[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 14 (Wednesday, February 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E119-E123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PLANNED PARENTHOOD: TIME TO TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT CHILD ABUSE INC.

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 8, 2006

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to set the 
record straight about significant misinformation that continues to be 
disseminated concerning an amendment I offered last summer. Planned 
Parenthood has refused to admit the truth about the true genesis of 
this amendment. Because Planned Parenthood boasts that ``trust is the 
cornerstone of why people choose [them],'' I cannot allow its lies to 
continue unanswered. And I believe it's time Americans take a look at 
Planned Parenthood on other issues as well, including abortion.
  Several years ago I became aware of a devastating condition called 
fistula. Fistula is a terribly painful disorder that marginalizes women 
in many parts of the developing world, yet is relatively inexpensive to 
treat. I authored legislation to authorize USAID to provide much-needed 
assistance to women desperate for treatment. Unfortunately, with the 
help of organizations like Planned Parenthood, some of my colleagues 
tried to weaken the authorization by adding language that would have 
prevented crucial faith-based health care providers from helping women 
through this program.
  Women suffering with fistula need treatment, and provisions mandating 
contraceptives would have prevented some health care providers most 
suited to provide treatment from doing so. These women need speedy 
treatment, not politicized language.
  As the prime author of H.R. 2601--The Foreign Assistance 
Authorization Act of FY 06 and 07--I personally wrote the section in 
the bill, (Sec. 1001) that authorizes the President to establish at 
least 12 treatment centers to provide surgery and healing therapies for 
women suffering from a devastating condition known as obstetric 
fistula. The bill also provides for the dissemination of educational 
information so that women will know where to go for affordable 
treatment and how to protect against the occurrence of this 
preventable, curable condition.
  Obstetric fistula is an excruciatingly painful hole or rupture in 
tissues surrounding a woman's birth canal, bladder, or rectum that is 
caused by rape, physical abuse or untreated, obstructed labor. 
Tragically, the constant leaking of urine and feces leads to sickness, 
desertion by husbands and family, extreme social isolation, and 
poverty.
  Amazingly, for $150--$300, a woman victimized by fistula can obtain a 
surgical repair which gives her back her life. No woman should be 
denied this minimal, life-saving surgical repair. For several years 
now, I have asked USAID and the Congress to establish a program to 
assist women who suffer from obstetric fistula. According to USAID, an 
estimated 2 million women suffer needlessly from fistula, with 50-100 
thousand new cases added every year, mostly in Africa.
  USAID has begun to provide support for fistula centers, and that's 
great. They hoped to put $3 million into the program by the end of 2005 
and they have already identified a dozen medical facilities ready to 
participate and help these women. My bill, which originally authorized 
$5 million for 2006 and $5 million in 2007, ensures that the program is 
properly implemented and able to aid as many women, and young girls, as 
possible.
  During committee mark-up on H.R. 2601, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) 
amended my language in H.R. 2601, to mandate that the new centers 
``expand access to contraception.'' At first blush, the language looked 
OK, but it became very clear that it would have had the dire 
consequence of excluding certain faith-based health providers who, 
while deeply committed to mitigating the pain of fistula, would be 
barred from receiving funds. For example, the Crowley language would 
have excluded NGOs and church-based organizations opposed to chemicals 
that act as abortifacients--those that prevent implantation of a newly 
created human life--from getting any U.S. funds. Had my amendment not 
succeeded, several hospitals selected by USAID as ``fistula centers'' 
would have lost funding.
  The amendment I offered that passed on the floor in July corrected 
this problem so that the faith-based sites including those already 
identified for the program by USAID--and perhaps others in future--
could participate and provide assistance to women in need. My amendment 
to my own bill also increased the funding in 2007 to $7.5 million, 
since it is obvious that once the centers are up and running the demand 
for the cure will be even greater. To participate in the program, 
providers must offer critical treatment care--including increased 
access to skilled birth attendants--and may offer information about a 
number of preventative practices such as abstinence education, 
encouraging postponement of marriage and childbearing until after 
teenage years, and family planning services for women whose age or 
health status place them at high risk of prolonged or obstructed 
childbirth.
  Nothing in my original fistula language or my amendment adopted on 
the floor restricts access to family planning services. Rather, my 
amendment made a variety of preventative practices optional and as such 
is sensitive to and consistent with the values of the people--and the 
hospitals that serve them--in developing countries.
  Despite all this, Planned Parenthood still insists on praising the 
people who would have killed the amendment and attacking me. The

