Congressional Record, Volume 164 Issue 19 (Monday, January 29, 2018)

[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 19 (Monday, January 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S527-S545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILD PROTECTION ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2311, which the
clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 294, S. 2311, a bill to
amend title 18, United States Code, to protect pain-capable
unborn children, and for other purposes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 5:30
p.m. will be equally divided in the usual form.
If no one yields time, then time will be charged equally.
The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the odds are quite good that when this
Republican-controlled Congress closes up shop in December, time spent
attacking the healthcare of women is going to be right up at the top of
how this Congress spent their day. They are back at it again, and this
latest attack that we will be discussing this week goes after women's
essential healthcare decisions.
In my view--and I want to be very clear about this point--this is
another key part of the Trump agenda of healthcare discrimination. This
time, it is going after women. This entire agenda is what the
Republicans are doing their best to blast through the Congress into
law. It is not just a one-off, either.
So I am going to spend a few minutes now to put this particular
health proposal that discriminates against women in the appropriate
kind of context. To do that, I think it is important to describe what
has happened on healthcare since day one of the Trump administration.
The administration and Republicans in Congress came right out of the
gate with legislation that would have deprived hundreds of thousands of
women of the right to see the doctor of their choosing. There was
another attack on Planned Parenthood that completely ignored the fact
that the Congress already regulates what these trusted healthcare
providers can and cannot spend public funds on. What Planned Parenthood
does use public funding for are vital healthcare services that have
absolutely nothing to do with abortion. Let me just make sure people
understand what I am talking about. We are talking about cancer
screenings, prenatal care, preventive services, routine physicals, and
more.
I have townhall meetings in every county in our State. I have had
more than 860 of them. The vast amount of terrain in Oregon is rural.
When I go to those small communities and the least populated areas of
our State, that is what people tell me they go to Planned Parenthood
for--to get those basic essentials, ranging from cancer screenings to
routine physicals. That is what women would lose with this Trump agenda
of healthcare discrimination.

Next up, given the way the year and a little bit longer has evolved,
is the ongoing attempt by the Trump administration to deny women
guaranteed no-cost access to contraception. This is one of the most
popular healthcare policies in recent memory. There are a lot of
reasons why this is smart, not just because it is a matter of fairness
for all women to have access to birth control. When women have access
to contraception, it means healthier pregnancies and healthier
newborns. It also reduces the risk of cancer among women.
You can also look at it in terms of dollars and cents. When you take
away no-cost contraception, you are essentially taxing women based on
their gender. You are driving up the cost of their routine healthcare.
It flies in the face of everything my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle say about the problems of healthcare costs in America.
So those are strikes one and two: denying women the right to see the
doctor of their choosing and making it harder for them to access
contraception. Now the Senate is debating

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whether to throw a matter of settled law out the window with a
hyperpartisan ban on abortion after 20 weeks.
My view on abortion throughout my time in public service is it ought
to be safe, it ought to be legal, and it ought to be rare. I have
supported a whole host of policies that bring both sides of the aisle
together.
The Presiding Officer is fairly new to the Senate Finance Committee
and is looking to be involved in a host of issues. My guess is, he will
be very interested in the adoption tax credit concept which I and
others have championed for some time, something that brings both sides
together.
So my view is, abortion, safe, legal, and rare; find ways to bring
both sides together; and respect that the Federal Government ought to
leave women alone on these most intimate decisions that involve women,
their spouses, and their healthcare providers.
The proposal the Senate is now debating is all about telling women
what they can and cannot do. It criminalizes healthcare services that
ought to stay between women and their doctors--healthcare services
often necessitated by potentially life-threatening complications.
I just, for the life of me, don't see the wisdom of a lawmaker or a
bureaucrat in Washington, DC, or a State capital telling a woman how
severe the danger to her life has to become before she is legally
allowed to make this variably gut-wrenching decision to choose an
abortion.
This issue has been settled law in America for 45 years. The debate
should be over, but here it is again, along with these other policies I
have just described, as part of the Trump administration's healthcare
discrimination agenda which is particularly punitive against women.
Let me also recognize the biggest victims under this discriminatory
agenda are women who walk an economic tightrope every single day. If
their local Planned Parenthood clinic is forced to close its doors,
they may not have the ability to take time off work and travel long
distances to see another provider for routine healthcare. They already
balance every day the food against the rent, the rent against
electricity, electricity against gas. Take away these choices, like no-
cost contraception, and make their struggle to get ahead that much
harder--especially when the rate of unintended pregnancy is five times
higher among women living in poverty--folks who may not be able to
afford a plane ticket or even a bus ticket to somewhere where they can
find the essential healthcare services they believe are necessary.
There are serious, genuine healthcare challenges that face the
country. Millions of Americans get clobbered every single time they
walk up to a pharmacy window and get pounded by the cost of
prescription drugs. That is the kind of bipartisan debate looking for
solutions.
Another example is the opioid epidemic raging from one end of the
country to the other. More than half a million lives lost in the last
two decades, countless families and entire communities torn apart. The
Congress and the Trump administration haven't done nearly enough to
fight the crisis and, frankly, not anywhere near close to what was
promised in the fall of 2016.
Instead of taking on these challenges, the Trump administration and
Republicans in Congress are just full steam ahead with this agenda of
healthcare discrimination; this week, an attack on women and their
healthcare choices. Passing this bill is going to make it harder for
women to be in a position to make the healthcare choices they believe
are important--maybe essential--for their lives.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I rise to urge each of my colleagues to
support the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This critical
legislation would prohibit a child from being aborted at 5 months of
development.
For those we have watching today, I would like you to focus a little
bit on these photos, and I will return to them in a moment.
Again, I am urging my colleagues to support the Pain-Capable Unborn
Child Protection Act. By any measure, at 5 months of development, an
unborn child is a child. At 5 months, babies have grown nails on their
fingers and on their toes; hair has just begun to grow on their heads;
and an ultrasound can tell an expectant mother or father whether their
baby is a boy or a girl. These babies can detect light, hear sounds,
they can swallow, and even experience taste as their taste buds grow
and develop. These unborn babies in all ways are babies.
There is also significant scientific evidence that at 5 months of
development these babies can feel pain. By 5 months, babies begin to
respond to painful stimulus with distinctive pain response behaviors
that are exhibited by older babies. They will scrunch their eyes, they
will clench their hands, they pull back their limbs in response to
pain, just like any other child experiencing pain.
There is also a great deal of evidence that stress hormone levels
rise substantially when babies at this age are exposed to pain. In
2015, a Cambridge University Press medical textbook acknowledged that a
``fetus . . . becomes capable of experiencing pain between 20 and 30
weeks of gestation.'' In fact, fetal surgeons routinely administer pain
medications for babies after only 4 months of development. Doctors are
giving babies pain medication after 4 months of development.
As modern medicine has recognized, these babies are humans capable of
experiencing pain. Yet there is no Federal law protecting these
vulnerable humans from abortions. As a result, every year in our
country the lives of thousands of babies end painfully through
abortion. This is unacceptable. The majority of men and women across
the Nation agree with this premise. According to a recent Marist poll,
6 out of 10 Americans surveyed support a law prohibiting abortion after
5 months of pregnancy.
Additionally, multiple States, including my home State of Iowa, have
passed legislation that would prohibit abortions after 5 months of
development because these babies are babies. There is no way to deny
the humanity of these children when you consider stories like that of
Micah Pickering.
Micah is from Newton, IA. He is a very young friend of mine. He is 5
years old. Just a few weeks ago on the floor of the Senate I was able
to share Micah's story. As you may recall, Micah was born at just 20
weeks postfertilization--the very point at which the Pain-Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act would begin to protect these young lives.
Today, Micah is a very happy, very energetic little 5-year-old. Now, I
would like to go back to these pictures.
When I first met Micah, he was about 3 years old. He and his parents
visited my office for the annual March for Life. I had this poster made
of these pictures, and they were in my office because I was going to
speak on the Senate floor in support of March for Life. Micah is
pictured on the right side of the poster board. Micah, a happy,
energetic little boy saw this poster board in my office, and he ran up
to it--imagine, this beautiful 3-year-old boy--and he pointed not at
the picture of himself as he was at 3 years old, but he pointed to this
picture, and he said: Baby. I said: Yes, Micah, that is a baby.
This is Micah when he was born. Micah at 3 years old understood that
this was a baby. He didn't understand that was him when he was born,
but he understood that was a baby.
If you look at the picture, you will see Micah is grasping his mama
and daddy's hands with five perfectly formed little fingers on each
hand. It is a baby, folks. Micah knew that. While he might not have
known that was him when he was born, he knew that was a baby--5 months
of gestation.
Today, Micah is a happy, extraordinarily healthy young boy. I got to
see him again this last year. Again, he was running around my office,
just full of energy and life.
Yes, Micah, this is a baby. I agree.
Micah's story is not an isolated incident. Extraordinary stories of
babies who are surviving after just 5 months of development can be
found all around the world.
A little over a year ago, Dakota Harris was born in Ohio at 19 weeks
of development--even younger than Micah. Last May, she left the
hospital with her family as a healthy 7-pound baby.

