[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6566-H6586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ABORTION NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT OF 2002

  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 546 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 546

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     4691) to prohibit certain abortion-related discrimination in 
     governmental activities. 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) one hour of debate on the bill equally 
     divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce; and (2) one 
     motion to recommit.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  On Tuesday, the Committee on Rules met and granted a closed rule for 
the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2002. H.R. 4691 strengthens 
existing law by saying that health care entities should not be forced 
by the government to provide abortions. It is a very small but very 
important step in the right direction. It simply protects conscience 
rights of those organizations who do not want to be involved in 
abortion.
  I urge Members to act promptly to enact the Abortion Non-
Discrimination Act, which will address the crisis of conscience rights 
and begin to eliminate the intolerance, coercion and discrimination 
against health care participants who do not believe in participating in 
abortion procedures due to moral or religious beliefs.
  In 1996 Congress passed a law that forbids government discrimination 
against health care entities that refuse to undergo training in the 
performance of induced abortions, to require or provide such training, 
to perform such abortions or to provide referrals for such training for 
such abortions.
  However, due to recent judicial misrepresentation, H.R. 4691 is 
needed to clarify that health care entities include all health care 
organizations, including hospitals. It is a simple, commonsense and 
technical change.
  I am pleased that in my home State of North Carolina a physician or a 
nurse does not have to perform abortion if it is against their 
religious principles. The same applies for hospitals and health care 
institutions. In fact, 44 other States have similar conscience clauses. 
So this is not something new and different.
  As a cosponsor of this legislation, I am very pleased to see it reach 
the floor of the House.
  I also believe that today a growing number of health care practices, 
procedures and medications present serious moral concerns for many 
health care providers. Recent medical and pharmacological developments 
increasingly put health care entities at the vortex of some of 
society's controversial moral dilemmas.
  Increasingly, there is pressure upon health care providers, both 
individuals and organizations, to put aside personal moral beliefs in 
order to facilitate convenient access to new drugs, procedures and 
technologies. In the ordinary course of professional life, without any 
additional pressures, these dilemmas arise often enough to create 
crisis for tens of thousands of health care entities.
  However, in addition to these dilemmas, there are increasing 
pressures upon health care participants to facilitate or provide 
products or services which violate their own conscience. Advocates of 
particular procedures and programs, particularly major promoters of 
abortion, are systematically singling out health care providers and 
entities to squeeze and compel them to abandon their moral values as 
the price to pay to remain in the profession or in the market.
  Mr. Speaker, health care providers want this bill in overwhelming 
numbers, believing in their hearts that they too have a right to 
choose, a right to choose not to be involved in destroying life. To 
that end, I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying 
bill.
  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 thank the gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a mere 6 weeks since the leadership lobbed 
on to the House floor a bill targeting women and their reproductive 
health care. Be assured that the election season is upon us, and in the 
face of a crumbling stock market and exploding deficits and uncertain 
war on terrorism at home and calls for new war in Iraq, of this we can 
be sure: Congress will use the floor of the House of Representatives to 
push propaganda restricting a

[[Page H6567]]

woman's ability to make her own decisions rather than deal with the 
overriding issues at hand.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. Speaker, Congress does not have the right or the expertise to 
make these decisions for the American people. The last time Members 
were facing a life-or-death decision, or their constituents were facing 
a life-or-death situation, who would they want with them in the 
emergency room? Did they want their physician, their spiritual adviser, 
family members, or would that patient say wait until a Member of 
Congress gets here because Congress will have the last word on this 
issue? I am sure that the American public would give us a resounding 
no. We are basically practicing medicine without a license.
  Direct mail pieces distorting the issue are already being printed and 
will hit the streets as soon as the vote is completed. This vote is 
pure politics. This measure is cynical and unconstitutional. Moreover, 
everyone in the Senate knows that the Senate will not touch it.
  In the meantime, the real work of the Congress as mandated by the 
Constitution goes undone. Our most fundamental duty of funding the 
Nation's priority has ground to a halt. With the fiscal year ending in 
less than a week, the President has yet to sign a single appropriations 
bill. The press reports indicate that the majority leadership has under 
consideration a plan to simply quit work and go home and come back and 
try again next year, using a long-term continuing resolution to 
disguise that fact that the people's House has ceased to perform 
anything but election-year gimmicks at taxpayers' expense.
  It is almost superfluous to note that this is a closed rule. For 
those following the deliberations of this body on controversial 
matters, it should come as no surprise. The majority has chosen to shut 
out meaningful debate. Under this closed rule, no amendment will be 
allowed. For a bill that impacts so fundamentally on the life of so 
many, this is unconscionable.
  For those school children who may be visiting this Chamber today, I 
wanted to offer a quick history lesson. Silence was not always the case 
here. Free-flowing debate used to be the norm. The Chamber used to team 
with ideas and with voices of passion from all regions of the country. 
Today these voices are shut out. My colleagues, the gentlewoman from 
Colorado (Ms. DeGette), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), attempted to have an 
amendment made in order in the Committee on Rules to prevent the most 
egregious effects of the underlying bill taking effect. Their efforts 
were struck down almost immediately along a party-line vote. It is my 
hope that someday true debate will return to this Chamber and the 
voices of our constituents will not be silenced.
  But today, Mr. Speaker, instead of debate, we will have an up-and-
down vote on a bill that will radically expand existing law. This 
legislation would essentially allow any health care entity, including 
hospitals, health insurance companies, or HMOs, to exempt themselves 
from current Federal, State and local laws that assure women have 
access to reproductive services. I want to make the point here that 
that says that the Hyde amendment, which was passed by Congress which 
allows a person who has been a victim of rape or incest to have an 
abortion, will be overridden by this bill. It says that any law or 
regulation by a State or the Federal Government can be overridden.
  Now, any law or regulation that covers any kind of coverage will be 
considered discriminatory against a health care entity that does not 
want to comply, for any reason at all, not merely religious, and could 
not be enforced. Remember, the religious exemption has been in 
legislation for years. That is not what we are doing today. The penalty 
for any State or local government which discriminates is the loss of 
all, all Federal financial assistance. At a time when hospitals and 
local governments are hanging on by a thread, such a loss of Federal 
funds would be devastating.
  H.R. 4691 has been brought to the floor without any committee 
consideration and over the strong objections of the moderate Members of 
the majority party. Moreover, for a party that prides itself on 
attention to States' rights, it is ironic that this legislation will 
override the progress of States that have worked to ensure that women 
not only have access to reproductive services, but also the right to 
basic information.
  This bill reinstates the gag rule. Many in this body may not realize 
it, but the Federal Government does not pay for abortion services. As I 
mentioned before, the Hyde amendment to the Medicaid program stipulates 
that Medicaid patients must have access to these procedures only in 
cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy endangers a woman's life. 
That would be gone. This bill before us overrides even that most narrow 
of exceptions. Moreover, States like mine, who use their own Medicaid 
funds to cover abortion services beyond those narrow circumstances if 
they wish, and in fact, 21 States do so, this bill would preclude these 
States from enforcing their own laws and constitutional decisions in 
the area of reproductive services for low-income women.

  Mr. Speaker, this bill is not limited to reproductive services 
themselves. Under the bill, States would be prohibited from requiring 
health care entities participating in the Medicaid programs to provide 
referrals for reproductive services. It would prohibit States from 
ensuring that patients have all of the information they need to make an 
informed choice about themselves, the gag rule again.
  Moreover, this bill is a direct assault on the doctor-patient 
relationship. Under this legislation, the administrative hospitals or 
HMOs could gag the doctors who work under them from discussing basic 
information about abortion services with their patients. We restrict no 
other professionals from giving the best of their advice to people who 
seek it.
  This law provides no guidelines for why these administrators may be 
gagging physicians from providing or even discussing reproductive 
services. It will say simply to save the HMO more money. The 
legislation is a gross expansion of the powers of the managed-care 
entities to severely limit the options available to the patients that 
they supposedly serve. The legislation would also undermine a State's 
ability to set health care licensing and certification standards. 
Imagine that, we would be setting certification standards and licensing 
for them from here as well.
  In deciding whether to approve a hospital merger, for example, a 
State could not consider whether a newly merged hospital system would 
diminish a community's access to full reproductive health services. 
This would tie the hands of States like New Jersey that are trying to 
ensure that entire communities are not completely without any qualified 
abortion providers.
  In fact, supporters of the bill have stated that this is their 
intent. The measure is opposed by numerous groups, including the 
National Council of Jewish Women, Catholics for Free Choice, the 
American Association of University Women, the American College of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Center for Reproductive Law and 
Policy, National Organization of Women, the National Partnership for 
Women and Families, People for the American Way, and the Planned 
Parenthood Federation of America, and certainly me.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).
  (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of the rule 
and the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act. The gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Slaughter) strayed a bit from the subject, and I feel the 
necessity to respond.
  As far as the work of the House is concerned, the House is doing its 
work. Under article 1 section 7, clause 2, the House has passed a 
budget and many other important pieces of legislation. As required by 
law, we have done our work. The Senate has not passed a budget.
  More importantly, to say that protection of human life is not 
significant

[[Page H6568]]

legislation is as sadly wrong as it possibly can be. H.R. 4691 is 
simply a clarification of current law. This existing nondiscrimination 
statute that Congress overwhelmingly approved and President Clinton 
signed into law in 1996 protects health care entities from being forced 
by the government to perform abortions. Because of judicial 
misinterpretation, H.R. 4691 is needed to clarify that health care 
entities include all health care organizations, including hospitals.
  In recent years, there has been a growing nationwide effort to attack 
the conscience rights of Catholic and other private health care 
providers. Alaska courts have assumed they have the authority to force 
private hospitals to provide abortions as a condition for receiving 
Federal funds or for full participation in the health care system. It 
is imperative that we clarify the protections contained in current law 
to ensure that no hospital is forced to perform abortions against its 
will. I support the rule and the underlying bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I cannot help thinking that we are moving 
back to the 16th century. This is the most far-reaching assault on 
women that I have ever seen in this House. I want to put a human face 
on this. In 1963, I was an intern at the Buffalo General Hospital. I 
dealt with two poor women who had back-alley abortions. One had eight 
children, one had six. They were done with coat hangers, and both those 
women died. I still see their faces.
  At the same time that was going on in Buffalo at the place I now 
live, Seattle, women could go down to a travel agency, buy a ticket to 
Japan, have a day's shopping and an abortion, and come home. Now, that 
is the circumstance in 1961, 1962, 1963 in this country.
  For us to be moving back in this direction, overriding Roe v. Wade, 
and the Hyde amendment, is simply a step back into the dark ages and it 
is absolutely wrong. This is not a women's issue; this is a human 
issue. Those 14 children in Buffalo who grew up without their mothers 
because their mothers could not have full reproductive services in a 
decent hospital in a major city in the United States are what Members 
are saying is all right for all of the children of this country.
  Leave no children behind, my President has said. Well, this is 
guaranteed to leave children behind if we step back this far into the 
past. I urge Members to vote against this rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Ryun).
  Mr. RYUN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, H.R. 
4691. Today we have the opportunity to support freedom of conscience 
for those in our health care system and who have invested their lives 
in caring for their fellow Americans. Forty-six States protect 
hospitals and health care professionals who choose not to participate 
in abortions; and even though there is existing law, Federal law, 
intended to protect individuals and entities from being forced to 
participate in an abortion, clarification is still needed, and that is 
what we are doing today.
  Some hospitals and doctors are being forced to go against their 
conscience and provide abortion services. In spite of existing law, 
this coercion still exists. For example, the National Abortion and 
Reproductive Rights Action League has a project in Maryland that aims 
to require every Maryland hospital to provide abortion services.
  H.R. 4691 will guarantee that hospitals, insurance companies, and 
health care professionals will not be forced to take part in a 
procedure that they deem morally wrong and disagree with.
  Whether one supports a right to life or a right to abortion, 
participating in or paying for abortion should not be forced upon 
anyone. I urge Members to stand with me in supporting this rule and our 
constituents' freedom of conscience.
  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 today in strong opposition to H.R. 
4691. It is a misguided measure that has dangerous implications for 
women's reproductive health and for our health care system as a whole.
  Of course, elections are near, so this debate might be advanced 
because of a right wing, anti-choice agenda. We have heard and it has 
been made quite clear that their political schemes are worth 
sacrificing the health of American women. This bill robs women of their 
right to get comprehensive information about their medical and legal 
options, and this bill will leave health care providers at the whim of 
the anti-choice movement.