[[Page E120]]

headline on its website reads: ``Rep. Chris Smith's Latest Political 
Attack on Women.'' The closing line of its story says, ``The gentleman 
from New Jersey would do well--just once--to try and feel the pain of 
others.''
  I have authored numerous laws--that is to say, I am the prime sponsor 
of laws--that directly benefit women, including the Victims of 
Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-386), the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-
193), the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 
(P.L. 109-164), the Results and Accountability in Microenterprise (P.L. 
108-484), and the Microenterprise Enhancement Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-
31),just to name a few. I helped secure the passage of the Violence 
Against Women Act Reauthorization in 2000 by incorporating its major 
provisions into my law, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence 
Prevention Act of 2000. I have fought for human rights and health care 
my entire career.
  I am currently the chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 
Human Rights, and International Operations and the Co-Chairman of the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (also known as the 
United States Helsinki Commission), which works to promote and foster 
democracy, human rights, and stability in Eastern and Central Europe. I 
served as the Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee until 2005, 
where I authored laws that are helping veterans to this day and will 
for as far as the eye can see in the areas of health care, college 
education, widows' benefits, and the creation of a new comprehensive 
program to help homeless veterans. I also presently serve as the co-
chair and co-founder of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's 
Disease, the founding co-chair of the Congressional Spina Bifida 
Caucus, the co-founder of the Coalition for Autism Research and 
Education, the co-chair and co-founder of the Congressional Refugee 
Caucus, and the co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. Having 
served 26 years in Congress, I could continue this list, Mr. Speaker. I 
set forth my dedication to these causes here not to promote myself, but 
to show Planned Parenthood's deceptions. Planned Parenthood's vicious 
attacks on me are, at best, misinformed; at worst, libel.

  Sadly, this is a pattern of conduct with Planned Parenthood, seeking 
to discredit anyone who includes the protection of the unborn along 
with fundamental human rights. When one stops to consider the big 
business that is abortion, it is no wonder.