[[Page S529]]

In 2016, baby Aharon was born at 20 weeks of development, becoming
the youngest premature baby to survive in Israel. After 5 months of
care at a hospital in Tel Aviv, he was able to go home, again, as a
healthy baby.
In 2010, Frieda Mangold, who was born in Germany at just under 20
weeks of development, became Europe's youngest premature baby to
survive. After receiving intensive care, she too was able to go home
with her family as a happy 7-pound baby.
Babies have been on record as surviving birth after just 5 months of
development for three decades now--three decades. What greater evidence
do you need that at 5 months of development, an unborn child in every
way is a child?
Despite the clear evidence of the humanity of these children, the
United States is one of only seven countries in the world to allow
abortions after 5 months of development. That means that while an
overwhelming majority of the world recognizes and protects the humanity
of these vulnerable children, the United States keeps the company of
countries like China and North Korea. They deny unborn children the
most basic of protections. This is not who we are as a nation.
It is time we listen to the scientific evidence, the men and women
across America, and a majority of the rest of the world. There should
be no disagreement when it comes to protecting the life of an unborn
child who can feel pain and, as the inspiring stories of Micah
Pickering and others show, survive outside of the womb. It is up to us
to ensure these children have the chance to grow up and lead the happy,
healthy lives that God has granted them.
As a mother and a grandmother, I am urging my colleagues to support
the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which recognizes these
unborn babies as the children they are and provides them the same
protection from pain and suffering that all of our children deserve.
For my dear little friend Micah, I would say: Yes, Micah, this is a
baby, and we are glad to have you here.
God bless him.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
If no one yields time, the time shall be charged equally.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I am here to talk about a vote we will be
considering later this afternoon on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child
Protection Act.
I thank Senator Graham and my fellow cosponsors on the bill. I think
it is a very important bill. I think it is a balanced bill as it is a
bill that has the support of the vast majority of the American citizens
and would make us consistent with all but only seven other nations in
terms of restricting abortions to a limited number of exceptions after
20 weeks. Those exceptions would be a threat to the life of the mother,
someone who may have been raped, or someone who may have been the
victim of incest.
This is a balanced bill, and it is a policy that most of the world
population agrees should be in place. I think it is our job to make
sure this restriction is put into place, with medical science today
suggesting that after 20 weeks an unborn child can experience pain,
while still allowing for the choice of the mother. We could discuss
different opinions about that in the earlier terms but certainly after
20 weeks. I think this is balanced policy and is something I hope my
colleagues will support and ultimately send to the President's desk.
I was speaker of the house in North Carolina for 4 years. We worked
on commonsense changes to protect the lives of the unborn, changes that
also received the support of the majority of North Carolinians. This is
just another example of where we at the Federal level can enact a law
that I think can help us to demonstrate that the life of the unborn is
a precious life. We as Members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress
are tasked with making sure we protect all lives in America. This is
just a very important, precious, helpless part of the population. I,
for one, think this is a great, modest step forward, and I encourage
all of the Members to support it.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip is recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last week marked the 45th anniversary of
Roe v. Wade, but many of us were not celebrating because last week gave
us another opportunity to consider the real damage caused by the
Supreme Court decision, which even liberal scholars have now said is
flawed in the type of damage it has done to the social fabric of our
Nation over the last four and a half decades.
During this period of time, more than 50 million unborn children in
America have been denied the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness--50 million. In other parts of the world, unborn children
have been killed by the sheer fact that they happen to be girls instead
of boys or because one has a disability like Down syndrome.
For me, Roe v. Wade hits close to home because I come from the State
where the lead plaintiff was living at the time of that now famous
lawsuit. Her name is Norma McCorvey, or Jane Roe in the case. She was
from Dallas, TX. What is unknown, generally, but interesting, is what
is left out of this story when you hear about Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade.
Mrs. McCorvey, actually, never went forward with the abortion. She gave
birth instead, and her child was adopted. She later became an
influential pro-life advocate.
Her story should give us cause for hope that change is possible--
change of the human heart, change in the direction of the country--when
it comes to unborn children, as should events like the March for Life
that happened earlier this month here in Washington, where more than
100,000 pro-life men and women, young and old, descended on our
Nation's Capital.
I want to applaud President Trump for becoming our Nation's first
sitting President to address the march.
Hope is increasingly being provided by advances in science that have
dispelled some of the mythology associated with abortion. Advancing
technology is making it easier for many to see the humanity of a
growing child and to realize that it does have moral status.
One physician at Northwestern University recounted recently:

The more advanced in my field of neonatology, the more it
just became the logical choice to recognize the developing
fetus for what it is. . . . It just became so obvious that
these were just developing humans.

