[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:
[[Page E123]]
``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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