                         Abortion as a business

  Planned Parenthood makes millions of dollars plying its lethal trade 
at nearly 850 clinics in the U.S. alone. Judith Fetrow, a former 
Planned Parenthood worker, verifies this fact: ``It is extremely 
difficult to watch doctors lie, clinic workers cover up, and hear 
terrifying stories of women dragged out of clinics to die in cars on 
the way to the hospital without beginning to question the party line. I 
began to wonder if we were really caring for these women, or if we were 
just working for another corporation whose only interest was the bottom 
line.''
  Tragically, the seemingly benign Planned Parenthood is in the grisly 
business of dismembering the fragile bodies of unborn children with 
sharp knives and hideous suction machines that are 25 to 30 times more 
powerful than a vacuum cleaner used at home. Planned Parenthood ought 
to be known as ``Child Abuse, Incorporated,'' for the large number of 
children that it has killed and continues to kill, all the while being 
subsidized by American taxpayers. This is not a business of healing, 
nurturing, or caring--this is a business of killing.
  For Planned Parenthood, business is good. Violence against children 
pays handsomely. In 2004, it increased the number of abortions it 
performed by 10,000--while abortions nationwide have declined--for a 
total of 255,015, a new pathetic record of kids killed even for Planned 
Parenthood. For ``medical abortions,'' Planned Parenthood quotes prices 
from $350 to $650. For first-trimester vacuum and D&E abortions, the 
only type of surgical abortions for which they provide a price range, 
Planned Parenthood earns $350 to $700 apiece.
  To put the number of child deaths in perspective, picture this: 
67,500 fans filled Ford Field to watch the Super Bowl last Sunday 
night. Planned Parenthood performed 255,015 abortions in 2004. The 
number of unborn babies whose lives were taken from them before they 
could take their first breath by this one corporation in one year could 
have filled that stadium nearly four times over. Planned Parenthood is 
now responsible for committing nearly one out of every five abortions 
performed in the United States, with its numbers steadily rising while 
the overall totals in the U.S. have been declining. Over the course of 
time, Planned Parenthood's tally in the taking of innocent children's 
lives has exceeded the three million mark.
  If the number of abortions performed alone doesn't convince you of 
Planned Parenthood's agenda, Mr. Speaker, just compare it with the 
other services it provided in the name of ``family planning.'' Planned 
Parenthood--parenthood, Mr. Speaker--provided a mere 17,610 clients 
with prenatal care. That's a ratio of one parent to every 14 women who 
lost their children to abortion. Planned Parenthood referred a meager 
1,414 clients to adoption services. That means it killed 180 babies for 
everyone it referred to be placed with a couple desperately seeking a 
child. To me, Mr. Speaker, this record doesn't seem to be that of an 
organization dedicated to preserving women's ``choices.''
  And if that is not enough, this so-called ``pro-choice'' organization 
does everything within its power and massive budget to prevent women 
from knowing all their options and being certain that their choices are 
truly informed. Planned Parenthood both lobbies and litigates against 
virtually every child protection initiative at both the state and 
federal level, including parental and spousal notification, women's 
right to know laws, waiting periods, partial-birth abortion bans, 
unborn victims of violence laws, statutory rape reporting laws, and 
abortion funding bans. It inflates statistics to promote its own 
agenda.
  One of the abortion community's own exposed them, though, when Ron 
Fitzsimmons, the director of the National Coalition of Abortion 
Providers publicly admitted that he ``lied through (his) teeth'' when 
he told a TV interviewer that partial-birth abortion was ``used rarely 
and only on women whose lives were in danger or whose fetuses were 
damaged.'' Fitzsimmons confessed that the myth about this horrific 
abortion procedure was deliberately propagated by the abortion lobby--
including Planned Parenthood and its research arm, the Alan Guttmacher 
Institute (AGI). In a 1995 letter to Members of Congress, Planned 
Parenthood, AGI, and other groups stated, ``This surgical procedure is 
used only in rare cases, fewer than 500 per year. It is most often 
performed in the cases of wanted pregnancies gone tragically wrong, 
when a family learns late in pregnancy of severe fetal anomalies or a 
medical condition that threatens the pregnant woman's life or health.'' 
In truth, Fitzsimmons explained, the vast majority of partial-birth 
abortions are performed on healthy fetuses, 20 weeks or more along, 
with healthy mothers. The number of 500 partial-birth abortions a year 
that Planned Parenthood cited in its letter was also a complete 
falsehood. Fitzsimmons estimated that the method was used 3,000-5,000 
times annually. I would argue that even this number is low--in just one 
New Jersey abortion mill, the Bergen Record newspaper reported that 
1,500 children were killed by partial birth abortion in one year.
  When Planned Parenthood can't accomplish its deadly goals through the 
democratic process, it turns to the courts. It files approximately 50 
lawsuits a year to protect its business interests in abortion. Then, 
Planned Parenthood fights tooth and nail to prevent judges who 
recognize the inherent value of human life at every stage, as well as 
the constitutional protections of that life, from getting on the bench. 
Luckily for us, the American people and our President and Senate have 
seen through that propaganda blitz.


                         International efforts

  Sadly, it does exactly the same thing overseas, and many foreign 
governments are eventually deceived by its arguments. The Planned 
Parenthood Federation of America-International is leaving no stone 
unturned in its misguided, obsessive campaign to legalize abortion on 
demand. If it succeeds, millions of babies will die from the violence 
of abortion. We cannot add to the body count.

  In Planned Parenthood's 2003-2004 annual report, the organization 
clearly admits its goal. It states that programs supported by Planned 
Parenthood Federation of America-International ``guarantee the sexual 
and reproductive health and rights of individuals by providing. .. safe 
abortion and post-abortion care services. . .''
  The use of family planning to cloak its real agenda--the use of 
family planning as a cover for permissive abortion laws--is now 
commonplace, and must be stopped. In over 100 countries around the 
world, the lives of unborn children are still protected by law. But in 
country after country, we find Planned Parenthood zealots partnering 
with well-financed NGOs from Europe to promote violence against unborn 
babies.
  And as Planned Parenthood--the most prominent advocate, sometimes the 
only advocate--of legalizing abortion on demand--has said, ``When 
abortion laws are liberalized, the number of abortions skyrocket.'' 
That is Planned Parenthood's word, skyrocket. So if we want more 
abortions--more dead babies and more wounded women--liberalize the 
laws.