Testimony like that lends credence to the bill that we are voting on
today. It is called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. I
don't doubt that some of our colleagues would just prefer to remain
silent and to hope this vote passes without many people paying much
attention, but I hope that doesn't happen. It is an entirely
appropriate occasion for us to talk about abortion and its role in our
society and how it is increasingly out of step with modern science and
people's recognition that these are indeed unborn human beings.
This legislation protects unborn children at 20 weeks, or 5 months.
Who among us thinks that it is appropriate to have an elective abortion
after 5 months in the womb? That is what we are talking about. We are
specifically talking about the child's ability to feel pain at this
stage of development. It doesn't apply in cases where the mother's life
is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. It does have those
exceptions.
Advances in modern medicine help babies born at 21 and 22 weeks to
survive. In other words, we are talking about unborn children who could
survive outside the womb, who are still subject to elective abortion in
this country. So babies roughly the same age are clearly alive and need
our protection before they are born as well, and this bill will help
provide that protection.
Incredibly, the United States is only one of seven countries that
allow elective abortions past 20 weeks. It is not exactly an honor to
be in the same category as North Korea, Vietnam, and China when it
comes to allowing elective abortions after 5 months.
I am glad that the pain-capable bill has passed in 20 States,
including my

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home State of Texas. It has been estimated that the law we are voting
on today will save approximately 12,000 to 18,000 babies annually. That
is 12,000 to 18,000 lives saved were this bill to pass. That is hopeful
news.
Polls have shown that a majority of Americans support a prohibition
on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. This is one thing that brings
people who consider themselves to be pro-life and people who consider
themselves to be pro-choice together, common ground recognizing that at
some point you are talking about a human being capable of living
outside the womb.
As my colleague from Oklahoma, the junior Senator, told us on the
floor recently, people all across the country are waking up. They are
beginning to say, as he put it:

Wait a minute, that child has 10 fingers and 10 toes,
unique DNA that is different from his or her mom and dad,
[and] the child feels pain in the womb and has a beating
heart. . . . That sounds like a child.

He is absolutely right. It sounds like a child because it is one.
I wish to close by quoting Winston Churchill, who I realize is
perhaps an unlikely figure to bring up at a time like this. That great
leader once said that ``a nation that has forgotten its past has no
future.''
Here in the United States, we have forgotten our past when it comes
to abortion. We have forgotten, for example, that some of the original
advocates of abortion had ties to the eugenics movement. They believed
that you could eliminate people who had disabilities or who were
frowned upon for one reason or another by virtue of their gender or
other characteristics they had no control over. They often promoted
forced sterilization because some people, in their view, simply
shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. One example is Margaret Sanger, the
founder of Planned Parenthood, who is known to have spoken with the Ku
Klux Klan and other disreputable organizations about her views.
We have forgotten, as well, the activists advocating on behalf of
racial minorities in the 1960s and 1970s who once emphasized abortion's
civil rights connection--that protecting the unborn represented an
effort to protect the weak and the disenfranchised.
Respectfully, I call on all of our colleagues to remember these
connections and to see how far we have come--and not in a positive way.
These colleagues of mine often describe themselves as pro-choice, but
they actually are not unique in that regard. We all attach value to
choices. As others have said before, we all know that choices have
consequences and that some are better than others.
Each of us represents the sum of his or her choices, too. As a
society, we should choose to offer pregnant mothers who are worried,
financially insecure, or alone options other than abortion. We not only
should do this, but we must.
I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting the pain-capable
legislation we will be voting on in just a couple of hours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am prepared to deliver remarks, but
I see that the majority leader is on the floor, and I do not want to
intrude on his desire to take the floor if he wishes.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Rhode
Island. I will not occupy the Senate floor for very long.

Recognition of the Majority Leader

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

Marshall County High School Shooting

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the community of Benton, KY, is
continuing to pick up the pieces after last week's harrowing shooting.
I wish, once again, to thank our law enforcement and first responders
for their heroism, and I would also like to recognize Marshall County
Judge-Executive Kevin Neal for his leadership when his community needed
it the most.
For most of us, this tragedy is barely even conceivable, but to the
parents of Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, it is now a painful reality.
Bailey Holt was 15 years old, and her mother said that she had a
``perfect, sweet soul.'' She has been described as compassionate,
confident, and comfortable being herself. When she wasn't busy cheering
for the University of Louisville Cardinals, Bailey was always ready
with a kind word or a friendly gesture for those who needed it.
On social media, her family and friends are using the expression ``Be
Like Bailey,'' encouraging everyone who sees it to act with charity.
Preston Cope, who was also 15, was known for being kind, soft-spoken,
and a quick learner. He loved reading about history and playing
baseball for Marshall County High School and the Calvert City Sluggers.
Preston's friends remember his ability to inspire them and to make them
laugh.
One of Bailey and Preston's classmates called them ``the nicest
people I ever met. They never had anything negative to say. They always
had a smile on their face.''
This weekend, friends and family gathered at the high school gym by
the hundreds to remember Bailey and Preston and to comfort one another.
As the other injured students fight to recover and the entire
Marshall County community continues to grieve and heal, they will have
Bailey and Preston's example to draw on and they will have the prayers
of their fellow Kentuckians, of us here in the Senate, and of the
entire country.

Work of the Senate

Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, a great deal of work
remains in the Senate in the coming days. Bipartisan discussions
continue on a variety of important issues, including immigration,
border security, disaster relief, healthcare, and funding for our Armed
Forces. With our February 8 deadline fast approaching, it is vital that
we continue these serious and constructive talks.
Last week, the administration provided its framework for immigration
legislation. As I noted, it builds upon the four pillars for reform
that the President has consistently put forth and indicates what is
necessary for him to sign a bill into law. As discussions continue in
the Senate on the subject of immigration, Members on both sides of the
aisle should look to this framework as they work toward an agreement.
The President's proposal has received praise as a serious effort to
solve some of the problems with our broken immigration system. Not
surprisingly with a subject this complicated, it has also received
criticism from both the right and the left. Constructive critiques are
one thing, but the type of irresponsible racial invective used yet
again on this subject by the Democratic leader of the House is
decidedly unhelpful.
These comments are precisely the kind of divisive partisanship that
dim the prospects that a bipartisan compromise could become law. The
American people elected us to legislate, not to trade insults. To
resolve President Obama's unlawfully established DACA Program and other
important issues in immigration, I would urge my Democratic colleagues
to put serious, good-faith discussions ahead of cheap, partisan point
scoring.

Nomination of David Stras

Mr. President, now on another matter. These negotiations aren't the
only important business before us this week. We will also consider
another of President Trump's well-qualified judicial nominees, David
Stras, of Minnesota, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Eighth Circuit. Judge Stras serves as an associate justice of the
Minnesota Supreme Court. Three of his former colleagues on that court,
now retired, praised him in an open letter last year for his sterling
academic record, his considerable experience, and his ability to hear
cases ``with objectivity and an open mind.''
Their testimony confirmed Judge Stras's well-known reputation for
thoughtfulness, fairness, and intellectual excellence. I look forward
to voting to advance his nomination and to send this capable jurist to
the Federal bench.
Mr. President, the Senate will vote to take up a measure to ensure
that the most vulnerable in our society are granted the protection they
deserve under law. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
reflects a growing mainstream consensus--mainstream consensus--that
unborn children should not be subjected to elective abortion after 20
weeks.
There are only seven countries left in the world that permit this,
including,

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unfortunately, the United States, along with China and North Korea. It
is long past time that we heeded both science and commonsense morality
and remove ourselves from this very undistinguished list.
Some refer to this legislation as Micah's Law in honor of a little
boy who was born premature at just 22 weeks. Today, Micah Pickering is
a healthy 5-year-old boy. He shows what can happen when we give life a
chance.
This afternoon, every one of us will go on record on this issue. On
the commonsense side of this issue are 63 percent of Americans,
according to a recent survey, and every other country in the world,
save seven. There is no reason why this should be a partisan issue. I
hope our Democratic colleagues will not obstruct the Senate from taking
up this bill.
I urge every one of my colleagues to join me in voting to advance it
this afternoon.

