[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 51 (Monday, April 25, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4217-S4219]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            WELDON AMENDMENT

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, Senator Frist was true to his word. He 
told me I could have a vote to repeal what I consider to be a very 
dangerous amendment that came into an appropriations bill without any 
hearings, without any discussions, without any votes, and I think could 
very well lead to a very dangerous situation for the women of our 
country.
  I decided not to push the vote. It was too close to call. Some people 
said

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there were 56 votes against us. That was not my count, but I knew that 
in order to win this vote I needed to talk with people individually at 
great length.
  Why is that? Because this is one of the most confusing amendments 
that we have ever faced in the Senate. Just ask the people at HHS, who 
are trying to implement it. Just ask the people who filed suit. They 
say it is so vague and so broad that it could literally mean people 
coming into an emergency room, not getting served, and dying in an 
emergency room. This is what could happen.
  I thank Senator Frist for being true to his word, for giving me the 
opportunity, and I want to briefly explain what I plan to do about this 
Weldon amendment, with the help of my friends and colleagues.
  Senator Harkin and I plan to work across the aisle to modify this 
amendment so that it really is what it claims to be, a conscience 
clause. No one objects to conscience clauses. I support them. Conscious 
clauses are in the law. I am happy to clarify them, make sure anyone 
who has a moral objection to performing an abortion absolutely has 
every right not to have to do that.
  I have talked at length with Senator Harkin, and we are going to work 
with our colleagues. That means with Senator Specter and the other 
members of the Appropriations Committee so they understand the 
ramifications of this Weldon amendment, which I will go into in a 
minute.
  Second, as I mentioned, there have been lawsuits filed challenging 
the constitutionality of the Weldon amendment. I believe the arguments 
are compelling. As I have said before--and we were proven right when 
other anti-choice amendments that were thrown out of court--I believe 
this one also will be thrown out. Because it cannot possibly be that 
any judge anywhere, regardless of whether he or she is liberal, 
conservative, moderate, Republican, Democrat, or anything else, would 
put women's lives in danger like this could do. So I feel very 
confident it will come out all right.

