
  It did not quite happen that way. Becky, because she was so close to 
her parents, felt she could not disappoint them. She would not tell 
them. She ended up having an illegal abortion. As Becky Bell lay dying, 
holding her mother's hand, her mother said, ``Becky, tell mommy what 
happened,'' and she would not. She would not. It was not until the 
death certificate was written, until the doctor said what was the cause 
of Becky's death. Karen would have done anything, paid the fee for her 
to go to another State, paid for the abortion, anything for Becky not

[[Page H1351]]

to be dead. This is the reality of life in too many situations. Again, 
most girls tell their parents. Of course they do. And involve them. The 
vast majority do. We are talking about those who not only cannot 
because of violence, but often who will not.
  The American Medical Association notes that, quote, the desire to 
maintain secrecy has been one of the leading reasons for illegal 
abortion deaths. That is what we are talking about, life and death 
here, that this legislation, as well intended as it may be, is going to 
cause the death of some young women who feel, for one reason or 
another, that they cannot tell their parents.
  We want them to go to a respected adult, to a relative, a grandparent 
and hope that they will and that those adults can provide the guidance 
and the care and take them to a place where legally and safely they can 
have the abortion that they need.
  I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Davis).
  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the 
dangerous implications of H.R. 476. While we wish that every family 
engaged in open communication, we must recognize that the Federal 
Government is unable to mandate it. Studies show, and several speakers 
have mentioned this, well over 60 percent of young women do seek their 
parents' advice when making an abortion decision. But in situations 
where young women do not have supportive home environments or for 
whatever reason they are unable to approach their parents, they do 
often turn to another trusted adult figure, such as a relative or a 
teacher, for assistance. H.R. 476 would make this illegal.
  If enacted, this legislation will require a young woman's State laws 
to travel with her wherever she goes. These laws would be her only 
companion during this stressful time. H.R. 476 may actually harm young 
women by compromising their access to health care services since 
providers would face the burden of determining their patient's State of 
residence and associated laws. Instead of ordering parental 
involvement, we should provide comprehensive reproductive health 
education to enable young people to make these good decisions.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Scott), a member of the committee.
  Mr. SCOTT. I appreciate the time from the gentlewoman from New York.
  Mr. Speaker, I oppose the rule because it allows no amendments. There 
are several amendments that ought to be offered, that we ought to be 
able to consider. The bill prohibits anyone from transporting a minor 
across the State line for the purpose of obtaining an abortion if in 
fact the notification and parental consent laws were not complied with.
  This obviously includes a taxicab driver who knows where the person 
is going by virtue of their address and during the conversation on the 
way before they cross State lines could clearly ascertain that the 
minor is being transported for the purpose of an abortion. He is not 
required to know whether or not the parental consent laws are complied 
with. He would have to ascertain by the fine print in the bill whether 
or not they have been complied with. Otherwise, he will be exposed to 
criminal and civil liability.
  Even if a prosecutor refused to prosecute a taxicab driver for this 
fare, there are civil damages. Even the incest situation that the 
gentlewoman from New York indicated, the parents could sue the taxicab 
driver for civil damages.
  Another is the fact that there is no exception for the health of the 
minor. The Supreme Court, on a number of occasions for the last 30 
years, has said that any antiabortion legislation must have an 
exception for the health of the mother. This does not include a health 
exception. Perhaps with an amendment we could debate this situation but 
because it is a closed rule, we cannot. Because it is a closed rule and 
we cannot debate many important amendments, I oppose the rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I want to remind my colleagues who are probably in their offices, I 
know a lot are in markups and doing other things, that what is before 
us today is a restriction of American citizens to cross State lines, 
not just the case of what they call the minor child, but we are 
restricting the right of a grandparent, a clergy person, any adults, 
brothers, sisters, siblings, even cab drivers the right to carry people 
across State lines.

                              {time}  1130

  It is unheard of. I do not suppose any bill ever passed the House of 
Representatives saying we are going to restrict travel of American 
citizens for legal purposes. That is one of the most important issues 
here. Even when we talk about not being able to amend it, I do not know 
how you could amend it to make it correct, because, on the face of it, 
it is certainly most unconstitutional.
  The second most egregious part of it personally is the fact, as I 
pointed out before, the Committee on the Judiciary by a vote of 16 to 
12 voted to give a rapist or a person who commits incest the right of 
action against the minor child or anyone who tries to help the child 
get an abortion. In other words, protection of his work took precedence 
over the right of that minor.
  There has been a lot of talk about 11- and 12-year-old girls being in 
that situation. Frankly, no 11- or 12-year-old girl should be giving 
birth. If this society allows it or even encourages it, there is really 
some debate we need to have on that.
  The health of young people is very important to this House, and we 
have voted time and time again to try to talk about what we want to do 
for our children. But believe me, if the House of Representatives goes 
on record today saying that rapists and people who perpetrate incest 
have rights of action against anyone trying to help a minor child, and 
if it goes on record today saying that we have the right to restrict 
American travel of American citizens across State lines for legal 
purposes, we will be talked about for years to come as to whether or 
not we are really up to the job that we took when we raised our right 
hand and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill today. I will not call 
a vote on the rule, but this underlying bill is something that is 
really quite remarkable in its unintelligence, and I really urge 
Members to vote ``no'' on it today.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I 
yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on 
the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 388, I 
call up the bill (H.R. 476) to amend title 18, United States Code, to 
prohibit taking minors across State lines in circumvention of laws 
requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions, and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of H.R. 476 is as follows:

                                H.R. 476

       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 ``Child Custody Protection 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. TRANSPORTATION OF MINORS IN CIRCUMVENTION OF CERTAIN 
                   LAWS RELATING TO ABORTION.

       (a) In General.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after chapter 117 the following:

 ``CHAPTER 117A--TRANSPORTATION OF MINORS IN CIRCUMVENTION OF CERTAIN 
                       LAWS RELATING TO ABORTION

``Sec.
``2431. Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws 
              relating to abortion.

     ``Sec. 2431. Transportation of minors in circumvention of 
       certain laws relating to abortion

       ``(a) Offense.--
       ``(1) Generally.--Except as provided in subsection (b), 
     whoever knowingly transports an individual who has not 
     attained the

[[Page H1352]]

     age of 18 years across a State line, with the intent that 
     such individual obtain an abortion, and thereby in fact 
     abridges the right of a parent under a law requiring parental 
     involvement in a minor's abortion decision, in force in the 
     State where the individual resides, shall be fined under this 
     title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
       ``(2) Definition.--For the purposes of this subsection, an 
     abridgement of the right of a parent occurs if an abortion is 
     performed on the individual, in a State other than the State 
     where the individual resides, without the parental consent or 
     notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have 
     been required by that law had the abortion been performed in 
     the State where the individual resides.
       ``(b) Exceptions.--(1) The prohibition of subsection (a) 
     does not apply if the abortion was necessary to save the life 
     of the minor because her life was endangered by a physical 
     disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a 
     life endangering physical condition caused by or arising from 
     the pregnancy itself.
       ``(2) An individual transported in violation of this 
     section, and any parent of that individual, may not be 
     prosecuted or sued for a violation of this section, a 
     conspiracy to violate this section, or an offense under 
     section 2 or 3 based on a violation of this section.
       ``(c) Affirmative Defense.--It is an affirmative defense to 
     a prosecution for an offense, or to a civil action, based on 
     a violation of this section that the defendant reasonably 
     believed, based on information the defendant obtained 
     directly from a parent of the individual or other compelling 
     facts, that before the individual obtained the abortion, the 
     parental consent or notification, or judicial authorization 
     took place that would have been required by the law requiring 
     parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, had the 
     abortion been performed in the State where the individual 
     resides.
       ``(d) Civil Action.--Any parent who suffers legal harm from 
     a violation of subsection (a) may obtain appropriate relief 
     in a civil action.
       ``(e) Definitions.--For the purposes of this section--
       ``(1) a law requiring parental involvement in a minor's 
     abortion decision is a law--
       ``(A) requiring, before an abortion is performed on a 
     minor, either--
       ``(i) the notification to, or consent of, a parent of that 
     minor; or
       ``(ii) proceedings in a State court; and
       ``(B) that does not provide as an alternative to the 
     requirements described in subparagraph (A) notification to or 
     consent of any person or entity who is not described in that 
     subparagraph;
       ``(2) the term `parent' means--
       ``(A) a parent or guardian;
       ``(B) a legal custodian; or
       ``(C) a person standing in loco parentis who has care and 
     control of the minor, and with whom the minor regularly 
     resides,
     who is designated by the law requiring parental involvement 
     in the minor's abortion decision as a person to whom 
     notification, or from whom consent, is required;
       ``(3) the term `minor' means an individual who is not older 
     than the maximum age requiring parental notification or 
     consent, or proceedings in a State court, under the law 
     requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion 
     decision; and
       ``(4) the term `State' includes the District of Columbia 
     and any commonwealth, possession, or other territory of the 
     United States.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of chapters for part I 
     of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to chapter 117 the following new 
     item:

``117A. Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws 
  relating to abortion..........................................2431''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Pursuant to House Resolution 
388, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Nadler) each will control 1 hour.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner).


                             General Leave

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 476.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 476, the Child Custody Protection Act, would make 
it a Federal offense to knowingly transport a minor across a State line 
with the intent that she obtain an abortion, in circumvention of a 
State's parental consent or notification law. Violation of the law 
would be a Class One misdemeanor, carrying a fine of up to $100,000 and 
incarceration for up to 1 year.
  H.R. 476 has two primary purposes: the first is to protect the health 
and safety of young girls by preventing valid constitutional State 
parental involvement laws from being circumvented. The second is to 
protect the rights of parents to be involved in the medical decisions 
of their minor daughters.
  There is widespread agreement that it is the parents of a pregnant 
minor who are best suited to provide her counsel, guidance and support 
as she decides whether to continue her pregnancy or undergo an 
abortion. A total of 43 States have enacted some form of a parental 
involvement statute. Twenty-seven of these States currently enforce 
statutes that require a pregnant minor to either notify her parents of 
her intent to obtain an abortion or to obtain the consent of her 
parents prior to obtaining an abortion. As these numbers indicate, 
parental involvement laws enjoy widespread public support as they help 
to ensure the health and safety of pregnant young girls and support 
parents in the exercise of their most fundamental right, that is, of 
raising their children.
  Despite this widespread support, the transportation of minors across 
State lines in order to obtain abortions is, unfortunately, a 
widespread and frequent practice. Even groups opposed to this bill 
acknowledge that large numbers of minors are transported across State 
lines to obtain abortions, in many cases by adults other than their 
parents.
  Following the 1994 enactment of Pennsylvania's parental consent law, 
abortion clinics in New Jersey and New York saw an increase in 
Pennsylvania teenagers seeking to obtain abortions. This is not a 
surprise, because just prior to Pennsylvania's law going into effect, 
counselors and activists in Pennsylvania met to plot a strategy to make 
it easier for teenagers to travel to neighboring States for abortions.
  In one disturbing case, the operator for the National Abortion 
Federation's toll-free national abortion hotline went so far as to talk 
a Richmond, Virginia, area teenage girl through a travel route so that 
the girl could obtain an abortion in the District of Columbia.
  This conduct is only aided by the dubious practices of many abortion 
clinics located in States lacking parental involvement laws. To gin up 
business, some clinics even advertise in the Yellow Pages directories 
distributed in nearby States that require parental involvement, 
advising young girls that they can obtain an abortion without parental 
consent or notification. Such ads only serve to lure young girls 
residing in States with parental involvement laws to these clinics, 
thus denying parents the opportunity to provide love, support and 
advice to their daughter as she makes one of the most important 
decisions of her life.
  When confused and frightened young girls are assisted in and 
encouraged to circumvent parental notice and consent laws by crossing 
State lines, they are led into what will likely be a hasty and 
potentially ill-advised decision. Often, these girls are being guided 
by those who do not share the love and affection that most parents have 
for their children. In the worst of circumstances, these individuals 
have a great incentive to avoid criminal liability for their conduct 
given the fact that almost two-thirds of adolescent mothers have 
partners older than 20 years of age.
  Parental notice and consent laws reflect the State's reasoned and 
constitutional conclusion that the best interests of a pregnant minor 
are served when her parents are consulted and involved in the process. 
States are free to craft their own parental notice and consent laws to 
allow a minor to consult a grandmother or other family member in lieu 
of parents, and a few States have in fact made such a choice. Most, 
however, have chosen not to allow close relatives to serve as 
surrogates for parents in the abortion context. If a young girl's 
circumstances are such that parental involvement is not in her best 
interests, grandparents and close relatives are free to assist the girl 
in pursuing a judicial bypass. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court 
has required judicial bypass procedures to be included in the State's 
parental consent statute.
  As the U.S. Supreme Court has stated: ``The natural bonds of 
affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their 
children.'' The decision to obtain an abortion is, as the Court also 
stated, ``a grave decision, and a girl of tender years under emotional 
stress

[[Page H1353]]

may be ill-equipped to make it without mature advice and emotional 
support.''
  In light of the widespread practice of circumventing validly enacted 
parental involvement laws by the transportation of minors across State 
lines, it is entirely appropriate for Congress, with its exclusive 
constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, to enact the 
Child Custody Protection Act.
  This Chamber has twice approved this legislation, each time by an 
overwhelming majority. I encourage my fellow Members to again provide 
parents with this much-needed support and approve this important 
legislation.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to a bill which will have a 
catastrophic and cruel impact on young women and on the adults who care 
for them.
  I think every Member of this House believes that a young woman with 
an unintended pregnancy should make any decision about what to do in 
that very difficult situation with her parents in the warm, loving 
environment of her family. In fact, in the majority of cases, that is 
precisely what happens.
  Ideally, young women would not get pregnant at all. Ideally, they 
would not get raped by their fathers or step-fathers or boyfriends or 
mothers' boyfriends. Ideally, they would make mature and thoughtful 
decisions about when to become sexually active and to practice safe sex 
all the time, if they must practice sex at all. Ideally, all methods of 
birth control would be 100 percent effective. Ideally, when 
contemplating an abortion, young women would be able to confide in a 
loving parent who would assist them in making the right decision.
  Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world; and Congress cannot 
legislate ideal circumstances where they do not exist.
  Because we do not live in an ideal world, young women do get raped. 
Young women are the victims of incest. Young women often lack the 
maturity to make sensible judgments about sexuality. Young women often 
do not know how to avoid pregnancy, thanks in large part to the 
mindless resistance on the part of many of their elders to sex and 
contraception education. And sometimes they get pregnant, and they fear 
they cannot go to their parents without fear of violence.
  This bill is not about strangers, as its supporters argue. This bill 
would make a criminal out of any caring adult who tried to help a young 
woman: a grandparent, an adult brother or sister, a clergy member, an 
aunt or an uncle. It would also allow a father who had raped his 
daughter to sue in law anyone who helped her deal with the consequences 
of his crime, because, in the words of this bill, his rights had been 
violated. Never mind that he raped the daughter and created the problem 
in the first place.
  There are times when, in wishing for an ideal world, the murderous 
angels of our better nature do more harm than good. This legislation is 
a perfect example of that human failing. It does not make the problem 
go away. It does not provide assistance to these young women. It only 
makes it more likely that a 15- or 16- or 17-year-old girl will have to 
face the consequences of her elders' wrongdoing alone. There is no 
moral or reasonable justification for doing that.
  We are told that States are required to have a judicial bypass 
available to a young woman who feels she cannot go to her parent, that 
a judge in those circumstances will exercise the judgment and permit 
her to have an abortion if the circumstances so indicate. The Supreme 
Court has required such a provision in State parental consent laws.
  But the fact is, and this is no secret, in many communities the so-
called judicial bypass is a sham. Judges with a strong ideological or 
religious opposition to the constitutional right to choose often simply 
will not grant that permission. In some small communities, the judge 
may know the parents, may know the young woman, or may even be her 
teacher or some other authority figure in her life.
  To say that the judicial bypass will cure any ill parental consent 
laws may create is to ignore the realities of life; it is to pretend we 
live in an ideal world and to let these young women suffer the 
consequences when reality turns out to be more unpleasant.
  We are also told that by going to court the police will become 
involved in any case of rape or incest. The reality is not nearly so 
simple. Seeking a judicial bypass does not mean the court will believe 
the young woman or involve the authorities. Sometimes knowing the 
authorities will become involved is enough to scare the young woman 
away from going to court in the first place. Of course, a counselor at 
a clinic may be better able to involve the authorities in a manner that 
is helpful and non-threatening to the young woman than is a judge who 
may suspect that a teenager is lying in order to get the abortion that 
she wants. Judicial bypass procedures neither guarantee, nor does its 
absence preclude, the involvement of the authorities.
  As in the past two Congresses, we had hoped to offer amendments to 
make this unyielding legislation just a little more humane. We wanted 
to exempt grandparents, for example, so that if dad rapes the daughter 
and the mother is not coping with reality or is perhaps not alive, 
mom's mother can step in and take care of her granddaughter without 
facing a stretch in the Federal penitentiary and the threat of getting 
sued by the rapist. Unfortunately, even that modest effort to provide 
some ability for some adult close to the young woman to help her proved 
too much for the Republican majority, which will go to any lengths, no 
matter who gets hurt, no matter whose life is ruined, no matter who has 
to die, to pander to the extreme fringe of the anti-choice radicals.
  Well, being pro-life and pro-family should mean caring about what 
happens to real people facing real and tragic crises. This bill is 
evidence, if such evidence is needed, that there are Members of this 
House who do not care if a young woman must face the most difficult 
moment of her life alone, even, as has been the case in the past, she 
must die to prove the majority's political bona fides.