State of the Union Address

Mr. President, now, on a final matter, the President delivers his
first State of the Union Address tomorrow. I am especially looking
forward to his remarks on tax reform and the state of our economy.
Already hundreds of businesses have announced significant bonuses, pay
increases, new jobs, and expanded benefits. Just last week, we learned
that Verst Logistics, which is based in Walton, KY, and employs nearly
1,600, has distributed bonuses to full-time employees. The company's
CEO told workers: ``I want to be sure that you and your families share
in the benefits of your accomplishments and the new tax reform
legislation.''
When I hear my Democratic colleagues denigrate tax reform bonuses as
``crumbs,'' I think about workers like these. I think about the Verst
worker who came to her boss with tears in her eyes when she received
word of her bonus. It was Christmas. She and her husband had recently
had their fifth child. Money was tight. Mom and dad had enough saved up
to buy gifts for the kids but were planning to skip presents for each
other, but tax reform changed that. Thanks to the tax reform bonus she
earned, this employee and her husband could go out to a nice dinner and
buy each other Christmas gifts after all. The CEO says he has never
been hugged so hard in his life.
It is a shame that none of my Democratic colleagues voted for tax
reform--not a single one of them--and it is jarring to hear some of
them now denigrate the pay increases and the benefits that only wealthy
people could deem insignificant. Maybe in San Francisco or New York an
extra $500 or $1,000 is no big deal, but try telling that to families
in North Dakota, Missouri, and Montana. Try telling that to that mother
of five. I suspect you would get an earful.
Tomorrow evening when the President describes tax reform's impact for
middle-class Americans, every one of us should stand and applaud.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, tomorrow the Environment and Public
Works Committee will have an opportunity to question Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt at an oversight hearing.
Oversight of the executive branch is one of the Senate's great
responsibilities. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership of this body
has shown little interest in holding the Trump administration
accountable, despite the fact that this administration is more
ethically challenged, more riven by conflicts of interest, more
captured by special interests, more defined by cronyism than any other.
After a year of Pruitt at the helm of EPA--a tenure that has been
marked by mass staff departures, a slowdown in enforcement actions,
questionable travel and other personal spending, rolling back critical
clean air and clean water protections, a purge of scientists, an influx
of industry insiders, a smorgasbord of meetings with industry bigwigs,
many of whom coincidentally also bankrolled his political career back
in Oklahoma, an obsession with secrecy, and heaps and heaps and heaps
of climate denial--Pruitt will finally be appearing before our
committee. I urge my Republican colleagues on EPW to bring some good
questions to tomorrow's hearing.
Judging by Pruitt's first year, he is running dangerously amok. He
has turned EPA into perhaps the swampiest Agency in a very swampy
administration. Pruitt's record at EPA demands the sort of oversight
this body used to exercise. If you don't believe this about Pruitt's
record, just take a look at what some distinguished Republicans have to
say. William Ruckelshaus, who under both Presidents Richard Nixon and
Ronald Reagan ran the EPA, has criticized Pruitt's penchant for secrecy
in this Washington Post op-ed contrasting it with his own more
transparent management style. He said:

We release[d] my full schedule and the publication of
written communications on a daily basis . . . Scott Pruitt is
taking the absolute opposite approach. Pruitt operates in
secrecy.

In an interview with HuffPost, former New Jersey Governor and
chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean, is also troubled by Pruitt's
fixation with secrecy. I think this New York Times op-ed makes his
opinion clear. He writes:

[T]o satisfy his penchant for secrecy, [Pruitt] is
installing--at a cost of nearly $25,000 to taxpayers--a
secure phone booth in his Washington office to keep people,
including staff members, in the dark.

Imagine that. While demanding massive cuts to EPA's budget, Pruitt is
spending thousands of dollars to build himself, like Maxwell Smart, a
cone of silence. He doesn't run the CIA. He doesn't run the FBI. He
doesn't even run the State Department. What possible purpose could this
very expensive, secure phone booth have at the Environmental Protection
Agency?
Governor Kean believes Pruitt is doing this to keep his own staff
members in the dark, which begs the question: What does Pruitt have to
hide from his own staff? It sounds like a question my Republican
colleagues on EPW should ask him tomorrow.
Pruitt's wasteful spending isn't just limited to his cone of silence.
As Governor Kean points out, Pruitt has used private jets costing
taxpayers another $58,000. His princely habits have even prompted
questions from Senator Grassley. So I ask my EPW Republican colleagues:
If Senator Grassley is troubled by Pruitt's wasteful spending of
taxpayers' money on personal luxuries, shouldn't you ask him about it
at tomorrow's hearing?
Pruitt's penchant for secrecy goes well beyond the expensive cone of
silence that was designed to keep his own staff in the dark. It also
extends to his schedule, where he tries to keep the American people in
the dark. Unlike Ruckelshaus and previous EPA Administrators, Pruitt
will not even disclose whom he is meeting or when he is traveling. As
Governor Kean notes, our only idea of the folks he is meeting comes
from the Freedom of Information Act. Once EPA finally released the
first few months of Pruitt's calendars in response to a FOIA request,
that is when we learned he was meeting with scores of industry fat cats
and almost no environmental groups.

As for his travels, we only find out about them after the fact, which
of course prevents the press from covering Pruitt, say, when he jets
off to Morocco to lobby for American natural gas producers. One of my
Republican colleagues on EPW might want to ask Pruitt why he is jetting
around the world playing Commerce Secretary for the fossil fuel
industry when he should be working here at home in America to protect
people's health and their environment.
What does Governor Kean have to say about Pruitt's industry ties?
``He has elevated cronyism to new heights.'' Those are Governor's
Kean's words, not mine.
In an interview with HuffPost just this past Friday, Mr. Ruckelshaus
echoed this concern that Pruitt cares more about his political ties
than protecting the environment. ``He's just like Trump,'' Ruckelshaus
said. ``He's got an ideological approach to it, an approach that
affects the large contributors in his party in Oklahoma.''
Here again, Republican colleagues on EPW might want to ask Pruitt
about his close ties with industry and whether he is working for the
fossil fuel interests that donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to
his political activities back in Oklahoma or working for the American
people. Governor Kean goes on to say that Pruitt ``built his

[[Page S532]]

political career by attacking clean-air and clean-water rules'' and
that he is ``blocking scientific input,'' which brings us to science.
Science, of course, gives society its headlights to look ahead and
see oncoming hazards. Without science, if we ignore it or block it, as
Governor Kean says Pruitt is doing, the decisions we make are simply
uninformed and irrational, and Governor Kean and I aren't the only ones
who think this.
Yet another high-profile Republican, the former New Jersey Governor
and George W. Bush EPA Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, agrees.
Pruitt claims he will pursue so-called ``red team/blue team'' exercises
instead of the long-established gold standard peer review process for
rigorously evaluating science. Governor Whitman sees right through
that.