                              {time}  1130

  The current state of our health system is obviously weakening day by 
day. Our constituents are experiencing increased premiums or they are 
being dropped by their plans altogether, and now the right wing of this 
Congress is prepared to tell our constituents that their right to make 
an informed decision is being taken away.
  Mr. Speaker, rather than putting patient access to care in further 
jeopardy, why are we not working to improve access to quality health 
care? This bill also is a slap in the face to State and local 
governments that have implemented policies that put a woman's health 
ahead of bad politics.
  We cannot fall for the outrageous antics of the anti-choice 
community. We cannot let them twist another health care issue into a 
political issue. That is why I implore my colleagues, my colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle, vote against this extremely harmful measure 
and vote against this rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).
  Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, for many individuals, opposition to abortion 
is not just a matter of choice but it has been a matter of conscience 
and faith. Many individuals so moved to oppose abortion are the health 
care providers who at one time under Federal law found themselves in 
the difficult position of objecting to the procedure but being forced 
to perform it. Fortunately in 1996 Congress recognized that those who 
choose to oppose abortions should not be forced to administer the 
procedure and passed legislation protecting those, as they called them, 
health care entities from being forced by the government to perform 
those abortions.
  Since the passage of that law, though, those who do not want to 
respect the right of individuals to conscientiously object to 
performing this procedure and want to ignore the will of Congress have 
fought this provision nationwide. The attack has been successful in 
cases such as in Alaska where courts have decided that they can force 
private hospitals to provide abortions as a condition of fully 
participating in their health care system. The ignorance of the faith 
and conscientious objection of American health care professionals and 
organizations is unacceptable.
  That is why I support this legislation. It simply clarifies language 
in the law so that all health care entities, including Catholic 
hospitals and individual health care professionals other than 
physicians, are covered and can freely object to performing abortions 
on the basis of their conscientious decision.
  Opponents of the bill have argued that this legislation will block 
access to emergency care for poor women or that it will interfere with 
a State's right to enforce abortion laws. None of this is true. The 
bill simply protects the conscientious objection of health care 
providers who oppose abortion.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a simple and very direct bill. It does not 
expand or change any rights of women. What it does is it allows for the 
free exercise of a conscientious objection of a health care provider.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to 
the previous speaker. It does indeed change women's rights. It puts a 
gag rule on women, and the religious exemption that she talks about 
clarifying is already in legislation. What this does is drive women 
back to back alleys.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 4691 and in 
opposition to the rule that we are considering

[[Page H6569]]

right now because we should not be considering this legislation at all. 
Despite the wishes of the bill's promoters, our United States 
Constitution does in fact guarantee American women the right to choose 
an abortion. And while this bill does not directly overturn Roe v. 
Wade, it might as well for many women do that since it will make access 
to abortion impossible for them. To talk about this as a technical 
change is simply cynical. This is one of the most dangerous attempts to 
restrict a woman's right to choose, including her right to information 
and services regarding her reproductive health.
  H.R. 4691 would allow an HMO or a health insurance company to decide 
for any reason whatsoever that it will no longer pay for, provide 
information or even make referrals for abortion services even if the 
woman's life is endangered or she is a victim of rape or incest. Under 
this bill, it would be impossible for a State to ensure that women who 
are victims of rape or incest or whose life is threatened would have 
access to abortions. In this world today, there are decreasing options 
for everyone in choosing health insurance companies or HMOs.
  So are we going to leave it, then, to an employer to decide whether 
or not a woman would have a right to choose in essence because that HMO 
would deny them access to the abortion? And in rural areas where there 
may be only one option for a woman to go, she is denied that 
opportunity to have her full health services available to her.
  What this bill really does is allow any health care entity to ignore 
all Federal, State and local laws pertaining to abortion services, 
information and referrals. It is not a conscience clause as some would 
like to call it, as if HMOs have a conscience. In fact, there are no 
Federal laws that currently exist that require any individuals or 
hospitals to provide abortions. But this bill would restrict a doctor's 
rights; that is, his right if he believes in his medical judgment or in 
his conscience that it is his responsibility to provide those services, 
he could not do that. So this does limit the right of doctors not to be 
forced to perform it but to be forced not to perform abortions.
  Women in this country need to be able to trust that when they go to a 
doctor with a problem or a condition that they will be given all 
information necessary to make informed decisions. But this bill would 
gag doctors. Informed consent as a minimum is a valued and expected 
component of our health care system. So why do we think that when it 
comes to women's health it is okay to throw even this concept out the 
window?
  This is unacceptable. I urge a ``no'' vote.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin).
  Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, I think those of us that have served in public 
office at all know that when you come to the abortion question, there 
are two very highly charged and two different views on this subject. 
Some people think that abortion should be legal and that it is a matter 
of a human right and somebody's choice. Other people think that 
abortion is wrong and it is a form of murder. There are people in our 
country and in each of our districts that hold both of these views with 
a great deal of tenacity.
  But the question before us today is really not the question of 
abortion. We are not going to address this underlying issue. What we 
are talking about instead, the question is as to whether we protect 
various health care organizations or individuals, whether we want to 
protect their right to have a choice, to even have an opinion on the 
subject.
  What is going on here is that the abortion agenda is not really 
content with choice. The only choice that they are content with is that 
everybody has to agree with them and that we are going to compel 
someone else to that choice. It is always understood, I think, by most 
reasonable people that one person's rights stop where another person's 
rights start. But that is not the case here. Instead, the right of some 
health care organization to have an opinion on this subject is going to 
be hammered by the big fist of government. That is not reasonable.
  All we are saying is that the person that has to provide the service 
needs to have a choice as well. One person's right stops where 
another's right starts.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume. I want to say, there is already conscience exemptions and 
everybody knows that. That is not why we are here today. We are really 
here today to turn back the clock. Without any doubt, a woman who has 
the opportunity even to understand what her rights are and what her 
options are, this is an appalling thing that we are doing. This is not 
an ordinary law we are talking about here. This is life and death. A 
woman who has come into a hospital raped, scared to death, does not 
know what to do, needs somebody to talk to, may have the unlucky option 
of coming across a doctor who says his conscience forbids him from 
discussing it with her, comforting her or giving her any idea that she 
has options.
  But since this House is all politics all the time in this Chamber, I 
want to give you some statistics that I think might be interesting on a 
political issue. The vast majority of Americans oppose allowing 
institutional health care providers to deny service on the basis of 
moral or religious objections. Seventy-six percent of the public 
opposes giving hospitals an exemption allowing them to refuse to 
provide medical services to which they object on religious grounds. 
Eighty-nine percent of the public opposes allowing insurance companies 
to refuse to pay for medical services to which the insurance company 
objects on religious grounds. Seventy-nine percent of the public finds 
convincing the statement that religiously affiliated hospitals should 
not be allowed to force their religious beliefs on other people. And 
frankly, I expect that nigh 100 percent of the people in the United 
States do not believe that Congress should impose its religious beliefs 
on them.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following material for the Record:

                                   American Civil Liberties Union,


                                   Washington National Office,

                               Washington, DC, September 24, 2002.
       Dear Representative: The ACLU urges you to vote against 
     H.R. 4961, the so-called ``Abortion Non-Discrimination Act'' 
     when it is considered on the House floor tomorrow. Drafted by 
     the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and sponsored by 
     Representatives Dick Armey (R-TX), Joseph Pitts (R-PA), and 
     Michael Bilirakis (R-FL), H.R. 4691 would allow a broad range 
     of health care entities to refuse to comply with a wide array 
     of federal, state, and local requirements to provide abortion 
     services or information about those services.
       Refusal clauses such as H.R. 4691 permit a person or entity 
     to refuse to provide reproductive health services. The ACLU 
     believes that such clauses should be tested against two 
     factors: (1) the extent to which the clause protects 
     religious refusals that place burdens on people who do not 
     share the beliefs that motivate the refusal (by ``burdens,'' 
     we mean obstacles to health care and other critical personal 
     interests, but not the mere exposure of third parties to 
     religious practices or the tax or other financial burdens 
     that may result from permitting certain exemptions); and (2) 
     the extent to which the clause protects institutions engaged 
     primarily in religious worship or instruction, or instead 
     exempts institutions engaged in a secular pursuit in the 
     public sphere. Although this test is not compelled by an 
     legal ruling, the ACLU believes that it strikes the 
     appropriate balance between reproductive rights and religious 
     freedom. H.R. 4691 fails this test because its burdens would 
     fall primarily on those who do not share the beliefs that 
     motivate the refusal and because it protects institutions 
     engaged in the public and secular provision of health care. 
     Because H.R. 4691 amounts to a broad noncompliance permit for 
     religious entities that employ and serve people of all 
     faiths, that perform a variety of public functions, and that 
     accept public financial support, the ACLU strongly opposes 
     this bill.
       H.R. 4691 radically alters existing law by providing broad 
     license for all manner of health care entities--from 
     hospitals to insurance companies to HOMs--to avoid basic 
     legal requirements imposed by all levels of government. The 
     bill prohibits a governmental entity from 
     ``discriminating''--that is, treating a health care entity 
     differently--on the basis of the entity's refusal to perform, 
     refer, train, cover, or pay for abortions. But merely 
     enforcing federal, state, and local laws designed to ensure 
     access to abortion services, or to information about those 
     services, could constitute ``discrimination'' against 
     entities that object to those laws. This bill could thus deny 
     women access to critical information about their health care 
     options, interfere with the delivery of abortion services to 
     poor women in medical emergencies, and impede states' ability 
     to enforce their own laws on abortion.
       H.R. 4961:

[[Page H6570]]

       Would compromise the ability of Title X clients to obtain 
     information critical to their health. Title X, which provides 
     federal funds for contraceptive services for low-income 
     individuals, requires that grantees provide a referral to a 
     qualified abortion provider upon request as part of non-
     directive options counseling. H.R. 4691 would prohibit the 
     federal government from enforcing this regulation because it 
     could be deemed ``discriminatory'' to deny Title X grants to 
     providers that refuse to make abortion referrals. The bill 
     could thus undermine federal standards and compromise the 
     health of low-income pregnant women by denying them critical 
     information;
       Would interfere with the delivery of abortion services to 
     poor women in dire emergencies. H.R. 4691 would impede 
     compliance with the Hyde Amendment, which mandates Medicaid 
     coverage of abortions in cases of rape, incest, or where the 
     pregnancy endangers a woman's life. Requiring Medicaid 
     managed care organizations to provide such coverage, or to 
     provide information concerning such coverage, could 
     constitute ``discrimination'' against those entities that 
     refuse to provide or refer patients elsewhere for these 
     services;
       Would interfere with states' ability to enforce their own 
     laws on abortion. H.R. 4691 could prevent those states that 
     cover medically necessary abortions beyond those mandated by 
     the Hyde Amendment (whether as a result of state 
     constitutional rulings or by virtue of state laws) from 
     effectuating that coverage by contracting only with Medicaid 
     managed care organizations that agree to provide or refer 
     patients elsewhere for abortion services. (More than fifteen 
     states require such coverage.) The provision would interfere 
     with these states' ability to enforce their own laws and to 
     manage and ensure delivery of mandated services within their 
     own Medicaid programs;
       Would disrupt the enforcement of state health care 
     regulations. H.R. 4691 would thwart the enforcement of state 
     and local laws that require entities certified or licensed by 
     the state to address the full range of health care needs in 
     the communities they serve. A state might be prevented, for 
     example, from denying a ``certificate of need'' (a state-
     issued document that is similar to a permit) to a newly 
     merged hospital that refused to provide even lifesaving 
     abortions and thus left pregnant women in the community 
     without help in medical emergencies. (Mergers between 
     religiously affiliated hosiptals and secular hospitals often 
     raise this issue because some religious hospitals insist that 
     the newly merged entity apply religious doctrine in the 
     provision of health services.);
       Could violate basic principles of federalism. H.R. 4691 
     might interfere with the enforcement of rulings by those 
     state courts that have concluded that their state 
     constitutions require broader protection for reproductive 
     freedom than the federal Constitution provides. For example, 
     proponents claim that the bill would overrule Valley Hospital 
     v. Mat-su Coalition for Choice, 948 P.2d 963 (Alaska 1997), 
     in which the Alaska Supreme Court concluded that the Alaska 
     Constitution requires that quasi-public hospitals provide 
     abortion services. If interpreted as its proponents urge, 
     this bill would abrogate this state constitutional decision 
     because it would prohibit ``discrimination'' against quasi-
     public entities for their refusal to provide or refer for 
     abortions. It would thus strip states of autonomy and 
     violate basic principles of federalism;
       Could interfere with the enforcement of certain state trust 
     laws. Some state laws prevent health facilities established 
     as charitable trusts from making significant changes in their 
     charitable purposes. For example, charitable trust laws may 
     prohibit a hospital founded specifically to serve a broad 
     segment of the community from eliminating the provision of 
     reproductive health services. At least one state has enforced 
     its charitable trust law against a hospital that sought to 
     convert from a community facility to a religiously controlled 
     facility that provided more limited reproductive health 
     services. Proponents of H.R. 4691 argue that such a state 
     would be deemed to have impermissibly ``discriminated'' 
     against the hospital under the bill; and
       Could immunize a health care entity's refusal to provide 
     emergency contraception, even to victims of rape. Because it 
     does not define the term ``abortion,'' H.R. 4691 could permit 
     health care entities to refuse to provide emergency 
     contraception (``EC''), even to victims of rape. Although EC 
     is merely a high dose of ordinary birth control pills and 
     does not interrupt an established pregnancy, some religiously 
     affiliated providers define EC as an ``abortifacient.'' They 
     could use this bill to attempt to shield themselves from 
     repercussions for refusing to comply with state laws that 
     require hospitals to provide EC (or referrals for EC) to rape 
     survivors in their emergency rooms.
       Where the Public Stands: The vast majority of Americans 
     oppose allowing institutional health care providers to deny 
     services on the basis of moral or religious objections:
       76% of the public opposes giving hospitals an exemption 
     allowing them to refuse to provide medical services to which 
     they object on religious grounds.
       89% of the public opposes allowing insurance companies to 
     refuse to pay for medical services to which the insurance 
     company objects on religious grounds.
       79% of the public finds convincing the statement that 
     ``[r]eligiously affiliated hospitals should not be allowed to 
     force their religious beliefs on other people.''
       For all of these reasons, the ACLU urges you to oppose H.R. 
     4691.
           Sincerely,
     Laura W. Murphy,
       Director.
     Gregory T. Nojeim,
       Associate Director and Chief Legislative Counsel.

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I know this is a difficult 
issue for everybody and I regret to have to rise in strong opposition 
to this rule and to encourage the Republicans and Democrats, pro-life 
and pro-choice, to oppose this rule.
  I do not know how many of you know women in America who use 
prescription contraceptives to plan their families, to manage their 
reproductive capability, but in my experience of the women who are of 
childbearing age, 99 percent, 95 percent, a very large percent of women 
in America use prescription contraceptives and many States require that 
any health plan offering prescription drugs include prescription 
contraceptives in order to be a nondiscriminatory prescription drug 
plan.
  This bill for the first time explicitly says that any HMO CEO, who 
personally defines prescription contraceptives as an abortifacient, can 
alter their plan to deny women the right to coverage under their 
prescription drug plan of prescription contraceptives.
  Ladies and gentlemen, that is wrong. Never have we given, and here it 
is right in the bill, a provider sponsored organization, (that is a 
PSO), a health maintenance organization, (that is an HMO), a health 
insurance plan the power to deny legal benefits. Health insurance plans 
and the standards they must abide by are set by State law. This is a 
massive override of State law that regulates health insurance plans and 
benefits.
  I have personally stood on this floor and voted against some very 
popular health mandates that have frankly come back to haunt me 
politically because the Federal Government should not be mandating 
health benefits on States and State plans. This is doing exactly that 
and it is giving this power arbitrarily to an individual HMO CEO to 
override State law. We have never done that. We have never stood on 
this House floor and allowed individuals to say in conscience, when it 
might well be not in conscience but in cost, the right to make such 
decisions in opposition to State law! Are we going to allow the 
conscience clause now to be polluted as an economic instrument?
  The protection in conscience is clear. Forty-five States have laws 
protecting doctors, nurses, all health care professionals, so they do 
not have to provide sterilization, abortion, or any procedure that in 
conscience they do not agree with. Furthermore, Catholic hospitals do 
not have to provide facilities. No institution that in conscience does 
not agree has to provide services or facilities. They not only do not 
have to do it if there are doctors or nurses that do not agree, but the 
institution is protected. All this does is say CEOs are protected as 
well.
  Did you vote for a patients' bill of rights? I do not care whether it 
was the Democrat's Patients' Bill of Rights or the Republican's 
Patients' Bill of Rights, the whole goal of that was to allow patients 
and doctors to make decisions about health plans and not HMO CEOs.
  I urge you to vote down this rule. We need a much greater discussion 
than to bring this up in the waning days of a session that has not 
passed its appropriation bills.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her very thoughtful 
remarks. One point she made that I think is terribly important is that 
we are turning religious exemption, moral thoughts and moral attitudes 
into an economic issue by saying we simply will not do this. But, 
moreover, let me make the point that we made earlier when we talked, 
that any hospital that flies in the face of this legislation will be 
restricted of all Federal aid, all of it.