                              {time}  1145

  She must die to prove the majority's political bona fides.
  I would note one other thing. Quite a few States, my own State of New 
York included, have refused to enact, to enact parental consent laws. I 
was a member of the State legislature when we considered such 
legislation, and I can tell my colleagues that we rejected that law, 
that bill, because the realities of these situations convinced us that 
it would do more harm than good.
  Now comes the party of States' rights in Federalism to tell us that 
they do not care what the people of our State think, they do not care 
what the legislature of New York and other States think, they are going 
to subject people who come to New York to the laws of their own States. 
They want to enact the 21st century version of the Fugitive Slave Act. 
They want to tell young women that they are the property, the property 
of their home States, and that they carry the laws of their home States 
on their backs if they go to another State which has a different view, 
and that they may not engage in perfectly legal activity if the law of 
the State from which they came makes it illegal there. This is 
unprecedented in any real way in American law, except for the Fugitive 
Slave Act.
  In the Fugitive Slave Act, we told South Carolina that she could 
reach out her hand to people, to slaves who had fled from North 
Carolina and gone to New York or Pennsylvania where freedom prevailed 
and said no, you are not free under the laws of Pennsylvania and New 
York, you must carry the law of South Carolina with you and the people 
up in New York must drag you back to slavery. This bill says if a young 
woman, with the help of some friend or adult who wants to help her goes 
to another State, she is not free to have an abortion if she wants, if 
the law of that State permits it, because we will permit the law of the 
other State from which she came to follow her, to reach out the long 
hand of the other State and say, wherever you go, you are the property 
of this State.
  We say, you cannot get the liberty to have the abortion you want in 
the other State that says you can, because we are going to drag you 
back and punish anyone who helped you go to that other State.
  What kind of liberty is this? What kind of Federalism is this?

[[Page H1354]]

  This is not only unconstitutional, it is an affront to the dignity 
and decency of every citizen of this country. It is an affront to the 
people of every State who have chosen not to enact the law that the 
majority wants to impose on them. If this Congress succeeds in doing 
this, it means that any State in the future will be able to reach 
across the country and control the lives of people in other States whom 
they own because they came from those States. It means that if you live 
in one State, even if you leave it and engage in a perfectly legal 
activity in another State, that first State can still punish you in 
that State.
  There is nothing more offensive to the idea that we are a free people 
who can go wherever we want without the permission of the government, 
and help our neighbors, and follow the law than this bill. This is the 
third time we have considered this bill. Thankfully, it has never 
gotten close to passage by the other body. Despite the iron fist that 
rules this House and suppresses free debate and free ideas by not 
allowing amendments on the floor, I trust that this is the third time 
that the Congress disposes of this issue without sending it to the 
President.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New York, my friend, has gotten 
carried away in referring to this bill as the 21st century version of 
the Fugitive Slave Act. First of all, let it be plain. This bill only 
involves a minor crossing State lines in order to evade a parental 
involvement statute. Nobody over the age of 18 is caught in by this 
bill whatsoever.
  Secondly, since Roe v. Wade, abortion has been legal in every State 
in the country, so it is not a way to shut off access to abortions in 
any State. That has been settled law since Roe v. Wade. But the Supreme 
Court has also said that as long as there is a judicial bypass, 
parental involvement statutes are legal. So what is wrong with keeping 
the parents involved when a decision is made to give an abortion to a 
minor when the parents, by law, have to be involved when a doctor 
treats that minor for a hang-nail?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Chabot).
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, I will address 
some of the Constitution issues and the legal issues relative to H.R. 
476.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 476, The Child Custody Protection Act, is a 
regulation of interstate commerce that seeks to protect the health and 
safety of young girls, as well as the rights of parents, to be involved 
in the medical decisions of their minor daughters, by preventing valid 
and constitutional State parental involvement laws from being 
circumvented. As such, it falls well within Congress's constitutional 
authority to regulate the transportation of individuals in interstate 
commerce.
  There is a solid body of case law which confirms that the authority 
of Congress to regulate the transportation of individuals in interstate 
commerce is no longer in question. Particularly instructive is the Mann 
Act, which flatly prohibited the interstate transportation of women for 
``prostitution'' or for ``any other immoral purpose.'' Upholding the 
Act, the Supreme Court held that under the commerce clause, ``Congress 
has power over transportation `among the several States,' '' and 
characterized this power as being ``complete in itself,'' and further 
held that incident to this power, Congress ``may adopt not only means 
necessary,'' but also means ``convenient to its exercise,'' which ``may 
have the quality of police regulations.''
  Congress's commerce clause authority to enact H.R. 476 is not placed 
in question by the fact that it seeks to prohibit interstate activities 
that might be legal in the State to which the activity is directed. 
Application of the Mann Act has been upheld in the transportation of a 
person, for example, to Nevada, even though prostitution in Nevada is 
legal. And Federal prohibitions on the transportation of lottery 
tickets in interstate commerce as well as placing letters or circulars 
concerning lotteries in the mail, regardless of whether lotteries are 
legal in the State to which the tickets are transported, have also been 
upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
  Rather than exercising its full authority under the commerce clause 
by simply prohibiting the interstate transportation of minors for 
abortions without obtaining parental notice or consent, H.R. 476 
respects the rights of the various States to make these often 
controversial policy decisions for themselves, and ensures that each 
State's policy aims regarding this issue are not frustrated. Nothing in 
H.R. 476 affects the ability of minors residing in States that have 
chosen not to enact a parental involvement law, or where a parental 
involvement law is currently not in force, from obtaining an abortion 
without the knowledge of their parents. Thus, it will not supersede, 
override, or in any way alter existing State parental involvement laws.
  Opponents argue that H.R. 476 violates the rights of residents of 
each of the United States and the District of Columbia to travel to or 
from any State of the Union for lawful purposes. First, it does not 
appear that the Supreme Court has ever held that Congress's power to 
regulate interstate commerce is limited by the right to travel. Even 
assuming, however, that Congress's authority under the Interstate 
Commerce Clause is limited by the right to travel doctrine, the Supreme 
Court recognized in Saenz v. Roe that the right to travel is ``not 
absolute,'' and is not violated, so long as there is a ``substantial 
reason for the discrimination beyond the mere fact that they are 
citizens of other States.''
  Congress obviously has a substantial interest in protecting the 
health and well-being of minor girls and in protecting the rights of 
parents to raise their children.
  In upholding the constitutionality of parental notice and consent 
statutes, the United States Supreme Court has consistently recognized 
that ``during the formative years of childhood and adolescence, minors 
often lack the experience, perspective and judgment to recognize and 
avoid choices that could be detrimental to them.'' Based upon this 
reasoning, the court has allowed the States to enact laws that 
``account for children's vulnerability'' and to protect the unique role 
of parents. Thus, ``legal restrictions on minors, especially those 
supportive of the parental role, may be important to the child's 
chances for the full growth and maturity that make eventual 
participation in a free society meaningful and rewarding.''
  Opponents of H.R. 476 also contend that its criminal intent 
requirement renders it unconstitutional. However, the bill's 
requirement that defendants ``knowingly'' transport a minor with the 
intent that the minor obtain an abortion prevents H.R. 476 from acting 
as a strict liability law. Although H.R. 476 does not require 
defendants to be aware that the conduct is criminal, a mens rea 
requirements still exists, since the defendant must intend or know what 
he or she is doing in a physical sense, apart from any knowledge as to 
its legality.
  Furthermore, as the court has stated, ``The State may, in the 
maintenance of a public policy, provide that he who shall do particular 
acts shall do them at his peril and will not be heard to plead in 
defense good faith or ignorance.''
  A stranger that secretly takes a minor across State lines for a 
dangerous medical procedure without ascertaining her parents' consent 
is certainly aware that he or she has acted, in some measure, wrongly. 
By finding the transporter liable when he ``in fact'' abridges a State 
law, H.R. 476 puts the transporter under a duty to ascertain parental 
permission before action is taken in order to guard against a possible 
violation.
  At the heart of the debate surrounding the Child Custody Protection 
Act is a disagreement about whether common sense legislation should be 
enacted in order to preserve the health of pregnant young girls and 
support parents in the exercise of their most basic right. This debate 
has already been held in almost all of the Nation's State legislatures, 
43 of which have reasonably concluded that parents should be involved 
in these decisions by their minor daughters. These laws have been 
validly enacted and Congress is well within its authority to ensure 
that the channels of interstate commerce are

[[Page H1355]]

not used to frustrate the policy goals of these laws.
  Thus, I urge my colleagues to support American families and vote in 
favor of this important bill.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this debate is not really about the parental consent, 
parental notification laws; those debates occur in State legislatures. 
This debate is whether Congress should attempt to give the power to 
one's State to export its law to another State by criminalizing 
crossing the State line to do something that is legal in that State 
with respect to abortion, and that, that is what makes this the 21 
century Fugitive Slave Law, because the philosophy of the bill is we 
can control what our young people do wherever they do it, not in this 
State, but elsewhere. We can criminalize anyone helping to do something 
elsewhere.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) says criminal intent can be 
inferred, we know that. Well, the fact is, in some cases, it can. But 
let us assume that someone crosses the New York-Pennsylvania border, 
not necessarily because they want to cross a border, but simply because 
the nearest town with a clinic happens to be across the State border. 
The lines on the map are not lines on the street in front of you. You 
go to the nearest town, you help your young friend, your niece, your 
granddaughter, and it will be criminal, even if you had no intent to 
cross the State line, you were not even thinking about the States; it 
just happens that the nearest town is across the State line.
  I would also like to ask the gentleman from Ohio to yield for a 
question, if he would, on my time. I will ask the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Chabot) a question, and then I will yield. The bill said, except 
as provided in subsection B, whoever knowingly transports an 
individual, et cetera, et cetera. What does the bill mean by transport? 
I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, could the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Nadler) repeat the question?
  Mr. NADLER. What does the bill mean by the word ``transport''? 
Whoever knowingly transports an individual under 18, et cetera.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield on his time?
  Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, ``transport'' would be to take a person 
across a State line for the purpose of an abortion. It would not 
include a taxi cab driver, for example, if the taxi cab driver was not 
involved in a conspiracy to transport that person across the State 
line.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I did not ask what 
``knowingly'' means, I asked what ``transport'' means. So in other 
words, if you take this person across State lines; now, what if she is 
17 years old and she is driving, you are just accompanying her and 
holding her hand. Are you transporting her? I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. CHABOT. Will the gentleman yield on his own time?
  Mr. NADLER. Yes.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, if the person has knowledge and conspires to 
transport a minor across the State line----
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Ohio 
is not answering the question. Forget the knowledge question. Let us 
assume he has the knowledge. Transport. If the young 17-year-old woman 
who has a driver's license who wants to get an abortion asks her friend 
or her uncle or her aunt or her grandparent to accompany her, and she 
is driving, are they ``transporting'' her, under the meaning of this 
bill?

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the 
gentleman says ``she is driving.'' Who is he referring to?
  Mr. NADLER. The 17-year-old who wants the abortion.
  Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman is saying if the person who is going to get 
the abortion is driving the vehicle, would they themselves be 
responsible?
  Mr. NADLER. No, would the person sitting in the seat next to them 
holding their hand be responsible?
  Mr. CHABOT. If the gentleman will yield further, if a person is 
involved in a conspiracy to transport a person across State lines for 
the purpose of obtaining an abortion, and is doing that in violation of 
a parental notification law and is not the parent, then they would be 
involved and they would be responsible.
  Whether it is a person accompanying, in my opinion, a person just 
accompanying would not be criminally responsible.
  Mr. NADLER. So, in other words, the person, if a 17-year-old minor 
who wants to get an abortion asks her grandfather or her uncle or her 
brother or her friend who is 18 to accompany her across the State line 
to get the abortion, but she is driving, nobody has committed a crime? 
Is that what the gentleman is saying?
  Mr. CHABOT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, the gentleman 
needs to read the language that is in the statute.
  Mr. NADLER. I have read the language.
  Mr. CHABOT. The language indicates if a person transports a person 
across the State line, then that person is responsible. It depends upon 
the level of their involvement.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman, I am not asking 
the level of their involvement. But reclaiming my time, the bill seems 
to indicate the opposite. Normally, when we say ``transport,'' if I 
transport a box, I am driving the car and the box is on the seat or in 
the trunk. If I transport a person, I am driving the car, the person is 
in the car with me.
  My question is, if the person who wants to get the abortion, who is 
17 years old and has a driver's license, is driving the car across the 
State line and she has asked someone to go along with her and he knows 
the purpose, is that person guilty of transporting? Is that person 
guilty of knowingly transporting her?
  The plain language of English would seem to indicate he is not 
transporting; she is.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield again, since I 
have answered it four times, I would like to read the bill. The bill 
clearly says, ``Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly 
transports an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years 
across a State line, with the intent that such individual obtain an 
abortion, and thereby in fact abridges the right of a parent under a 
law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, in 
force in the State where the individual resides, shall be fined under 
this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.''
  Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, I can read the bill, too.
  Mr. CHABOT. I would suggest that the gentleman do that.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, my point is, whoever 
knowingly transports. If the person who is getting the abortion is 
doing the driving, she is transporting. She is not subject to this 
bill. The person sitting next to her is not transporting her, under the 
plain English language.
  I have read the definitions in the bill. There are definitions in 
this bill of other terms, but not of the term ``transport.'' The plain 
English meaning is that if she is driving, no one is transporting her. 
She is transporting herself. So what this bill does is criminalize 
someone going with her, depending on who is at the steering wheel.
  Now, I do not think that was the intent of the law, of the bill, but 
I think it is the clear meaning of the bill. I think it is just one 
more instance of how sloppily drafted, of necessity, this bill has to 
be because of the nature of it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), the principal author of the bill.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, when asked, should a person be able to 
take a minor girl across State lines to obtain an abortion without her 
parents' knowledge, 85 percent of Americans answered no in a recent 
poll conducted by Baselice and Associates. Whether pro-choice or pro-
life, Americans agree that an abortion can leave

[[Page H1356]]

behind physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological consequences.
  Yet, advocates of the abortion industry continue to think that in the 
name of Roe v. Wade, parents need not be involved in a female's 
decisions, regardless of the fact that she may be a 12- or 13-year-old 
vulnerable, frightened, and confused young girl.
  Where is the outrage on mass-marketed Yellow Pages advertisements 
such as the one right here to my side, which clearly solicits business 
from young, confused girls, shouting out ``no parental consent''? These 
are from the Yellow Pages.
  Why is it that some of our opponents are instead outraged by 
cigarette ads which some say target minors? Do opponents of this bill 
not believe that a child is not mature enough to choose not to smoke, 
but is mature enough to choose to have a potentially fatal, invasive 
surgical procedure?
  The ads cry out, ``Come over here. No parental consent.'' And it is a 
procedure, as we know, that has been linked to breast cancer, medical 
complications, and that has left many women barren for the rest of 
their lives. I call this hypocrisy.
  It is parents who are aware of their daughter's medical history. They 
know the ways in which she may react to stressful situations, and they 
are best equipped to provide the necessary counseling and guidance. My 
bill, the Child Custody Protection Act, protects the inherent rights of 
parents, and upholds and enforces existing State laws without creating 
a parental Federal consent or notification mandate.
  If parents have the right to decide a child's curfew and the right to 
grant permission for a date, they should certainly be enabled to 
exercise their inherent rights when making a life-impacting decision 
about a serious, complicated, and potentially life-threatening 
procedure. It defies common sense to remove parents from any medical 
decisions concerning their children, but especially one that has life-
long consequences, such as an abortion.
  I urge my colleagues to give parents the right to protect and care 
for their own children. Let us enable children to receive the guidance 
they need and deserve. I urge my colleagues to vote for passage of H.R. 
476, the Child Custody Protection Act.
  I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) for his 
leadership on this issue.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker, the gentlewoman from Florida, 
showed us the horrible example of a perfectly legal ad in the Yellow 
Pages offering perfectly legal services in a State where it is legal to 
do so, as if there were something terrible about that.
  I do not think it is terrible, I think it is praiseworthy. The fact 
is, there are many young women under the age of 18, maybe 17, maybe 16, 
who cannot go to their parents; who desperately need an abortion and 
cannot go to their parents for fear of violence or whatever. This ad 
says, ``You can have help here.'' Nothing wrong with that.
  Many young women justifiably feel they would be physically or 
emotionally abused if forced to disclose their pregnancies to their 
parents, unfortunately. Nearly one-third of minors who choose not to 
consult with their parents when contemplating an abortion have 
experienced violence in their family, or feared violence, or feared 
being forced to live at home.
  We know of the case of Spring Adams, an Idaho teenager who was shot 
to death by her father, shot to death after he learned she was planning 
to terminate a pregnancy caused by his acts of incest with her. Do 
Members think she could have gone to him?
  And we know that judges often will not grant permission to have an 
abortion because of their own personal opinions. One study found that a 
number of judges in Massachusetts either refused to handle abortion 
petitions, or focus inappropriately, inappropriately under the law, on 
the morality of abortion, which is none of their business to determine, 
except for themselves, because their duty is to exercise the judicial 
bypass guaranteed by the law of that State.
  The American Medical Association has noted that because the need for 
privacy may be compelling, minors may be driven to desperate measures 
to maintain the confidentiality of their pregnancies. The desire to 
maintain secrecy against the parental notification and consent laws has 
been one of the leading reasons for illegal abortion deaths, deaths, 
since 1973. That is what we are dealing with here, young women who are 
so fearful of telling their parents, for whatever reason, that they 
would rather have a coat hanger abortion and have died as a result.
  When the Subcommittee on the Constitution held hearings on this bill, 
we heard from an Episcopal priest, the Reverend Katherine Ragsdale, the 
vicar of St. David's Episcopal Church, who discussed the actual case of 
a 15-year-old girl who had been raped and had become pregnant. She 
could not go to her father, who would throw her out of the house, and 
she had no other family to turn to. Of course, if she did, this 
legislation would place those other relatives in legal jeopardy if they 
helped her.
  Though they did not cross State lines, the Reverend Ragsdale drove 
the young woman to an abortion clinic, rather than allowing her to 
travel several hours alone by bus to and from the procedure. This is an 
act of kindness, not a criminal act. Reverend Ragsdale movingly 
described the pastoral counseling she provided to the young woman 
during the drive. This bill would make criminals of clergy providing 
this sort of pastoral care and guidance.
  Reverend Ragsdale's observations at the subcommittee are worth 
repeating: ``Mr. Chairman, you talked about all the reasons it is 
important for a girl to have parental involvement before a medical 
procedure, and you are absolutely right. If I thought that this bill 
would accomplish parental involvement, if I thought it would eliminate 
the kind of pain Ms. Roberts spoke about, this panel would be even more 
unbalanced than it is, because I would be on the other side.
  ``But it won't do that. This bill is not about resolving problems, 
this bill is about punishing people. While I understand that even the 
best of us have punitive impulses from time to time, we have no 
business codifying them in law. They are venal. They are beneath the 
dignity of any member of the human family.''
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority whip.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, the Child Custody Protection Act is such a needed and 
necessary step because it closes a destructive loophole in parents' 
rights to protect their children from that lasting physical, 
psychological, and spiritual consequence that is caused from abortion.
  As things stand today, the abortion industry actually uses ``No 
parental consent required'' as a marketing tool within neighboring 
States that empower parents to protect their children from abortions by 
requiring their prior approval. That is not just wrong, it is immoral.
  The CCPA simply makes the act of transporting a minor across the 
State line for the purpose of performing an abortion a Federal offense. 
It places parents back in charge of their children, and it issues a 
warning to those who would actually insert themselves between parents 
and their daughters to encourage the single most horrendous and 
emotionally devastating mistake that young women are tragically 
permitted to make.
  We know well that parents are in the best position as observers to 
counsel and advise their own daughters. The CCPA places those parents 
back in charge by closing a secret loophole. That loophole facilitates 
the anonymous destruction of innocent life, and it creates the lasting 
trauma that haunts every young girl who ends her baby's life.
  I just beg the Members to vote yes on this bill.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
ranking member for yielding time to me. I thank him for his voice, and 
I am saddened that we have this debate. The reason is because I believe 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are

[[Page H1357]]

concerned about family and children and relationships.
  I know, Mr. Speaker, that it is difficult for me to convince many of 
my colleagues on my view of the ninth amendment of the Constitution and 
the right to privacy and choice. I am an advocate of choice, but as I 
say that, I am an advocate of life. I encourage, in instances of the 
private decisions of a woman, that that woman has the right to make a 
choice with respect to her body between herself, her family members, 
and her spiritual leader.
  This is a somewhat different debate. This legislation is called ``the 
Child Custody Protection Act.'' It is a constitutional debate, because 
privacy is still an element, it is still an element of States' rights. 
It is interesting that my colleagues can come to the floor in one 
instance and promote up the value and the high virtues of States' 
rights, but at the very same time, we had a debate some few years ago 
in the same subcommittee on attacking various desegregation busing 
orders in various States, where we were trying as a Congress, the 
Republican majority, to eliminate those busing plans.
  We have over and over again gone over legislation to deal with the 
rights of Oregon citizens who have themselves voted over and over again 
that they wish to make a decision, a personal decision, on their right 
to die.
  I call that, if you will, the conflict of values and the conflict of 
standards in this House: What is good for the goose is not good for the 
gander. My way or the highway is the mentality of those who would ask 
us to not have legislation like this that would be sufficiently and 
openly bipartisan.