[D]ecisions must be based on reliable science. The red team
begins with his politically preferred conclusion that climate
change isn't a problem, and it will seek evidence to justify
that position. That's the opposite of how science works.

Pruitt doesn't want to follow the scientific method, at least not
when it comes to climate science or any other science, for that matter,
that his industry backers object to. He wants to fabricate a case for
his industry backers' politically preferred hypothesis. This isn't
science. This is a counterfeit of science. As Governor Whitman writes,
``True science follows the evidence. . . . Government bases policy on
those results. This applies to liberals and conservatives alike,'' or
at least that is the way it used to be before Scott Pruitt turned the
keys over to polluting industries.
So, EPW Republicans, there is another question for you to ask Pruitt
tomorrow: How does he justify throwing out the real scientists and the
real science in order to arrive so predictably at the fossil fuel
industry's preferred conclusions?
Governor Whitman calls Pruitt's climate denial scheming ``a waste of
the government's time, energy, and resources, and a slap in the face to
fiscal responsibility and responsible governance.'' It is, in her
words, ``shameful,'' ``unjustifiable,'' and a ``wild goose chase.'' It
sounds like more great questions for EPW Republicans to ask Pruitt
tomorrow: How does he justify spending taxpayers' money on his backers'
climate denial schemes.
This question is particularly relevant in light of Pruitt's campaign
to radically cut EPA's budget and staff. Under his tenure, EPA staff
has been reduced to the lowest level in more than 30 years. EPW
Republicans, take note because here is another question you can ask
Pruitt tomorrow: How can he justify spending taxpayer money on
frivolities like his Maxwell Smart cone of silence or personal luxuries
like exorbitant private travel or crazy climate denial schemes all
while demanding drastic cuts to the people who do the real work of
protecting the public at his Agency?
In an interview, Governor Whitman said she ``would like to see
[EPA's] budget have enough in it to ensure we are enforcing the
regulations we have in place,'' a fairly conservative notion. As she
notes, EPA enforcement actions are slowing down ``in some instances
fairly dramatically because they've cut the budget for the number of
enforcement agents.'' You can't do cleanups or police polluters without
money and people, both of which Pruitt is looking to cut. Simply put,
Pruitt's so-called back-to-basics campaign is a smokescreen to hide his
attempts to gut the Agency he is supposed to lead because it will make
his industry backers happy.
Once again, I ask my EPW Republican colleagues: Will you confront
Pruitt about his sham promises to get back to basics while he is really
just cutting staff and resources and reducing enforcement?
Governor Kean speaks for many Americans when he writes, ``For the
sake of our children's health, it's time for Scott Pruitt to go.'' When
you are hearing that from the Republican side, it is worth listening.
Pruitt's tenure at the EPA has been an unmitigated disaster for
public health, for the environment, and for the future of the planet we
call home. Its only value is if you have some peculiar connoisseur
interest in government corruption to watch all the many ways in which
industry can work its will within its supposed regulator.
Tomorrow, those of us who sit on the Environment and Public Works
Committee have an important opportunity to put the Senate's oversight
authority to good use and expose how badly Pruitt is in the pocket of
the polluters he is supposed to police. I sincerely hope that my
Republican colleagues on EPW will seize the opportunity. You can be
sure that my Democratic colleagues and I will.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, today in communities across our country,
young people are asking whether they will be able to stay in the only
country they have ever called home. Struggling patients and veterans
are wondering whether their local community health center will be able
to stay open and provide the care that they can't otherwise afford.
Workers and business owners are wondering--again--whether the
government will even be open in a week or two.
Instead of addressing the serious and pressing challenges that people
are facing, Republican leaders today are debating whether to trust
women to make their own healthcare choices. That is right. While this
country is waiting for us to come together and solve problems,
Republicans are wasting precious time with a politically motivated,
partisan bill that is engineered to drive us apart and hurt women.
I have come here today to oppose, in the strongest terms, the
extreme, ideological abortion ban that Republican leaders have brought
to the floor today. It goes against the Constitution, against medical
experts, and against the rights of women across the country. However, I
don't merely oppose this partisan bill. I oppose the very fact
Republicans are once again bringing this bill--which they know is a
nonstarter--to the floor.
I oppose the very idea that in the 21st century, we are going to
waste time on a question that has already been answered and shouldn't
even be up for debate. I oppose the fact that we are still voting on
whether women and doctors are best equipped to make healthcare
decisions--or politicians here in Washington, DC. We are still voting
on whether we should criminalize doctors for making sound medical
decisions. We are still voting on whether we should turn back the clock
and put women's lives at risk.
Roe v. Wade was decided 45 years ago. We celebrated the anniversary
of that historic decision last week. I would like to think that after
almost half a century, we could move on from debating this settled
issue. Yet here we are.
In 2015, the Republican leaders stated quite flatly that a vote to
defund Planned Parenthood would be an exercise in futility because
there was no way it was going to pass. The same is true of this
extreme, harmful legislation. Yet here we are.
Bringing this bill to the floor is an exercise in futility, and
passing it would be an exercise in cruelty. Just look at the story from
a Washington State mother, Judy Nicastro. A few years ago, she wrote an
op-ed in the New York Times, and she courageously shared a story that
is every expecting woman's worst nightmare. Judy shared her experience
of learning that one of the twins she was carrying had a lung
condition. One lung chamber had not formed at all, and the other was
only 20 percent complete. She wrote:

My world stopped. I loved being pregnant with twins. . . .
The thought of losing one child was unbearable.

She went on to say:

The MRI at Seattle Children's Hospital confirmed our fears:
the organs were pushed up into our boy's chest and not
developing properly. We were in the 22nd week.