                            Taxpayer subsidy

  Over a third of Planned Parenthood's income comes from the pockets of 
tax-paying Americans, through local, state, and federal governments. 
Sure, we have the Hyde Amendment in place, thankfully, which prevents 
taxpayer dollars from directly funding

[[Page E121]]

abortions, but money is fungible. The millions of dollars we give to 
Planned Parenthood to provide so-called ``family planning'' services 
immediately frees up millions more to be used for the performance and 
promotion of abortion. Americans' hard-earned money goes to keep the 
lights on and pay the heat bill for this industry that is literally 
making a killing taking the lives of the children they'll never get the 
chance to meet. People who see that abortion is murder are still forced 
to subsidize the lawsuits and lobbying that keeps abortion legal.
  Planned Parenthood's 2003-04 annual report brags about how it helped 
increase Title X funding, for a total of $273 million in taxpayer 
dollars. It also discloses that it received $265.2 million in 
government grants and contracts from Title X and other sources during 
that period.
  The abortion promoters never tire of reminding us that they promote 
abortion with what they call ``their own money,'' but this argument 
deliberately misses the point.
  First, it ignores the fact that all money is fungible. When we pay an 
organization like Planned Parenthood millions of dollars, we cannot 
help but enrich and empower all of that organization's activities, all 
that it does, even if the organization keeps a set of books that says 
it uses its money for one thing and our money for something else.
  We must begin to stand with the victims, both mother and child, and 
against the victimizers. When we subsidize and lavish Federal funds on 
abortion organizations, we empower the child abusers; and Planned 
Parenthood, make no mistake about it, both here and overseas, is 
``Child Abuse, Incorporated.''


                    Abortion clinics = torture mills

  Abortion mills do not nurture, they do not heal, they do not cure 
disease.
  Abortion is violence against children. Some abortion methods 
dismember and rip apart the fragile bodies of children. Other methods 
chemically poison children. Abortionists turn children's bodies into 
burned corpses, a direct result of the caustic effect of poisoning and 
other methods of chemical abortions.
  I would say to my colleagues, there is absolutely nothing benign or 
curing or nurturing about abortion. It is violence. It is gruesome. And 
yet the apologists sanitize the awful deed with soothing, misleading 
rhetoric. Abortion methods are particularly ugly because, under the 
guise of choice, they turn baby girls and baby boys into dead baby 
girls and dead baby boys.
  I have drafted a bill that would inform women about the pain their 
unborn babies experience during abortions, the Unborn Child Pain 
Awareness Act, H.R. 356. This bipartisan bill requires that those 
performing abortions at or beyond the 20-week point provide the mother 
with certain information regarding the capacity of her unborn child to 
experience pain during the abortion, and offer the mother the option of 
having pain-reducing drugs administered directly to the unborn child to 
reduce his or her pain. Not surprisingly, the abortion lobby--including 
Planned Parenthood--has opposed informing women of this truth, though 
they do not deny that unborn children may feel pain after 20 weeks 
gestation.


                               Conscience

  Forty-five States and the Federal Government protect the right of 
health care providers to decline involvement in abortion. Planned 
Parenthood has launched an active campaign to abolish these legal 
protections, arguing on its website:
  ``While everyone has the right to their [sic] opinions about 
reproductive health care, including . . . abortion . . . Health care 
providers who object to providing certain services still have an 
obligation to respect the rights of their patients and to enable them 
to access the health care they need.''
  Planned Parenthood wants to compel hospitals and health care 
providers of conscience to do abortions--it's that simple. Not all of 
the hospitals and health care providers who oppose this plan 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.


                              Pro-Choice??