                              {time}  1215

  How do I say that? Many amendments were offered to suggest that 
teenagers who have come upon difficult times might find the need to 
consult with others other than a parent who would have been accused of 
incest or rape or that there might be instances of health issues that 
would be necessary for this particular teenager, possibly 16 or 17 
years old, to consult with someone else.
  The Republican majority had a closed rule and then again we come to 
the floor without giving this legislation a chance that it could have 
had with a bipartisan approach.
  Let me cite for my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, possibly a startling 
number. More than 75 percent of minors under 16 years old already 
involved one or both parents in their decision to have an abortion.
  It is really the obligation of Congress to confront a crisis. I know 
that we have differences on this question of choice. I will never get 
some of my good friends and colleagues to agree with me on this issue, 
and let me make it clear that I know that they fall on both sides of 
the aisle, but if we had worked on this legislation for the good of the 
child, to protect the child against rape and the incest that comes from 
a parental situation sometimes, if we had looked at the numbers and 
noted that more than 75 percent of a child already goes to that 
comforting parent but yet there are a percentage of those who do not. 
There are a percentage of those who do not know how to travel through 
the judicial system so they cannot use judicial bypass.
  This legislation unfortunately, with all of its good intentions, will 
cause some damage, some danger and God forbid, loss of life to some 
young person who needs to have the guidance other than those parents, 
maybe a drug-addicted parent, maybe a parent suffering from their own 
ills and devils.
  I would ask my colleagues to send this bill back ultimately so that 
we can reach a bipartisan approach. I would ask them to assess this on 
constitutional grounds and to realize that we cannot have a double 
standard. Today's State rights, tomorrow my rights.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong opposition to H.R. 476, the ``Child 
Custody Protection Act'' (CCPA) because it criminalizes any good faith 
attempt by a caring adult to assist a young woman in obtaining abortion 
services across state lines.
  CCPA is simply another effort to undermine the right of choice for a 
young woman by imposing dangerous and unnecessary restrictions to 
abortion services.
  This bill punishes adolescents by making it more difficult for them 
to safely access constitutionally protected abortion services. CCPA 
does not protect young women nor will it strengthen family ties. 
Rather, it will punish and endanger those women who cannot discuss 
unwanted pregnancy with parents by forcing them to travel to another 
state alone, seek an unsafe illegal abortion, attempt to self-abort, or 
carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
  This bill would make it more difficult for minors living in states 
with parental notification or consent laws to obtain an abortion by 
making it a federal crime to transport minors across state lines. More 
than 75 percent of minors under 16 years old already involve one or 
both parents in their decision to have an abortion.
  In those cases where a young woman cannot involve her parents in the 
decision, there are others who would help by offering physical and 
emotional support during a time of crisis, confusion and emotional 
pain. A minor should be able to turn to a relative, close friend, and 
even clergy members for assistance.
  Supporters of this bill claim that judicial bypass, a procedure which 
permits teenagers to appear before a judge to request a waiver of the 
parental involvement requirement, is a preferred alternative. However, 
many teens do not make use of it because they do not know how to 
navigate the legal system.
  Many teens are embarrassed and are afraid that an unsympathetic or 
hostile judge might refuse to grant the waiver. Also, the 
confidentiality of the teen is compromised if the bypass hearing 
requires use of the parents' names. In small towns, confidentiality may 
be further compromised if the judge knows the teen or her family.
  There are various reasons why a young woman could not go to her 
parents for guidance. Some family situations are not conducive to open 
communication and some situations are violent. For young women who need 
to turn to someone other than a parent, this law creates severe 
hardships.
  The need to travel across state lines may be necessary in states 
where abortion services are not readily available. This bill would 
unduly burden access to abortion for young women who travel across 
state lines to obtain such services and who choose not to involve their 
parents.
  In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, recognized a 
constitutional right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. The 
Court reaffirmed the right to choose in Planned Parenthood of 
Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, holding that restrictions on this 
right are unconstitutional if they impose an ``undue burden'' on a 
woman's access to abortion. The right extends to both minors and 
adults, but the Court has permitted individual states to restrict the 
ability of young women to obtain abortions within that states' borders. 
Allowing a state's laws to extend beyond its borders runs completely 
contrary to the state sovereignty principles on which this country is 
founded.
  It is unfortunate because family members such as grandparents and 
siblings should not be jailed for assisting a scared grandchild or 
younger sister in a time of need. Young women should be encouraged to 
involve an adult in any decision to terminate a pregnancy.
  This bill would isolate young women from trusted adults by placing 
criminal sanctions on providing basic comfort and advice. Abortion is a 
highly personal and private decision that should be made by a woman and 
her doctor, without interference from the government. I urge my 
colleagues to please vote against this dangerous bill.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the majority leader.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for 
yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, imagine a father who loves his daughter, pretty little 
15-year-old girl, all the boys are crazy about her and so is daddy, but 
she has got a special boyfriend and daddy knows those two little ones 
are going to get into trouble. So in order to make sure that his 
daughter is safe, daddy piles the little 15-year-old boy that lives 
down the block about four blocks and piles him in a car and takes him 
to Arkansas to get a vasectomy. That way they could have safe sex, they 
could be politically correct, and they could be as active as they 
wanted to, and we would not have to bother their parents with any 
restraint or teaching or instruction or whatever. Daddy would just take 
care of it with a simple little harmless surgical procedure.
  Who in this body would not be outraged? How far would that father get 
before the cops would nab him after that deal? How much crying and 
moaning before the hardship inflicted on that poor child boy would we 
hear from this body here?

[[Page H1358]]

  I have got another friend who is a daddy. I love daddies. Daddies 
love their kids so much. I have got a friend who has got a 15-year-old 
son and he has got a 14-year-old girl for a beautiful little girl, but 
she has got bad need of dental work. Her parents do not get her dental 
work.
  This papa loads that little girl up in the car and drives her to 
Oklahoma and see an orthodontist, pulls out her wisdom teeth, does 
other surgeries on her mouth. Who in this room is going to condone 
that? Is that acceptable? What right does that father have to take 
somebody else's child from Texas to Oklahoma to have her teeth pulled?
  My colleagues would be outraged. My colleagues would bring the force 
of law on that person, but here we have people in this body, people in 
this body, so-called enlightened people, who believe in safe sex. Safe 
sex being a child does not get a serious disease or does not get 
pregnant. How about all the emotional stress, how about all the 
emotional trauma and so forth?
  People in this body say, hey, here is the deal, we have got a 14-
year-old son. He has got a 13-year-old girlfriend, they get reckless, 
they get careless, they get pregnant, just take that little girl, pile 
her in a car, take her to Arkansas for an abortion, and we will protect 
a person's right to take somebody else's child across the State line 
for a medical procedure that endangers her life and steals the life of 
an innocent baby. We will protect the person who does it. What kind of 
heinous law would we have? This is no, as we say in Texas, this is no 
thinkin' thing.
  The most precious moment in any family's life, you get married and 
fall in love, you love one another and you get married and you some day 
come back from the hospital and you have got this very precious little 
bundle of joy in your hands and you look down on that little darling 
baby and you say this is my baby. All my life it will be me. I will 
pour my tears over this child. I will pour my heart into this child. I 
will say my prayers over this child. I will teach this child. I will 
hold this child. I will console this child. I will protect this child. 
If something goes wrong, my heart will break.
  We would dare to leave any avenue in law that would allow somebody 
else to take that child across a State line for a life threatening 
surgical procedure that even if it inflicts no physical harm on the 
child will leave that child emotionally scarred for a lifetime? We 
would dare to leave that avenue for exploitation open?
  I must say this, if my colleagues would vote no on this bill, then 
they are either without heart or without children.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I have heart, I have children, or at least one child, and I will 
almost certainly vote no on this bill, and the gentleman has no right 
to cast aspersions on my motives or anybody else.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, this bill prohibits anyone from transporting 
a minor across State lines in order to obtain an abortion if the 
notification and parental consent laws have not been complied with.
  There is nothing in the bill that prohibits a minor from crossing 
State lines herself to get the abortion. Nothing in the bill that would 
prohibit a parent to cross State lines with the minor and evade a State 
requirement that both parents be notified or consent. There is no 
prohibition so long as they go themselves and no one else transports 
them. This prohibits someone from accompanying the minor.
  One of the things that we mentioned before was the amendment about 
taxicab drivers. If a taxicab driver knows that the minor is going to 
get an abortion and has not ascertained that the parental consent laws 
have been complied with, that taxicab driver is exposed to liability, 
both civil and criminal. So if the prosecutor is not going to prosecute 
the cab driver, the parent can sue the cab driver for damages.
  This bill does not have a health exception and, therefore, has 
constitutional problems. The Supreme Court has frequently said that 
there has to be a health exception in any abortion legislation.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I think we ought to strongly consider the 
precedents that we are setting. The possibility that we are prohibiting 
crossing State lines to do something which is legal in the State 
someone is going to.
  Virginia prohibits casino gambling. We could, under this idea, 
prohibit people from crossing the State line, leaving Virginia to go to 
Las Vegas or Atlantic City to participate in something that is illegal 
in Virginia. Some States have lottery tickets. Others do not. Are we 
going to prohibit people leaving the State to go buy a lottery ticket 
in another State? Virginia used to prohibit shopping on Sunday. I 
suppose under this legislation we prohibit taking somebody across State 
lines to go shopping on Sunday if we still had those laws.
  The idea that we are going to prohibit someone crossing State lines 
to do something that is legal in that State is a situation that I think 
we ought to seriously consider and reject. This bill will do nothing to 
limit minors crossing State lines to obtain an abortion. The minor can 
go by herself to obtain the abortion. All this bill does is prohibits 
anyone from accompanying them.
  This bill does nothing to advance public safety, does nothing to 
reduce the abortions, and I think was counterproductive in that if the 
child is going to get an abortion and will get the abortion, it makes 
sense for them to be accompanied.
  I would hope that we would reject the legislation.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), a member of the committee.
  (Mr. HOSTETTLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, 
the distinguished chairman of the committee, for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of this common sense 
legislation. I am disappointed that we even need to debate a bill that 
is designed to prevent people from circumventing State laws in order to 
abort a baby carried by a minor.
  I do not think most of our constituents consider parental involvement 
in their children's lives a radical notion. I do not think most 
Americans consider parents to be the enemy of their children. I do 
think most parents desire to support and love their children through 
the most difficult circumstances they may face.
  Under current law, any person in the world can take a pregnant girl 
into his car, drive her to another State and coerce her to get an 
abortion, all without her parents' knowledge or consent. That is a 
frightening and unacceptable scenario.
  Why do we treat abortion differently than we do any other medical 
procedure? If, for example, a minor was taken across State lines to 
receive an appendectomy without parental consent, she would be turned 
back, and for the purpose of the gentleman from New York, the Fugitive 
Slave Act already applies to appendectomies.
  If a school counselor or second cousin took a minor in for a 
tonsillectomy without the permission of the child's parents, they would 
be turned away. Once again, the Fugitive Slave Act, using as an 
analogy, already applies to tonsillectomies.
  A schoolteacher cannot even take children to the local museum without 
their parents' permission, and yes, the Fugitive Slave Act already 
applies to museum field trips.
  Opponents of this bill argue that an adult, even if he is a rapist or 
a child molester, should be allowed to transport a girl miles from her 
home, across State lines for the invasive surgical operation known as 
abortion. Since the Supreme Court created a right to an abortion out of 
thin air 29 years ago, our children have been susceptible to 
ideological predators who care more about their proabortion agenda than 
they do about frightened vulnerable girls.
  The gentleman brought up the testimony of the vicar from 
Massachusetts, and I would like to return to that testimony. It has 
been discussed here that the people that are involved in this procedure 
are confidantes of the individual. According to the testimony of the 
one witness supplied by the minority, in her own words, she said this:
  ``I didn't know the girl. I knew her school nurse. The nurse had 
called me a few days earlier to see if I knew

[[Page H1359]]

where she might mind find money to give the girl for bus fare to and 
cab fare home from the hospital. I was stunned. A 15-year-old girl was 
going to have to get up at the crack of dawn and take multiple buses to 
the hospital alone. The nurse shared my concern but explained that the 
girl had no one to turn to. She feared for her safety if her father 
found out, and there was no other relative close enough to help.''
  The vicar never testified that the father would have run her out of 
the house as the gentleman from New York earlier spoke. It was up to 
the nurse and the child who was under duress at this time to come up 
with this excuse, and the vicar used that opportunity to pray on the 
child's weakness and to move ahead with this.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to remember that parents should 
ultimately be given this opportunity to have a decision in their 
child's most critical time in her life, should that ever happen.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes a nonsensical point. In that case, 
if the vicar had not traveled with the young woman, she would have 
traveled alone and gotten the abortion. That would have been 
preferable? In this case, the school nurse called in the vicar because 
the young woman had told her that she feared for her life or that she 
would run away from home if she had, that she could not under any 
circumstances, would not under any circumstances tell her parents but 
she would get the abortion.
  So she called in the vicar, the vicar spoke with her, counseled her, 
and rather than let her go alone, helped her. This is not praying on 
the young woman. This is giving pastoral guidance and helping her.
  Mr. Speaker, we are told that this bill is somehow constitutional, 
but the Supreme Court has clearly and consistently held that States 
cannot prohibit the lawful out of State conduct of their citizens if 
its lawful out of State nor may they impose criminal sanctions on this 
behavior as this bill does.
  The court reaffirmed its principles in its landmark right to travel 
decision Saenz versus Roe. In its decision, the court held that even 
with congressional approval, California's attempt to impose on recently 
arrived residents the welfare laws of their former States of residence 
was an unconstitutional penalty upon their rights to interstate travel.

                              {time}  1230

  The decision also reaffirmed that the constitutional right to travel 
under the privileges and immunity clause of Article IV of the 
Constitution provides a similar type of protection to a nonresident who 
enters a State with the intent eventually to return to her home State. 
This principle applies to minor's rights to seek an abortion on 
nondiscriminatory terms as well as through welfare benefits.
  In Saenz, the court specifically referred to Doe v. Bolton, the 
companion case to Roe v. Wade, which established the right to abortion 
which held that under Article IV of the Constitution, a State may not 
restrict the ability of visiting nonresidents to obtain abortions on 
the same terms and conditions under which they are made available to 
lawful State residents. ``The Privileges and Immunities Clause, 
Constitutional Article IV, section 2, protects persons who enter a 
State seeking the medical services that are available there.'' It is 
also clear that such protections will flow to minors given that Planned 
Parenthood v. Danforth, a 1976 decision, held that pregnant minors have 
a constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy.
  Mr. Speaker, it is clear this bill is unconstitutional as well as 
unwarranted as well as cruel.

                                                September 5, 2001.
     To: United States House of Representatives Committee on the 
         Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution
     From: Laurence H. Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional 
         Law, Harvard University Peter J. Rubin, Associate 
         Professor of Law, Georgetown University
     Re: H.R. 476 and Constitutional Principles of Federalism


                              Introduction

       We have been asked to submit our assessment of whether H.R. 
     476, now pending before the House, is consistent with 
     constitutional principles of federalism. It is our considered 
     view that the proposed statute violates those principles, 
     principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. 
     That statute violates the rights of states to enact and 
     enforce their own laws governing conduct within their 
     territorial boundaries, and the rights of the residents of 
     each of the United States and of the District of Columbia to 
     travel to and from any state of the Union for lawful 
     purposes, a right strongly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 
     its recent landmark decision in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 
     (1999). We have therefore concluded that the proposed law 
     would, if enacted, violate the Constitution of the United 
     States.
       H.R. 476 would provide criminal and civil penalties, 
     including imprisonment for up to one year, for any person who 
     knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the 
     age of 18 years across a State line, with the intent that 
     such individual obtain an abortion. . . [if] an abortion is 
     performed on the individual, in a State other than the State 
     where the individual resides, without the parental consent or 
     notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have 
     been required by that law in the State where the individual 
     resides.