[[Page H6571]]

                              {time}  1145

  And if the Members' hospitals are like mine, and I see no reason why 
they would not be, this would be devastating to them and hospitals 
would have to close all over the country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, let me reiterate some of the points that 
have been made but most importantly the fact that we should defeat this 
rule. This rule is a closed rule. It did not allow a very simple 
amendment which would have essentially said that doctors will not be 
gagged from telling their patients what is the best medical information 
for those patients. Why on earth with an issue like this that was never 
even taken through committee, and I know that because I sit on the 
committee of jurisdiction, would we then bring a closed rule to the 
floor with a bill as outrageous and sweeping as this bill? I urge a 
``no'' vote on the rule. And when we look at the consequences of 
passing the bill, even if the rule did pass, even if the doctors would 
be gagged, this bill is such an expansion of law that we cannot pass 
legislation that will hurt patients so badly.
  This legislation is the biggest gag rule we have ever seen. It will 
not protect Catholic hospitals from providing abortions or even 
referrals to most people. They are already exempt under current law.
  The bill would allow any hospital, any health insurance, any clinic, 
any HMO to deny services, coverage, or even referrals for abortions for 
any reason whatsoever. Proponents of this bill will say the purpose is 
to ensure that hospitals with religious affiliations do not provide 
services that conflict with their values. This is simply not true. 
First of all, they do not have to right now. Secondly, there is nothing 
in this bill about opting out of services or information due to 
religious values. In fact, there is nothing in this bill about religion 
at all. Anti-choice lawmakers are trying once again to back-door a bill 
that restricts women's reproductive choices, and this time they are 
hiding behind the Vatican to do it.
  Let me say it again. Catholic hospitals do not have to provide 
abortion services under current law, and individual providers at any 
health care facility can opt out of providing abortions by invoking a 
conscience clause. This is current law.
  Let me tell my colleagues what most health care entities do have to 
do. They have to give women information about their options. A law 
preventing them from doing so is a gag rule, plain and simple. And the 
majority of people in this country want their full medical options and 
are fiercely opposed to gag rules.
  Let me tell my colleagues what current laws that this bill would 
override. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act passed 
in 1986 requires that if a pregnant woman who comes to an emergency 
room is dying, is dying, due to the complications of the pregnancy, 
they have to try to save her life. If an abortion is deemed an 
immediate lifesaving measure, then they do have to provide one. This 
bill would overturn that.
  So if you think it is acceptable for pregnant women to bleed to death 
in emergency rooms because some hospitals have a policy of no abortion 
even under the circumstances of the life of the mother or rape or 
incest, vote for this bill.
  Today if a Medicaid patient comes to an emergency room after being 
raped and is found to be pregnant as a result of the rape, that 
hospital is at least obligated to give her a referral if she asks for 
one. This bill would overturn that. This bill would let a hospital say, 
I am sorry, you were raped, you want an abortion, but we cannot give 
you any information about that.
  So if you want victims of rape or incest to be ignorant of their 
options, vote for this bill. If you want HMOs to have more power over 
what reproductive services they will pay for, vote for this bill. If 
you want to tell every city, State, and locality that we know better 
than they do how to provide reproductive health for their citizens, 
vote for this bill. But if you do not believe in gag rules, if you 
believe women deserve access to information, if you believe in States' 
rights, if you believe the women of this country have the right to make 
their own decisions about their health care, vote against this bill 
and, importantly, vote against the rule.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it has been fascinating to listen 
to the debate on the other side on this bill. This issue began in 1996 
when some of the residency training programs were moving in a direction 
to require that to be certified and eligible to obtain one's license 
and specialty, such as OB/GYN, one could be forced to receive training 
in performing abortions. The Congress has a long-established track 
record of supporting the rights of conscience on this very, very 
controversial issue. There are many, many Americans, including many 
physicians, who feel as I do that abortion is morally wrong, that it is 
killing the unborn, and that nobody should be forced to learn how to do 
an abortion if they do not want to do it, and, importantly, no health 
care entity should be forced to perform abortions.
  The original statute that was enacted over the signature of Bill 
Clinton was language that was actually put forward in the Senate by 
Senators Coates and Snow. I will point out that she is pro-choice, and 
she stated at the time that she wanted to protect the rights of 
conscience, that people who feel strongly that abortion is killing 
should not be forced to have to do it. Now, that statute had some 
language in it that I thought was sufficiently broad. It says health 
care entities, and I thought a hospital was a health care entity. But 
the people on the left who are trying to advance the abortion agenda 
have managed to get courts to interpret that hospitals are not health 
care entities and that being that they receive Federal dollars and 
other State dollars, they could, and in the State of Alaska they have 
done this, be interpreted to be required to perform abortions.
  If my colleagues do not think the left is trying to advance their 
agenda, I have this here in my hand. They have since taken this off 
their Web site. This is Maryland NARAL. It says: ``For these reasons 
Maryland NARAL is launching the Hospital Provider Project. The goal of 
the Hospital Provider Project is to increase access to abortion 
services by requiring Maryland hospitals to provide abortion and other 
reproductive health care.'' So that is really what this debate is 
about. They have found a loophole in the Federal law and they are 
trying to drive a truck through it. Eighty-five percent of hospitals in 
America today avoid this issue by not providing abortion services and a 
pro-abortion crowd of the court wants to drag them into court and 
interpret a statute which we thought protected the right of conscience 
in such a way that it would force them to have to provide this.
  I want to touch on two things that people keep bringing up. Number 
one, this is going to interfere with all the Federal dollars. I do not 
know what else to say, other than that is a total misinterpretation of 
the statute. The interpretation that we have received is that, and 
these are decisions that have come out of the administration, that it 
will not interfere.
  The other thing I want to comment on is this business about 
contraception. Contraception is not defined by the FDA as abortion. The 
morning-after pill is not defined by the FDA as abortion. It is defined 
as contraception. It is something different. So to interpret this 
statute to claim that it is going to prohibit access is to take 
essentially a religious entity's doctrine and put that into the 
statute, and it is just not there. It is not in the language.
  So I know people can disagree on interpretations of law. When I look 
at this law and the legal scholars that I have had analyze it, they 
assert that that is a falsehood.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Members are reminded to refrain 
from improper references to the other body, including characterizations 
of positions of the Senate or individual Senators.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

[[Page H6572]]

  (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, as we heard earlier, this is an issue that 
deeply divides our country and us individually. I am passionately pro-
life, and I believe it is a shame on America to watch these young kids 
get killed. But that is not what this bill is about.
  This bill is about whether people who share my view about abortion 
have the right to practice their conscience in America and what are we 
doing to trample religious rights in America, of people who voluntarily 
join a health plan that shares their moral and religious beliefs.
  Religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church in this 
country, founded hospitals to care for the poor and to practice the 
saving of life. To be able in this country to force them to fund, 
provide abortion counseling or other things are anathema to their 
religious beliefs and is wrong.
  The bill that my former employer, former Senator Coats, passed in the 
Senate, intended to address this conscience clause.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Will the gentleman suspend.
  The Chair would remind Members to refrain from improper references to 
the other body, including characterizations of Senate actions.
  Mr. SOUDER. As a former staff member, I think I have some flexibility 
for him.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members that we 
do have rules in the House, and the Chair would ask Members to abide by 
the rules.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the question in Alaska overruled what was, 
in my opinion, at least, what my former employer intended to say, that 
the Alaska Supreme Court struck down the conscience clauses applied to 
the hospital, holding that there was no compelling State interest in 
the conscience rights of the hospital.
  Now, if compelling State interests overrules a Federal law that is 
based on religious freedoms based on our Constitution and laws that are 
passed, we are in deep trouble.
  You can see by the intent that my friend, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Weldon), just referred to of the Maryland national abortion rights 
group, their goal is to force those of us who deeply feel that abortion 
is murder to be able to not have our own plans for healthcare, to not 
fund our own hospital systems, to not have any alternative but to fund 
what we view as one of the fundamental evils in the United States.
  We can continue to fight abortion in this House and we will continue 
to fight about it, but those of us who deeply hold that this is a 
fundamental life should not be forced to fund in any way or participate 
in plans that require us to lay out dollars that require those of us 
who share that faith to practice what we believe is murder.
  Furthermore, I was deeply offended by the line that said we are 
trying to hide behind the Vatican. The Council of Catholic Bishops, 
their pro-life activities have spoken out on this, and there should not 
be cheap shots at the Catholic Church or those of us who share many 
deeply held religious views based on those views.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the previous speaker who brought up 
the Alaska decision, because the Alaska Supreme Court concluded that 
the Alaska State Constitution requires that quasi-public hospitals 
provide abortion services.
  Anti-choice forces use this decision to claim that private religious 
hospitals will be forced to perform abortions against their will. In 
fact, Valley Hospital is a non-religious institution with deep ties to 
the State and local government. It was built on land donated by the 
city using $10.7 million in State funds.
  Perhaps most importantly, the hospital had been granted a monopoly by 
the State to operate in the Ma-Su Valley, effectively insulating it 
from competition in a wide geographic area.
  Based on the significant ties to the State, the Alaska courts ruled 
the hospital was effectively public and that the Alaska State 
Constitution therefore prohibited the hospital from banning abortions.
  This bill, if passed, would violate those basic principles of 
Federalism by abrogating this State court ruling.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis).
  Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in 
support of the rule on H.R. 4691. This legislation does not give new 
rights, nor does it take away any. Rather, it is just a clarification 
of the current law.
  As we previously heard from other speakers, in 1996, Congress 
overwhelmingly, and I repeat, overwhelmingly, approved the existing 
nondiscrimination statute that protects healthcare entities from being 
forced by the government to perform abortions. Only because of judicial 
misinterpretation are we here today to clarify that healthcare entities 
include all healthcare organizations, including hospitals.
  I would like to note what is at stake here, and that is the freedom 
to abstain from performing an act that one considers to be morally and 
ethically wrong.

                              {time}  1200

  Catholic hospitals, which are particular targets, have had a long 
history of locating themselves in impoverished areas where not many 
others are willing to go. They do this as part of their ministry and 
yet, there is a movement to shut down these hospitals because they 
refuse to perform abortions. This is not only ridiculous, but it is 
callous to all of the people who will suffer without the services that 
these hospitals provide.
  Mr. Speaker, we must stop infringing upon the rights of hospitals, 
hospital workers, and the patients that they serve. I urge my 
colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and to vote ``yes'' on the final 
passage of H.R. 4691.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Anybody who votes for this rule because they think that they are 
preserving religious exemptions is exactly wrong. Religious exemptions 
are already in law.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, to their everlasting credit, 86 
percent of hospitals in America do not do abortions. Why? Because they 
are all about saving life, nurturing, and healing. Pregnancy is not a 
disease; the unborn child is not a wart or tumor to be killed. Chemical 
poisoning, literal dismemberment, abortions, are violence against 
children.
  This is all about protecting the right of conscience. NARAL let the 
cat out of the bag on one their web sites. They said, Maryland NARAL is 
launching this hospital provider project to increase access to abortion 
services by requiring Maryland hospitals to provide abortion. They want 
to compel hospitals of conscience to do abortions--it's that simple.
  Not all of the hospitals are religious. There are people who are not 
religious who have deep, moral convictions, and they believe that 
abortion takes the life of a baby. We ought to be nurturing. We should 
not compel our places of healing to become killing fields.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). The time of the gentleman 
from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) has expired.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  In one of those 85 percent of the hospitals that perform no 
abortions, if a woman should walk in bleeding, dying from a botched 
abortion, what would they do?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, 
they would do everything to help that woman survive and, in the process 
of trying to heal her and to attend to her botched abortion, they would 
probably remove the baby who is probably already dead.
  We are talking about doing everything to save both lives. That is 
what the hospitals and the emergency rooms

[[Page H6573]]