  Planned Parenthood reasons that every child should be a wanted child. 
While the implication of this goal is valiant and an ideal I share, how 
we go about achieving it is much, much different. I agree, every child 
deserves to be loved with every ounce of her parents' being--Planned 
Parenthood, however, would rather kill her than allow her to be born 
into a home that might not have planned for her or allow another loving 
family to adopt her. This philosophy turns children into a commodity 
that is owned--and if they aren't wanted, they are expendable.
  Planned Parenthood also claims to promote informed choice for women, 
but the reality of its words and actions belies this assertion. When 
describing abortion procedures on its website, it consistently talks 
about the emptying of the uterus, and the elimination of the ``products 
of conception.'' Even its clinic layouts aim to avoid the 
acknowledgement of the life of the unborn. One of their employees 
explained that ``Planned Parenthood is set up so clinic workers never 
have to see the babies. It's set up that way because having to look at 
the babies bothers the workers.'' Although Margaret Sanger, Planned 
Parenthood's founder, supported abortion, she did recognize that it was 
murder, admitting, ``Abortion was the wrong way--no matter how early it 
was performed it was taking a life.'' It is incredibly sad that the 
Planned Parenthood of today has entirely dismissed the humanity of the 
unborn, and works to delude women into doing the same.
  Planned Parenthood's website states that it believes: ``Information 
about becoming pregnant and about postponing, preventing, continuing, 
or terminating pregnancy should be easily available; the choice of 
whether or not to parent should be free and informed,'' and that: 
``People need accurate and complete information to make childbearing 
decisions that are appropriate for them. They want and need to know 
about abstinence, birth control, abortion, adoption, prenatal care, and 
parenting in an age-appropriate context.'' They say that they believe 
``in trusting individuals and providing them with the information they 
need to make well-informed decisions about sexuality, family planning, 
and childbearing.''
  If all that is true, why do the organization's actions, services, and 
expenditures not reflect it? Why does it lobby against and sue to 
overturn every informed consent provision enacted? Why does it provide 
so many abortions, especially when compared to so few adoption 
referrals and so little prenatal care?
  Mr. Speaker, why would Planned Parenthood and a virtual who's who of 
abortion activists in America so vehemently oppose the Unborn Victims 
of Violence Act and promote a gutting substitute in its stead? Why 
would it take a position so extreme that 80 percent of Americans oppose 
it? The mothers of these babies have made their ``choice'' to have 
their babies, and someone else takes that decision from them. Should a 
mugger have unfettered access to maim or kill that baby without 
triggering a separate penalty for the crime?
  Why would it oppose parental involvement in their daughters' 
pregnancy decisions, in one of the most important decisions those young 
girls will ever make?
  Because, Mr. Chairman, Planned Parenthood is not supportive of 
``choice''--it is supportive of abortion, because, after all, that's 
how it stays in business.


                              pp's targets

  Planned Parenthood has been very clever and self-serving in its 
business practices. Not only has it fought to keep abortion legal and 
to give it protection that is to be found nowhere in our Constitution, 
not only has it kept its income stream pouring in from local, state, 
and federal governments and from clients, but it has successfully 
brainwashed its target audiences so that its ``services'' remain in 
high demand.
  Again, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, laid the 
groundwork for this business plan back in the early 1900s. In her book, 
Pivot of Civilization, Sanger argued, ``We are paying for and even 
submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning 
class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'' In 
Chapter 5 of that book, which is entitled the ``Cruelty of Charity,'' 
she pulls no punches in condemning those of us who seek to help poor, 
disadvantaged pregnant women get maternal health care:
  ``. . . Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social 
disease.
  Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and 
to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing 
evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest 
sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating 
constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and 
dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the ``failure'' 
of philanthropy, but rather at its success. . . .
  But there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now 
widely advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as 
worthy of private endowment, which strikes me as being more insidiously 
injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the 
function of maternity, and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing 
facilities to slum mothers. Such women are to be visited by nurses and 
to receive instruction in the ``hygiene of pregnancy''; to be guided in 
making arrangements for confinements; to be invited to come to the 
doctor's clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are 
informed, to ``receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, 
and for one month afterward. Thus are mothers and babies to be saved, 
``Childbearing is to be made safe.'' The work of the maternity centers 
in the various American cities in which they have already been 
established and in which they are supported by private contributions 
and endowment, it is hardly

[[Page E122]]

necessary to point out, is carried on among the poor and more docile 
sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and 
ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful 
maternity. . . . The effect of maternity endowments and maternity 
centers supported by private philanthropy would have, perhaps already 
have had, exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government 
program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very 
classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it.

