[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 134 (Thursday, September 17, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6130-H6133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VOTE ``NO'' TO DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Massachusetts?
[[Page H6131]]
There was no objection.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk
about defunding Planned Parenthood. Some Republicans have made this
such a priority that they are vowing to shut down our government, shut
down our programs for veterans and hinder their ability to access
services, WIC programs serving moms and babies, curtail services for
domestic violence, and close our national parks and landmarks.
The last Republican shutdown cost our economy $24 billion, but many
of the GOP's Presidential candidates said in their debate just last
night that defunding Planned Parenthood is a priority.
We are not talking about abortion here. We are talking about access
to health care. Under current law, Federal money cannot be used for the
coverage for abortion except in the most extreme circumstances of rape,
incest, or the possibility of the death of the mother. Even though most
Americans disagree with that restriction and believe firmly that
decisions surrounding pregnancy should be between a woman, her doctor,
and her faith, that is not the law of the land currently.
So if we are not talking about abortion, what are we talking about?
What is this threat that will be stopped by cutting off all Federal
funding for Planned Parenthood? What we are talking about is denying
health care to the 2.7 million patients who received care just last
year at Planned Parenthood.
More than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is preventative
care. This includes wellness exams, cancer screenings, contraception,
prenatal care, and testing and treatment for STIs. Just last year,
Planned Parenthood had over 2 million contraception patients, performed
approximately 3.7 million STI tests, 370,000 Pap tests, and 450,000
breast exams. These are the types of services patients receive at
Planned Parenthood, and this preventive health care is what the
majority would like to get rid of by defunding it.
That is what is most important about this debate: the care that
patients receive, the care that one in five American women will receive
from Planned Parenthood at some point in their life.
I would like to welcome my colleague, at this point, from New
Jersey's 12th District, Congresswoman Watson Coleman. She is a strong
voice for women and families. I am proud to call her a friend and a
colleague, and I yield to the gentlewoman.
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, for the umpteenth time, men in Congress are leading the
charge to limit women's access to health care, but now, instead of just
wasting taxpayer dollars and time, they plan to take their outrageous
tactics to a whole new level, perhaps shutting down the entire Federal
Government if they don't get their way. As the gentlewoman from
Massachusetts has already explained, that is absolutely ridiculous.
Rather than consider legislation that would fund repairs to our
Nation's infrastructure or invest in our schools or create jobs for
millions of Americans still out of work, we are considering legislation
that would cut off support to an organization that provides vital
health services to women and men who might not otherwise have access.
Mr. Speaker, Planned Parenthood is, first and foremost, an
organization dedicated to women's health. What is more, despite the
endless conservative rhetoric to the contrary, Planned Parenthood does
not use a single dollar of Federal funds to provide abortions. This is
really just a thinly veiled attempt to allow Congress to regulate a
woman's uterus, and the end result won't be the end of very legal
abortions. It will be the erosion of care, family planning, and medical
treatment for thousands of women.
Wednesday's Washington Post offered a perfect example. It profiled a
single Planned Parenthood clinic in Ohio, a clinic that does not offer
abortion services. According to The Post, that clinic sees 7,100
patients each year, most of them young and poor. They administer 3,400
pregnancy tests, they write 2,900 birth control prescriptions, and they
provide 13,200 screenings for sexually transmitted infections.
Facilities like this make up nearly half of the Planned Parenthood
centers nationwide. Cutting their funding will only result in more
illness, more unplanned pregnancies, and more babies born to mothers
unprepared to care for them.
In 2013, Planned Parenthood provided more than 71,000 patients with
care in my State, the State of New Jersey. They provided almost 16,000
Pap tests to New Jersey women, and they conducted more than 33,000
breast exams.
In a shortsighted response to a series of questionably edited videos
and false claims, we are going to take health care away from Americans
with few, if any, alternatives. That is not what my constituents
elected me for. That is not what they expected me to be doing in
Congress. I am here to create jobs, to better educate our young people,
and to reform our broken criminal justice system. By no means am I here
to relitigate a woman's right to choose.
Quite frankly, I am not sure which I am more disgusted by: the fact
that we are doing this again, or the fact that I have come to the floor
of this House so many times before to express that disgust.
I urge my colleagues to consider taking up the work that really
matters to the American people. I thank the gentlewoman from
Massachusetts.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey.
I want to reiterate something that the Congresswoman said, that this
is really a thinly veiled extremist position. What we are talking about
is exactly as the gentlewoman from New Jersey put it. We are talking
about relitigating rights that are established under the law and that
have really nothing to do with abortion. They are having everything to
do with the way that one in five American women receives her health
care. And Planned Parenthood not only has a huge reach in the patients
that they serve, but they historically serve low-income and underserved
populations.