throughout this country are about. That is not what this issue is all 
about.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Slaughter) has expired.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself another minute, and then 
the gentleman may respond if he would like to.
  Before Roe v. Wade was passed, women had no option in the world 
except to go to a back alley, turning themselves over to unspeakable 
people with filthy hands and dirty equipment, and oftentimes they had 
to go to doctors and hospitals to try to be saved. Does the gentleman 
from New Jersey know that many of those hospitals were afraid to take 
them? Is the gentleman aware that women died? Is the gentleman not 
aware that if this bill were to pass, that hospitals might again be 
afraid in a circumstance like that to save a woman, lest they violate 
this legislation?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, this just says to opt out of 
the killing of unborn babies.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members to 
address their remarks to the Chair and to properly yield time back and 
forth, not to enter into a conversation.
  The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) controls the time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. The Speaker is perfectly right, Mr. Speaker, and I 
apologize. I simply want to make the case that if 85 percent of the 
hospitals refuse to give reproductive services in the United States, 
women will die.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, since Roe v. Wade, there have 
been in excess of 42 million unborn children killed by the 
abortionists, through chemical poisoning, through dismemberment, and 
most of those are for socioeconomic reasons: Abortion on demand. The 
baby was unwanted therefore he or she was expendible.
  What the abortion lobby is attempting to do is to expand the number 
of places where those children can be destroyed.
  Our hope is that Members will vote for this rule. There will be a 
motion to recommit, there will be an up-or-down vote on a motion that 
is from the pro-abortion side. I would hope that Members would vote 
``no'' on that motion to recommit and then vote ``yes'' on the 
Bilirakis bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Pence).
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today on certainly a matter of public policy and 
a matter of law, but I rise more passionately in support of this rule 
on a matter of conscience. I am a pro-life Member of this institution 
and I do not apologize for that. But today's debate I would offer 
humbly is not really about the debate over life and choice in America; 
today's debate is actually about the freedom to choose, which is a 
central tenet of the American experience.
  In the same way that no one should be forced to honor a creed that 
they do not protest or honor a faith that they do not hold, no one and 
no institution, Mr. Speaker, should be forced to perform abortions 
against their will, their charter, their faith, their conscience. They 
should be able to choose, Mr. Speaker.
  Now, we are debating here whether or not this institution will take 
measures to enforce the express will of this institution. Legislation 
that was signed by President Clinton in 1996 made the law which we seek 
to defend today the law of the land, Mr. Speaker, but through judicial 
activism from the bench in Alaska and elsewhere in America, our courts 
are abrogating the will of the American people as expressed in the laws 
passed in this institution. We rise today simply to clarify current 
law.
  I say with great respect to my passionate colleagues on the other 
side of this issue, Mr. Speaker, that there is no hidden agenda here. 
This is not about denying funding to hospitals, or prescription drugs, 
or that women will die. The agenda here is very, very public. It is 
whether or not in America today, in America's health care institutions, 
there is the freedom to choose; whether there is a freedom of 
conscience, a freedom of religion, or whether the modern orthodoxy of 
abortion will be enforced on hospitals as the law of the land.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, sponsors of the bill do claim that this is just a simple 
clarification of existing law, but that is absolutely not the case. 
This is an enormous change in Federal law and would represent an 
unprecedented intrusion by Congress onto State and local rights. We 
need to think about that.
  Mr. Speaker, all of us believe in life. Some of us simply believe 
that women should have the right to choose to live as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, the other side says this is about choice and, 
yet, when health care professionals, hospitals across the United States 
make a choice not to perform abortions, like 86 percent of them do 
today, abortion proponents have teamed up to force them to perform 
abortions anyway, regardless of religious objections, regardless of 
moral objections, regardless of conscientious objections. We have a 
conscience clause law passed in 1996 that talks about health care 
entities, but because of court opinions like the one by the Supreme 
Court in Alaska, we have to clarify that these entities do include 
hospitals.
  Now, look at what the other side has said. They want to increase 
access to abortion services by requiring hospitals; it does not say 
suggest, it does not say urge, it does not say pressure, it says 
require every hospital in the State of Maryland to perform abortions. 
That means every Catholic hospital, every Lutheran hospital, every 
government hospital. That is what they want.
  In New Jersey, the pro-abortion lobby sued Our Lady of Lourdes Health 
Care Services, that is a Catholic agency, and tried to force them to 
provide abortion. We have heard about Alaska where the pro-abortion 
lobby went after the Valley Hospital, from whom we heard testimony on 
the committee, who did not want to provide abortions in the small town 
of Palmer, and they actually succeeded in the court case that went up 
to the Supreme Court that ruled that they had to perform abortions.
  What happened to the right to choose? What happened to the right of 
conscience? I guess the right of choice only applies if you agree with 
the pro-abortion lobby's agenda.
  Mr. Speaker, no one should be forced to have an abortion; no one 
should be forced to perform an abortion.
  The other side is talking here on the floor about a vast right-wing 
conspiracy. Well, if there is a conspiracy in America, maybe it is the 
vast left-wing conspiracy to shove abortion down everyone's throat. 
Support the rule, support the bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I want to say to the gentleman who just spoke that hospitals have 
been protected since the 1970s, and there is no question about that, 
and that we are very keen on our side on life and health.
  I want to remind everybody of a little bit of history. I am sure all 
of my colleagues remember the great bill on community health centers 
which we have not been able to reauthorize for a year. At the end of 
last year it came up for reauthorization on the suspension calendar 
and, at the last minute, they attempted to add this piece of 
legislation to it, but there was such an outcry that they were forced 
to pull it off. So this year we are going back the other way around. 
This bill has to be dealt with before all of the community health 
centers in the United States can get their due from the Congress. That, 
sir, is a tragedy.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.

[[Page H6574]]

  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 229, 
nays 194, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No 410]

                               YEAS--229

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boozman
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Eshoo
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     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
     Knollenberg
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     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)

                               NAYS--194

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

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Callahan
     Maloney (NY)
     Mascara
     McKinney
     Mink
     Roukema
     Stump
     Thurman
     Towns

                              {time}  1237

  Mr. HALL of Texas changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  Ms. HARMAN, Mrs. BIGGERT and Mr. LANGEVIN changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 546, I call 
up the bill (H.R. 4691) to prohibit certain abortion-related 
discrimination in governmental activities, and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of H.R. 4691 is as follows:

                               H.R. 4691

       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 ``Abortion Non-Discrimination 
     Act of 2002''.

     SEC. 2. ABORTION NON-DISCRIMINATION.

       Section 245 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 
     238n) is amended--
       (1) in the section heading, by striking ``regarding 
     training and licensing of physicians'' and inserting 
     ``regarding training, licensing, and practice of physicians 
     and other health care entities'';
       (2) in subsection (a)(1), by striking ``to perform such 
     abortions'' and inserting ``to perform, provide coverage of, 
     or pay for induced abortions''; and
       (3) in subsection (c)(2)--
       (A) by inserting ``or other health professional,'' after 
     ``an individual physician'';
       (B) by striking ``and a participant'' and inserting ``a 
     participant''; and
       (C) by inserting before the period the following: ``, a 
     hospital, a provider sponsored organization, a health 
     maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any 
     other kind of health care facility, organization or plan''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 546, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis).
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that this important legislation is before 
us today. We introduced H.R. 4691, the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act, 
to provide clarity, and I want to emphasize that, to provide clarity to 
an existing law, I emphasize that, to an existing law, that protects 
health care entities from being forced to perform abortions against 
their consciences. The bottom line purpose of this bill is that.
  In 1996, the Congress passed and former President Clinton signed the 
current statute into law which is known as conscience protection. This 
law was intended to ensure that no health care entity would be 
discriminated against on the basis that they did not perform abortions. 
However, court interpretations have called into question whether these 
sections of law apply to hospitals that object to offering abortions. 
That is why we must act quickly to clarify existing law to ensure that 
these protections are afforded to all types of health care entities.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify two points in debate on this 
bill. Some have charged that this legislation is a massive expansion of 
current protections; and, Mr. Speaker, that is just false. The original 
law was intended, whatever happened to legislative intent for crying 
out loud, the original law was intended to apply to the broadest 
definition of health care entities. Transcripts from the debates in 
1996 and in extensions of remarks in 1998

[[Page H6575]]

show that the original authors of the conscience protection intended a 
broad definition, a broad definition of health care entity. The other 
contention is that somehow this bill would allow facilities to not 
provide life saving care. Again, this is false. In fact, in all cases, 
facilities are regulated, as we know, by laws that require the 
provision of life saving care and all hospitals are prepared to provide 
appropriate life saving care.
  What this bill does do is protect facilities from being mandated to 
offer abortions. We must ask ourselves if we want to force people to 
provide elective procedures that are fundamentally in opposition to 
their consciences. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) said it very 
well during the debate on the rule. ``I would add that neither the 
American Medical Association, nor the American Hospital Association 
believe that anyone, anyone, should be forced to provide elective care 
against their conscience,'' and again I emphasize elective care, 
against their conscience.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is really a very simple technical correction. 
It is not a massive expansion or a policy to limit access to health 
care for women. On the contrary, this bill ensures that all facilities 
will continue to be free to provide the types of services that they 
find appropriate, and it will not force facilities to close because of 
fundamental objections to elective medical procedures.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill and I urge all of my colleagues to 
support H.R. 4691.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we are spending a few hours today debating the abortion 
non-discrimination bill. Despite this bill's troubling implications for 
women and despite the strong concerns many of my colleagues and I have 
about the bill, Republican leadership bypassed the committee and 
brought it straight to the floor.
  While we debate this bill today, a number of issues continue to 
languish. When my colleagues and I have asked Republican leadership to 
hold a hearing on legislation that promotes greater competition in the 
prescription drug marketplace and brings down the cost of prescription 
drugs, they did nothing. When we asked them to bring the competition 
bill to the floor, they did nothing.
  The Senate has passed similar legislation. If we were to debate it on 
the floor today, we would pass it, and we would be one step closer to 
bringing down the cost of prescription drugs. Yet, this Republican 
leadership is going to send us home before our work is done without 
passing a bill to cover prescription drugs, without passing a bill to 
try to get the price of prescription drugs down.
  Now, today's House Republicans are proposing legislation that 
curtails health care information and curtails services available to 
women, again, before they bring something as important as prescription 
drug pricing to the floor. The public has every right to question the 
priorities of Republican leadership. While the partisan proponents of 
this bill, H.R. 4691, while the partisan proponents of this bill say it 
is a simple clarification of existing law, experts agree it is a broad, 
sweeping change to existing law.

                              {time}  1245

  Federal law now allows doctors and hospitals to refuse to perform 
abortion services because of their religious beliefs. That is Federal 
law. That is the way it should be. That is what we all agree on.
  This bill, however, allows insurance plans and HMOs, not religious 
organizations, insurance plans and HMOs to refuse to provide or to make 
a referral for abortion services regardless of religious background, 
regardless of a woman's medical needs. Under this bill, insurance 
companies could deny coverage of family planning services just because 
the time spent with the patient doing nondirective counseling just 
might eat away at the HMO's bottom line.
  Under this bill, Medicaid patients would no longer be guaranteed 
access to abortion counseling, to abortion counseling in cases of rape 
and incest, or where the pregnancy endangers the woman's life. Under 
this bill, State law expanding health insurance requirements to include 
coverage of nondirective family planning counseling would become 
irrelevant.
  The current conscience clause allows doctors and hospitals to refuse 
to provide services they are opposed to for religious reasons. That is 
the way it should be. This bill, however, gags doctors, gags hospitals, 
regardless of their religious belief. It denies women access to 
medically necessary services, again regardless of religious beliefs.
  Existing law protects a woman's right to medically accurate 
information. It protects a State's right to govern by its constitution 
and its laws, and my friends on the other side of the aisle always talk 
about States rights, unless they do not like the State law. It protects 
the medical institution's right to refuse to provide services they are 
religiously opposed to.
  Mr. Speaker, we should have passed the prescription drug bill. We are 
obviously not doing that today. We should be promoting women's health. 
We are sure not doing that today. What we are doing is compromising 
women's health.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this expansive, broad-ranging 
infringement on women's rights and infringement on women's health. It 
is a bad bill. Vote ``no.''
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The gentleman easily forgets that we passed a prescription drug bill 
last June, and it is the other body which has sat on it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Pitts), a member of the committee.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, in America we believe in rights. We believe 
in the right of free speech. We believe in the right to choose our 
religion, right to peaceably assemble, other rights that are enshrined 
in our Declaration of Independence and every American's right to act 
according to the dictates of his conscience.
  Historically, this right to conscience has applied to individuals and 
to private organizations as well. In 1996, Congress enacted a law to 
protect the right of a health care entity to decline to participate in 
abortion and if they had a conscience against killing unborn children, 
to decline to participate in this. However, some have read the 1996 law 
very narrowly to say that it protects only residents and residency 
programs and only in a training context, and we have had court 
decisions saying that this health care entity language does not include 
the full range of participants in providing health care, such as 
hospitals and health plans and professionals of the facilities.
  So this bill, ANDA, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, would 
clarify existing law, strengthen existing law by providing that health 
care entities should not be forced by the government to pay for 
abortions or be penalized or discriminated against by government 
agencies for choosing not to provide or to perform abortions which 86 
percent of our hospitals presently choose. It is needed to respond to 
this national effort that was referred to earlier on the floor by 
certain groups to force all health care providers to participate in 
abortions; and we have cited examples in New Jersey, in Alaska, others 
in Connecticut, in New Hampshire, various places.
  So the opponents raise issues like gag rule. Protection from being 
forced to do abortion referral is part of the 1996 law now. This bill 
does not create it. Exemption from informed consent or counseling 
requirements is not found in the 1996 law or in this bill. There is no 
gag rule here. The bill's protections apply to those who do not want to 
perform or to make arrangements for or to subsidize abortions against 
their will.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a radical law. This is reasonable. Pro-
choicers and pro-lifers have sponsored this bill that we have before us 
today. We should not force Catholic hospitals to refer for abortion or 
provide for abortion or other hospitals who have a conscience against 
it. I urge support of the bill.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I would add that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) mentioned 
this House passed a drug bill in June, one written by the drug 
companies and advertised by the drug companies and does not serve 
consumers.

[[Page H6576]]