       H.R. 476, Sec. 2 (a) (proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431(a)(1) 
     and (2)). In other words, this law makes it a federal crime 
     to assist a pregnant minor to obtain a lawful abortion. The 
     criminal penalties kick in if the abortion the young woman 
     seeks would be performed in a state other than her state of 
     residence, and in accord with the less restrictive laws of 
     that state, unless she complies with the more severe 
     restrictions her home state imposes upon abortions performed 
     upon minors within its territorial limits. The law contains 
     no exceptions for situations where the young woman's home 
     state purports to disclaim any such extraterritorial 
     effect for its parental consultation rules, or where it is 
     a pregnant young woman's close friend, or her aunt or 
     grandmother, or a member of the clergy, who accompanies 
     her ``across a State line'' on this frightening journey, 
     even where she would have obtained the abortion anyway, 
     whether lawfully in another state after a more perilous 
     trip alone, or illegally (and less safely) in her home 
     state because she is too frightened to seek a judicial 
     bypass or too terrified of physical abuse to notify a 
     parent or legal guardian who may, indeed, be the cause of 
     her pregnancy. It does not exempt health care providers, 
     including doctors, from possible criminal or civil 
     penalties. Nor does it uniformly apply home-state laws on 
     pregnant minors who obtain out-of-state abortions. The law 
     applies only where the young woman seeks to go from a 
     state with a more restrictive regime into a state with a 
     less restrictive one.
       This amounts to a statutory attempt to force this most 
     vulnerable class of young women to carry the restrictive laws 
     of their home states strapped to their backs, bearing the 
     great weight of those laws like the bars of a prison that 
     follows them wherever they go (unless they are willing to go 
     alone). Such a law violates the basic premises upon which our 
     federal system is constructed, and therefore violates the 
     Constitution of the United States.


                                Analysis

       The essence of federalism is that the several states have 
     not only different physical territories and different 
     topographies but also different political and legal regimes. 
     Crossing the border into another state, which every citizen 
     has a right to do, may perhaps not permit the traveler to 
     escape all tax or other fiscal or recordkeeping duties owed 
     to the state as a condition of remaining a resident and thus 
     a citizen of that state, but necessarily permits the traveler 
     temporarily to shed her home state's regime of laws 
     regulating primary conduct in favor of the legal regime of 
     the state she has chosen to visit. Whether cast in terms of 
     the destination state's authority to enact laws effective 
     throughout its domain without having to make exceptions for 
     travelers from other states, or cast in terms of the 
     individual's right to travel--which would almost certainly be 
     deterred and would in any event be rendered virtually 
     meaningless if the traveler could not shake the conduct-
     constraining laws of her home state--the proposition that a 
     state may not project its laws into other states by following 
     its citizens there is bedrock in our federal system.
       One need reflect only briefly on what rejecting that 
     proposition would mean in order to understand how axiomatic 
     it is to the structure of federalism. Suppose that your home 
     state or Congress could lock you into the legal regime of 
     your home state as you travel across the country. This would 
     mean that the speed limits, marriage regulations, 
     restrictions on adoption, rules about assisted suicide, 
     firearms regulations, and all other controls over behavior 
     enacted by the state you sought to leave behind, either 
     temporarily or permanently, would in fact follow you into all 
     49 of the other states as you traveled the length and breadth 
     of the nation in search of more hospitable ``rules of the 
     road.'' If your search was for a more favorable legal 
     environment in which to make your home, you might as well 
     just look up the laws of distant states on the internet 
     rather than roaming about in a futile effort at sampling 
     them, since you will not actually experience those laws by 
     traveling there. And if your search was for a less hostile 
     legal environment in which to attend college or spend a 
     summer vacation or obtain a medical procedure, you might 
     as well skip even the internet, since the theoretically 
     less hostile laws of other jurisdictions will mean nothing 
     to you so long as your state of residence remains 
     unchanged.

[[Page H1360]]

       Unless the right to travel interstate means nothing more 
     than the right to change the scenery, opting for the open 
     fields of Kansas or the mountains of Colorado or the beaches 
     of Florida but all the while living under the legal regime of 
     whichever state you call home, telling you that the laws 
     governing your behavior will remain constant as you cross 
     from one state into another and then another is tantamount to 
     telling you that you may in truth be compelled to remain at 
     home--although you may, of course, engage in a simulacrum of 
     interstate travel, with an experience much like that of the 
     visitor to a virtual reality arcade who is strapped into 
     special equipment that provides the look and feel of 
     alternative physical environments--from sea to shining sea--
     but that does not alter the political and legal environment 
     one iota. And, of course, if home-state legislation, or 
     congressional legislation, may saddle the home state's 
     citizens with that state's abortion regulation regime, then 
     it may saddle them with their home state's adoption and 
     marriage regimes as well, and with piece after piece of the 
     home state's legal fabric until the home state's citizens are 
     all safely and tightly wrapped in the straitjacket of the 
     home state's entire legal regime. There are no constitutional 
     scissors that can cut this process short, no principled 
     metric that can supply a stopping point. The principle 
     underlying H.R. 476 is nothing less, therefore, than the 
     principle that individuals may indeed be tightly bound by the 
     legal regimes of their home states even as they traverse the 
     nation by traveling to other states with very different 
     regimes of law. It follows, therefore, that--unless the right 
     to engage in interstate travel that is so central to our 
     federal system is indeed only a right to change the 
     surrounding scenery--H.R. 476 rests on a principle that 
     obliterates that right completely.
       It is irrelevant to the federalism analysis that the 
     proposed federal statute does not literally prohibit the 
     minor herself from obtaining an out-of-state abortion without 
     complying with the parental consent or notification laws of 
     her home state, criminalizing instead only the conduct of 
     assisting such a young woman by transporting her across state 
     lines. The manifest and indeed avowed purpose of the statute 
     is to prevent the pregnant minor from crossing state lines to 
     obtain an abortion that is lawful in her state of destination 
     whenever it would have violated her home state's law to 
     obtain an abortion there because the pregnant woman has not 
     fully complied with her home state's requirements for 
     parental consent or notification. The means used to achieve 
     this end do not alter the constitutional calculus. 
     Prohibiting assistance in crossing state lines in the manner 
     of this proposed statute suffers the same infirmity with 
     respect to our federal structure as would a direct ban on 
     traveling across state lines to obtain an abortion that 
     complies with all the laws of the state where it is performed 
     without first complying also with the laws that would apply 
     to obtaining an abortion in one's home state.
       The federalism principle we have described operates 
     routinely in our national life. Indeed, it is so commonplace 
     it is taken for granted. Thus, for example, neither Virginia 
     nor Congress could prohibit residents of Virginia, where 
     casino gambling is illegal, from traveling interstate to 
     gamble in a casino in Nevada. (Indeed, the economy of 
     Nevada essentially depends upon this aspect of federalism 
     for its continued vitality.) People who like to hunt 
     cannot be prohibited from traveling to states where 
     hunting is legal in order to avail themselves of those 
     pro-hunting laws just because such hunting may be illegal 
     in their home state. And citizens of every state must be 
     free, for example, to read and watch material, even 
     constitutionally unprotected material, in New York City 
     the distribution of which might be unlawful in their own 
     states, but which New York has chosen not to forbid. To 
     call interstate travel for such purposes an ``evasion'' or 
     ``circumvention'' of one's home-state laws--as H.R. 476 
     purports to do, see H.R. 476, Sec. 2(a) (heading of the 
     proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431) (``Transportation of minors 
     in circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion'')--
     is to misunderstand the basic premise of federalism: one 
     is entitled to avoid those laws by traveling interstate. 
     Doing so amounts to neither evasion nor circumvention.
       Put simply, you may not be compelled to abandon your 
     citizenship in your home state as a condition of voting with 
     your feet for the legal and political regime of whatever 
     other state you wish to visit. The fact that you intend to 
     return home cannot undercut your right, while in another 
     state, to be governed by its rules of primary conduct rather 
     than by the rules of primary conduct of the state from which 
     you came and to which you will return. When in Rome, perhaps 
     you will not do as the Romans do, but you are entitled--if 
     this figurative Rome is within the United States--to be 
     governed as the Romans are. If something is lawful for one of 
     them to do, it must be lawful for you as well. The fact that 
     each state is free, notwithstanding Article IV, to make 
     certain benefits available on a preferential basis to its own 
     citizens does not mean that a state's criminal laws may be 
     replaced with stricter ones for the visiting citizen from 
     another state, whether by that state's own choice or by 
     virtue of the law of the visitor's state or by virtue of a 
     congressional enactment. To be sure, a state need not treat 
     the travels of its citizens to other states as suddenly 
     lifting otherwise applicable restrictions when they return 
     home. Thus, a state that bans the possession of gambling 
     equipment, of specific kinds of weapons, of liquor, or of 
     obscene material may certainly enforce such bans against 
     anyone who would bring the contraband items into the 
     jurisdiction, including its own residents returning from a 
     gambling state, a hunting state, a drinking state, or a state 
     that chooses not to outlaw obscenity. But that is a far cry 
     from projecting one state's restrictive gambling, firearms, 
     alcohol, or obscenity laws into another state whenever 
     citizens of the first state venture there.
       Thus states cannot prohibit the lawful out-of-state conduct 
     of their citizens, nor may they impose criminal-law-backed 
     burdens--as H.R. 476 would do--upon those lawfully engaged in 
     business or other activity within their sister states. 
     Indeed, this principle is so fundamental that it runs through 
     the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in cases that are nominally 
     about provisions and rights as diverse as the Commerce 
     Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the right to travel, 
     which is itself derived from several distinct constitutional 
     sources. See, e.g., Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U.S. 324, 
     336 n. 13 (1989) (Commerce Clause decision quoting Edgar v. 
     Mite Corp. 457 U.S. 624, 643 (1982) (plurality opinion), 
     which in turn quoted the Court's Due Process decision in 
     Shaffer v. Heitner, 433, U.S. 186, (1977)) (``The limits on a 
     State's power to enact substantive legislation are similar to 
     the limits on the jurisdiction of state courts. In either 
     case, `any attempt ``directly'' to assert extraterritorial 
     jurisdiction over persons or property would offend sister 
     States and exceed the inherent limit of the State's 
     power.' '').
       The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed this fundamental 
     principle in its landmark right to travel decision, Saenz v. 
     Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). There the Court held that, even 
     with congressional approval, the State of California was 
     powerless to carve out an exception to its otherwise-
     applicable legal regime by providing recently-arrived 
     residents with only the welfare benefits that they would have 
     been entitled to receive under the laws of their former 
     states of residence. This attempt to saddle these interstate 
     travelers with the laws of their former home states--even if 
     only the welfare laws, laws that would operate far less 
     directly and less powerfully than would a special criminal-
     law restriction on primary conduct--was held to impose an 
     unconstitutional penalty upon their right to interstate 
     travel, which, the Court held, is guaranteed them by the 
     Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
     See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 503-504.
       Although Saenz concerned new residents of a state, the 
     decision also reaffirmed that the constitutional right to 
     travel under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article 
     IV, Section 2, provides a similar type of protection to a 
     non-resident who enters a state not to settle, but with an 
     intent eventually to return to her home state:
       [B]y virtue of a person's state citizenship, a citizen of 
     one State who travels in other States, intending to return 
     home at the end of his journey, is entitled to enjoy the 
     ``Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several 
     States'' that he visits. This provision removes ``from the 
     citizens of each State the disabilities of alienage in the 
     other States.'' Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180 (1869). It 
     provides important protections for nonresidents who enter a 
     State whether to obtain employment Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 
     U.S. 518 (1978), to procure medical services, Doe v. Bolton, 
     410 U.S. 179, 200 (1973), or even to engage in commercial 
     shrimp fishing, Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385 (1948).

     Sanez, 526 U.S. at 501-502 (footnotes and parenthetical 
     omitted).
       Indeed, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), which was 
     decided over a quarter century ago, and to which the Saenz 
     court referred, specifically held that, under Article IV of 
     the Constitution, a state may not restrict the ability of 
     visiting non-residents to obtain abortions on the same terms 
     and conditions under which they are made available by law to 
     state residents. ``[T]he Privileges and Immunities Clause, 
     Const. Art. IV, Sec. 2, protects persons . . . who enter [a 
     state] seeking the medical services that are available 
     there.'' Id. at 200.
       Thus, in terms of protection from being hobbled by the laws 
     of one's home state wherever one travels, nothing turns on 
     whether the interstate traveler intends to remain permanently 
     in her destination state, or to return to her state of 
     origin. Combined with the Court's holding that, like the 
     states, Congress may not contravene the principles of 
     federalism that are sometimes described under the ``right to 
     travel'' label, Saenz reinforces the conclusion, if it were 
     not clear before, that even if enacted by Congress, a law 
     like H.R. 476 that attempts by reference to state's own laws 
     to control that state's resident's out-of-state conduct on 
     pains of criminal punishment, whether of that resident or of 
     whoever might assist her to travel interstate, would violate 
     the federal Constitution. See also Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 
     U.S. 618, 629-630 (1969) (invalidating an Act of Congress 
     mandating a durational residency requirement for recently-
     arrived District of Columbia residents seeking to obtain 
     welfare assistance).
       In 1999, this Committee heard testimony from Professor Lino 
     Graglia of the University of Texas School of Law. An opponent 
     of constitutional abortion rights, he candidly conceded that 
     the proposed law would ``make

[[Page H1361]]

     it . . . more dangerous for young women to exercise their 
     constitutional right to obtain a safe and legal abortion.'' 
     Testimony of Lino A. Graglia on H.R. 1218 before the 
     Constitution Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, 
     U.S. House of Representatives, May 27, 1999 at 1. He also 
     concluded, however, that ``the Act furthers the principle of 
     federalism to the extent that it reinforces or makes 
     effective the very small amount of policymaking authority on 
     the abortion issue that the Supreme Court, an arm of the 
     national government, has permitted to remain with the 
     States,'' Id. at 2. He testified that he suppor6ted the bill 
     because he would support ``anything Congress can do to move 
     control of the issue back into the hands of the States.'' Id. 
     at 1.
       Of course, as the description of H.R. 476 we have given 
     above demonstrates, that proposed statute would do nothing to 
     move ``back'' into the hands of the states any of the control 
     over abortion that was precluded by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 
     (1973), and its progeny. The several states already have 
     their own distinctive regimes for regulating the provision of 
     abortion services to pregnant minors, regimes that are 
     permitted under the Supreme Court's abortion rulings. That, 
     indeed, is the very premise of this proposed law. But, rather 
     than respecting federalism by permitting each state's law to 
     operate within its own sphere, the proposed federal statute 
     would contravene that essential principle of federalism by 
     saddling the abortion-seeking young woman with the 
     restrictive law of her home state wherever she may travel 
     within the United States unless she travels unaided. Indeed, 
     it would add insult to this federalism injury by imposing its 
     regime regardless of the wishes of her home state, whose 
     legislature might recoil from the prospect of transforming 
     its parental notification laws, enacted ostensibly to 
     encourage the provision of loving support and advice to 
     distraught young women, into an obstacle to the most 
     desperate of these young women, compelling them in the moment 
     of their greatest despair to choose between, on the one hand, 
     telling someone close to them of their situation and perhaps 
     exposing this loved one to criminal punishment, and, on the 
     other, going to the back alleys or on an unaccompanied trip 
     to another, possibly distant state. This federal statute 
     would therefore violate rather than reinforce basic 
     constitutional principles of federalism.
       The fact that the proposed law applies only to those 
     assisting the interstate travel of minors seeking abortions 
     may make the federalism-based constitutional infirmity 
     somewhat less obvious--while at the same time rendering the 
     law more vulnerable to constitutional challenge because of 
     the danger in which it will place the class of frightened, 
     perhaps desperate young women least able to travel safely on 
     their own. The importance of protecting the relationship 
     between parents and their minor children cannot be gainsaid. 
     But in the end, the fact that the proposed statute involves 
     the interstate travel only of minors does not alter our 
     conclusion.
       No less than the right to end a pregnancy, the 
     constitutional right to travel interstate and to take 
     advantage of the laws of other states exists even for those 
     citizens who are not yet eighteen. ``Constitutional rights do 
     not mature and come into being magically only when one 
     attains the state-defined age of majority. Minors, as well as 
     adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess 
     constitutional rights.'' Planned Parenthood of Central 
     Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 74 (1976). Nonetheless, 
     the Court has held that, in furtherance of the minors' best 
     interests, government may in some circumstances have more 
     leeway to regulate where minors are concerned. Thus, whereas 
     a law that sought, for example, to burden adult women with 
     their home state's constitutionally acceptable waiting 
     periods for abortion (or with their home state's 
     constitutionally permissible medical regulations that may 
     make abortion more costly) even when they traveled out of 
     state to avoid those waiting periods (or other regulations) 
     would obviously be unconstitutional, it might be argued that 
     a law like the proposed one, which seeks to force a young 
     woman to comply with her home state's parental consent laws 
     regardless of her circumstances, is, because of its focus on 
     minors, somehow saved from constitutional invalidity.
       It is not, for at least two reasons. First, the importance 
     of the constitutional right in question for the pregnant 
     minor too desperate even to seek judicial approval for 
     abortion in her home state--either because of its futility 
     there, or because of her terror at a judicial proceeding held 
     to discuss her pregnancy and personal circumstances--means 
     that government's power to burden that choice is severely 
     restricted. As Justice Powell wrote over two decades ago:
       The pregnant minor's options are much different from those 
     facing a minor in other situations, such as deciding whether 
     to marry . . . A pregnant adolescent . . . cannot preserve 
     for long the possibility of aborting, which effectively 
     expires in a matter of weeks from the onset of pregnancy.
       Moreover, the potentially severe detriment facing a 
     pregnant woman is not mitigated by her minority. Indeed, 
     considering her probable education, employment skills, 
     financial resources, and emotional maturity, unwanted 
     motherhood may be exceptionally burdensome for a minor. In 
     addition, the fact of having a child brings with it adult 
     legal responsibility, for parenthood, like attainment of the 
     age of majority, is one of the traditional criteria for the 
     termination of the legal disabilities of minority. In sum, 
     there are few situations in which denying a minor the right 
     to make an important decision will have consequences so grave 
     and indelible.