For example, in 2013, 78 percent of Planned Parenthood patients had
incomes of 150 percent of poverty or less. To put that in real terms,
that is an income of a little over $36,000 dollars a year for a family
of four. So not only does Planned Parenthood provide critical services
to low-income families, but they also have a geographic reach to help
ensure all patients have a healthcare access point.
Nationwide, they represent 54 percent of all health centers in rural
areas, medically underserved areas, and health provider shortage areas.
And in some areas, they are even a larger part of the healthcare
system. In Alabama, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Montana, Rhode Island, and Wyoming, they are 100 percent of the health
centers in rural areas, medically underserved areas, and health
provider shortage areas. That is why Planned Parenthood is so critical.
I am delighted to yield to my colleague from California's 33rd
District. Congressman Lieu represents communities in Los Angeles. He is
an Air Force veteran and Reservist, president of the freshman class of
Democrats, and, as a California State senator, and now as a
Congressman, he has had an unparalleled record on women's issues.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Thank you, Representative Clark, for your
great work on this issue.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
September 17, 2015, on page H6131, the following appeared: Mr.
LIEU. Thank you, Representative
The online version should be corrected to read: Mr. TED LIEU of
California. Thank you, Representative
========================= END NOTE =========================
Madam Speaker, I rise to stand with Planned Parenthood.
Last month, as it became more and more clear that Republicans were
willing to shut down the Federal Government to defund Planned
Parenthood, I received a letter from a constituent of mine in Los
Angeles. She gave me permission to read her letter. It says:
Dear Congressman Lieu,
I grew up in a small desert town that had a very high teen
pregnancy and high school dropout rate. I made very poor
choices as a young teenager, and I was drinking, partying,
and ditching school at 15. During this time, I met a boy I
cared for and started having sex. I knew that I didn't want
to end up pregnant like a lot of young girls in my town, so I
went to the one place I knew would help: Planned Parenthood.
They made me feel comfortable there. They performed a
thorough exam and gave me birth control pills. They also
contacted me confidentially to tell me I had an STD and would
need to take antibiotics. Without treatment, this STD could
have made me permanently infertile.
I thank God that I straightened my act out and, by the end
of high school, I was getting
[[Page H6132]]
straight A's. I went to a good college, graduated from
medical school, and began my residency. I met a great guy,
who is now my husband, and again went to Planned Parenthood
for birth control bills, STD screening, and Pap smears.
Several years later, I finally went off the birth control
pills, and my husband and I got pregnant with our first of
two healthy children.
I feel compelled to share my story because of everything
that Planned Parenthood has done for me in my lifetime.
Planned Parenthood allowed me to make good, healthy
reproductive decisions and avoid ever having to make a
decision as to whether or not to abort an unwanted pregnancy.
That letter is from one of many constituents and from millions of
women across America that have benefited from Planned Parenthood.
The two bills on the floor today that are attacking Planned
Parenthood are a direct attack on American women. In reality, a vote to
defund Planned Parenthood is a vote to deny health care, education, and
opportunity to millions of Americans like my constituent.
I stand with American women and with Planned Parenthood in opposition
to these two bills, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Thank you, Congressman Lieu. We
appreciate your coming. The story that you shared is repeated over and
over with the millions of women that count on Planned Parenthood for
their healthcare services.
I would now like to yield to my colleague from Tennessee's Ninth
District. Congressman Cohen is a champion on women's issues and a
lifelong supporter of Planned Parenthood.
Mr. COHEN. Thank you very much for the time, and thank you for
scheduling this important hour, Special Order.
Madam Speaker, this issue is extremely important to women, to men, to
the Constitution, and to progress, and this week has been,
unfortunately, very much an example of what the House has been doing
throughout this session--messaging.
We are about to have a shutdown of government because of Planned
Parenthood, and the cost to our economy and to people for a shutdown of
the Federal Government is astronomical. The last shutdown, which I
think was in 2013--it might have been 2011--cost hundreds of billions
of dollars to the economy. The stock market fell, people lost jobs,
lost income, and lost services all because of Planned Parenthood.
{time} 1900
The bottom line is that Planned Parenthood is an outstanding
organization that serves women in this Nation, in my State, and in my
city--mostly low-income women and a lot of women of color.
There, they get their basic female healthcare services whether it is
cervical cancer exams, breast cancer exams, sexually transmitted
disease tests, family planning programs.