  I am going to give a brief discussion on what I think the Weldon 
amendment means as it is now written.
  Although the proponents of the Weldon amendment call it a conscience 
clause, nowhere in the amendment do we see the words ``religion,'' 
``morals,'' ``beliefs,'' or ``values.'' It is masquerading as a 
conscience clause, but it really is not. I call it a denial clause 
because it will deny women emergency care when their lives are in 
danger, deny low-income rape victims reproductive health care, deny 
doctors the right to give their patients vital information, and deny 
States the ability to enforce critical laws ensuring the health of 
women.
  The fact is, our hospitals and doctors already have a Federal 
conscience clause, it's called the 1973 Church Amendment. What Weldon 
does is different. It's a big loophole that allows anyone, including 
HMOs, to decide, for any reason, that they do not want any of their 
doctors not only not performing abortions but also telling a woman that 
it is a legal right for her, referring her, talking to her honestly 
about what her options are.
  This amendment is giving a denial clause to an HMO which, by the way, 
I do not think they have a conscience, given the way many of them treat 
people. So we are giving the HMO, a corporation, a big denial clause--
not the doctor, not the nurse but the corporation. So that means they 
can now gag doctors who work for them by telling them: You better not 
inform a woman about her rights because if you do, it is against the 
guidelines of this HMO.
  Now, in this Weldon amendment, there is no exception for rape or 
incest. Imagine, there is no exception for rape and incest. So even if 
a woman comes in who has been brutally raped or the victim of incest, 
under this Weldon amendment, the hospital or the HMO could violate 
current law and say: So sorry about that, you are on your own. Now, 
this is America in 2005. Where is our conscience? Where are our moral 
values? Where are our family values if we pass an amendment like this, 
that would throw a woman out in the most dire of circumstances? It is 
just horrific.
  And this goes against our Medicaid law. The Hyde amendment makes an 
exception for rape and incest if a woman is on Medicaid and if she is 
poor. Henry Hyde and I talked about that quite a bit, and he supported 
that very much. First the exception was if one's life is at stake, they 
can get Medicaid help to end the pregnancy. Then it was rape and 
incest. There is no such exception in Weldon, and guess what happens. 
If the Medicaid law is enforced, states can now lose all of their 
Federal funds for education, labor, and health. This is just crazy. It 
makes no sense at all.
  We believe that Weldon would allow a woman to die in an emergency 
room. There are very unbelievably tragic stories. Let us say a woman is 
in a car accident while she is in the early stages of her pregnancy. 
She is rushed into the emergency room, and she is losing blood. The 
only way to save her life is to terminate the pregnancy. Under Weldon, 
if the hospital says, I am sorry, we do not do that, she could just 
simply die waiting for help. This is what Weldon does. This is why I 
cannot believe a judge is going to allow it to continue.
  So the Weldon amendment is drawn in such a way that all the laws we 
have--including the emergency room law ensuring a hospital takes 
measures to stabilize patients if their lives are endanger and the 
Medicaid law that allows a woman to get an abortion if she is raped or 
the victim of incest--are overridden by Weldon. Any State law that 
steps in to help guarantee reproductive services and referrals to woman 
is overridden by Weldon. And if States enforces their own law to help a 
woman in a crisis, they can lose all of their Federal funds, not just 
their family planning funds but every dollar of their education money, 
their labor money, and their health money. We are talking about 
billions of dollars across the board.
  We all know it is totally unconstitutional to gag a doctor. Every 
year the anti-choice people pass a Mexico City gag rule, which I am 
proud to say the Senate does not support, but the President does, and 
it always manages to survive. The gag rule is in effect abroad, but 
they cannot do it here. Why? Because in this country we have freedom of 
speech, and a gag cannot be put around a doctor's mouth and tell them 
they cannot let their patients know all of their options; that is 
unconstitutional. But here, under Weldon, an HMO can gag any doctor 
that works for it. So it is really completely outrageous.
  In essence, we are going to have a whole series of laws overturned by 
the Weldon amendment. The odd thing is, if the backers of the Weldon 
amendment would come to the table and tell us all the things they want 
to do, we could have an honest debate. The trouble we have is that the 
people who support Weldon will say: All we have is a conscience clause. 
But that isn't the case.
  We have letters from doctors, patients, States, and we have lawsuits 
that really unmask the true ramifications of Weldon. What we have is a 
provision that masquerades as a conscience clause when it is really a 
denial clause that would punish States. These are the people who I 
thought liked States rights.
  Let us take the issue of hospital mergers. In the past, under current 
law, every State in the Union that I know of has the ability, when a 
hospital merges, to set conditions for those mergers. The attorneys 
general of those States have the right to put conditions on those 
mergers. Under Weldon, that's no longer possible if such conditions 
include making sure that in this merger a woman has still reproductive 
health care. So it is taking away the rights of States, and that is 
again why I believe we can fix this, because it is so dangerous in its 
current form.
  We have this amendment masquerading as a conscience clause. But it is 
not a conscience clause, it is a denial clause because it will deny 
women the health care they need to live, to be helped and saved in an 
emergency. It will gag doctors. It will stop attorneys general in all 
of our States from carrying out their duties. A couple of States have 
sued on behalf of this. Many who must implement it have thrown their 
hands up. They do not know how to enforce it. It never had a hearing in 
the Senate. We never looked at it, and it passed as part of the 
appropriations bill.

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  Again, I thank Senator Frist for living up to his commitment he made 
to me. I appreciate it. What we are going to do is continue to work to 
let everyone know how outrageous this law is, how far reaching this law 
is, how dangerous this law is to women, how it walks away from family 
values, from States rights, from anything decent when one says to a 
woman who has been raped or is the victim of incest that she is on her 
own. That is not what this country is about.
  At some point, we are going to make sure that this Weldon amendment 
is either modified so it becomes what it says it is, which is a 
conscience clause that no one has an objection to, or is repealed.
  How much more time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has 23 minutes 
remaining.

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