  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Waxman), who had an amendment he wanted to offer to this bill that the 
partisan majority would not allow him to offer yesterday in the 
Committee on Rules.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is an enormous change in 
current policy about reproductive health, about patients' rights and 
about federalism. It is not a simple clarification as some have termed 
it. That may well be the reason we have this process of getting to the 
floor without markups in committee or subcommittee, without any chance 
on the floor to offer an amendment.
  Let me explain why I say this is a very, very radical bill.
  Under current law, beginning since the time of Roe v. Wade, there 
have been Federal laws that allow doctors, nurses and hospitals to 
refuse to perform abortion services because of their religious beliefs, 
and they still can get Federal funds for other services. Catholic 
doctors do not have to perform abortions. Catholic hospitals do not 
have to support abortion clinics. This permission for people to refuse 
because of their religious or moral objection is established already in 
the law and it is working smoothly, but this bill goes far beyond that.
  This bill first and most obvious is not a bill about religion or 
conscience. While current law says that doctors and hospitals can 
exercise their religious or moral objections, this bill is not defined 
in that way. This bill would allow insurance companies and HMOs to 
ignore laws about patients' information and gag rules because they want 
to cut costs, because they want to reduce benefits or for no reason at 
all. Any HMO could gag its doctor, not because HMOs have a conscience, 
but because they would rather cut time with the patient from 9 minutes 
to 8. Any public hospital could decide that it would be easier if they 
did not have a protester out front. Further, this bill would allow the 
gag rule to govern for title X family planning grantees and this would 
reverse long-standing policy of providing nondirective information on 
all options.
  Secondly, this bill is not just about doctors or even hospitals 
refusing to provide services. Those people are given permission to 
refuse under current law. This bill lets hospitals, insurance plans, 
HMOs and other corporate entities to gag their doctors and nurses from 
giving medically appropriate information to their patients. In other 
words, it would allow them to engage in what is medical malpractice, 
not giving the information their patients are entitled to receive.
  We have tried to get a Patients' Bill of Rights enacted. We have had 
differences on the ability to sue to enforce those rights, but this 
bill instead provides a legal protection for a gag. It takes away 
patients' rights. This is a patients' bill of nonrights and having 
totally failed to enact the bill to protect patients' rights from the 
abuse of managed care, the majority is now moving to undo the efforts 
to those States who have enacted their own patient protection law.
  That is the last point I want to make. It overrides State laws. It 
overrides the constitution in the State of Alaska where it says that a 
public hospital who is the only provider of services in the entire 
region must be available for legal abortion services. We should not 
overturn lightly the constitution of the State of Alaska. We are not 
here to regulate health insurance at the Federal level. That is what 
most of my Republican colleagues would object to, and yet they allow 
this to happen.
  This is not a bill about religion. It is not about equal protection. 
It is the exact opposite, of guaranteeing constitutional rights to safe 
and legal abortions, family planning and medical privacy; and there is 
no Federal legitimate purpose here.
  I would urge Members to oppose this bill and support the motion to 
recommit which will make this do what the authors say they want to do.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the 
Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, H.R. 4691. The bill before us is, in 
fact, a much-needed clarification of current law that was meant to 
provide full conscience protection to health entities, health providers 
who because of any moral convictions choose not to have anything to do 
with abortion; but unfortunately today, we will hear a lot of overblown 
rhetoric from the other side that the sky is falling, that this simple 
bill is something much more, when it is not, and arguments from people 
interestingly who say they are pro-choice, yet apparently when a 
hospital or a clinic or a provider, a doctor makes a choice, the right 
choice in my opinion, and chooses life, the other side is up in arms.
  We have statements and they are documented from proabortion groups 
that they are actively engaged in a project to force all hospitals, 
often against their will or moral convictions, to provide abortions; 
and we know that the ACLU files lawsuits to force providers to perform 
abortions in States across the country, and sadly, sometimes activist 
courts find in their favor.
  This really exposes the choice side for what they really believe in, 
which is not choice at all; and it flies in the face of all of their 
superficial choice rhetoric. It exposes the real proabortion agenda. 
Furthermore, it makes this commonsense legislation a necessary response 
from Congress whose intent in the original legislation was clearly to 
provide full conscience protection, and that intent clearly has been 
maligned in significant cases.
  I want to thank and commend the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
Tauzin), the Committee on Energy and Commerce chairman, as well as the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the subcommittee chairman, for 
their tremendous efforts in guiding this valuable legislation to the 
floor, and I urge adoption.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California (Mrs. Capps), a member of the committee.
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today not only as an elected representative but 
also as a public health nurse and as the former director of the Santa 
Barbara School District Teenage Parenting and Pregnancy Project.
  I have firsthand experience with the struggles of many young women 
around the difficult subject of sex. I have dealt with teenagers trying 
to cope with the ramifications of bad decisions, and I have seen the 
terrible results when we turn our back and deny them help.
  I am deeply troubled by this bill. I consider myself a religious 
person, and I hold in high respect the deep-seated values and feelings 
of Americans on the subject of productive health, but no one should 
have the authority to force his or her personal views upon others.
  The Abortion Non-Discrimination Act does just that by overruling a 
State's rights to enforce laws and to design its own Medicaid program. 
This legislation is harmful to women. It would allow health care 
entities to refuse to comply with Federal, State and local laws 
pertaining to abortion services and referrals.
  Under this measure, recipients of title X funds could defy current 
requirements that enable a woman to receive information upon request 
about all legal reproductive options.

                              {time}  1300

  Not only does this legislation deny women access to vital medical 
care, it is also unnecessary. Current law already protects the rights 
of individuals with religious or conscientious objection who may opt 
out of providing abortion-related services if they so choose; but 
institutions do not have the same rights as individuals, nor should 
they. Health care facilities exist to provide services. It should be 
rare when such a facility denies access to care to anyone. And all a 
health facility is required to do is to give a woman a referral upon 
request and to provide an abortion only if they choose in cases of rape 
or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
  Mr. Speaker, it is clear that existing law gives sufficient deference 
to moral objections. Enacting broader conscience or refusal clauses for 
health entities only leaves women without medical services that they 
have a constitutional right to.
  For decades women have fought to gain access to the reproductive 
health

[[Page H6577]]

services that they need. Last year alone, title X services enabled 
women to avoid 1 million unintended pregnancies, nearly half of which 
would have ended in abortion.
  This bill would reverse these proven success rates. In fact, this 
bill is so confusing, it does not even define what an abortion is. And 
so I respectfully ask the honorable gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Bilirakis) to explain. Is emergency contraception an abortion? How 
about oral contraceptives? How about condoms or even advice on where to 
get this information?
  Before we vote, I respectfully ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Bilirakis) to define what constitutes an abortion.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such additional time as I 
might require.
  I guess I have to continue to respond to statements made by the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), my good friend and the ranking member 
of my subcommittee, when he talks about prescription drugs. The bill 
was not written by the drug companies. If the drug companies had 
anything to do with the bill, I certainly did not know about it; and I 
played a large part in that.
  I am talking about a prescription drug bill for seniors now. The bill 
as it was written was not perfect, but it consisted of $50 billion more 
than the minority had placed in their budget and intended to write a 
bill in the previous Congress. So it is more expensive than the bill 
that they came up with previously. The bill would help the poor to a 
very large extent. It would help the very sick to a tremendous extent, 
and it would help an awful lot of people in between; and it is 
unfortunate that politics is being played with a piece of legislation 
which is far from perfect, which is not something that we all would 
like to see ultimately take place but something that would help people 
at this point in time.
  I would go on, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to read from additional 
views of Senators Coats, Gregg, Frist, DeWine, McConnell, and 
Hutchinson in 1998 during the debate.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, is that permissible for me to read?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). Does the gentleman state a 
parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. I guess I am. I noticed the Parliamentarian stood up.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would inquire is it related to 
proceedings regarding the legislative history on the bill the House is 
considering?
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. It is definitely related to it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. In any case, this took place during the Health 
Professions Education Partnerships Act of 1998, and the additional 
views said Congress explained that the term ``health care entity'' 
includes an individual physician, a post-graduate physician training 
program, and a participant in a program of training in the health 
professions, 42 U.S.C. 238n(c)(2)(1996).
  They went on to say, and I read verbatim, and this is significant, 
Mr. Speaker, because of claims made by the other side that this is an 
expansion of what was intended at that point in time: ``We believe that 
the term `health care entity' in 42 U.S.C. 238n was intended to be read 
in the straightforward manner of `including' not only the specific 
entities mentioned but also those which are routinely seen as health 
care entities in common usage and other Federal laws, such as a 
hospital, provider sponsored entity, health maintenance organization, 
health plan, or any other type of health . . . entities generally seen 
as `health care entities' under Federal law. We intend to explore other 
means of definitively resolving this question of legislative intent.'' 
And that was signed by the Senators that I mentioned earlier.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), my friend, said that the 
drug companies did not write the drug bill that this House in a 
partisan vote passed. I guess we are all mistaken, but I would like to 
recount for a moment how this drug legislation passed this House of 
Representatives.
  Back in June we worked on a markup on a bill that the drug companies 
were totally in support of. There was a fundraiser that had been 
scheduled for one evening. We stopped the markup so that Republicans 
could troop off to the fundraiser with the President and the Vice 
President which raised $30 million, $3 million of it from drug 
companies. The sponsor of the fundraiser, the chairman of it, was the 
CEO of a British drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, which gave $300,000 to 
the Republican campaign coffers.
  The next day we came back, passed a bill, defeated every amendment on 
a partisan vote that was a proconsumer, prosenior amendment. The bill 
then passed in a partisan vote. It passed the House in a partisan vote.
  And then in the most cynical move I have seen in 10 years in 
Congress, the drug companies spent literally millions of dollars 
advertising on television, thanking the Republicans for passing their 
drug bill. The only thing was, Mr. Speaker, they did not say ``paid for 
by'' Pfizer or Merck or Eli Lilly or Pharmacia or Glaxo. They said paid 
for by United Seniors Association or paid for by 60 Plus. So the drug 
companies spent millions of dollars thanking the Republicans, but they 
used a front group to make it look like it was a senior organization or 
actually two senior organizations thanking the Republicans.
  If the public only knew that all those ads were paid for by the drug 
industry, then Republican Members of Congress would not be getting 
calls thanking them for voting for it. They would be getting calls 
saying go back to Washington and pass a drug bill that actually helps 
seniors, that actually helps consumers, that does not help the drug 
industry continue to be the most profitable industry in America, 
continue to be in a situation where they pay the lowest tax rate of any 
industry in America. And I think people in this country have had enough 
and we are going to find a little more about that come November.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time 
and for his leadership on this issue and so many issues important to 
the health of all Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong opposition to this 
politically motivated anti-woman bill. How could we as representatives 
of the people lawfully permit health care providers to really ignore 
the Constitution and the Supreme Court?
  Let us be clear. H.R. 4691 radically alters current law and could gag 
health care providers from giving women, who may face an unintended 
pregnancy, including rape and incest, all of her legal medical options.
  This is really a domestic version of the global gag rule which really 
should be repealed. This bill would muzzle health care providers who 
participate in the title X program by eliminating providers' options 
which enable women to receive information upon request, just upon 
request, about all of their available medical options.
  In the absence of a referral requirement, health care providers may 
be able to effectively gag health care practitioners from giving such 
referrals to women who request them. This bill is really outrageous. It 
is simply another in the long parade of bad bills the majority 
continues to schedule in order to promote their political ideology and 
their political message while avoiding and refusing to schedule the 
real work of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, where is the Labor-HHS appropriations bill? Why are we 
not working on that today instead of considering legislation that 
amounts to nothing more than a dangerous assault on women's 
reproductive rights? We should be funding the important health programs 
in the Labor-HHS bill. I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the motion to 
recommit and ``no'' on this very bad bill.
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I request from the gentleman from Florida 
(Chairman Bilirakis) a definition of the term ``abortion.'' As we 
prepare to vote on this very important legislation, could the gentleman 
help us

[[Page H6578]]

frame what we are voting about? Are we voting about a surgical 
procedure? Are we voting about emergency contraception? Does an 
abortion constitute oral contraception or condoms?
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentlewoman, this is 
not about abortion. This is about freedom. This is what has been said 
before, and said over again. That is why I read the statement I just 
read, basically giving people the moral rights to make their decisions. 
That is what it is all about.
  I am not going to give the gentlewoman a definition for abortion or 
anything of that nature. It is not pertinent to this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Pitts).
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, my esteemed colleague on the other side said 
existing laws protects only religiously affiliated health care 
providers from forced involvement in abortion and that this bill 
expands that. That is absolutely false. H.R. 4691 does not expand the 
law at all on this point. Existing law protects secular as well as 
religious providers.
  H.R. 4691 clarifies the definition of health care entity in this law 
so it clearly covers nurses as well as physicians, hospitals, as well 
as training programs in hospitals. This charge of expanding the law 
beyond religious to secular entities I think is a red herring.
  About title X, compromising the ability of title X clients to obtain 
information critical to their health, I think that is false. Nothing in 
H.R. 4691 limits Federal or State agency's abilities to require the 
provision of accurate information about abortion or abortion providers.
  Under H.R. 4691, government may not penalize a private health care 
entity for declining to provide or make arrangements for abortions. 
States should not be able to force people or hospitals to be involved 
in an abortion, especially when they try to base the right to coerce on 
the fact that medical institutions receive Federal funding.
  Conscience protection is a civil right. The Federal Government has 
the right and the duty to protect conscience by making sure that any 
entity that receives Federal funding does not discriminate against any 
person or organization just because they do not want to be involved in 
an abortion. I might say that 46 States in our country presently have 
conscience protection laws.
  I might quote from the American Medical Association. They say: 
``Neither physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required 
to perform any act violative of personally held moral principles.''
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The other side of the aisle has repeatedly quoted the American 
Medical Association. Members need to understand they have taken no 
position on this bill. They are not in support of it. They have not 
taken a position either way.
  However, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have 
asked for a ``no'' vote on this bill because they really understand 
this issue better than anyone. They know this bill is not a minor 
change in Federal law, but a broad-reaching change that denies 
information and access to women, even women whose health is in jeopardy 
or women who have been raped or are victims of incest.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District 
of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, in the prior exchange, the failure of the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) to indicate what an abortion is 
was an important concession because in effect it says an abortion is 
anything that a provider says it is. It makes this legislation 
completely untenable.
  What we are witnessing is the umpteenth attempt of the Republicans to 
invade Roe v. Wade. I have to give the majority credit, though; the 
majority is determined to deny a woman the right to control her own 
body by any means necessary. That is why they keep coming to the floor 
with these provisions.

                              {time}  1315

  Yes, this bill is about discrimination, discrimination against women 
and discrimination against the States. They wrap themselves in a 
conscience clause cloak. We could never have gotten this far if we did 
not have ironclad conscience clause protection in our law.
  I have got two great Catholic universities in my district, Georgetown 
University, with which I am personally associated as a tenured law 
professor, and Catholic University. Georgetown University Provident 
Hospital does not have the slightest doubt that they and their health 
care services already are strenuously covered by the existing 
conscience clause.
  This is not a conscience clause. This is a cop-out clause. What it 
does essentially is to open the floodgates. The first to take advantage 
of this clause are going to be the health care plans and the HMOs. 
These are the guys who are already saying to physicians, we're timing 
you on how much time you can spend with patients urgently in need of 
health care. Do you think they are going to continue to give informed 
consent by providing the kind of counseling that Federal law provides? 
They know a loophole when they see one.
  We have already closed every Federal door to a woman's right to 
choose with a Hyde amendment and with a plethora of other provisions. 
Now we have gone to the next level. We are invading States rights and 
the rights of the States to provide health care by changing Federal law 
to invade State territory. Ever since Roe, we have said not with 
Federal dollars. Now we are telling the States what to do with their 
dollars and what to do with their laws.
  Let the States' rights Republicans take a page out of their own 
prayer book. Stand down. Let the States run their own State health care 
systems.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
to read from the American Medical Association Code of Ethics, H-5.995, 
on abortion. It goes on to say, ``Neither physician, hospital, nor 
hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of 
personally held moral principles. In these circumstances, good medical 
practice requires only that the physician or other professional 
withdraw from the case, so long as the withdrawal is consistent with 
good medical practice.''
  That is the gist of this piece of legislation, intending to clarify 
what was intended back in 1996. I have not looked up who voted for that 
bill or who voted against it, but the fact of the matter is that is the 
bottom line of what we are trying to accomplish today.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for yielding time. I 
want to compliment him on his leadership as well as his courage in 
offering this bill today.
  Mr. Speaker, a moment ago, the gentlewoman from the District of 
Columbia talked about this being the umpteenth time that we have dealt 
with the abortion issue. Frankly, I am very proud of the fact that 
prolifers have refused to roll over, those of us who have a moral and a 
conscientious objection to the killing of unborn children and the 
injuring of their mothers, do whatever we can, whenever we can to 
preserve at least some of the lives who otherwise would be destroyed by 
the violence of abortion.
  Let us not forget what we are talking about. Abortion either 
dismembers unborn children or it chemically poisons unborn children and 
it does it in a horrific way. It is a painful, violent death imposed 
upon children and it also is injurious to mothers, especially in a 
psychological way and in long-lasting physical ways. What we are 
dealing with today, Mr. Speaker, is conscience protection for hospitals 
and those institutions that protect and preserve and nurture life so 
that they will not be coerced into performing abortions or referring 
for abortions.
  I would remind my colleagues that Olympia Snowe, who is not a pro-
lifer, said when this was up in 1996 that an institution or an 
individual who does not want to perform an abortion should not be 
compelled to do so in a way that is contrary to their beliefs. 
Unfortunately, while the intent of the legislation signed by the 
President in 1996 was clear, the language apparently was not, or at 
least in the eyes of some, and