     Bellotti v. Baird (Bellotti II), 443 U.S. 622, 642 (1979) 
     (plurality opinion) (citations omitted).
       Second, the fact that the penalties on travel out of state 
     by minors who do not first seek parental consent or judicial 
     bypass are triggered only by intent to obtain a 
     lawful abortion and only if the minor's home state has 
     more stringent ``minor protection'' provisions in the form 
     of parental involvement rules than the state of 
     destination, renders any protection-of-minors exception to 
     the basic rule of federalism unavailable.
       To begin with, the proposed law, unlike one that 
     evenhandedly defers to each state's determination of what 
     will best protect the emotional health and physical safety of 
     its pregnant minors who seek to terminate their pregnancies, 
     simply defers to states with strict parental control laws and 
     subordinates the interests of states that have decided that 
     legally-mandated consent or notification is not a sound means 
     of protecting pregnant minors. The law does not purport to 
     impose a uniform nationwide requirement that all pregnant 
     young women should be subject to the abortion laws of their 
     home states and only those abortion laws wherever they may 
     travel. Thus, under H.R. 476, a pregnant minor whose parents 
     believe that it would be both destructive and profoundly 
     disrespectful to their mature, sexually active daughter to 
     require her by law to obtain their consent before having an 
     abortion, and who live in a state whose laws reflect that 
     view, would, despite the judgment expressed in the laws of 
     her home state, still be required to obtain parental consent 
     should she seek an abortion in a neighboring state with a 
     stricter parental involvement law--something she might do, 
     for example, because that is where the nearest abortion 
     provider is located. This substantively slanted way in which 
     H.R. 476 would operate fatally undermines any argument that 
     might otherwise be available that principles of federalism 
     must give way because this law seeks to ensure that the 
     health and safety of pregnant minors are protected in the way 
     their home states have decided would be best.
       In addition, the proposed law, again unlike one protecting 
     parental involvement generally, selectively targets one form 
     of control: control with respect to the constitutionally 
     protected procedure of terminating a pregnancy before 
     viability. The proposed law does not do a thing for parental 
     control if the minor is being assisted into another state 
     (or, where the relevant regulation is local, into another 
     city or county) for the purpose of obtaining a tattoo, or 
     endoscopic surgery to correct a foot problem, or laser 
     surgery for an eye defect. The law is activated only when the 
     medical procedure being obtained in another state is the 
     termination of a pregnancy. It is as though Congress proposed 
     to assist parents in controlling their children when, and 
     only when, those children wish to buy constitutionally 
     protected but sexually explicit books about methods of birth 
     control and abortion in states where the sale of such books 
     to these minors is entirely lawful.
       The basic constitutional principle that such laws overlook 
     is that the greater power does not necessarily include the 
     lesser. Thus, for example, even though so-called ``fighting 
     words'' may be banned altogether despite the First Amendment, 
     it is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court held in 1992, for 
     government selectively to ban those fighting words that are 
     racist or anti-semitic in character. See R.A.V. v. City of 
     St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 391-392 (1992). To take another 
     example, Congress could not make it a crime to assist a minor 
     who has had an abortion in the past to cross a state line in 
     order to obtain a lawful form of cosmetic surgery elsewhere 
     if that minor has not complied with her state's valid 
     parental involvement law for such surgery. Even though 
     Congress might enact a broader law that would cover all the 
     minors in the class described, it could not enact a law aimed 
     only at those who have had abortions. Such a law would 
     impermissibly single out abortion for special burdens. The 
     proposed law does so as well. Thus, even if a law that were 
     properly drawn to protect minors could constitutionally 
     displace one of the basic rules of federalism, the 
     proposed statute can not.
       Lastly, in oral testimony given in 1999 before the 
     Subcommittee on the Constitution, Professor John Harrison of 
     the University of Virginia, while conceding that ordinarily a 
     law such as this, which purported to impose upon an 
     individual her home state's laws in order to prevent her from 
     engaging in lawful conduct in one of the other states, would 
     be constitutionally ``doubtful,'' argued that the 
     constitutionality of this law is resolved by the fact that it 
     relates to ``domestic relations,'' a sphere in which, 
     according to Professor Harrison, ``the state with the primary 
     jurisdiction over the rights and responsibilities of parties 
     to the domestic relations is the state of residence . . . and 
     not the state where the conduct'' at issue occurs. See 
     transcript of the Hearing of the Constitution Subcommittee of 
     the House Judiciary Committee on the Child Custody Protection 
     Act, May 27, 1999.
       This ``domestic relations exception'' to principles of 
     federalism described by Professor Harrison, however, does not 
     exist, at least not in any context relevant to the 
     constitutionality of H.R. 476. To be sure, acting

[[Page H1362]]

     pursuant to Article IV, Sec. 1, Congress has prescribed 
     special state obligations to accord full faith and credit to 
     judgments in the domestic relations context--for example, to 
     child custody determinations and child support orders. 28 
     U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1738A, 1738B. These provisions also 
     establish choice of law principles governing modification of 
     domestic relations orders. In addition, in a controversial 
     provision whose constitutionality is open to question, 
     Congress has said that states are not required to accord full 
     faith and credit to same-sex marriages. Id. at Sec. 1738C.
       But the special measures adopted by Congress in the 
     domestic relations context can provide no justification for 
     H.R. 476. There is a world of difference between provisions 
     like Sec. Sec. 1738A and 1738B, which prescribe the full 
     faith and credit to which state judicial decrees and 
     judgments are entitled, and proposed H.R. 476, which in 
     effect gives states statutes extraterritorial operation--by 
     purporting to impose criminal liability for interstate travel 
     undertaken to engage in conduct lawful within the territorial 
     jurisdiction of the state in which the conduct is to occur, 
     based solely upon the laws in effect in the state of 
     residence of the individual who seeks to travel to a state 
     where she can engage in that conduct lawfully.
       The Supreme Court has always differentiated ``the credit 
     owed to laws (legislative measures and common laws) and to 
     judgments.'' Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 232 
     (1998). For example, while a state may not decline on public 
     policy grounds to give full faith and credit to a judicial 
     judgment from another state, see, e.g., Fauntleroy v. Lum, 
     210 U.S. 230, 237 (1908), a forum state has always been free 
     to consider its own public policies in declining to follow 
     the legislative enactments of other states. See Nevada v. 
     Hall, 440 U.S. 410, 421-24 (1979). In short, under the Full 
     Faith and Credit Clause, a state has never been compelled 
     ``to substitute the statutes of other states for its own 
     statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is 
     competent to legislate.'' Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. 
     Industrial Accident Comm'n, 306 U.S. 493, 501 (1939). In 
     fact, the Full Faith and Credit Clause was meant to prevent 
     ``parochial entrenchment on the interests of other States.'' 
     Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U.S. 261, 272 (1980) 
     (plurality opinion). A state is under no obligation to 
     enforce another state's statute with which it disagrees.
       But H.R. 476 would run afoul of that principle. It imposes 
     the restrictive laws of a woman's home state wherever she 
     travels, in derogation of the usual rules regarding choice of 
     law and full faith and credit.

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, imagine as a parent the shock 
and profound sorrow upon learning after the fact that some adult 
stranger deliberately kept the parents out of the decision-making 
process and took an underaged girl for a secret abortion in another 
State. Imagine the feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and 
violation that you would feel when your extremely vulnerable daughter, 
perhaps confused, frightened and even numb, was whisked away to an 
abortion mill by a stranger to pursue the violent death of her baby.
  Her baby, your grandchild, dead in a sneaky scheme deliberately 
contrived to deceive the parent about what was really going on, perhaps 
scarred for life by the unpardonable intervention of the adult stranger 
who acted as a parental surrogate. If there are complications, severe 
bleeding, perforated uterus, emotional or psychological aftermath, do 
not expect any help from the stranger; but of course a parent would be 
there to help, to love and to nurture and to heal. It is both a 
parental moral duty and legal duty, but it is really out of deep love. 
A parent would sacrifice thier own life for their daughter and be 
there; the stranger would not.
  It would not take very long to ask, Mr. Speaker, did the meddling 
stranger tell her that abortion has significant physical and emotional 
consequences? Did the stranger inform her that it might increase her 
risk of breast cancer?
  A 1994 study by cancer researcher Janet Daling of the Fred Hutchinson 
Cancer Research Center indicated if a girl under the age of 18 has an 
abortion, the risk of breast cancer increases by 150 percent. If she or 
any member of her family has any history of breast cancer, that first 
abortion means that her risk of breast cancer skyrockets to 270 
percent. Dr. Daling's National Cancer Institute-funded study comports 
with more than two dozen similar studies showing the abortion-breast 
cancer link.
  Mr. Speaker, we can take it to the bank: neither the stranger nor the 
abortionist himself informed her of this long-term, deleterious 
consequence.
  Mr. Speaker, it is tragic beyond words that the abortion rights 
movement not only promotes mutilations, dismemberment and chemical 
poisoning of children by abortions, they further destroy the family by 
invading the sacred space between parents and their teenage daughters. 
The so-called choice to mutilate, dismember and chemically poison 
little children is unconscionable. Currently even a 14-year-old, often 
with the assist from a stranger, has an unfettered and secret right in 
many States to have her baby destroyed in a horrific procedure. I urge 
my colleagues to wake up. Abortion is violence against children. 
Enabling a stranger to facilitate a minor's secret abortion only adds 
abuse to abuse.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman states his views of abortion. There are 
clearly differing views. We are not going to settle them in this debate 
today. He thinks it is a cruel procedure. Some of us think it is a 
procedure which in many cases is unavoidable. But in any event, the 
Supreme Court of the United States says it is the right of a woman to 
choose if she wishes, and she should be counseled as to the 
consequences and so forth; but it is her choice.
  But this bill before us has nothing to do with that, except for the 
fact it is simply another step in the attempt to in any way possible 
reduce abortions in any way possible to hamstring the exercise of the 
constitutional right of women to choose within the limits of what the 
Supreme Court has said.
  The real interest in this bill is not to protect young women who may 
be helped by a grandfather or a brother or a sister or a clergy person 
in doing something which she is determined to do. In the case we talked 
about before, she would have done it anyway; but at least she had 
someone to help her along and give her counseling and hold her hand. 
The intent of this bill is to try to stop her from having an abortion 
because the people in this House have determined that they are right 
and she is wrong and she should not be able to have an abortion.
  Forgetting that question, the real question in this bill is: Can the 
Congress of the United States say to a young woman, she is the property 
of the State in which she lives, and she must carry around on her back 
the law which it enacted which tells her that she cannot do something 
even if she goes to another State where she can do it?
  The plain meaning of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has 
reaffirmed that, is that Congress cannot do that. The citizens of each 
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in 
the several States. That was enacted after the Civil War because of the 
Fugitive Slave Act, because South Carolina should not be entitled to 
tell an escaped slave in New York, although New York does not permanent 
slavery, South Carolina's laws do, and we are going to extend our law 
here and drag the slave back and force the slave into our laws of 
slavery.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress cannot do the same thing. Congress cannot say 
to a young woman that we are going to force her to obey the law of her 
own State, we are going to criminalize someone who attempts to help do 
something that is perfectly legal in New York or some other State 
because it is not legal where she came from; and I cited the Supreme 
Court decisions before, which are recent Supreme Court decisions.
  We cannot look at the interstate commerce clause. Women are not 
objects of commerce. I hope the majority is not telling us that women 
are objects of commerce under the meaning of the interstate commerce 
clause, that Congress can regulate interstate commerce. Women are 
citizens of the United States and people, not subjects of commerce. We 
said in the Norris-LaGuardia Act that labor is not to be considered a 
commodity in Congress, nor should women be, nor will the Supreme Court 
support that, nor is this bill constitutional.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Stearns).
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I rise of course in support of H.R. 476, 
the Child

[[Page H1363]]

Custody Protection Act. Unfortunately, in May of 2000, Florida's 
parental notification laws were challenged in circuit court and a 
permanent injunction was granted. So we in Florida are very much 
involved with this debate. To give amnesty to those who manipulate 
State laws by crossing into States without parental notification laws, 
in my opinion the people who support this bill, it is irresponsible and 
a misguided use of the law.
  When we talk about this law, we are talking about safety here. To 
leave parents out of such a serious decision for the child with 
potentially long-term medical, emotional and psychological consequences 
is to jeopardize the health of the child. So when we talk about the 
Fugitive Slave Act or we talk about commerce, we are missing the point. 
We are talking about safety.
  To leave parents out of this decision for minors, in my opinion, is 
irresponsible. Some seem to suggest that most parents are not being 
reasonable but their primary concern is their teenaged daughter. One 
study has shown that up to two-thirds of the school-aged mothers were 
impregnated by adult males. These men could be prosecuted under State 
statutory rape laws, giving them a strong incentive to pressure the 
young woman to agree to an abortion without involving her parents.
  Let us put this into perspective. A child must have parental consent 
to be given an aspirin. Should the child want to go on a field trip, 
parental consent is required. Play in the school band, parental 
consent. Cosmetic ear piercing, that requires parental consent. Why? 
Because they are concerned about safety for fear that the girl may 
contract dangerous infections.
  Here we have advertising to minors that they can cross State lines, 
but surely the gentleman from New York would not support advertising of 
cigarettes to minors to allow them to smoke, so this kind of 
advertising should be prohibited; and obviously we should prohibit 
allowing young minors to go across State lines.
  Parents know what is best for their daughters' medical condition and 
can best help their daughters in times of need. I ask my colleagues to 
support this bill and pass it.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, cigarettes are harmful to one's health and may kill one. 
They are certainly much more harmful than marijuana or some of the 
other drugs which are prohibited by law; and maybe cigarettes ought to 
be prohibited by law, and certainly that kind of advertising should be 
prohibited by law.
  Abortions are not in the same category. Abortions will not kill the 
woman. They are not generally harmful to her health. In fact, the 
statistics are that it is more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term 
than it is to have an abortion because a larger percentage of women die 
from complications of child birth than from complications from 
abortion. I am certainly not arguing for abortions for that reason, but 
I am saying that we cannot say that abortions are life threatening, 
although demagogues do say that.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. STEARNS. But the gentleman would agree that advertising to minors 
to allow them to go across State lines for an abortion is wrong?
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would not agree that it is wrong. An 
abortion is a legal medical service, and in some States it is legal to 
do without parental consent. And there are some young women, some young 
women, who fear for their lives if they have to tell their parents, and 
cannot tell their parents, and desperately need an abortion, and will 
get the abortion by coat hanger at this risk to their life. It is 
better in that case to know that they can get a safe abortion in a safe 
medical procedure across State lines rather than resorting to the coat 
hangers.
  Mr. Speaker, many speakers on the other side have talked about people 
who prey on young women, who have an ideological desire to promote 
abortions. I do not know of anybody who has an ideological desire to 
promote abortions. I know of people who have ideological desires to let 
women have abortions if they want to. I do not know of anybody who 
desires to promote abortions as a good thing, in and of themselves.
  Putting aside, we are talking about evil people who will prey upon 
young women and take them across State lines for the reason of getting 
an abortion for some nefarious motive.

                              {time}  1245

  If that is the true purpose of this bill, I would want to know, on 
their time, why the majority would not permit amendments on the floor 
to exempt the grandparent or the sibling, the brother or sister. What 
are they afraid of? Are they afraid that the logic of that amendment is 
so strong even for people who might support this bill that it might 
pass? Why would they not even permit amendments in committee? Why was 
it so necessary to call a halt by moving the previous question before 
Members had returned to the committee from a vote on the floor? What 
are they afraid of, a little logic and common sense?
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman 
from Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis).
  Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the 
Child Custody Protection Act, a commonsense piece of legislation that 
would prohibit unscrupulous third parties from taking minors across 
State lines for abortions to circumvent parental consent and parent 
notification laws. Mothers have previously testified before State 
legislatures and Congress about the horror of finding out that their 
young daughters had obtained secret abortions and of having to pick up 
the pieces of the emotional and physical consequences. As a mother of 
two, it is very disconcerting to me to know that the parent-child 
relationship could be undermined in such a manner.
  As pointed out earlier, studies have shown that most school-age 
mothers are impregnated by adult men, with the median age of the father 
being 22 years old. Thus, many of the third parties taking minors 
across State lines are older boyfriends who obviously have a very 
personal interest in the young girl obtaining an abortion and in 
keeping it secret from her parents.
  Congress must ensure that State laws designed to protect the 
integrity and sanctity of the parent-child relationship are not 
undermined. I consequently urge my colleagues to support passage of 
this legislation.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I 
would simply point out that in such cases, those people, those males, 
can be prosecuted for statutory rape, and probably should be. This bill 
does not add or detract anything from them.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I would like to expand on his point, just to reinforce a point that I 
think is being lost in this debate. I indicated that Congress usually 
rises to the occasion to respond when there is a crisis, when we find 
that the law is being violated and being ignored, the laws of 
particular States who may have these laws regarding parental consent.
  I also noted that we probably will not get our friends and colleagues 
all to agree with us on the question of choice, but I have already said 
that more than 75 percent of minors under 16 already involve one or 
both parents in the decision to have an abortion. What about the 
individual, however, that is living on their own, that has been raped 
by a close family member, whose parent may be in some condition that 
they are not able to give counsel?
  And we now are intruding upon the right to travel, the constitutional 
right of choice on this particular minor who cannot consult with a 
loving grandmother, a loving spiritual leader, a loving sibling who can 
provide such assistance to them. It is clear in Planned Parenthood of 
Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, holding that restrictions on this 
right are unconstitutional if they impose an undue burden on a woman's 
access to abortion. And the right extends to both minors and adults.
  It is also clear in the constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court 
that there are rights that minors have and