It is not about abortion. A very small part of it is abortion. It is
not called ``Planned Abortion.'' It is called ``Planned Parenthood.''
Madam Speaker, most people are in need of those services. To cut them
out, as they talked about, and to give them to community health centers
is not the answer. That doesn't work as it is going to disadvantage a
lot of women.
What we have had this week is a bill--the most recent bill--did
anybody discuss the fact that this second bill didn't go to committee?
I guess it is called the ``unborn baby bill,'' whatever it is. Has that
been discussed?
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. No.
Mr. COHEN. That is the amazing thing. This bill that has come up--
that will come up tomorrow, I guess--never went to committee. In fact,
it was kind of just sprung on us on Monday, and they didn't even get
the language straight until maybe Tuesday.
Madam Speaker, in the Congress, we generally have committee meetings.
You have a hearing on a bill almost always--that is what committees are
for, is to have hearings--sometimes by a subcommittee and then, later,
by a full committee--and a markup, sometimes by the subcommittee,
always at least by the full committee. Then it goes to the Rules
Committee, and then it comes to the floor.
When this Congress came about, the majority party made a big deal
about how they were going to come in and change the way things were
done and how there was going to be regular order.
Bills weren't going to be brought to the floor without any notice;
committees would do their work; amendments would be offered; and people
would get an opportunity to testify from the public.
This bill was given no markup in committee, no hearing in committee,
no opportunity for the public to voice any concerns as to whether they
were for it or against it, and no Congresspeople on the committee had a
chance to voice their concerns.
In essence, it was sprung on the public. The bill will have a new
definition of ``abortion''--unknown before in Federal law. That is a
pretty major thing--with no hearing, no notice, no opportunity to
address the issue, no opportunity to maybe bring in somebody who is an
expert to say: You might have missed this. You might have missed that.
This is the way it ought to be. No.
Madam Speaker, this week in Congress, the Republican side has
basically said: We don't want to hear from the public. We don't want to
hear from doctors. We don't want to hear from women. We don't want to
hear from them on another bill we had up today. We don't want to hear
from judges on something that affects the Federal courts, where the
judges, in reviewing it, voted by 85 percent ``bad idea''--no judges,
no lawyers, no doctors, no women, no public--because that side of the
House knows how to do everything.
They know how to define ``abortion.'' They know how to run the
courts. They know how to run women's lives. Choice and reproduction
should be a decision between a woman, her family, her conscience, and
her doctor, not what this side wants.
What this side wants is to repeal Roe v. Wade. They want to do away
with a woman's right to abortion. That is what this is about. They pick
these other issues to talk about, but that is what they really want. If
that happens, it is going to be no different than alcohol prohibition
in the twenties and marijuana today.
Alcohol was illegal. So what happened? People got alcohol and they
drank, but they drank because organized crime supplied it for them--no
taxes, lots of organized crime, lots of killings between organized
crime.
Marijuana. Do people have problems getting marijuana? People don't
have problems getting marijuana. It is everywhere. It was at George
Bush's school. It is everywhere. It is not hard to get, but it gives
the cartels a way to sell it. It happens.
Madam Speaker, when abortion was illegal in this country, wealthy
women could afford to go to Mexico or wherever it was legal and get
abortions. Poor people went to get abortions, but they had to go to
somebody who maybe didn't have a clean area in which to do the
procedure or the experience or the ability. Poor women went to back
alleys and oftentimes had health detriments because of it and sometimes
lost their lives.
So abortion is not going to be outlawed in this Congress, I don't
think, but that is what they would like to do. Even if it is outlawed,
it is still going to happen. If it happens, it is going to happen for
the rich, and the poor are going to get the worst services.
You can't take your morality and tell the American public, when they
want some service, some opportunity, some freedom, that they can't have
it, because they will find it. It will just be through a roundabout
way.
Madam Speaker, I thank Ms. Clark for having this Special Order. I am
going to always support Roe v. Wade and support Planned Parenthood. It
does a lot for the women in my district. As I said, it is one of the
best organizations in our country, and I believe that.
They help women with services they otherwise couldn't get. In a lot
of States like mine, where the Affordable Care Act has not been
extended through the expansion of Medicaid, it is even more difficult
for poor women to get medical services and even life-saving services.
So thank you. We will continue to message and continue to fight and
hope the American public realizes that what is going on here is
shutting them out--no voice, no message--simply activity.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for
his words and for his commitment
[[Page H6133]]
to women and their access to health care and for pointing out the
confounding thing about defunding Planned Parenthood, which is that we
are not even talking about abortion, as we have already restricted that
Federal funding.