I am grateful her doctors were able to give her sound medical advice.
I am grateful that she and her husband were able to make the decision
they felt was best for their own family. And I am so grateful to Judy
for sharing her story, which represents the incredibly painful decision
she and so many other women have faced.
My colleagues might recognize that story. I have shared it before,
just as Republicans have introduced this deeply harmful legislation
before. I hope this time the Republicans listen. I hope they will stop
trying to pretend they are in any way qualified to interfere with
decisions that a woman has the

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constitutional right to make on her own. I hope they will stop trying
to criminalize a doctor's ability to provide sound medical advice and
protect the lives of patients. I hope they will stop wasting our time
with bills that are so out of date, extremely out of touch, and
obviously unconstitutional.
But if Republicans will not stop this exercise in futility and their
attacks on women's rights, they should know that I will not stop
standing up and making clear exactly why they are wrong. They should
know I am going to keep fighting for Judy and so many other women and
their families, and I will keep urging them to work with Democrats on
the serious challenges that face our Nation--none of which, by the way,
have to do with trusting women or controlling their healthcare choices.
I do want to thank the many Democrats who will be joining me here on
the floor to stand up for women and deliver this same message to our
Republican colleagues. Again, I hope they listen because Democrats
would like to get to work.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I want to thank the senior Senator from
Washington for her leadership on this important issue and for gathering
women to come to the floor today to talk about the Republican bill that
has been proposed and that we will be voting on soon.
When I was a girl growing up in Oklahoma, women got abortions. Make
no mistake, abortions were illegal back then, but women got them.
Desperate women turned to back-alley butchers, and some even tried the
procedure on their own, using coat hangers or drinking turpentine. Some
were lucky, but some weren't. Some women bled to death. Some died of
infection. Some were poisoned. And they all went through hell.
In 1973, the Supreme Court stepped in. Forty-five years after Roe v.
Wade, abortions are safer than getting your tonsils out. A lot of women
are alive today because of Roe. Nearly 70 percent of Americans agree,
Roe v. Wade is worth celebrating.
I wish I were here today to acknowledge the impact of Roe. Instead, I
am here to defend it from attack.
Last week President Trump marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by
calling for a ban on a rare category of abortions--ones that take place
after 20 weeks of pregnancy. So today, the Senate is voting on a bill
to do exactly that.
Let's be honest about why this vote is happening now. Today's vote is
happening because politicians who have never been pregnant, who have
never had an abortion, who have never had to make a wrenching decision
after learning that the child they are carrying will not survive
childbirth--those politicians want to score political points at the
expense of women and their families.
We are having this vote today because President Trump asked for it.
If it passes, this unconstitutional bill would put women's lives and
women's health at risk. Government officials who seek to insert
themselves between women and their doctors ought to listen to the women
whose lives are on the line and the doctors who care for them. If they
were listening right now, we wouldn't be holding this vote.
Only 1 percent of abortions take place at 21 weeks or later, and the
reasons are heartbreaking. I have heard from people across
Massachusetts who shared their devastating stories. The Senate should
hear these stories.
One woman who wrote to me explained that she was ecstatic to have a
second child but learned late in her pregnancy that her daughter's
brain was severely malformed. She said:

Being a grown woman with a husband and daughter, I never
imagined that I would need to [get an abortion]. But when I
learned that the baby I was carrying suffered from a set of
severe brain malformations, I faced a binary choice for her:
peace or life. . . . I am deeply grateful that I was able to
give her the gift of peace.

She and her husband did what they thought was best for their baby
girl. They got an abortion in the third trimester.
Another couple chose to get an abortion at 22 weeks, after learning
that their son's heart would never fully develop. The husband wrote to
me:

His pulmonary veins did not connect to his heart in the
right place. He had ventricular septal defect, an atrial
septal defect . . . and the left side of his heart was
smaller than his right. . . . We hoped to be eligible for in-
utero heart surgery, but our fetal cardiologists told us that
our son's heart could not be fixed. Our little boy--our
miracle--wasn't going to make it.

He described their choice as an act of mercy. He said:

My wife and I are both pro-life, and we would never
encourage an abortion. [But] there isn't a day that I regret
what we did because we both believe our child is watching
over us from a safer place. There also isn't a day I wonder
who else could possibly understand what we went through. No
law can save my child from his complex congenital heart
disease, or save my wife from her suffering.

But the bill we are voting on today says that the government should
have been part of that decision--no, not just part of that decision. It
would have allowed the government to make that decision, instead of
leaving the choice to these brokenhearted parents.
The bill we are considering today would ban all abortions after 20
weeks, with only limited exceptions. It would force women to carry an
unviable fetus to term. It would force women with severe health
complications to stay pregnant until their lives were on the line.
Whatever you believe about abortion generally, this legislation is
dangerous and cruel.
Devastating fetal abnormalities aren't the only reason women get
abortions after 20 weeks. Some women face so many delays when seeking
an abortion, like finding a provider, raising money for the procedure,
and paying for travel costs--so many delays that a procedure they
wanted earlier in pregnancy gets pushed later and later. These
logistical hurdles fall hardest on young people, on women of color, and
on low-income communities.
What is behind some of these delays? State-level abortion
restrictions pushed through by Republican legislatures that close down
clinics and make it harder for women to get access to the care they
need. You heard that right. Republican-sponsored abortion restrictions
push women to have abortions later and later, and today, Republicans in
the Senate push a bill to ban late abortions. It is all connected.
This bill is only one part of a broad and sustained assault by
Republican politicians on women's rights to make decisions about their
own bodies. Through repeated efforts to limit birth control access, to
defund Planned Parenthood, and to restrict abortions, Republicans are
chipping away at women's health, women's safety, and women's economic
independence.
If Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan or Donald Trump actually wanted to
reduce abortions, they could embrace policies that would lessen the
economic pressures of pregnancy and of motherhood. They could act to
help pregnant women and their babies access healthcare early and often.
They could help young women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first
place.
Instead, they have spent the last year doing exactly the opposite.
They have held vote after vote to try to gut the Affordable Care Act
and Medicaid, when we should be expanding those programs. Affordable
healthcare, accessible contraceptives, and other programs that support
working women and families are all under attack. And today, Republican
politicians want to distract from their hypocrisy with an
unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban--one that will not pass, that
ignores the actual experiences of women, and would cause enormous harm
if it were signed into law.
Today's vote, which we all know will fail, isn't about policy; it is
about political theater. But women don't get abortions to prove a
political point. Reproductive rights are about health. They are about
safety. And this particular vote about banning abortions at 20 weeks is
about a bunch of politicians intruding on one of the most wrenching
decisions that a woman will ever make.
It has been 45 years since Roe v. Wade; 45 years since women gained
the constitutional right to a safe, legal abortion; 45 years since the
days of illegal abortions. I have lived in that America. I have lived
in the world of back-alley butchers and wrecked lives. And we are not
going back--not now, not ever.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I would like to thank my friend Senator
Murray for organizing this block of time for us--you have just heard
from Senator Warren--and for all the work Senator Murray has done to
fight for women all across the country.
Today's debate is the latest battle in the continuing assault on a
women's constitutionally protected right to an abortion. As decided by
the Supreme Court in Roe and reaffirmed in Casey, the right to an
abortion is rooted fundamentally in a women's right to privacy, but the
Supreme Court's recognition of this constitutionally protected right
has not prevented continuous efforts to limit that right.
I ask my Republican colleagues who are on a mission to limit a
woman's constitutional right to choose: What is more private than a
person's right to her own body--not just to control her body but to
literally own her body? What could be more private than that? That is
what is at stake as we debate the bill before us today.
My home State of Hawaii was the first State in the country to
legalize abortion, and it continues to be at the forefront of
protecting, expanding, and preserving this constitutional right. But
for every law we fought to pass, we have had to fight just as hard to
beat back a wide range of anti-choice legislation.
Republican-controlled State legislatures have enacted hundreds of
limitations on choice. These efforts have not abated in the States or
even in Congress. Courts have deemed many of these laws
unconstitutional. That is why Donald Trump and the entire conservative
movement have prioritized selecting, appointing, and confirming judges
who are ideologically sympathetic to their views on choice.
The Trump administration is also eroding this right through Executive
action. In one prominent example last year, a senior official at the
Department of Health and Human Services went to court to impose his own
ideological views to prevent a young woman in his care from obtaining
an abortion after forcing her to undergo anti-abortion counseling.
Fortunately, the DC Circuit Court stopped this official from forcing
this young woman to be pregnant against her will.
The Republican Congress is complicit as well. Over the past 7 years
of Republican control, the House and Senate voted to defund Planned
Parenthood more than 20 times.
I understand that this is an emotionally charged issue and that each
of us has strongly held and sincere positions, but it really shouldn't
be too much to ask for my colleagues to stay out of my private life and
the private lives of women all across the country. That is called
respecting each other's views. Why should we institutionally force
other people who do not share your views to basically have to live with
your version of the choices that we all ought to be able to make in our
lives?
The bill we are debating today would jeopardize the health and safety
of women by establishing a nationwide ban on abortion care after 20
weeks. This bill is arbitrary, and it is not meaningfully different
from the Arizona law deemed unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit in
2014, a case that the Supreme Court let stand.
This bill fails to account for the reasons why a woman might seek an
abortion after 20 weeks, and it restricts the ability of women to make
the best decisions for themselves and their families.
This bill includes no exception allowing for abortion in the case
where the pregnancy is a risk to the woman's health. Instead, a doctor
would only be able to provide care after establishing that a woman
would die--would die--or suffer life-threatening injuries without an
abortion. How cruel can this bill be that the only exception is when a
woman is about to die before she can get the care she needs?
To make matters worse, this bill places additional burdens on women
who survive the horrors of sexual assault. Under this bill, a sexual
assault survivor must provide written proof she had obtained counseling
or medical treatment to receive an abortion. However, a woman's own OB/
GYN could not provide this counseling if he or she provides abortion
services or, even worse, has a practice that provides them.
Adult women who are able to qualify under these outrageous conditions
would still have to wait 48 hours before they could receive abortion
care.
If the survivor is a minor, the law establishes an additional burden
to prove she reported the crime to the authorities. According to the
Department of Justice, only 35 percent of women who are raped and
sexually assaulted report the crime to the police.
Victims of incest who are over 18 would also not be specifically
permitted an exception under this bill.
This legislation would even threaten doctors with fines and/or
imprisonment for providing abortion services to women who do not meet
the bill's narrow exceptions after 20 weeks.
But the outrage doesn't end there. This bill does not contain an
exception for cases where a woman's fetus is not developing properly
and has no chance at living after birth. Many of the women in these
circumstances desperately wanted the pregnancies they are choosing to
terminate.
Last year, I read a moving account from Meredith Isaksen, an English
instructor at Berkeley City College, who shared her personal and
heartbreaking story in an essay in the New York Times.
I ask unanimous consent that a copy of her essay be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the New York Times, Oct. 20, 2016]