[[Page H6579]]

some courts and some attorneys general have been trying to compel 
health organizations, hospitals, to be involved in abortions.
  Some courts and pro-abortion groups are so extreme that they want to 
force hospitals to do abortions against their will. The whole board of 
directors, the hospital staff could say we will not participate in this 
anti-life child battering enterprise but they could be compelled by a 
State or by some court to do so absent the enactment of this 
legislation.
  In my own home State of New Jersey, Elizabeth General Medical Center 
agreed to consolidate with St. Elizabeth's Hospital and no longer 
perform abortions. Subsequently a New Jersey Superior Court judge 
reviewing the consolidation issued an outrageous judgment that brought 
the pro-abortion organizations into the equation and approved a 
settlement to place $2 million in a trust for the performance of 
abortions and abortion referrals. In other words, they got money from 
the pro-lifers to enable the killing of unborn children.
  This debate is all about human rights, I say to my friends, about 
child violence. We can mask it, we can sanitize it and we do. We do it 
quite well. We are Members of Congress. We are politicians. But the 
fact of the matter is that killing unborn children is violence against 
children, and dismemberment and chemical poisoning in no way can be 
construed to be a benign act. It kills babies. Look at the ultrasounds 
and the great progress that has been made in refining ultrasounds. 
Today you can see a baby in great detail before birth. The abortionist 
looks at that same reality--that same baby and kills that baby. I think 
it is to their credit that 86 percent of all the hospitals in America 
are all about lifesaving and nurturing and healing--they refuse to do 
abortions. They are not about killing babies. They are not about 
putting poisons into their amniotic sacs in order to procure a baby's 
death. They are not about dismembering the arms and the legs and the 
torso and the head--decapitation is commonplace in the abortion mills 
all over America, with 42 to 43 million dead babies and counting a 
horrific loss of life.
  Now we see the abortion lobby, and NARAL makes it very clear, they 
have a plan when there are consolidations to make sure that these 
hospitals who are now pro-life, whether they are religiously affiliated 
or not, to provide abortions. NARAL says it very clearly on one of 
their websites and we know that this is part of an aggresive strategy, 
to expand abortions where they are absolutely not wanted. Babies are 
precious. Their mothers are precious. Let us promote lifesaving, 
nonviolent alternatives to abortion, not the enabling and the killing 
of babies.
  Someday every Member who has been voting for abortion will rue the 
day. They will wake up in the middle of the night and say, how could I? 
Just like looking back in antiquity we look back and say how could 
people like Washington and Jefferson and others have had slaves? There 
was a blind spot then. There is a blind spot today. Abortion is 
violence against children. Brown enables it and expands it. Vote for 
the Bilirakis bill and against the Brown motion to recommit.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Of course we are not telling hospitals and doctors to provide 
abortions. We have already settled that issue. No doctor, no hospital 
should be forced to do that. We are just saying that a woman who has 
been raped or a woman who has been a victim of incest, whose life 
because of the pregnancy might be in danger, who comes to a hospital, 
comes to any hospital, should be given access to information, should be 
referred, should be told where she might be able to get counseling or 
might be able to get help. That is all that we are saying, that we know 
this legislation takes that right away.
  Again, think about that. Imagine, a woman who has been raped, a woman 
who has been a victim of incest, who is pregnant, whose life may be in 
danger from that pregnancy gets turned away from a hospital under this 
legislation, gets turned away from a hospital, nobody will talk to her 
because this rigid, far-right agenda of the Republican Party says we 
are against abortion and we make no exceptions for rape, we make no 
exceptions for incest, we make no exceptions for the health of the 
mother.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Millender-McDonald).
  (Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio 
in his efforts to try to bring some sanity to this bill.
  I would like to ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), it 
seems to me that it is a moral obligation to ensure that information 
regarding the reproductive rights of women be given to her. And is it 
not true that institutions cannot restrict providers from offering 
medically appropriate information and services? Can you answer that for 
me?
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. The only answer I will give the gentlewoman is that 
this is not intended to be an expansion on what is already law. We are 
trying to clarify as a result of court action that has taken place 
regarding the legislation that now exists.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. So this bill then has an opt-out of 
performing any abortion services, including counseling or referral? 
Does this bill do that? It opts out performing any abortion services, 
counseling or referral?
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. It is not intended to do that, nor does the bill say 
that.


                Announcement By The Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). All Members will suspend.
  The Chair would remind all Members to direct their remarks to the 
Chair and if they seek to yield time, to formally yield time to other 
Members and then that time can be yielded back.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. I thank the Speaker very much for that.
  I again just cannot believe that we are here today to speak about yet 
another assault on women's fundamental rights to be informed regarding 
all of her reproductive rights. Just over 2 months ago, we were here 
again advocating against the passage of legislation banning another 
aspect of a woman's reproductive choice. Today we stand again to defend 
a woman's basic rights to be informed of her options with regards to 
her reproductive health when she is most vulnerable. As we have 
mentioned and stated, it is not our mission to dictate the most 
personal choice any woman can ever make regarding her health. We are 
here to pass fair, effective legislation that will guarantee all women 
the opportunity to make the best possible decisions about her health. 
Besides, infringing on a woman's right to decide what is best for her 
health as in the case of H.R. 4691 will undermine States' rights to 
enforce their own constitutional protections. This sets a dangerous 
precedent, Mr. Speaker, if we begin to violate the principles of 
Federal law by essentially overruling State constitutions. We should 
not attempt to block Federal title X guidelines that allow women full 
access to information with regard to their reproductive health choices.
  If this piece of legislation passes, H.R. 4691, we would prevent the 
Federal Government from enforcing its own requirement with reference to 
title X-funded clinics that refer patients to abortion providers upon 
request. Further, passage of H.R. 4691 would prevent States from 
following the Hyde amendment which mandates that Medicaid patients be 
informed about legal abortion services in the event of rape, incest or 
a pregnancy that threatens a woman's life.
  I say, let us defeat this bill that does not give women their 
reproductive choices.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time. I want to rise in strong support of this bill 
and reiterate some of the points that I made in my comments in the 
debate on the rule. This bill has been characterized by its opponents 
as an assault on their side of the issue, the pro-abortion or pro-
choice side. I would argue very, very strongly that that is very much 
not the case. The law as I interpret it is very, very clear. It seeks 
to clarify the conscience clause that was enacted by this body

[[Page H6580]]

and signed into law by the President of the United States, William 
Jefferson Clinton, in 1996. This dispute arose over a disagreement 
surrounding a requirement that physicians in training, residents, be 
forced to learn how to do abortions to get their accreditation and get 
their license to practice obstetrics and gynecology when in fact they 
were personally opposed to doing abortions. For most Members of the 
House, that was a no-brainer. If you are pro-life, why should we the 
government have laws and regulations that would force a physician in 
training to have to learn to do a procedure that they find morally and 
ethically repugnant?
  Under the provisions of the law, and I have a copy of the law right 
here, we encompassed it to include health care entities. I interpreted 
that at the time, I was here, I voted for it, that it would also 
include some obvious health care entities like hospitals and HMOs.

                              {time}  1330

  But under the aggressive attempt on the part of the pro-choice 
community to expand the availability of abortion procedures in America, 
they have used the courts, which has always been their traditional tool 
to advance their agenda, to expand or redefine the law such that a 
hospital or an HMO is not a health care entity.
  What we seek to do in this statute is to just clarify that act. To 
define us as engaging in this great assault on Row v. Wade, when really 
what we are trying to do is protect freedom of conscience or freedom of 
choice, to me, is just not an accurate interpretation of it.
  As far as some of these claims and assertions that we will prevent 
people from being counseled, if you look at the language, it is very, 
very clear. If any health care entity voluntarily elects not only to 
train people to do abortions, but as well to perform them, or refer for 
an abortion, that is not infringed by this act.
  I want to clarify another very, very important thing, I know this is 
a very sensitive issue for a lot of Members in the body, and this is 
this debate about contraception.
  There have been people who have come to this floor today and tried to 
assert that the language in this bill would bar the provision of 
contraception services in many institutions that are already providing 
it. Please show me in the statute where you find that interpretation. I 
think it could be described as a tremendous misinterpretation or a 
tremendous stretch of the imagination.
  The provision of contraceptive services has never been defined as 
abortion in Federal statute, nor has emergency contraception, what has 
commonly been interpreted as the morning-after pill. Now, some 
religious groups may interpret that as abortion, but we make no 
reference in this statute to religious groups or their definitions; and 
under the current FDA policy that is considered contraception, and it 
is not affected at all by this statute.
  This law, in my opinion, represents a very clear attempt to prevent 
what I consider to be the extreme agenda of the pro-abortion community 
to try to advance what they want to do.
  We have had many people come down to the floor quoting from a NARAL 
Web site about their agenda, which is to force many institutions, and 
85 percent of hospitals in America today do not provide abortion 
services, to force them to do that, using current Federal laws and 
statutes.
  Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation, I think, is very clear. It is 
not ambiguous. Its intent is to protect the freedom of these 
institutions to not engage in this procedure.
  I ask Members to support this bill.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. I think a 
dose of reality may be helpful in this debate.
  The extremist pro-abortion, pro-choice forces want women to have 
their constitutional rights. The people who have gotten 85 percent of 
the hospitals in this country not to be willing to provide an abortion 
to a woman who requests it want to deny, to make it impossible, for 
women to exercise what the Supreme Court says is their constitutional 
right. That is the crux of the debate.
  Let us have a dose of reality.
  Fact one: this bill has never been considered by any committee of 
this House, not in hearings, not in markup, not ever. A cynical person 
might view it as a crass attempt to pander to an extremist constituency 
on the eve of an election, especially since we know it is dead on 
arrival in the Senate. But you do not have to be cynical to know that 
this bill needs to be looked at more carefully, at the very least. 
Every Member should make up for the negligence of the committees of 
jurisdiction in not considering this bill by reading the fine print and 
not listening only to the rhetoric.
  Fact two: this bill, despite its lofty title, is not about 
discrimination. It would cancel out every State law protecting a 
woman's right to choice and the right of every American to demand 
health care coverage that meets her medical needs. This Congress has 
failed to act on prescription drug coverage. This Congress has killed 
any hope of universal health care coverage. Now the Republican 
leadership of the House wants to help the for-profit health care 
industry rob our constituents of medical services to which they have a 
constitutional right.
  Fact three: this bill is not about religious liberty or conscience. 
Read the bill. Copies of it are sitting on the table just outside the 
Chamber. The bill covers any hospital, any HMO, any insurer, any 
facility, any organization, any plan, even if they are for-profit, even 
if they do not have religious or moral objections to an abortion. I am 
not aware that HMOs or insurance companies have religious consciences, 
even if they just want to save a little money at the expense of our 
constituents.
  Fact four: nearly every State protects the right of any individual 
who objects on moral or religious grounds to performing abortions. So 
that issue is a red herring. It does not need further discussion. The 
States protect that right already.
  Fact five: There is a domestic terrorist movement that uses violence, 
murder, bombings and harassment to undermine the ability of women to go 
to the doctor and receive constitutionally protected health care 
services. Many medical facilities have knuckled under to this wave of 
domestic terrorism and simply stopped providing those services. This 
bill rewards those terrorists.
  Fact six: This bill is not limited to the actual performance of 
abortions. It would also apply to laws that require health care 
providers to supply women with basic information so that they can make 
informed decisions about their health care options, exercising their 
consciences. The consciences that are being violated by this bill are 
the consciences of women who may want to choose to avail themselves of 
their constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. This bill 
would also apply to some forms of birth control.
  Let us be clear, this bill is not about religious freedom or 
protecting the right of conscience. That is already protected by law. 
This bill is simply an attempt to make it harder for women to obtain an 
abortion, to vital health care services. If this Congress is unable 
expand access to health care, the least Members can do is vote not to 
restrict it further.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, at least the pro-abortion forces are being 
very clear about what their position is. They now want to force people 
who disagree with their position to perform abortions, to counsel for 
abortions, to pay for abortion through insurance laws.
  We have things in the United States called voluntary associations, 
and if voluntary associations want to form an insurance company that 
may or may not cover different things, apparently they can cover about 
anything, unless it is a moral view. In fact, my friend, the gentleman 
from New York, should know that the Catholic hospitals of the City of 
New York have in fact formed an HMO. There are many religious 
institutions in this country and many religious people who have bonded 
together to form health insurance of all different types.
  We should have a right, those of us, regardless of what the Court 
says,