  Such ``benevolence'' is not merely superficial and nearsighted. It 
conceals a stupid cruelty . . . Aside from the question of the 
unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite 
deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitable 
hasten, we may question its value even to the normal though unfortunate 
mother. For it is never the intention of such philanthropy to give the 
poor over-burdened and often undernourished mother of the slum the 
opportunity to make the choice herself, to decide whether she wishes 
time after time to bring children into the world.
  . . . The most serious charge that can be brought against modem 
``benevolence'' is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, 
delinquents and dependents.''
  In 1922, Margaret Sanger stated, ``All our problems are the result of 
overbreeding among the working classes.'' The Planned Parenthood of 
today has stayed true to Sanger's school of thought, identifying its 
``core clients'' as ``young women, low-income women, and women of 
color.'' Planned Parenthood's research arm, the Alan Guttmacher 
Institute, has disclosed that this objective has been achieved: forty-
five percent of women who have abortions are college-age, 18-24 years 
old. Women aged 20-24 have a higher abortion rate than any other group, 
followed closely by women aged 18-19. Black women are three times as 
likely as others to have abortions, and the numbers of poor women who 
have abortions are triple those of others. Since 1973, the year the 
unelected, lifetime-appointed justices on the Supreme Court made 
abortion legal on demand, at least 13.8 million minority babies have 
been aborted. Black and Hispanic women represent only a quarter of 
American women of child-bearing age, yet account for more than half of 
all abortions in the US.
  Alveda King, the niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was 
herself deceived by the lies of the abortion lobby in the wake of Roe 
v. Wade. Alveda experienced firsthand the tragic consequences abortion 
inflicts on women who undergo them--she had two abortions and now 
deeply regrets them--and to their entire families, and to society in 
general. Citing her uncle, who once said, ``The Negro cannot win as 
long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for 
comfort and safety,'' Alveda asks, ``How can the `Dream' survive if we 
murder the children?'' Today, Alveda is part of a courageous group of 
women, all of whom have had abortions and have come to regret that 
fact, called Silent No More. These amazing women help women who have 
had abortion find peace and reconciliation.


                      effects of abortion on women

  Planned Parenthood also perpetuates the myth that abortion is safer 
than childbirth. Of course its never safer for the baby. And the CDC 
abortion surveillance, however, doesn't even track morbidity, so data 
on injury and illness from abortion is obtained from the abortion 
mills--talk about a conflict of interest. Mortality--death to women 
from abortion--is likely to be underreported. That's true, in part, 
because women who have had abortions, suffering serious complications, 
often seek assistance at hospital emergency rooms rather than the 
abortion mill, and the death certificates, at times, list sepsis 
or infection, rather than abortion, as the cause of death. Moreover, 
national reporting of death to women from abortion is extremely 
passive, thus the likelihood of underreporting.