[[Page H1364]]

though we recognize the validity and the stand of parents, I too am a 
parent and would hope that I am always in a position to counsel with my 
two children, encourage that. But we are also trying to save lives and 
avoid the very example that my colleagues were speaking to, boyfriends 
taking them across State lines if that is the case, when these 
amendments dealing with special friends, special relatives in a 
relative position were not allowed.
  And so we have a situation where, as I said, it is a double standard 
on States rights. We now want to intrude our Federal process on States 
that do not have these laws and, therefore, we are violating 
constitutional rights of minors which do exist. I think we are going 
too far with this legislation.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Speaker, one of my commitments as a Member of 
Congress is to protect the rights of the traditional family. The family 
is the building block of society and parents must have the ability to 
know where their children are going and be able to protect them.
  I am a proud cosponsor of this bill. It prohibits transporting an 
individual under the age of 18 across State lines to obtain an 
abortion. It is wrong that a child can legally be taken across State 
lines without parents' or guardian's knowledge for an abortion. A 
medical procedure of this magnitude with such serious implications for 
physical health of the girl and moral and emotional fabric of the 
entire family must be a family decision. Young girls today are exposed 
to many forces but the forces that should have the most strength in 
their lives, both morally and legally, should be their parents, not the 
government and not strangers.
  I have seen the phone book ads marketing out-of-state abortions and 
safe abortions to minors. It is truly sickening to think that my 
daughters may grow up to one day be told by the abortion industry that 
abortions are as easy to receive and as safe as taking candy. I have 
heard the doomsday tales of children afraid to tell their parents they 
are pregnant but nothing could possibly be scarier for these young 
girls than having someone they barely know escort them to a place they 
have never been to have major surgery that ends a life.
  Opponents of this bill are saying a parent can know where their child 
is except when she is receiving an abortion. That makes no sense 
whatsoever. Whose child is it, anyway?
  By passing the Child Custody Protection Act, Congress will take a 
clear stand against the notion that the U.S. Constitution confers a 
right upon strangers to take one's minor daughter across State lines 
for a secret abortion even when State law specifically requires the 
involvement of a parent or judge in the daughter's abortion decision.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the imagery used by speakers in favor of this bill, 
indeed the language of the bill itself prohibiting someone from 
transporting a minor across State lines, evokes the image of a helpless 
young child being dragged against her will or being taken to another 
State. The fact is that a young woman old enough to get pregnant is in 
her teens, with a very few exceptions, and in this situation, one would 
hope that she would ask her parents' permission, and I am sure the 
daughter of the previous speaker would, and that the decision would be 
made between the two of them. But I do not think a woman of 16 or 17 
years old, who is pregnant, who for whatever reason, because she was 
made pregnant by her father or her stepfather, because she is 
terrified, for whatever reason cannot, refuses to tell them, and gets 
her, even a boyfriend or a clergy person or her brother or sister, a 
grandmother, that is not an exploitative thing. They are helping her. 
She would probably or might very well do it herself, alone. Even the 
wording of the bill ``transport.'' Someone sitting and holding her hand 
as she drives the car is not transporting her. They are giving her 
moral help in a difficult procedure.
  People may not like abortions. They may think it is a terrible thing. 
They are entitled to their opinions. But a young woman may be terrified 
of giving birth. She may be terrified of the responsibility of a child. 
She may have her reasons and the Supreme Court says the Constitution 
gives her the absolute right to choose. This bill simply tries to make 
that right to choose impractical insofar as possible and therefore it 
is not only unconstitutional, it is wrong. This bill would criminalize 
the acts of persons who might be exploitative, but it would also 
criminalize the acts of people who are simply trying to be helpful and 
supportive of a young woman in distress, and that is wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, by passing the Child Custody Protection Act 
today, Congress will take a clear stand against the bizarre notion that 
somehow the United States Constitution confers a right upon strangers 
to take one's minor daughter across State lines for a secret abortion, 
even when a State law specifically requires the involvement of a parent 
or judge in the daughter's abortion decision.
  It is amazing to me that a child cannot get aspirin from a school 
nurse without parental consent but can cross State lines to get an 
abortion without the consent of their parents. There are school 
counselors who set up out-of-state abortions for minor students to hide 
this life-changing decision from the girls' parents. There are even 
sexual predators who would take their victims across State lines to 
destroy evidence through an abortion in a State without parental notice 
laws.
  Mr. Speaker, as the father of two young daughters, I cannot 
understand how anyone can defend the right of an adult to take a child 
across State lines to have an abortion without the parents knowing. To 
me when that happens, both of the victims are children. When 
governments undermine families, it tears at the very fabric of our 
culture and supports a culture of death rather than a culture of life.
  This bill closes a loophole that skirts State laws requiring parental 
notification. Twenty-seven States, including South Dakota, recognize 
the value and need for parental consent when a minor is seeking to 
obtain an abortion, and another 16 States require parental 
notification.
  Mr. Speaker, there are many injustices in the world, but can you put 
yourself in the position of a parent who sends her young daughter to 
school and later in the day finds that a stranger has taken your 13-
year-old daughter into another State to have an abortion? This is 
currently legal in the United States and that is why we need to pass 
the Child Custody Protection Act to stop it.
  Mr. Speaker, as a strong supporter of the sanctity of human life and 
parental rights, I am proud to vote for this legislation and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The protestations of people on the other side about strangers 
transporting minors across State lines would be somewhat better heard 
if they had not refused amendments to exempt nonstrangers.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Barcia).
  Mr. BARCIA. I want to thank the gentleman from New York for yielding 
this time even though we happen to be viewing this legislation 
differently.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 476, the Child Custody 
Protection Act, and would like to thank the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for her tireless efforts to bring this important 
legislative effort to the floor for consideration.
  In light of all that has happened recently, our Nation has had a 
growing concern about the moral fabric of our society. We have felt an 
increasing need to do everything that we can to protect our children as 
they are our most precious resource. We must provide them with a safe 
environment so they can thrive as they move into adulthood.
  One of life's harsh realities is that some young women become 
pregnant

[[Page H1365]]

at too early an age. H.R. 476 does not terminate a person's right to an 
abortion but does provide important protections for young children who 
become pregnant. H.R. 476 will make it illegal for any person to 
transport a minor across State lines in order to circumvent State laws 
to obtain an abortion without first consulting a parent or judge. It 
will make it a Federal crime if an individual knowingly evades the laws 
of their State to seek an abortion for any mother 17 years of age or 
younger. It is most often an older male who preys on a young girl, 
impregnates her, and then takes her illegally across State lines to 
have an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parents.
  We should all find this manipulative behavior disgusting and 
disheartening. Not only is this a crime for an older male to be 
sexually active with a young girl, but it can be dangerous for that 
child to receive an abortion. Only a parent knows their child's health 
history, including allergies to medication. A parent should be informed 
and the older male should be prosecuted.
  Laws in an increasing number of States, now numbering more than 23, 
including my home State of Michigan, require parental notification or 
consent by at least one parent or authorization by a judge before an 
abortion can be performed. This legislation will not mandate parental 
consent in the States which do not currently have parental consent laws 
but will protect those in States which do require parental consent.
  Many of my colleagues are concerned that this bill will prohibit 
young girls from confiding in a close family member or friend if they 
feel they cannot talk to their parents. That is absolutely wrong. There 
is a provision in H.R. 476 which will allow a judge to relieve the 
parental notification requirement in certain circumstances.
  I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 476, which will support the 
rights of States to protect the relationship between parents and 
children and ensure the safety of young girls who are in unfortunate 
circumstances.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Pence), a member of the committee.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time and 
commend his leadership and that of the gentlewoman from Florida for her 
visionary leadership on this legislation. I do rise today in support of 
the Child Custody Protection Act.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, the House will determine who it serves. I am a 
pro-life Member of this institution, but I would offer respectfully 
today that this is not a debate about the right to have an abortion. It 
is about the right to be a parent. And we will decide today in the 
Congress whether or not we will serve the beleaguered parents of the 
United States of America, of whom I am proudly one, or whether we will 
serve the interests of the abortion lobby.
  As a father of two daughters I can tell you, we live in a society 
today where parents are expected to be actively involved in the lives 
of our children. When a child commits a crime, the first question we 
hear is, why were the parents not aware? We are bombarded with antidrug 
advertisements commanding parents to ask their children questions, no 
matter how intrusive, to know where they were and when they were there. 
But for some inexplicable reason today we are debating whether parents 
should have the right to know if their daughter is considering an 
abortion, a decision that even pro-life and pro-abortion opponents 
agree will have lifelong consequences.
  Mr. Speaker, this is even more outrageous when you consider that my 
children cannot even attend a field trip at school or even take an 
aspirin without my or my wife's consent. Are we willing to stand here 
today and say that the life and death decision that we debate pales in 
comparison to taking an aspirin?
  Last week, Mr. Speaker, I took my children, two of them, one daughter 
and one son, to get braces. In addition to the extraordinary ordeal and 
the wires and the pain and the anxiety, we spent about an hour filling 
out consent forms for this 5- and 6-year procedure. Why in the world 
would we not have parental consent for even a more extraordinary 
procedure, invasive, that is an abortion?
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to choose life, cast a vote 
in favor of parental rights, and support the Child Custody Protection 
Act.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
close for our side.
  Mr. Speaker, there really are, I suppose, in summation, two things to 
say about this bill: one is that parental consent bills in general, 
although the providence of the States, in our opinion, are very ill-
advised, because although we all would wish that young women who are 
pregnant and are contemplating an abortion would consult with their 
parents, and certainly most do and should, there are those situations 
where a young woman feels she cannot, where she is afraid of the 
violent reaction the parent might have, where a parent may have been 
abusive to her, where the pregnancy may be the result of rape or incest 
on the part of the parent, and we should recognize reality and 
understand that a parental consent and notification bill in no 
circumstances makes no sense, and it is certainly not in the best 
interests of the young woman; but that is a matter for the State 
legislatures.
  The second thing to say about this bill is that none of that, none of 
the question of the validity or the intelligence or the desirability of 
a parental consent and notification bill, is before us. Those are State 
legislative decisions, and quite a few legislatures have passed those 
decisions, have passed such bills; and others have refused to do so.
  The bill before us has nothing to do with that. The bill before us 
has to do with trying to criminalize someone who accompanies a young 
woman from one State to another, knowing that she is going to get an 
abortion legally in that State.
  The proponents of this bill are trying to use the power of the 
Federal Government to impose the laws of one State in the jurisdiction 
of the other State.
  The proponents of this bill are trying to place on the back of a 
young woman from one State the burden of the law of that State, to 
carry it around wherever she goes, to another State where the law is 
different. We do not have the constitutional power to do that. In a 
Federal system we do not have the right to do that.
  I referred earlier to the Fugitive Slave Act because it was the last 
major attempt in this country to do that, where some of the Southern 
States said if a slave flees or goes to a State which does not 
recognize slavery, that person still is a slave, despite the laws of 
that State, and the Federal Government will enable the State to 
exercise its long arm and bring him back to bondage in the State that 
allows slavery.
  Here this bill says that the Federal Government will use its 
jurisdiction to try to prevent a young woman from doing a perfectly 
legal act, because the State she came from does not regard it as a 
legal act; to force that young woman to carry the burden of the law she 
disagrees with from her home State to another State. This bill is 
unconstitutional for that reason and obnoxious for that reason.
  This bill also would send grandmothers and ministers to jail, 
grandmothers and ministers who know the situation, who judge that the 
young woman cannot, as she judges, go to the parent, because they know 
there has been a rape, they know there has been incest, or they know 
there is family violence involved, they know the situation of the 
family.
  In plenty of families it is perfectly fine to have parental consent. 
But by drawing a bill that says all families, no matter what, you are 
plainly putting many young women at risk of injury or death. But, 
again, that is a State legislative matter. What this bill says is that 
ministers and grandmothers and brothers and sisters of a young woman 
whose life would be at risk perhaps, they cannot help her when she 
needs help on penalty of going to jail. This bill will not bring 
families together; but it may, in such circumstances, tear them apart.
  On all these grounds, Mr. Speaker, I say, let the States make these 
decisions, as they are allowed to do under the Constitution. Let us not 
butt in the Federal Government, as we are not permitted to do under the 
Constitution,

[[Page H1366]]

and as good judgment should indicate we should not do in any event.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, listening to the gentleman from New York the last hour 
and a half, he seems to be making two points. One is that this bill 
requires that the parental involvement laws of a minor's State of 
residence carry along with the minor if they are brought across the 
State line into a jurisdiction that does not have a parental 
involvement law, and that this is some new notion in American 
jurisprudence and in our history of Federalism.
  Well, the gentleman from New York, he and I carry the burden of our 
respective State income taxes with us to the work that we do here; and 
as most people know, New York and Wisconsin's State income taxes are 
quite high, and we have to pay those State income taxes as residents 
and as representatives of the States for the work that we do at our 
Nation's Capital.
  The other thing is that it is somehow cruel and unconstitutional to 
force the involvement of parents where the parental involvement acts 
have been held constitutional by the Federal courts.
  Now, a constitutional parental involvement act is not cruel; it is 
loving. It is not unconstitutional, because the courts have already 
said it is not unconstitutional. So to merely cross the State line for 
the purpose of evading a constitutional parental involvement act is not 
unconstitutional in and of itself, because Congress has got the 
exclusive right to regulate interstate commerce under the United States 
Constitution.
  For all these reasons, this is a good bill. The House should pass 
this bill today, like it has done in the two previous Congresses.
  Mr. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, this bill would make the tragic situation 
of teen pregnancy even worse.
  I believe that adolescents should be encouraged to seek their 
parent's advice when facing difficult circumstances. And when young 
people do go to their parents in trying times, most often their parents 
offer love, support, direction and compassion. Most young women do turn 
to their parents--even when faced with something as emotional and 
private as pregnancy. Even in States without ``parental consent'' laws, 
the majority of pregnant teenagers do tell their parents.
  Unfortunately, though, there are times when a pregnant teenager 
cannot go to her parents. This is precisely the time when they most 
need the involvement of a trusted adult. But, under this bill, if an 
adult assists a young woman by traveling with her across states lines 
to seek an abortion, the adult becomes a criminal. It does not matter 
if the adult is her sister, brother, grandmother, or minister--they 
would still be criminals in the eyes of federal prosecutors. In my home 
State of Wisconsin, we take into account the fact that young people 
sometimes cannot turn to a parent and must turn to other trusted adults 
in trying times--in Wisconsin young women may obtain consent from 
grandparents, adult siblings, or another ``trusted adult.''
  Crossing State lines to obtain an abortion is not uncommon. Women 
usually seek care in the medical facility that is closest to their 
home, but, due to lack of facilities in many areas, the closest 
facility may be across a State border. In Wisconsin, 93 percent of 
counties do not have an abortion provider, so the nearest facility for 
women in these counties may be in Minnesota or Illinois. Congress has 
not made it illegal to cross state lines to buy guns, or gamble, or 
participate in any other legal activity, why should we make an 
exception here?
  What if the teenager has been subject to physical or sexual abuse by 
one of her parents? What if the pregnancy is the result of incest? 
There is no exception in this bill for minors who have experienced 
physical or sexual abuse in their home. Nor is there an exception for a 
young women who might be subject to grave physical abuse if she 
confided to her parent or parents.
  Mr. Speaker, we all want children to confide in their parents, we all 
want a society with strong families. But let us not forget those 
children in our society who are victims of incest or physical abuse. 
Let us encourage them to reach out to an adult rather than deal with a 
crisis pregnancy alone.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 
476, the Child Custody Protection Act. This bill would make it a 
federal crime for a person, other than a parent, to transport a minor 
across state lines for an abortion unless the minor had already 
fulfilled the requirements of her home state's parental involvement 
law. This bill would deny teenagers facing unintended pregnancies the 
assistance of trusted adults, endanger their health, and violate their 
constitutional rights. This flawed legislation is dangerous to young 
women and should in fact be called the ``Teen Endangerment Act.''
  Minor women who seek abortions come from a wide variety of religious, 
cultural, socioeconomic, geographic, and family backgrounds, and seek 
abortions for an equally wide variety of reasons. In 86 percent of 
counties nationwide for example, the closest abortion provider is 
across state lines.
  Data shows that the majority, 61 percent, of minors willingly involve 
their parents in their decision to have an abortion. Many that do not 
wish to involve their parents make that decision because of a history 
of physical abuse, incest, or the lack of support from their parents. 
Parental involvement laws cannot and do not open lines for healthy, 
open family communication where none exist, and they can put a minor in 
danger of physical violence. When a young woman does not have the 
ability to involve a parent, public policies and medical professionals 
should encourage her to involve a trusted adult, such as a grandparent. 
Instead of giving young women this alternative, this bill does the 
exact opposite. If passed into law, it would create havoc by 
potentially allowing grandma to be prosecuted and jailed for traveling 
across state lines to obtain needed reproductive health services for 
her granddaughter.
  While proponents of this bill will argue the alternative to parental 
consent is a judicial bypass, this simply is not an option for many 
teenagers. Many judges never grant bypass petitions, and many teenagers 
have well-grounded fears of being recognized in a local courthouse and/
or of revealing their personal intimate details in a potentially 
intimidating legal process. Moreover, many states with parental 
involvement laws do not provide a procedure for ruling on a minor's 
right to an out-of-state abortion. Besides, in many states judicial 
bypasses are available only in theory and not in practice.
  Rather than tell their parents, some teenagers resort to unsafe, 
illegal, ``back alley'' abortions or try to perform the abortion 
themselves. In doing so, they risk serious injury and death, or in some 
cases, criminal charges.
  In my home state of California, a minor who wishes to obtain an 
abortion may do so without any legal requirements that she involve her 
parents or that she seek a court order exempting her from forced 
parental involvement requirements. This bill will override California's 
law for some minors obtaining abortions in California by requiring 
enforcement of other states' laws within California's borders. States 
such as California are most likely to be visited by minors in need of 
abortions. These states will bear the burden of having their medical 
personnel and clinic staff subject to potential liability from a number 
of complex provisions regarding conspiracy, accomplice and accessory 
liability.
  While this bill raises many obvious concerns, it also tramples on 
some of the most basic principles of federalism and state sovereignty. 
A core principle of American federalism is that laws of a state apply 
only within the state's boundaries. This bill would require some people 
to carry their own state's laws with them when traveling within the 
United States. Allowing a state's law to extend beyond its borders runs 
completely contrary to the state sovereignty principles on which this 
country is founded. Gambling for example is allowed in Nevada, but not 
California. If Congress enacts this legislation, it would be similar to 
making it a federal crime to spend a vacation in Las Vegas.
  Abortion should be made less necessary, not more difficult and 
dangerous. A comprehensive approach to promoting adolescent 
reproductive health and reducing teen pregnancy should require 
comprehensive sexuality and abstinence education as well as access to 
contraception and family planning services. I urge my colleagues to 
oppose this legislation.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this closed rule on 
H.R. 476, the misnamed Child Custody Protection Act. By rejecting all 
amendments, the Rules Committee has shut out Members from debate on 
important amendments.
  I had offered an amendment in Judiciary Committee, and again to the 
Rules Committee, that would carve out an exception to the prohibitions 
of H.R. 476. Under my amendment, those prohibitions would not apply in 
cases where the minor child's pregnancy was caused by sexual contact 
with a parent, step-parent, custodian, or household or family member. 
This closed rule, however, makes it impossible for any Member to vote 
on this valuable amendment.
  Sadly, some pregnancies result from unwanted sexual contact. Adding 
to that horror is the fact that many families are unable or unwilling 
to deal with the realities of the situation. A mother may choose not to 
believe that the