Madam Speaker, we are talking about access to health care to
underserved women, to low-income women, who are trying to get general
wellness checkups, who are trying to have cancer screenings, who are
trying to access health care.
It is Planned Parenthood that fills that void in our underserved
populations, in our rural areas. That is where they make a critical
difference.
You are absolutely right in that the messaging that this is somehow
about something else is completely hiding the fact that we are bringing
bills to the floor without committee hearings, that we are not being
transparent, and that we are misleading the American public about what
this debate is about.
I am delighted that we also have another champion for working
families and a great voice for the communities he serves.
I yield to my colleague from California's 36th District, Congressman
Ruiz.
Mr. RUIZ. I thank the gentlewoman.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of a woman's right to choose,
women's health, and Planned Parenthood.
You see, before I ran for Congress, I spent 9 years as an emergency
medicine physician. A few years ago, a 55-year-old woman came into my
emergency room with a gynecological hemorrhage.
After we stopped the bleeding in the ER, we admitted her for
diagnosis and treatment. Sadly, as I suspected, she had advanced
cervical cancer, and 5 months later, she died, leaving her family
behind.
Until recently, cervical cancer was the leading cause of cancer
deaths for women in the United States. However, over the past 40 years,
we have dramatically reduced the number of deaths from cervical cancer.
According to the CDC, ``This decline largely is the result of many
women getting regular Pap tests, which can find cervical pre-cancer
before it turns into cancer.''
Madam Speaker, that is what is at stake in this debate.
In fact, 97 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are not abortion
related. Planned Parenthood provides many health and wellness services,
including STI testing, contraceptives, and cancer screenings to over 2
million women and men each year.
Opponents of Planned Parenthood's want to turn this into a debate
about abortion, but it is not. Let's be clear. Defunding Planned
Parenthood won't reduce the number of abortions at all.
This is a debate about cervical cancer. This is a debate about breast
cancer. This is a debate about how many women we are going to allow to
go undiagnosed and untreated. This is a debate about how many women we
are going to allow to show up in emergency rooms like mine, with
terminal cancer, too late to be saved.
In California alone, Planned Parenthood health centers have provided
over 93,000 Pap tests for cervical cancer and 97,000 breast exams to
help prevent death from breast cancer.
Madam Speaker, Planned Parenthood saves lives.
Here is who actually loses if Planned Parenthood loses its funding:
Women in geographically underserved areas lose; uninsured and
underinsured women lose; women on Medicaid lose; and low-income women
lose.
Planned Parenthood fills that access gap and provides essential
health services to those who need it the most. Cutting their funding
will have a long-term, devastating effect on the overall health of
women in our communities, worsening health outcomes and health
disparities for women across our Nation.
To me, this isn't a political debate, because I have seen firsthand
what happens when women don't have access to preventative care. Women
die; children are left without their mothers; and families are torn
apart.
It is for these reasons that I oppose this misguided, mean-spirited,
politically driven measure, and it is for these reasons that I stand
with Planned Parenthood.
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman from California for
sharing his experience as a medical doctor and as someone who stands
with Planned Parenthood.
Thank you for joining us.
Congressman Ruiz raises an interesting point about looking at our
system of health care.
Part of the proposal from the Republicans is that this is easy, that
we can simply take the money from Planned Parenthood and give it to
community health centers, but there is simply not the capacity in the
system to handle these extra patients.
Currently, more than half of Medicaid providers are not offering
appointments to new Medicaid patients, but two-thirds of the States
report difficulty in ensuring enough providers, including OB/GYN care.
Madam Speaker, this hurts low-income women especially hard because 60
percent of Planned Parenthood patients access care through Medicaid
and/or Title X, and 35 percent of women view their OB/GYN as their main
source of care.
So what we are talking about here is not abortion, but women's health
care, preventative measures that save lives.
We know that over 90 percent of the services Planned Parenthood
provides are preventative. We know that they serve underserved areas.
We know that there isn't enough capacity to see these patients in
other settings and that eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood
would mean over 390,000 patients would no longer receive health care.
If all of this sounds crazy to you, you are not alone. It is why I
came down here tonight, and I thank my colleagues who joined me.
It is time that we reveal the falsehoods of this argument and defeat
these efforts--these radical efforts--that are threatening to shut down
our government in order to defund Planned Parenthood, which carries so
much of our healthcare system for women in this country and especially
for low-income women.
It is time we stand up, debunk the lies and the mysteries that we are
being told, and let women have the healthcare access that they need and
deserve.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________