  I would encourage anyone seeking the truth on this question to ask 
the family and friends of Holly Patterson, who died two weeks after her 
eighteenth birthday from septic shock after taking RU-486, the abortion 
pill. Her parents had no idea what she had done until arriving at the 
hospital the day she died. The abortion pill was provided to her at a 
Planned Parenthood clinic. A state of California investigation into her 
death found that that clinic failed to report her death to the state 
Department of Health, and that it did not give her full information and 
education on how to take the drug.
  This is not surprising, considering that Planned Parenthood was 
involved in the sham trials that allowed RU-486 to be approved for sale 
by the Clinton FDA, something that needs to be seriously reconsidered 
and the drug pulled off the market. Between October 1994 and September 
1995, the Des Moines, Iowa, Planned Parenthood clinic participated in 
these trials. Based on Planned Parenthood's accounting, news reports 
said no problems had been experienced in the trials. One Iowa doctor 
watching the news was in disbelief about what he was reading. This 
doctor, Mark Louviere, had attended to a woman who had participated in 
the trials and had suffered serious side effects two weeks later, as a 
result of taking the abortion pill. When Dr. Louviere arrived in the 
emergency room, the woman had lost between half and two-thirds of her 
blood volume, and she was in shock. Dr. Louviere immediately took her 
into surgery to save her life. In his own words, ``If near death due to 
the loss of half of one's blood volume, surgery, and a transfusion of 
four units of blood do not qualify as a complication, I don't know what 
does.'' Planned Parenthood responded that they only reported what 
happened during the immediate time period of the trial--so the fact 
that this woman nearly died from taking a drug that they were 
responsible for reporting the effects of was of no concern to them.
  In challenging Planned Parenthood's assertion that abortion is safer 
than childbirth, I'd also look into the story of Michelle Madden, an 
18-year-old college freshman who decided to have an abortion after a 
doctor told her that the drugs she was taking for epilepsy would cause 
her baby to be deformed. Michelle collapsed three days after the 
abortion, and at the hospital, doctors found that pieces of the baby 
were still inside her. Michelle died of a blood infection resulting 
from the abortion three days after admission to the hospital.
  I would suggest reading about what happened to Mary Pena, 43 years 
old, the mother of five children, who died after she underwent a 
second-trimester abortion and bled to death on the operating table.
  You might also be interested in the story of Debra Ann Lozinski, who 
was 16 years old when she went in for an abortion in my home state of 
New Jersey. Due to a lack of oxygen caused by the general anesthesia 
she was given for her abortion, Debra fell into a coma, where she 
remained for several months before developing pneumonia and then going 
into septic shock. Debra died 12 days after her 17th birthday.
  I'd also suggest learning about 22-year-old Tamika Dowdy, who sought 
an abortion when she was four months pregnant so that she could finish 
her college education. Paramedics were called to the clinic where 
Tamika's baby was being aborted, because Tamika was having problems 
breathing. They were unable to save her.

  There are many, many more heart-breaking accounts just like those of 
these women--and those are only the ones we know about. Multiples of 
these exist, but the whole story hasn't been disclosed.
  Justice Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade, helped create the safe 
abortion myth, based on studies and opinions of population control 
advocates, who were avidly promoting liberalized abortion laws. In 
reality, not only can abortions immediately kill women, through 
hemorrhaging, septic shock, uterine perforation, cervical lacerations, 
etc., but there are also long-term consequences of abortion that can 
lead to death, including suicide and breast, cervical, and ovarian 
cancer.
  Beyond these deaths, the impact of abortion on women, both physical 
and psychological, is devastating. Women suffer from many adverse post-
abortion reactions, ranging from bleeding, cramping, and infection to 
depression and substance abuse to breast cancer and infertility. The 
risk of these detrimental effects of abortion is greatly multiplied in 
teens, one of the groups Planned Parenthood specifically targets. The 
brave women in the Silent No More Awareness Campaign have shown us that 
abortion really does hurt both babies and women, and sometimes even 
kills both. Abortionist Warren Hern admits, ``In medical practice, 
there are few surgical procedures given so little attention and so 
underrated in its potential hazards as abortion. It is a commonly held 
view that complications are inevitable.'' This is not a simple surgical 
procedure, the same as any other, and the baby being killed is not a 
clump of cells.
  Planned Parenthood downplays the physical or emotional after-effects 
of abortion. Their website claims, ``Most women feel relief after an 
abortion. Serious emotional problems after abortion are much less 
likely than they are after giving birth.'' While this may be true 
immediately after the abortion, a new study from New Zealand has shown 
that the long-term psychological consequences are much greater. Women 
who have had abortions are, in many cases, the walking wounded.
  The people pushing the safe abortion myth are the same as those who 
inflate the statistics about back-alley abortions. They are the same 
ones trying to instill a sense of pride about abortion by marketing ``I 
had an abortion'' T-shirts. These people, the people behind the 
propaganda machine at Planned Parenthood, are the same ones who are 
making millions from abortion, from killing our babies.
  Planned Parenthood cannot be trusted, and it appears that even it is 
starting to recognize that fact. Until July of 2005, its tagline read:

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``Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the nation's largest and 
most trusted voluntary reproductive health organization.'' It has since 
dropped the reference to trust and replaced that line with this slogan: 
``Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the nation's leading 
sexual and reproductive health care advocate and provider.'' Mr. 
Speaker, the truth about Planned Parenthood's pattern of deceit and 
destruction of human life must at long last be brought to light. The 
cover-up is over.

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