[[Page H1367]]

child's father or step-father could have done such a horrible thing. 
She may even share the child's confidences with the very person who 
committed the deed--thus potentially putting the child at greater risk.
  Let me tell you about the tragic case of Spring Adams, a 13-year old 
sixth grader from Idaho. She was impregnated by her father's acts of 
incest. When he learned that she was planning to terminate a pregnancy 
caused by those acts, he shot her to death.
  My amendment to H.R. 476 addresses this problem. When the child in 
such a situation turns instead to a grandparent, adult sibling, 
boyfriend, or religious leader, we should let her do so. And we should 
let them help her. Otherwise, we will find young girls, impregnated by 
relatives on household members, seeking to deal with it in any way they 
can--whether they do so by traveling alone to another state for the 
procedure, or take care of it through a self-induced or illegal, back-
alley abortion.
  Unfortunately, the closed rule we have before us means that none of 
my colleagues can address this problem with H.R. 476. Instead, these 
children, who have been victims of incest or nonconsensual sex with a 
household member, will be forced to confide their pregnancy to the 
person who violated them. We should not demand that of the child.
  I urge a rejection of this rule that blocks valuable amendments from 
an overly harsh bill. Vote ``no'' on the rule.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 476, the 
Child Custody Protection Act.
  Twenty-seven states, including my home state of Nebraska, have laws 
requiring that a parent receive notification or give consent before 
their young daughter can have an abortion. These laws are designed to 
honor the rights of parents and protect young girls from being sexually 
exploited or injured. Unfortunately, they are often circumvented by the 
widespread practice of taking young girls across state lines to receive 
an abortion, a practice which is utilized by sexual predators.
  In one example, a 12 year-old girl was taken to an out-of-state 
abortion clinic by the mother of the man who had raped and impregnated 
her. This young girl's mother learned what had happened only when her 
daughter returned home with severe pain and bleeding that required 
medical attention. H.R. 476 would help prevent such terrible situations 
by making it a Federal crime to dodge a parental involvement law by 
transporting a minor to an out-of-state abortion provider.
  If a teenage girl needs permission to take an aspirin at school, her 
parents should certainly be notified about her receiving a potentially-
harmful medical procedure. Loving guidance and support from parents is 
also crucial for young women facing the difficult situation of having a 
child out of wedlock. Even the abortion provider Planned Parenthood 
acknowledges on its website that, and I quote, ``Few would deny that 
most teenagers, especially younger ones, would benefit from adult 
guidance when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Few would deny that 
such guidance ideally should come from the teenager's parents.''
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 476 
to protect the rights of parents, to protect the rights of states, and 
most importantly, to protect young girls from sexual predators.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give my support 
to H.R. 476, the Child Custody Protection Act, of which I am a 
cosponsor. This important legislation protects our daughters from being 
transported across state lines to be subjected to abortion, an invasive 
medical procedures, without the consent of their parents. Thirty-six 
states have parental consent laws in place to ensure that young 
teenaged girls do not undergo an abortion without their parent's 
consent. As a medical doctor I understand the physical and emotional 
ramifications of abortion. If parental consent is required for a child 
to receive an aspirin in school or to take a field trip, how much more 
critical is parental consent for an abortion?
  Moms and Dads should play a critical role in these kinds of 
decisions. It is simply not acceptable for third parties with their own 
agenda and interests to circumvent the role of parents, particularly 
when the state of residence has reinforced these rights for parents. 
All to often third parties such as sexual predators and abortion 
providers take advantage of these girls for their own purposes, and the 
parents are left to deal with the consequences. When the long-term 
repercussions such as medical complications and depression set in, old 
boyfriends and abortion companies are not there for the child, instead 
the parents are left to suffer as they watch their daughters suffer.
  Last September Eileen Roberts whose daughter was a victim of a non-
parent assisted abortion, testified before the House Judiciary 
Committee about the horrors of this practice. She stated:

       I am horrified that our daughters are being dumped on our 
     driveways after they are seized from our care, made to skip 
     school, lie and deceive their parents to be transported 
     across State lines whether that distance be two miles or 100 
     miles. Where are these strangers when the emotional and 
     physical repercussions occur? They are kidnapping another 
     young adolescent girl and transporting her for another secret 
     abortion, and thus the malicious activity occurs over and 
     over. When will this activity stop? When will those 
     responsible for these secret abortions be held accountable 
     for the financial costs of emotional and physical follow-up 
     care from a disastrous legal abortion?
       I am reminded of the many young adolescent teens, 
     especially Dawn from New York, whose parents were notified in 
     time to make funeral arrangements after their daughter's 
     legal abortion. Mrs. Ruth Ravenell and her husband were 
     awarded $1.3 million dollars by the State of New York for the 
     wrongful death of their 13-year-old daughter. Mrs. Ravenell, 
     shared with me and the Senate Education and Health Committee 
     in Richmond, VA that she sat in the hospital before her 
     daughter died, with her hand over her mouth to help keep 
     herself from screaming.

  Eileen Roberts, whose daughter was encouraged by her boyfriend, with 
the assistance of an adult friend, to obtain a secret abortion without 
telling her parents. Eileen's daughter suffered from depression, 
medical complications, and sever pelvic inflammatory disease which 
caused the family terrible pain and suffering and cost $27,000 in 
medical bills.
  Mr. Speaker, we must take action to protect our children from these 
attacks on the family. We must protect girls from being coerced to have 
an abortion without even their parents' knowledge. Children should not 
be transported across state lines for major medical procedures with the 
express intent to circumvent the laws and parental involvement. H.R. 
476 will preserve the right of parents and will protect our children.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill.
  The legislation we are considering today would prohibit anyone--
including a step-parent, grandparent, or religious counselor--from 
accompanying a young woman across State lines for an abortion.
  This is a dangerous, misguided bill that isolates our daughters and 
puts them at grave risk. Under this legislation, young women who feel 
they cannot turn to their parents when facing an unintended pregnancy 
will be forced to fend for themselves without help from any responsible 
adult. Some will seek dangerous back-alley abortions close to home. 
Others will travel to unfamiliar places seeking abortions by 
themselves.
  Thankfully, most young women--more than 75 percent of minors under 
age 16--involve their parents in the decision to seek an abortion. 
That's the good news. And as a mother and a grandmother, I hope--as we 
all hope--that every child can go to her parents for advice and 
support.
  But not every child is so lucky. Not every child has loving parents. 
Some have parents who are abusive or simply absent. Now, I believe that 
those young women who cannot go to their parents should be encouraged 
to involve another responsible adult--a grandmother, an aunt, a rabbi 
or minister--in what can be a very difficult decision.
  Already, more than half of all young women who do not involve a 
parent in the decision to terminate a pregnancy choose to involve 
another adult, including 15 percent who involve another adult relative. 
That's a good thing. We should encourage the involvement of responsible 
adults in this decision--be it a stepparent, aunt or uncle, religious 
minister or counselor--not criminalize that involvement. Unfortunately, 
this bill will impose criminal penalties on adults--like grandmothers 
who come to the aid of their granddaughters.
  I am a grandmother of six--and I believe grandparents should be able 
to help their grandchildren without getting thrown in jail. As much as 
we might wish otherwise, family communication and open and honest 
parent-child relationships cannot be legislated. When a young woman 
cannot turn to her parents, she should certainly be able to turn to her 
grandmother or a favorite aunt for help. Unfortunately, this 
legislation tells young women who cannot tell their parents: don't tell 
anyone else.
  Parental consent law do not force young women to involve their 
parents in an hour of need. We know that it can do just the opposite. 
Indiana's parental consent law drove Becky Bell away from the arms of 
her parents and straight into the back alley. Parental consent laws 
don't protect our daughters--but they can kill them. They don't bring 
families together--but they can tear them apart. And so I ask, why 
can't we do more to bring families together, and to keep our people 
safe?
  I firmly believe that we should make abortion less necessary for 
teenagers, not more dangerous and difficult. We need to teach teenagers 
to be abstinent and responsible. And we need a comprehensive approach 
to keeping teenagers safe and healthy. We do not need a bill that 
isolates teenagers and puts them at risk. I urge my colleagues to vote 
no on this legislation.

[[Page H1368]]

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, in the name of a truly laudable cause 
(preventing abortion and protecting parental rights), today the 
Congress could potentially move our nation one step closer to a 
national police state by further expanding the list of federal crimes 
and usurping power from the states to adequately address the issue of 
parental rights and family law. Of course, it is much easier to ride 
the current wave of criminally federalizing all human malfeasance in 
the name of saving the world from some evil than to uphold a 
Constitutional oath which prescribes a procedural structure by which 
the nation is protected from what is perhaps the worst evil, 
totalitarianism carried out by a centralized government. Who, after 
all, wants to be amongst those members of Congress who are portrayed as 
trampling parental rights or supporting the transportation of minor 
females across state lines for ignoble purposes.
  As an obstetrician of more than thirty years, I have personally 
delivered more than 4,000 children. During such time, I have not 
performed a single abortion. On the contrary, I have spoken and written 
extensively and publicly condemning this ``medical'' procedure. At the 
same time, I have remained committed to upholding the constitutional 
procedural protections which leave the police power decentralized and 
in control of the states. In the name of protecting states' rights, 
this bill usurps states' rights by creating yet another federal crime.
  Our federal government is, constitutionally, a government of limited 
powers, Article one, Section eight, enumerates the legislative area for 
which the U.S. Congress is allowed to act or enact legislation. For 
every other issues, the federal government lacks any authority or 
consent of the governed and only the state governments, their 
designees, or the people in their private market actions enjoy such 
rights to governance. The tenth amendment is brutally clear in stating 
``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively, or to the people.'' Our nation's history makes clear that 
the U.S. Constitution is a document intended to limit the power of 
central government. No serious reading of historical events surrounding 
the creation of the Constitution could reasonably portray it 
differently.
  Nevertheless, rather than abide by our constitutional limits, 
Congress today will likely pass H.R. 476. H.R. 476 amends title 18, 
Untied States Code, to prohibit taking minors across State line to 
avoid laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions. 
Should parents be involved in decisions regarding the health of their 
children? Absolutely. Should the law respect parents rights to not have 
their children taken across state lines for contemptible purposes? 
Absolutely. Can a state pass an enforceable statute to prohibit taking 
minors across State lines to avoid laws requiring the involvement of 
parents in abortion decisions? Absolutely. But when asked if there 
exists constitutional authority for the federal criminalizing of just 
such an action the answer is absolutely not.
  This federalizing may have the effect of nationalizing a law with 
criminal penalties which may be less than those desired by some states. 
To the extent the federal and state laws could co-exist, the necessity 
for a federal law is undermined and an important bill of rights 
protection is virtually obliterated. Concurrent jurisdiction crimes 
erode the right of citizens to be free of double jeopardy. The fifth 
amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifies that no ``person be 
subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or 
limb . . .'' In other words, no person shall be tried twice for the 
same offense. However, in United States v. Lanza, the high court in 
1922 sustained a ruling that being tried by both the federal government 
and a state government for the same offense did not offend the doctrine 
of double jeopardy. One danger of the unconstitutionally expanding the 
federal criminal justice code is that it seriously increases the danger 
that one will be subject to being tried twice for the same offense. 
Despite the various pleas for federal correction of societal wrongs, a 
national police force is neither prudent nor constitutional.

  We have been reminded by both Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and 
former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese that more federal crimes, while 
they make politicians feel good, are neither constitutionally sound nor 
prudent. Rehnquist has stated that ``The trend to federalize crimes 
that traditionally have been handled in state courts . . . threatens to 
change entirely the nature of our federal system.'' Meese stated that 
Congress' tendency in recent decades to make federal crimes out of 
offenses that have historically been state matters has dangerous 
implications both for the fair administration of justice and for the 
principle that states are something more than mere administrative 
districts of a nation governed mainly from Washington.
  The argument which springs from the criticism of a federalized 
criminal code and a federal police force is that states may be less 
effective than a centralized federal government in dealing with those 
who leave one state jurisdiction for another. Fortunately, the 
Constitution provides for the procedural means for preserving the 
integrity of state sovereignty over those issues delegated to it via 
the tenth amendment. The privilege and immunities clause as well as 
full faith and credit clause allow states to exact judgments from those 
who violate their state laws. The Constitution even allows the federal 
government to legislatively preserve the procedural mechanisms which 
allow states to enforce their substantive laws without the federal 
government imposing its substantive edicts on the states. Article IV, 
Section 2, Clause 2 makes provision for the rendition of fugitives from 
one state to another. While not self-enacting, in 1783 Congress passed 
an act which did exactly this. There is, of course, a cost imposed upon 
states in working with one another rather than relying on a national, 
unified police force. At the same time, there is a greater cost to 
state autonomy and individual liberty from centralization of police 
power.
  It is important to be reminded of the benefits of federalism as well 
as the costs. There are sound reasons to maintain a system of smaller, 
independent jurisdictions. An inadequate federal law, or an 
``adequate'' federal law improperly interpreted by the Supreme Court, 
preempts states' rights to adequately address public health concerns. 
Roe v. Wade should serve as a sad reminder of the danger of making 
matters worse in all states by federalizing an issue.
  It is my erstwhile hope that parents will become more involved in 
vigilantly monitoring the activities of their own children rather than 
shifting parental responsibility further upon the federal government. 
There was a time when a popular bumper sticker read ``It's ten o'clock; 
do you know where your children are?'' I suppose we have devolved to 
the point where it reads ``It's ten o'clock; does the federal 
government know where your children are.'' Further socializing and 
burden-shifting of the responsibilities of parenthood upon the federal 
government is simply not creating the proper incentive for parents to 
be more involved.
  For each of these reasons, among others, I must oppose the further 
and unconstitutional centralization of police powers in the national 
government and, accordingly, H.R. 476.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support a common-sense 
bill to empower parents and protect children. The Child Custody 
Protection Act is first, last and always about the youngest and most 
vulnerable members of our society.
  Girls under the age of eighteen should be protected from people who 
set out to break a state's law--especially when the decision is one 
that can never be reversed.
  States have wisely enacted parental consent and notification laws to 
ensure mothers and fathers are fully involved in their children's 
lives. Just as they have control whether or not to permit an aspirin to 
be dispensed to their son or daughter in school, the parent-child 
relationship must not be undermined on the subject of abortion.
  There is an abundance of evidence from the Yellow Pages to prove 
abortion clinics advertise to minor girls. ``No parental consent 
needed'' caters to the out-of-state girl who is often scared and 
confused. Children should not have their parents' counsel replaced by 
the phone book.
  I commend the sponsors and supporters of this legislation--both 
Democrat and Republican--and urge passage of the bill.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition 
to this bill. While the other side likes to call this bill the Child 
Custody Protection Act, I have named it the Rapist and Incest 
Perpetrator Protection Act. This bill does not protect girls and their 
families. This bill protects the rights of those who rape and molest 
young girls by forcing these vulnerable girls to gain permission from 
the very person who has committed this awful crime to exercise her 
constitutionally protected right.
  The fact is that over 60 percent of parents now are already involved 
in this important decision of their daughters' lives. But if a parent 
is the perpetrator of a crime against these girls, and she turns to a 
grandparent or a teacher or a religious leader for help, that 
grandparent or religious leader can be dragged off to jail for doing 
what is right.