[[Page H6581]]

those of us who have a moral view that abortion is murder, should not 
be forced to counsel, pay for or fund that murder.
  It is one thing to say we are going to deprive someone else of their 
human right to what I believe is to take another human life, and I 
believe the right to life is preeminent and I believe the Court 
decision was wrong, but even if you agree with that Court decision, why 
would you force me, who believes that the taking of these innocent 
little babies is an abominable sin, why would you force me to say I 
cannot have insurance coverage that does not pay for that?
  I cannot fund a hospital or participate in caring for the poor and 
caring for people who need health care unless I will also fund what I 
find to be as abominable as the killing of innocent little babies? Why 
deprive me of my rights? Why deprive me of my rights of association? 
Why deprive those people who are not necessarily a majority, we are 
evenly divided in this country, but why deprive the people who believe 
it is morally wrong of their right to not fund it, to not counsel it?
  There are alternatives. If there are all these people who favor 
abortion, if there are all these people who support abortion and all 
these abortions, there are plenty of options for them. Why make me and 
the people who find this abominable have to pay for this?
  The reason this law is needed is in fact the courts in several States 
have challenged the HMO laws, the hospital laws; and we need this 
legislation.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I repeat, I have seen one Republican man after another 
Republican man after another Republican man come down to the House 
floor and insist that we are forcing physicians and hospitals to 
perform abortions that in good conscience they do not want to perform.
  That is not part of the issue. That issue is solved. No one will have 
to perform abortions. We do not think people should have to perform 
abortions, doctors or hospitals, if they do not choose to. That issue 
is settled.
  For them to continue to put up that straw man, for them to continue 
to use that red herring, is intellectually dishonest, and their far 
right, no exceptions for rape and incest, far right agenda, they know 
that; and they should just be a little more honest with the American 
public.
  Now, what is wrong with this whole debate today? First of all, what 
is first wrong with the debate is we are talking again about a health 
issue that we really should not be talking about, and we are not acting 
on prescription drug legislation. We are doing nothing in this Congress 
to try to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
  The second thing that is wrong with this debate is this bill is on 
the House floor today having bypassed the committee structure. With all 
the disagreements on what people think about this bill and all the 
interpretations, it should have been in committee. My friends on the 
other side of the aisle know that we should have discussed it in 
committees, we should have had a markup, we should have been able to 
figure out all these questions.
  Third, my friends on the other side of the aisle always talk about 
States' rights, we should respect what the States do. This legislation 
overrides States' rights. They are for States' rights, unless they do 
not like what the States do, then we are going to override States' 
rights.
  Four, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) said, as an 
example, a for-profit health maintenance organization having nothing to 
do with religion, a for-profit health maintenance organization can 
simply refuse counseling services to a woman who has been a victim of 
rape or incest, for example, can refuse it just to save money.
  Now, insurance companies, will they do that? These are the same 
insurance companies that cover Viagra in many, many cases, in most 
insurance companies; but they do not cover contraceptives for women, 
which is one of the biggest expenses that women of child-bearing age 
face.
  So, sure, some HMOs are going to do that. To save money, they are 
going to refuse counseling to a woman that might be a victim of rape or 
incest whose health might be in jeopardy.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, there is no allowance in this legislation for 
rape, there is no allowance for incest, there is no allowance for 
protecting the life and the health of the woman. I know that fits the 
far right Republican agenda. They want no abortions in this country, 
they want no exceptions for rape, no exceptions for incest, no 
exceptions for the life and health of the woman. That is why this 
legislation is on the floor today, in order to fulfill that agenda and 
play to that far right base of the Republican Party.
  But, frankly, where I come from, Mr. Speaker, there are differences 
of opinion on abortion. Some say we should allow them; some say we 
should not. But almost everybody I know thinks that when a woman has 
been a victim of rape or incest, and particularly if her life is in 
danger, almost everybody I know thinks that woman should be entitled to 
make that choice if she chooses.
  That is why this legislation is a bad idea, Mr. Speaker. That is why 
this Congress should oppose this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the ranking member knows that we have had a hearing on 
this issue in committee; and as far as the consistency regarding 
States' rights, I dare say that both parties over the years have been 
far from consistent on that particular issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. 
Morella).
  (Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. MORELLA. I thank the gentleman for yielding, particularly 
because I am rising in opposition to this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, claims that this bill is a clarification of existing law 
is just incorrect. The act would be a sweeping new Federal exemption 
from current laws and regulations that assure women access to health 
services.
  I think it is very important to acknowledge that no Federal law 
requires any health care entity to provide abortion services. 
Furthermore, there is no requirement that any individual participate in 
the provision of reproductive health services.
  Currently, title X, Family Planning Programs require that clinic 
staff give their clients the information and referrals for all their 
legal options upon their request, adoption, carrying to term, abortion; 
and this legislation would override that existing Federal law, and it 
would deny pregnant women all the information that they should have 
about their options.
  Also the opt-out for Medicaid coverage, currently the Hyde amendment 
to the Medicaid program stipulation that Medicaid clients must have 
access to those services in case of rape, incest or where the pregnancy 
endangers a woman's life.
  Just remember, this is not a mirror of current law; this is 
absolutely aborting the State and Federal laws.

                              {time}  1345

  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I just want to introduce for 
point of clarification, there have been statements made about how this 
is not an issue that should apply to health care plans or insurance 
companies, and I just want to state the case of Fidelis Health Care of 
New York. This is a Catholic archdiocese of New York cooperative 
managed health care plan. Immediately after it was started, Family 
Planning Advocates of New York, FPA they are called; they are an 
affiliate of Planned Parenthood International, pursued aggressive 
action against this HMO. They have called upon the State Health 
Department to ``increase its monitoring of Fidelis informational and 
referral processes concerning reproductive health care,'' and they are 
supporting legislation in the New York legislature to force them to 
provide abortion counseling.
  So what we are talking about is we have a Catholic doctor in a 
Catholic hospital with a Catholic nurse, all of them are pro-life, and 
these people are wanting to go in there and use the force of government 
to say you have to do this.

[[Page H6582]]

  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.
  Just to finish up, I have already quoted from the ethics portion of 
the American Medical Association. The American Hospital Association has 
stated that ``A health care institution should, based on its assessment 
of its mission, be able to choose whether or not to perform 
abortions.''
  The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says, ``The 
Federal Government should not discriminate against medical 
professionals or medical institutions that follow the dictates of 
conscience or medical judgment.''
  The American Nurses Association: ``Where nurses are placed in 
situations of compromise that exceed acceptable moral limits or involve 
violations of the moral standards of the profession, whether in direct 
patient care or any other form of nursing practice, they may express 
their conscientious objection to participation.''
  All this legislation is trying to do is be consistent with all of 
that, and we are giving the choice and the freedom to those who have a 
problem with performing these types of procedures.
  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, I come from a rural community that prides 
itself in its values and the ability to express those values. Our local 
health care providers work tirelessly to improve the quality of life 
and care for the small towns and communities they serve.
  It is important to note that many of our rural states and rural 
health providers have no choice than to rely on public aid for 
supplying care. We must not limit their ability to serve their 
communities. We should give them the decision making power that will 
enable them to better serve their areas while protecting them from 
discrimination in the law.
  Because I believe that it is our local communities that better 
understand the needs of the people, I strongly support the passage of 
H.R. 4691, the ``Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2002.''
  This bill will provide the necessary protection to health care 
professionals as they strive to provide quality care to the people they 
serve.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4691, the 
Abortion Non-Discrimination Act. This legislation simply clarifies 
current law. In 1996, Congress passed and then President Clinton signed 
into law the existing nondiscrimination statute which protects ``health 
care entities'' from being forced by the government to perform 
abortions. The purpose of the legislation before us today is to clarify 
that ``health care entities'' includes all health care organizations, 
including hospitals.
  This bill, despite all the rhetoric we hear from the other side, will 
not prevent women from obtaining abortions. What this bill does do is 
say to our hospitals and healthcare personnel that the government will 
not force them to perform a procedure that is in conflict with their 
personal moral beliefs. I think it is important to note that most 
hospitals in this Nation will not even get involved in abortion. That 
is largely due to the fact the basic function of a hospital is to 
preserve life not to take it.
  I, like many across this Nation, believe that abortion is wrong. Life 
is a sacred gift from our Creator which should be protected. This, 
however, is not an abortion debate. This is a debate about allowing 
individuals to exercise their moral conscience. I cannot believe that 
there is a single person in this body who would say that we should 
force someone to perform a procedure that goes against every fiber of 
their moral and ethical being. It is in this vein, Mr. Chairman, that I 
urge passage of H.R. 4691.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this 
opportunity to voice my opposition to H.R. 4691, The Abortion Non-
Discrimination Act, which would radically broaden the ability of any 
health-care entity to refuse to comply with federal, state, or local 
law that pertains to abortion. These health-care entities include 
hospitals, insurance companies, HMO's, and any other similar company; 
all of which would suddenly have the power to decide at will to 
override the existing federal provisions in Title X and Medicaid that 
ensure that all women have access to health information and services.
  These entities would have free reign to refuse to provide or pay for 
abortion services, counseling regarding abortion, and referrals to 
other providers. In addition, hospitals would have the right to turn 
away women who are in need of emergency abortions as a life-saving 
procedure.
  The State of California has worked hard to establish laws that 
protect the right of women to make fully informed medical choices, but 
H.R. 4691 would threaten these valuable laws that protect a woman's 
right to choose. These changes would create confusion and chaos 
regarding what services are available, therefore threatening the 
women's ability to seek and obtain health care.
  The provisions encompassed in H.R. 4691 dramatically endanger women's 
right to quality, non-judgmental health care, and stand in direct 
contrast to California's efforts to protect access to information and 
reproductive services. I urge my fellow members to vote against this 
dangerous legislation.
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 
4691, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act. This deceptively-titled bill 
is not aimed at ending discrimination but rather at denying critical 
reproductive services to women across the nation.
  This provision would allow health care entities to exempt themselves 
from existing state and federal laws that ensure access to a number of 
reproductive services vital to women's health. Supporters claim that 
the bill is intended to protect the religious and moral beliefs of 
doctors and health care providers. However, given the broadness of the 
bill, I must conclude that the underlying intent is to deprive patients 
of abortion services, coverage, and information regarding their 
reproductive rights.
  Mr. Speaker, with this legislation, Congress risks trampling on 
state's rights to formulate their own Medicaid policies or use their 
own funding to ensure a woman's ability to make an informed decision 
regarding her own health. Under current law, health care providers are 
only required to supply abortion services to Medicaid patients in cases 
of rape, incest, or jeopardy of the mother's health. H.R. 4691 would 
undermine this narrow provision by allowing health care providers to 
determine what they will and will not do with federal government 
dollars.
  Furthermore, under H.R. 4691, individual states could no longer 
require that a woman be referred or even advised of her options with 
regard to abortion and reproductive choices. If this law is passed, 
Title X funded entities can refuse to simply talk about abortion with 
patients because requiring them to do so is considered 
``discrimination.'' The fact of the matter is that this law 
discriminates against women everywhere by denying them adequate 
information and the opportunity to make their own choices.
  Supporters of this legislation say they want to preserve freedom of 
conscience, but they seek to strip from female patients their freedom 
of choice articulated in Roe v. Wade and the freedom of states to enact 
policies that ensure all women receive comprehensive information on 
their options.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against depriving women of 
crucial reproductive information; against limiting state's rights to 
build their own Medicaid framework; against this unacceptable 
legislation.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the misnamed 
Abortion Non-Discrimination Act. It should really be entitled the First 
Step Toward Outlawing Abortion Act. At a time when my own state of 
California is leading the nation in enacting the most progressive laws 
protecting a woman's right to choose, Republicans in Congress continue 
to lead their ill-conceived, extremist crusade to stamp out this 
fundamental freedom.
  The Republicans claim that their bill is simply a clarification of 
existing law. They are wrong. Passage of this legislation would 
undermine the sensible requirement that pregnant women be given a full 
explanation of their medical options regarding their pregnancy. 
Supporters of H.R. 4961 are not trying to clarify the law today, they 
are trying to inch us closer and closer--through every legislative 
vehicle they can find--toward a time when abortions are outlawed.
  If this bill becomes law, pregnant women that go to a doctor, 
hospital, clinic, or other health care provider opposed to abortion may 
well leave without a full understanding of their medical options. Not 
only is it wrong to deny patients a full disclosure of their medical 
options, it is unethical and fundamentally un-American.
  If this bill becomes law, the federal government will directly 
interfere with every state's right to structure their Medicaid programs 
in the way they deem most appropriate. Current law already prohibits 
Medicaid programs from performing abortions except in strictly limited 
circumstances. This bill would go even further by overriding the 
ability of states to ensure that women treated by Medicaid providers 
are at least told of their full medical options, even if they can't get 
financial assistance to access those services.
  If this bill becomes law, family planning clinics across the country 
that are funded through the Title X program would no longer be required 
to give a pregnant woman information about all her medical options. In 
fact, they could withhold such information even in cases of rape or 
incest where the option of an abortion may be most appropriate for the 
woman involved.
  Existing law contains a conscience clause protection that assures 
that providers opposed to abortion do not have to provide them. 
Therefore, there is no need for this legislation.

[[Page H6583]]