Late-Term Abortion Was the Right Choice for Me

(By Meredith Isaksen)

Berkeley, CA.--I was 21 weeks pregnant when a doctor told
my husband and me that our second little boy was missing half
his heart. It had stopped growing correctly around five weeks
gestation, but the abnormality was not detectable until the
20-week anatomy scan. It was very unlikely that our baby
would survive delivery, and if he did, he would ultimately
need a heart transplant.
In the days that followed, after the poking and prodding,
after the meetings with pediatric cardiologists,
cardiothoracic surgeons and geneticists, my husband and I
decided to terminate our pregnancy. I was 22 weeks pregnant
when they wheeled me into the operating room, two weeks shy
of viability in the state of California.
For us, the decision was about compassion for our unborn
baby, who would face overwhelming and horribly painful
obstacles. Compassion for our 2-year-old son, who would
contend with hours upon hours in a hospital, missing out on
invaluable time spent with his parents, and the death of a
very real sibling. It was about compassion for our marriage.
Perhaps most important, it was about our belief that
parenthood sometimes means we sacrifice our own dreams so our
children don't have to suffer.
As the day of my termination approached and I felt my
baby's kicks and wiggles, I simultaneously wanted to crawl
out of my skin and suspend us together in time. I wanted him
to know how important he was to me, that the well of my grief
and love for him would stretch deeper and deeper into the
vastness of our family's small yet limitless life. He may
have moved inside me for only five months, but he had touched
and shaped me in ways I could never have imagined.
To Donald J. Trump and politicians like him, a late-term
abortion is the stuff of '80s slasher films. ``You can take
the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother,''
Mr. Trump said during Wednesday night's debate, a description
void of consideration for women, medical professionals or the
truth. Such politicians would have you believe that women
like me shouldn't get to make the choice I made. That our
baby, despite his tiny misshapen heart and nonexistent aorta,
should have a chance ``to live,'' even though that life might
have lasted mere minutes. Even though that life would have
been excruciatingly painful. These politicians are ignorant
of the sacrifices and blessings that come with carrying a
pregnancy (let alone a nonviable pregnancy). They do not
understand that a majority of women who have late-term
abortions are terminating desperately wanted pregnancies.
I am fortunate to live in a state that allows abortions
after 20 weeks. At least 13 states restrict such procedures;
15 more have moved to defund Planned Parenthood, where many
low-income women go for reproductive care.
Many women have made the kind of difficult decision I had
to make. When it happens to you, they come out of the
woodwork. Friends, neighbors, colleagues. A friend of my
mother-in-law said to me early on, ``You will always carry
this loss, but someday, it won't define you.''
As the two-year anniversary of my abortion approaches, I
can say without a shadow of a doubt that we made the right
decision for our family--and that our government has
absolutely no place in the anguish which accompanies a late-
term abortion, except to ensure that women and their families
have the right to make their choice safely and privately.

[[Page S535]]

Saying goodbye to our boy was the single most difficult and
profound experience of my life, and the truth is, it has come
to define me. Today I am a better mother because of him. I am
a better wife, daughter and friend. He made me more
compassionate and more patient. He taught me to love with
reckless abandon, despite the knowledge that I could lose it
all.
We named him Lev, the Hebrew word for heart.

Ms. HIRONO. Meredith was 21 weeks pregnant when she learned that her
second baby boy was missing half of his heart. It had stopped growing
properly at around 5 weeks, but it wasn't detectable until her 20-week
anatomy scan. Meredith's decision to terminate her pregnancy was an
agonizing one, but as she weighed her options, she reflected on the
meaning of compassion, and she said:

For us, the decision was about compassion for our unborn
baby, who would face overwhelming and horribly painful
obstacles. Compassion for our 2-year-old son, who would
contend with hours upon hours in a hospital, missing out on
invaluable time spent with his parents, and the death of a
very real sibling. It was about compassion for our marriage.
Perhaps most important, it was about our belief that
parenthood sometimes means we sacrifice our own dreams so our
children don't have to suffer.