[[Page H1369]]

  Under this bill, if a man from my state of Florida helped his younger 
sister across state lines to Georgia because she feared telling her 
abusive parents or because the clinic in Georgia was actually closer 
and more convenient, this older brother could be charged with a felony. 
Not only that, but anyone who knew that he helped her could be charged 
as a co-conspirator. The receptionist at the clinic who gave directions 
from Florida could be charged. The person performing the intake 
interview or counseling who knew of her Florida address would be 
charged. If they spent the night at an aunt's house in Georgia, that 
aunt could also be thrown in jail.
  This is wrong. This bill is wrong. The government cannot mandate 
healthy and open family communications where it does not already exist. 
If passed into law, this bill will cause many young women to face very 
important decisions alone, without any help. I urge Members to vote 
overwhelmingly against this bill.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Child 
Custody Protection Act. This parental rights legislation prohibits the 
transportation of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion if 
the requirements of a law in the state where the individual resides 
requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision are not 
met before the abortion is performed. Twenty-seven states require 
parental consent or notification of minors seeking to abort their 
babies. It is a shame that as we are working to promote parental 
involvement, their rights are being activity circumvented.
  News reports and published studies reveal that large numbers of 
minors are crossing state lines to obtain abortions, and many of these 
cases involve adults rather than parents transporting the minors. This 
is especially worrisome when the pregnancy is a result of statutory 
rape. Not only are our daughters being preyed upon by older men, but 
they are further psychologically damaged by having to obtain an 
abortion without even the support of their parents. A California study 
found that two-thirds of the girls were impregnated by adult, 
postschool fathers with a median age of 22. It is estimated that 58 
percent of the time girls seek an abortion without parental knowledge, 
they are accompanied by their boyfriend. Even those of you who support 
the supposed ``choice'' to abort babies cannot be in favor of the 
intimidation of teenage girls by older males.
  The Child Custody Protection Act is not a federally parental 
involvement law; it merely ensures that state laws are not evaded 
through interstate activity. It does not encroach upon state powers, 
but reinforces them. Pennsylvania is one of the states with parental 
notification requirements. The Pennsylvania appeals court noted, 
``although a parent's right to make decisions for her child is tempered 
in the instance of abortion, at least in Pennsylvania that parent has 
the legitimate expectation that procedural safeguards designed to 
protect the minor will be observed.'' Parents in Pennsylvania and 27 
other states need our help to guaranteeing that these laws are upheld.
  Parental rights protect not only parents but minors as well. We have 
all read numerous studies indicating the benefits of parental 
involvement in a child's education. Parental involvement and guidance 
in life is even more critical. Pregnancy is a life changing experience, 
especially for teenagers, and we should not further distance them from 
their parents at a time when they need as much support and love as they 
can get. We cannot allow parental rights to be bypassed. I encourage my 
colleagues to join me in support of the Child Custody Protection Act.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that today we will 
vote on H.R. 476, the so-called ``Child Custody Protection Act.'' This 
anti-choice bill would dangerously criminalize help from relatives and 
close friends who assist young women struggling with the most difficult 
personal challenges.
  I wish that every child was in a loving family that they could turn 
to first. The facts are, however, that many young women do not have 
that type of relationship with their parents and in too many cases we 
have seen the actual problem caused by abusive close family members.
  People who would deny women reproductive choice have altered their 
tactics to chip away at women's reproductive freedoms; this is one of 
the most insidious examples. This bill would limit the choices for the 
most desperate women and is part of an overall anti-choice strategy 
that I reject.
  Draconian measures like H.R. 476 often have unintended consequences 
that can lead to desperate actions with dire consequences for the 
mental health and physical well-being of our nation's young women.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 476, 
the Child Custody Protection Act because the bill is unconstitutional, 
dangerous, anti-family, and incredibly broad.
  1. The bill is blatantly unconstitutional in at least three respects:
  First, the bill violates minors' due process rights by increasing 
their risk of physical harm. This violates the principles of Carey v. 
Population Services, where the Supreme Court held that a state may not 
seek to deter sexual activity by ``increasing the hazards attendant on 
it.''
  Second, H.R. 476 contains an inadequate exception to protect women's 
lives, and it does not have any exception to protect a woman's health--
in clear violation of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
  Finally, the bill violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause by 
denying citizens the right to travel freely and enjoy the legal rights 
of citizens of other states. In violation of these principles of 
federalism, the bill saddles a young woman with the laws of her home 
state no matter where she travels in the country.
  2. The bill is also dangerous because it takes away from young women 
safe alternatives to parental involvement--such as turning to close 
relatives, close family friends, and religious counselors--and replaces 
them with life-endangering ones, such as hitchhiking, self-induced, or 
back-alley abortions. If you don't believe me, ask Becky Bell's family. 
She died from a back alley abortion as a result of Indiana's parental 
consent law when she was afraid of confiding in her family.
  The bill will inevitably lead to increased family violence. We know 
that one-third of teenagers who do not tell their parents about a 
pregnancy have already been the victim of family violence. We also know 
that the incidence of family violence only escalates when a teenage 
daughter becomes pregnant. This bill will only exacerbate those 
problems.
  3. In addition, the bill is anti-family because it will turn family 
members into criminals. In a state that requires the consent of both 
parents, a single parent who takes a child across state lines would be 
subject to criminal charges, even if the other parent was estranged or 
their whereabouts were unknown. Grandparents would also be subject to 
prosecution, even if they were the child's primary caregiver.
  4. Finally, the legislation is incredibly broad. Supporters of this 
bill claim to be targeting predatory individuals that force and coerce 
a minor into obtaining an abortion. However, the net cast by this bill 
is far broader and far more problematic. Under the legislation, anyone 
simply transporting minor could be jailed for up to a year or fined or 
both. Any bus driver or taxi driver unaware that the young woman has 
not engaged a formal parental involvement process could conceivably be 
sent to jail under this prohibition. The same applies to emergency 
medical personnel who may be aware they are taking a minor across state 
lines to obtain an abortion, but would have no choice if a medical 
emergency were occurring.
  What we have is yet another shortsighted effort to politicize a 
tragic family dilemma that does nothing to respond to the underlying 
problem of teen pregnancies or dysfunctional families.
  I urge the Members of vote ``no'' on this simple-minded, dangerous, 
and misguided legislation.
  Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). All time for debate has 
expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 388, the bill is considered read for 
amendment, and the previous question is ordered on the bill.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.


                     Motion to Recommit Offered by
                        Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I am in its present form, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas moves to recommit the bill H.R. 
     476 to the Committee on the Judiciary with instructions to 
     report the same back to the House forthwith with the 
     following amendment:
       Page 4, after line 7, insert the following:
       ``(3) The prohibitions of this section do not apply with 
     respect to conduct by an adult sibling, a grandparent, or a 
     minister, rabbi, pastor, priest, or other religious leader of 
     the minor.

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask 
unanimous consent that the motion to recommit be considered as read and 
printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Texas?
  There was no objection.

[[Page H1370]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes in support of her 
motion.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I was just listening to a 
discussion that reminded me that we have come repeatedly to the floor 
to discuss this issue, and I do not intend by this motion to recommit 
any of the debate that has preceded us to diminish the consciousness 
and the sense of dedication and commitment that our colleagues have 
when they come to the floor of the House; but I believe that it is 
extremely important that this Congress, this House, reach to their 
higher angels, and understand that there are people who suffer every 
day, whose lives may be different from those of us who have spoken 
today.
  I have heard women in this debate mention their family members, their 
children and the relationships they have. I have a 22-year-old daughter 
and 16-year-old son, and we work very hard to keep the lines of 
communication open, being there for them. If they were talked to by 
someone else, they might say on some things I want to not speak to 
parents who are loving and nurturing, of which my husband and myself 
believe that we try to be. I could not give you a response. I know what 
we try to do as a family.
  But even in the instance where we try, what about the reality of 
life? What the majority is doing today, Mr. Speaker, is ignoring their 
own proposition, which says we have a responsibility to protect a child 
from someone who may be putting his interest ahead of the child's at a 
most vulnerable time. Those are words by the majority leadership. Yet 
this bill does that. It takes the political and moral views of the 
majority and imposes them on young women who may not feel the same way.
  This motion to recommit says this. This is a motion to recommit that 
no one should oppose, and that is that the prohibitions of this section 
do not apply with respect to the conduct by an adult sibling, a loving 
sister or brother, a loving grandparent, a minister, rabbi, pastor, 
priest or other religious leader of a minor.
  Mr. Speaker, life is real; and I do not know if many of you are aware 
of lives that young people live. Thirteen-year-old Anita lives with her 
grandmother, Joy, who she calls Momma. After noticing that Anita had 
become withdrawn and observing changes in her sleeping and eating 
patterns, Grandma Joy, Momma, suspected that Anita was pregnant.
  At first Anita denied she could be pregnant. Joy finally got Anita to 
open up, and Anita revealed, Mr. Speaker, that she had been raped. 
Anita could not stop crying, shaking and vomiting as she told Joy the 
story; and she told Joy that she did not want to have a baby, because 
Anita was 13 years old.
  Anita was raped. Anita was not engaging in frivolous sex. She was 
raped. Fortunately, Joy and Anita do not live in a State with parental 
consent, because Anita's mother is a drug addict, Mr. Speaker. She is 
part of America's society, but she is not a mother who is able to 
counsel with this young girl.
  Had Joy and this mother lived in another State, this young girl, who 
had already been so traumatized by rape, would have further been harmed 
by parental involvement, but even more so harmed by this Federal law 
that would keep Momma, Momma, who this little girl lives with, from 
taking her to a place of safe haven, where they might have consulted 
with their religious leader, and little Anita to be able to rebuild 
this young girl's life. Raped.
  This bill does not answer the health of the child. This bill does not 
confront the reality of American life, where children live in homes 
where there is no parent. This bill does not confront the 
constitutional rights of children and choice and the right to privacy.
  This motion to recommit, Mr. Speaker, is a fair motion. How can 
anyone in this body vote against a grandparent, a loving adult sibling, 
a minister, a rabbi or pastor or priest or religious leader who would 
guide and consult with the family? These are the very same rights and 
privileges that we give to all who claim to live in the bounty of this 
land.

                              {time}  1315

  This is tragic. It is well known that young people live alone as 
well, like the one I mentioned, April, the single mother, 16 years old, 
of a 2-year-old child and whose stepfather abused her and, therefore, 
no relationship with the natural mother.
  We are denying the privileges of a familial situation, and I would 
ask my colleagues who value this legislation as family values, where is 
your heart to match the family values? Where is it reasoned that you 
would deny that grandmother and that adult sibling and that ministerial 
or that religious leader from helping to protect the constitutional 
rights that exist?
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to instruct by a motion to recommit 
this bill to go back and be able to emphasize family values for real, 
with a heart.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed. Here we are, adult legislators 
who raise families and promote family unity. But yet this bill before 
us alienates young adolescents from their families and people that care 
about them.
  H.R. 476, the Child Custody Protection Act, would criminalize anyone 
transporting a minor across state lines if this circumvents the state's 
parental involvement laws.
  While I strongly oppose this bill, I offered amendments in Committee 
that would have at least given a young woman the support of a family 
member or clergy person during this time. Except that the Democrats 
were not allowed to offer any amendments to soften the effects of this 
family-destructing bill. Amendments were the only chance for this bill 
to assure that the young woman who decides to get an abortion, for 
whatever reason, has the support of a loving family member or respected 
member of the clergy. She should not do it alone when she can't. The 
Majority said that ``very often, parents are the only ones that know 
their child's psychological and medical history. Not consulting with 
parents can lead to health and safety risks.'' On the contrary, this 
bill is detrimental to young women's health.
  First of all, legal abortions, particularly early in pregnancy, are 
very safe--safer than carrying a pregnancy to term. Secondly, studies 
demonstrate that minors are capable of making competent medical 
decisions without parental involvement. Further, states that do not 
permit minors to consent to abortion do permit them to consent to 
childbirth. If the true purpose of this bill is to protect children 
rather than to impose another obstacle on young women's right to 
choose, this anomalous result would be resolved here today.
  The Majority continues by saying, ``We have a responsibility to 
protect a child from someone who may be putting his interest ahead of 
the child's, at a most vulnerable time.'' This is what this bill does. 
It takes the political and moral views of the Majority and imposes them 
on young women who may not feel the same way. If we are concerned about 
promoting healthy family communication and family values, we will not 
accomplish that with this bill. Many young women who feel they cannot 
seek the counsel of their parents turn to other trusted family members 
when they face a crisis pregnancy. As a matter of fact, one study found 
that 93% of minors who did not involve a parent were accompanied by 
someone else in the reproductive health facility.
  This bill would criminalize the conduct of a grandmother who helps 
her granddaughter in time of need. Aunts, uncles, and other trusted 
family members would face imprisonment if they accompany a young 
relative across state lines without complying with her home state's 
parental involvement law. This bill would isolate young women from 
supportive and protective family members rather than uniting families.
  If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle really believe in 
family unity and cared about their health, then they would have been 
amenable to the amendments that we attempted to make in order.
  That is why I am offering this motion to recommit. Our ultimate goal 
is to provide access to health care that is in the best interest of the 
adolescent. This bill prohibits that. My motion is to send this back to 
the House Judiciary Committee and report back exempting adult siblings, 
a grandparent, or a religious leader who helps a young woman in this 
situation. These are adults who care for adolescents and would offer 
assistance when confiding in their parents is not feasible. My 
colleagues on the other side say that this bill protects minors who 
cannot tell their parents because minors can appear before judges and 
bypass any parental involvement law. Judicial bypass procedures often 
pose formidable obstacles to young women facing crisis pregnancies. 
Some anti-choice judges routinely deny minors' petitions.
  For example, a judge in Toledo, Ohio, denied permission to a 17-year-
old woman--an `A' student who planned to attend college and who 
testified that she was not financially or emotionally prepared for 
motherhood at the same time. The judge stated that the young woman had 
``not had enough hard knocks in her life.''

[[Page H1371]]

  Mr. Speaker, if we really care about the health and well-being of our 
young citizens, then we must send this bill back.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to 
recommit.
  Mr. Speaker, these individuals that are referred to in this motion to 
recommit, siblings and grandparents and religious leaders, ministers, 
that sort of thing, do not have the authority now to authorize any 
medical procedures for a minor child or to council or guide that child 
as she makes important medical decisions. So why should the fundamental 
rights of parents to consult and advise their pregnant daughters be 
thrown aside, only in the context of abortion?
  The purpose of this bill is to ensure that the rights of parents to 
be involved in their daughter's abortion decision is not interfered 
with. Judicial bypass procedures contained in all parental notice and 
consent statutes allow a pregnant minor in some circumstances to obtain 
an abortion without having notified or gained the consent of her parent 
or legal guardian in cases of sexual abuse or incest and those types of 
things, for example. Those who want to add these exemptions have a 
fundamental problem with the underlying State laws that only provide 
parents a right to consent to or receive notice of this procedure. The 
inclusion of these individuals is a matter for each individual 
legislature to decide, not Congress.
  The purpose of H.R. 476 is to enforce State laws as they are. If 
extended family members or religious leaders are truly interested in 
the best interests of the pregnant young girl, they will encourage and 
support her as she takes the difficult step to either inform her 
parents or guardian about her pregnancy, or to pursue a judicial 
bypass. It is certainly not in the best interests of a pregnant young 
girl for anyone, including a religious leader or extended family 
member, to assist her in evading the laws of her home State and 
secretly transporting her miles away from those who love her most in 
order to undergo a potentially dangerous procedure that carries with it 
serious medical consequences, serious long-term consequences.
  Parents are in the best position to make decisions about their minor 
children. Parents have their children, they love their children, they 
nurture their children, they care for them. They are in the best 
position, not anybody else.
  For these reasons and others, I urge my colleagues to vote against 
this motion to recommit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
this motion.
  I would remind my colleagues that this motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is essentially the same as the 
one that was offered back in 1999, and it was defeated by this body 164 
to 268. This motion again seeks to cut out the parent. And the parent, 
as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) just pointed out--not the 
religious leader, not some grandparent, not a sibling that happens to 
be an adult--is the legal guardian. If there is a problem, if there is 
some kind of injury that results as a result of that abortion, who is 
responsible? It is not going to be the brother or the sister. It is 
certainly not going to be the grandparent. It will be the parent. We 
should not cut the parent out of parental involvement by refusing them 
consent or knowledge about an abortion.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation has been very carefully crafted by the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and members of the 
Committee on the Judiciary. This is a killer motion, and I hope it will 
be defeated.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Madam Speaker, this Member rises in strong support of 
the motion to instruct conferees on the issue of payment limitations 
which the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) has 
offered.
  It is clear that strong payment limitation language would improve the 
integrity of the farm program payments and help to retain public 
support for these programs essential to rural areas. Making this change 
will also help prevent the overwhelming consolidation of farms that has 
resulted in a decrease in small- and medium-sized family farm 
operations. The savings achieved from this provision could then be 
directed to other worthwhile agricultural programs.
  A survey conducted by 27 land grant universities found that 81 
percent of the agricultural producers across the country supported 
placing limits on support payments thereby directing dollars to where 
they are actually intended. Furthermore, a 2001 General Accounting 
Office report found that in recent years, more than 80 percent of farm 
payments were made to large- and medium-size farms. In 1999, for 
instance, 7 percent of the nation's farms--those with gross 
agricultural sales of $250,000 or more--received about 45 percent of 
the payments. With Congress facing so many spending priorities, we must 
demonstrate to our constituents that we are using taxpayers' money more 
efficiently.
  It is important to note that this motion to instruct expresses 
support for redirecting these funds to agricultural research and 
conservation. Our choice is clear--we can continue to funnel millions 
of dollars to some of the wealthiest farms or we can make an investment 
in the future of agriculture which will benefit all producers and all 
Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, this Member strongly supports the motion to instruct and 
encourages his colleagues to vote for it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). Without objection, the previous 
question is ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. 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.
  Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to a minimum 
of 5 minutes the period of time within which a vote by electronic 
device, if ordered, will be taken on the question of passage, followed 
by a 5-minute vote, if ordered, on approving the Journal.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 173, 
nays 246, not voting 15, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 96]

                               YEAS--173

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barrett
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Biggert
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Castle
     Clay
     Clayton
     Condit
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Green (TX)
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Lynch
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Mink
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Simmons
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Sweeney
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson (CA)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NAYS--246

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boozman
     Borski
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox

[[Page H1372]]


     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (FL)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     Kildee
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     Mascara
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Mica
     Miller, Dan
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins (OK)
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--15

     Bartlett
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Dingell
     Hastings (FL)
     Jones (OH)
     LaTourette
     Miller, George
     Pryce (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thornberry
     Traficant
     Watt (NC)

                              {time}  1344

  Messrs. KILDEE, RAHALL, ORTIZ, McNULTY, BILIRAKIS and STUPAK changed 
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. GILMAN, Ms. SANCHEZ, and Messrs. GREENWOOD, SHAYS, and FORD 
changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, my vote was recorded incorrectly on the 
motion to recommit on H.R. 476. My vote would be a ``no'' on the motion 
to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). The question is on the passage 
of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 260, 
noes 161, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 97]

                               AYES--260

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Boozman
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carson (OK)
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (FL)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Langevin
     Latham
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Manzullo
     Mascara
     Matheson
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Mica
     Miller, Dan
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pascrell
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--161

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barrett
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Biggert
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Boucher
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Castle
     Clay
     Clayton
     Condit
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Foley
     Frank
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Green (TX)
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kind (WI)
     Kirk
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mink
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Simmons
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Solis
     Stark
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson (CA)
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Barcia
     Callahan
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Dingell
     Dunn
     Hastings (FL)
     Jones (OH)
     LaTourette
     Pryce (OH)
     Thornberry
     Traficant
     Watts (OK)

                              {time}  1354

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Stated for:
  Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 97, I was unavoidably 
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, my vote was not recorded on the 
Child Custody Protection Act, vote No. 97. I ask that the Record 
reflect that had my vote been recorded, I would have voted ``aye.''
  Mr. BARCIA, Mr. Speaker, due to an unavoidable conflict I was unable 
to cast a vote on rollcall No. 97, question: on passage of H.R. 476, 
the Child Custody Protection Act. I ask that the Record reflect that if 
I were able to cast my vote it would have been ``aye.''

[[Page H1373]]

  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I inadvertently voted ``yea'' on final 
passage of the Child Custody Protection Act (rollcall vote 97) when I 
meant to vote ``no.'' Please let the Record reflect my true intention 
and note this statement in the appropriate place in the Congressional 
Record.

                          ____________________