This bill goes so far as to grant providers who are opposed to abortion 
the leeway to deny informing their patients of what may be a needed 
medical option. It's not sensible medicine, nor is it appropriate 
public health policy. There is absolutely no valid reason that this 
bill should be enacted.
  I urge my colleagues to join with me in opposition to H.R. 4961 and 
to stand firm in our commitment that women must be provided all of the 
medical options so that they can make informed, personal decisions 
about their pregnancies.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose H.R. 4691 and urge my 
colleagues who care about women's health, states' rights and the 
legislative process to vote against this measure. Not only is the 
underlying bill objectionable, but the House Republican Leadership has 
forced this bill to the floor without any committee consideration or 
the possibility for amendments.
  This bill puts the health and well-being of American families at risk 
by permitting any hospitals, health-insurance corporation or HMO to 
exempt itself from any federal, state, or local law that guarantees 
women access to abortion services. The language of this bill not only 
applies to the provision of legal abortion services, but also to the 
important responsibilities of counseling, payment and referral to other 
providers. Abortion is a legal medical procedure and women, regardless 
of whether their hospital or HMO provides actual abortion services, 
have a right to information about their medical options.
  My anti-choice colleagues will make many false claims today on the 
floor, but the reality is that the federal government is not forcing 
hospitals or doctors to perform abortions against their will, the 
American public does not support this type of legislation and this bill 
is not a mere ``clarification'' of current law.
  The bottom line is that health-care organizations should not be 
allowed to gag medical providers; women should not be denied necessary 
and appropriate medical information or services; and Congress should 
not supersede a state's right to create and enforce its own laws.
  I will support the motion to recommit so that we can send this bill 
back to committee and better address its major flaws.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support for H.R. 
4691, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act. This is a bill that should 
be strongly supported by pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike. For it 
simply clarifies current law to ensure that no health care provider is 
forced to perform abortions against its will. This body overwhelmingly 
supported this view in 1996 and President Clinton even signed it into 
law because we all agreed that those opposed to abortion on religious 
or moral grounds should not be forced by the government to compromise 
their beliefs.
  This debate is not just about abortion, however, it is about health 
care and access to health care. If states or the federal government are 
allowed to discriminate against Catholic hospitals or community health 
centers that do not wish to provide abortion services, it will have 
drastic effects. Catholic hospitals and community health centers are 
the backbone of our health care system and serve those most in need. 
They already struggle financially for they treat every patient 
regardless of ability to pay. To withhold much needed funds just 
because they refuse to perform a service that they are fundamentally 
opposed to is abominable and will only hurt low-income Americans.
  One of the fundamental principles of our nation is that the 
government cannot impose religious or philosophical beliefs upon its 
citizens. We have a rich society of different cultures and beliefs. It 
is un-American and unconscionable to force health care providers to 
perform abortions that they believe are morally wrong. Join me in 
voting in favor of this important legislation to ensure that no 
American is forced to performed abortions against their will.
  Mr. TERRY, Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4691, 
the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act.
  In 1996, Congress enacted a law prohibiting discrimination against 
health care professionals, organizations, and facilities that decline 
to provide abortions on moral and religious grounds. This was done to 
prevent health care providers from being forced to act against their 
conscience by performing, training in, or giving referrals for 
abortion.
  Unfortunately, several courts have misinterpreted this law by 
applying its protections only to individual physicians and training 
programs. Many hospitals and other health care facilities have been 
left without sufficient legal protection. For example, in 1997 the 
Alaska Supreme Court ordered a private hospital to provide abortion 
even though it went against the ethical standards set by its operating 
board.
  H.R. 4691 would uphold the intent of Congress by clarifying the right 
of all health care providers to follow their conscience. It would also 
strengthen current law by ensuring providers cannot be forced to pay 
for abortion services. Forty-six states, including my home state of 
Nebraska, have similar conscience protection laws. I urge my colleagues 
to join me in supporting H.R. 4691 to ensure health care providers do 
not have to perform or pay for abortions they believe are morally 
wrong.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose H.R. 4691, the 
inappropriately named Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, which would 
radically alter current law by allowing health care entities to exempt 
themselves from any federal, state or local law that assures women have 
access to abortion services, including basic information. This sort of 
preemption contradicts local policies espoused by this Congress.
  This legislation flies in the face of a woman's right to choose as 
well as her basic right to be informed about her reproductive options. 
Moreover, H.R. 4691 has the potential to pose a severe threat to 
efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies, thus leading to more, not 
less, abortions. The sweeping nature of this supposedly narrow 
legislation is staggering.
  Family planning programs have been instrumental in helping millions 
of American women obtain reproductive health care for three decades. 
H.R. 4691 could essentially ``gag'' clinic staff from giving pregnant 
women information and referrals for all their legal options, including 
adoption, carrying the pregnancy to term and abortion.
  There is currently no federal requirement that a health care entity 
provide abortion services against its will. Furthermore, there is no 
federal statutory requirement that any individual participate in the 
provision of reproductive health services if he or she objects. This 
legislation is therefore not only without merit but completely 
unnecessary.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 4691.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
H.R. 4691. This legislation, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 
2002, would essentially allow any health care entity, including 
hospitals, health insurance companies, HMOS, etc. to exempt themselves 
from current federal, state and local laws, that assure women have 
access to abortion services.
  If passed, H.R. 4691 would provide a sweeping new exemption from 
current laws and regulations that gives the women of this country 
information about, and access to, reproductive health services.
  This bill is specifically designed to override state constitutions, 
laws and local regulations that anti-choice activists have tried to 
overturn for years. This legislation will override the progress of 
states' that have worked to assure that women not only have access to 
reproductive services, but also the right to basic information.
  By and large, the federal government does not pay for abortion 
services. The Hyde amendment to the Medicaid program stipulates that 
Medicaid clients must have access to abortion services in cases of 
rape, incest, or when the pregnancy endangers a woman's life. However, 
states may use their own Medicaid funds to cover abortion services 
beyond those narrow circumstances if they wish, and in fact, 21 states 
do so. This bill would preclude these states from enforcing their own 
laws and constitutional decisions in the area of abortion services for 
low-income women.
  This bill is not limited to abortion services themselves. Under the 
bill, states would be prohibited from requiring that health-care 
entities participating in their Medicaid programs provide referrals for 
abortion services. It would therefore prohibit state from ensuring that 
patients have all the information they need to make an informed choice 
about their health care.
  In deciding whether to approve a hospital merger, for example, a 
state could not even consider whether the newly merged hospital system 
would diminish the community's access to full reproductive health 
services. This would tie the hands of states trying to ensure that 
entire communities are not completely without any qualified abortion 
providers. In fact, supporters of the bill have states that this is 
exactly their intent.
  Current law essentially requires that patients are entitled to full 
information about their medical options. The anti-choice movement has 
long sought to deny pregnant women information about their full range 
of options. H.R. 4691 bill accomplishes this goal by newly categorizing 
the Title X referral requirement as ``discrimination.''
  Title X has a long-standing referral requirement that while Title X 
funds cannot be used to pay for abortion services, it must provide 
women information about the full range of medical care and reproductive 
options, including abortion. H.R. 4691 would override this, which will 
have the effect of instituting a gag on health care providers across 
the country.
  Current law already allows individual health care providers to 
refrain from providing any reproductive services if they object, and 
that there is no federal statutory requirement that a health-care 
entity provide abortion services. While proponents tout this as a 
religious-

[[Page H6584]]

based ``conscience clause'' there is no actual requirement in the bill 
that a health-care entity demonstrate a religious objection. So in 
actuality, under this bill any health plan, hospital or HMO could opt 
out of current standards that provide women information about, and 
access to, abortion services for any conceivable reason.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my Colleagues to oppose this legislation. This 
bill would disrupt the balance between federal, state and local 
authority and severely jeopardize reproductive health care and women's 
health.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dan Miller of Florida). All time for 
debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 546, the bill is considered read for 
amendment, and the previous question is ordered.
  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 Mr. Brown of Ohio

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I am, Mr. Speaker, in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Brown of Ohio moves to recommit the bill, H.R. 4691, to 
     the Committee on Energy and Commerce with instructions to 
     report the same back to the House forthwith with the 
     following amendments:
       Page 2, line 5, strike ``Section'' and insert ``(a) In 
     General.--Section''.
       Page 2, after line 24, add the following subsection:
       (b) Effects on Patients and Employees; State Law.--The 
     amendments made by subsection (a) shall not be construed as--
       (1) authorizing any institution to withhold medically 
     appropriate information or services from a patient;
       (2) authorizing any institution to prohibit its employees, 
     contractors, or grantees from discussing or providing all 
     medically appropriate information or services; or
       (3) preempting or abrogating a State's right to enforce its 
     constitution, laws, policies, or regulations.

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio (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 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  This is a motion to recommit in the purest sense of the word and in 
the most deserving sense of the term, and that is, Mr. Speaker, that 
this bill was never discussed in the Committee on Commerce to begin 
with. Normally, on motions to recommit after a bill goes through the 
process, it comes out of committee, goes to the floor, and people want 
to make a change or oppose it and they say, let us send it back to 
committee, let us recommit it so we can make some changes. But since 
this legislation was never there, it is even more deserving of a 
recommital, an affirmative vote on a recommittal motion.
  The legislation we are considering today goes far beyond a so-called 
clarification of existing law, which permits hospitals and doctors to 
deny women abortion services based on that provider's religious belief. 
We believe that, too. Current law allows doctors and hospitals to 
refuse to provide services they are religiously opposed to, as they 
should, as the law should. But this bill, Mr. Speaker, goes much 
further than that. It is not about the religious beliefs of providers, 
it is about denying health care information and services to women, 
including counseling services. This bill gags doctors, it gags 
hospitals from referring women to family planning clinics, even those 
women who have been raped, even those women who are the victims of 
incest, and even those women whose lives and health are in danger.
  Under H.R. 4691, the legislation we are discussing, insurance 
companies could deny coverage of family planning services, even when 
medically necessary, regardless of their religious beliefs. It has 
nothing to do with religion; it has a lot to do with an HMO's bottom 
line. Relevant State laws would be trumped, even though these laws are 
designed to protect women. In other words, Mr. Speaker, the State of 
California, the State of Ohio, the State of Nebraska, the State of 
Florida might have passed legislation to protect women; this 
legislation overrides what those State laws wanted to do to provide 
these counseling services, or to provide these referral services at the 
hospital or by a physician.
  This bill gags doctors, it gags hospitals, regardless of religious 
belief. It denies women access to medically necessary services 
regardless of their religious beliefs. Bottom line: it compromises 
women's health. That is why this bill should not have been on the floor 
and that is why we should support the motion to recommit.
  I am offering the motion to recommit to safeguard against these 
efforts. The motion provides that H.R. 4691 not authorize any 
institution to prevent its providers from providing medically 
appropriate information or services. It does not authorize any 
institution to withhold medically appropriate information or services 
from its patients; it does not preempt State laws from enforcing that 
State's Constitution or that State's laws. This motion makes no change 
to current law that allows doctors, nurses, and hospitals to refuse to 
provide abortion services if those services conflict with the doctor's 
or the hospital's religious beliefs. It does not affect current 
prohibition against providing abortion services with Federal funds, it 
simply limits the harm that H.R. 4691 will do.
  Imagine, Mr. Speaker, as we discussed before, a woman has been raped 
or a woman has been a victim of incest. Her life might be in danger, 
she comes into a hospital. Under this legislation, that hospital simply 
may not provide her any information, no counseling, no referral; there 
is a gag on that hospital's ability to do that. Where I come from, 
reasonable people have differences, honest differences between when 
abortion should be legal. Should it be legal, should it not be legal, 
and in what cases should it be legal. But it is only the extreme far 
right, the leadership of the Republican Party that wants to pass 
legislation like this where there are no exceptions for rape, for 
incest, for the life of the woman. The great, great majority of people 
in this country think a woman who has been raped, who has been a victim 
of incest, whose life might be in danger comes into a hospital, she 
should be given information; she should be given counseling if she so 
chooses; she should be given a referral if she so chooses. This bill, 
this very rigid bill, inflexible bill, does not allow that. The motion 
to recommit is important to protect women like that. This motion to 
recommit is important to preserve the medical standard that guarantees 
women access to necessary health care.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition to 
the motion, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, Members should reject the motion to recommit, because it 
does nothing but gut the intent of the underlying bill. The bill before 
us, as I said earlier, is simple. No one under any circumstances should 
be forced to perform an abortion against their will. It would be 
unconscionable for us to force them to do so, but some courts are doing 
just that, and that is why this clarification must be made.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, the Brown motion states that this bill shall not be 
construed as authorizing any institution to withhold medically 
appropriate services from a patient. What are those ``services?'' They 
are abortion services, Mr. Speaker.
  The problem with the Brown motion is it does not define medically 
appropriate, it leaves it up to further definition. Perhaps some 
Attorney General or health commissioner in a government that happens to 
be pro-abortion

[[Page H6585]]

would say that is what medically appropriate means, or NARAL might say 
that is what appropriate means, and we are talking about abortion. That 
is what is on the table here, and I hope all Members understand that.
  This killer motion, will enable the killing of babies. It absolutely 
reverses the intent of conscience protection and undermines the very 
law that was passed a few years ago, and takes us further back than we 
are already right now. I urge Members to vote ``no'' on this gutting 
motion.
  I want to remind Members that 86 percent of the hospitals in America 
do not perform abortions. Thank God for that. They protect and preserve 
and cherish the lives of babies and their mothers--all their patients. 
They would be compelled under the Brown motion, forced, coerced, or 
empower others the ability to force them to perform abortions.
  This debate is all about conscience. The Bilirakis bill is a great 
bill, it is an important bill, it is a human rights bill that says 
conscience means something. We ought to take this step. Vote for it. 
Vote down this gutting motion.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of the time to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time.
  Let me just start out by saying, one of the things my father taught 
me when I was a kid growing up is when people call you names, often the 
case is they have a problem themselves with the name they are calling 
you, and we have been called extreme and radical for doing this. I 
really take offense at that. I believe very strongly all we are trying 
to do in this bill is to just clarify the intent of the Congress 6 
years ago when it originally passed this conscience clause language, 
and it is the left, it is the pro-abortion left that is trying to do an 
end run through the courts around this.
  Now, this motion to recommit is a classic gutting motion to recommit. 
It invalidates the entire intent of the bill. It has language that says 
the statute shall not be construed as authorizing any institution to 
withhold medically appropriate information or services from a patient. 
So in other words, we are back to square one. The original intent of 
the law was it covered hospitals because it referred to them as health 
care entities, and now we have the courts arguing that hospitals are 
somehow not health care entities, and they should have to provide these 
services or referrals.
  What they are arguing for here is we have a Catholic hospital, pro-
life, they hire a doctor, and the doctor gets in there and he decides 
he wants to start referring his patients for an abortion. If it is the 
position of the hospital that that violates their position, they do not 
want that policy in place, they can enforce it under the conscience 
clause that we are trying to enact under this law. They have a gutting 
amendment here that essentially would make it impossible for those 
institutions, many of which are run by the church, many of which are 
not run by the church; I want to just underscore this. There are a lot 
of hospitals that are secular and they do not want to do abortions, and 
yet what this amendment would effectively do is make it possible for 
anybody to do abortion counseling, abortion referral, even abortion 
procedures in hospitals that do not want to do it.
  Furthermore, it goes on to say that this law will not abrogate any 
States rights. So essentially, if the State wants to act very 
aggressively, statutes that would allow abortion procedures in all 
hospitals in the State, that this would not be prohibited. This clearly 
violates the intent of many people in this body, people on both sides 
of this issue. We had a lot of people who are pro-life and a lot of 
people who are pro-choice who supported this provision.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
  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 ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. 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.


                Announcement By The Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will advise all Members that the 
telephone system is not working and the cloakrooms are unable to page 
Members. The bell systems and the whip systems will notify Members of 
the vote. The Chair will monitor the progress of the vote. Members are 
reminded that the paging system is currently not operating.
  Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes 
the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of passage.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 191, 
nays 230, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 411]

                               YEAS--191

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

                               NAYS--230

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boozman
     Borski
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Gallegly
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Keller
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     Kildee
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Knollenberg
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Langevin
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller, Dan
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Mollohan

[[Page H6586]]


     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     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--11

     Bachus
     Callahan
     Ganske
     Hilliard
     Maloney (NY)
     Mascara
     Mink
     Roukema
     Stump
     Thurman
     Towns

                              {time}  1425

  Messrs. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, LANGEVIN, SCHAFFER, EHLERS, CHAMBLISS, 
KINGSTON and SWEENEY changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. BLAGOJEVICH, Mrs. CAPPS, Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut, and Mr. 
PASCRELL changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dan Miller of Florida). 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

  Ms. WOOLSEY. 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 229, 
noes 189, answered ``present'' 2, not voting 12, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 412]

                               AYES--229

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Boozman
     Borski
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Clement
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Keller
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     Kildee
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Langevin
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     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)

                               NOES--189

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

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--2

     Kaptur
     Kucinich
       

                             NOT VOTING--12

     Bachus
     Callahan
     Cubin
     Maloney (NY)
     Mascara
     Mink
     Olver
     Roukema
     Sherwood
     Stump
     Thurman
     Towns

                              {time}  1437

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________