Meredith asserted--and I agree--that our government has no place in
the anguish that accompanied her decision to have an abortion.
Meredith closed her essay with a very poignant reflection on her own
experience 2 years later. She wrote:

Meredith and her husband named him Lev, the Hebrew word for
``heart.''
Meredith was fortunate in that she lived in a State that permitted
abortions past 20 weeks. Thirteen States have established a 20-week
abortion ban, and the women living in those States have suffered as a
result. Think about all the Merediths in those 13 States and many
others.
Recently, I heard from Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an OB/GYN who has
practiced medicine in Texas, which has a 20-week abortion ban, and in
Hawaii, a State that has strong protections for women seeking to
exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. Her experience
clarifies why it is so urgent that we defeat this bill.
Dr. Moayedi shared a story of a young woman in her town who sought
medical treatment at a medical provider after her water broke at 22
weeks. This was in Texas. Although she desperately wanted her
pregnancy, her fetus was not viable outside the womb. Because of the
Texas law, this patient's doctors were unable to counsel her on all
medically appropriate options, such as immediate delivery. As she
became increasingly ill, the patient requested an abortion to prevent
her condition from getting worse. The doctors on her case refused.
After spending 2 weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, this woman
was transferred to Dr. Moayedi's care, where she ultimately had to have
both her hands and feet amputated due to severe infection. She also
lost her baby.
Dr. Moayedi recently moved from Texas to Hawaii, where she now
provides lifesaving abortion care to women at all stages of pregnancy.
Recently, Dr. Moayedi had a patient with a desired pregnancy who was
flown in from a neighbor island for management of her pre-viable labor.
Despite the expert, specialist care she received, the patient's water
broke at 22 weeks. At that point, there was nothing Dr. Moayedi could
do to prevent labor. Because abortion is legal after 20 weeks in
Hawaii, Dr. Moayedi was able to provide lifesaving abortion care for
her patient and prevent her from developing a massive infection.
Dr. Moayedi put it plainly in her note: ``Restrictions on abortion
care endanger the lives of my patients.''
``Restrictions on abortion care endanger the lives of my patients.''
And that is exactly what this bill will do. It will endanger the lives
of millions of women in this country who do not--who do not--make the
decision to have an abortion after 20 weeks lightly. As my colleague
from Massachusetts said, most abortions take place before 20 weeks.
We are passing a cruel, unconscionable, and indeed unconstitutional
law. Why are we doing that? Why these continuing attacks on a woman's
health, her economic well-being, and her ability to control her own
body?
I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this unconscionable bill.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I join my colleagues on the floor
today to speak in opposition to the pending legislation to outlaw
abortion procedures after 20 weeks.
This is yet another extreme effort to allow the government to
interfere in the healthcare decisions that should be strictly between a
woman and her family and her physician. This latest attempt is
particularly dangerous. It would impose prison sentences of up to 5
years on physicians who don't fulfill the law's deliberately burdensome
requirements for documentation and reporting, and it would even impose
a prison sentence of up to 5 years on doctors who fail to inform a law
enforcement agency about another doctor who fails to meet the law's
requirements. Viewed more broadly, this bill is part of a continuing
campaign to take away women's constitutional right to privacy--a right
that protects profoundly personal decisions concerning our bodies and
our families.

I remember very well the days prior to 1973, when abortion was
outlawed in most States. An estimated 1.2 million women each year
resorted to illegal abortions, typically performed in unsanitary
conditions by unlicensed practitioners and often resulting in
infection, hemorrhage, and even death. Well, I think women remember
those days, and we are not going back.
As Governor of New Hampshire in 1997, I signed into law a bill that
repealed our State's archaic law that dated back to 1848 and made
abortion a felony. Like that 1848 law, the legislation now before the
Senate would also threaten physicians with criminal charges and
imprisonment.
Abortion later in pregnancy is extremely rare. Indeed, almost 99
percent of abortions occur before 21 weeks. When an abortion is needed
later in pregnancy, it typically involves very complex, life-
threatening, and heartbreaking circumstances--for example, the
discovery of a severe and likely fatal abnormality, as described by
Senator Hirono. In these difficult circumstances, a woman consults with
her doctor and with other people she trusts. A woman needs the freedom
to consider every medical option, including serious risks to her own
life.
The extremely narrow exceptions in the bill before us--exceptions if
the pregnancy results from rape or incest--are deliberately designed to
impose burdens, complications, and shame on women who have chosen to
terminate a pregnancy. The victim must provide written verification
that she has obtained counseling or medical treatment from a very
specific list of ``medical providers'' who do not provide abortions and
who are often strongly anti-abortion. This requirement is a completely
unnecessary burden on a woman who is already dealing with a crisis. It
is also insulting and condescending to all women. We are not children
who need guidance from an adult. We can consult those we choose to
consult, and we can make our own decisions. To impose this requirement
in this crude manner is something right out of a handmaid's tale.
Then, if the rape victim is a minor, she is allowed access to an
abortion only if she can provide proof that she reported the crime to
law enforcement. Again, this is completely out of touch with the real
world. Only a small percentage of sexual assaults and rapes are
reported to police. Nearly 80 percent of rape and sexual assault
victims know their offender.
So let's say this plainly. The reporting requirements in this bill
are an outrageous attempt to judge and shame women and girls who have
been victims of a violent crime.
I heard from Rachel, who is a registered, board-certified nurse in
New Hampshire. She told me that bills to impose blanket rules and
arbitrary limitations--bills like the one before the Senate today--are
out of touch with the reality she sees in her practice every day.
Rachel said:

While procedures at 20 weeks and beyond certainly comprised
a small portion of the

[[Page S536]]

care we provided, it was absolutely critical for those that
needed it. Many pregnancies are not surveyed with ultrasound
until 19-20 weeks, at which time previously unforeseen
complications can be detected. Then, there are often further
procedures needed to finalize a diagnosis and a prognosis.
For people who receive devastating news about a pregnancy
after 20 weeks, abortion may be the best option, and they
deserve access to that care.

The American Medical Association opposes this bill. The AMA says: We
``strongly condemn any interference by the government or other third
parties that causes a physician to compromise his or her medical
judgment as to what information or treatment is in the best interest of
the patient.''
I urge my colleagues to respect the women of this country and their
right to make their own healthcare decisions without the unwelcome
involvement of politicians and law enforcement agencies. Let's reject
this partisan, extreme, and, frankly, unnecessary legislation today.
Then, let's focus our bipartisan attention on the urgent business of
passing a budget, funding our military, combating the opioid crisis,
and the other needs that this country faces.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, today is a proud day but also a
painful one for me. I am proud because I am honored and proud to join
my distinguished colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen, and
others on the floor. I was proud to join Connecticut organizations and
advocates this morning in Hartford for a rally that involved Planned
Parenthood of Southern New England, NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, the
Women's March of Connecticut, AIDS Connecticut, and the Center for
Medicare Advocacy. These groups are proud and steadfast and have strong
activists who joined me to support a woman's right to determine her
medical future, the right of privacy, and the constitutional right to
be left alone, as one of the Supreme Court Justices once called it.
It was a proud moment for me also because it reminded me of my days
as a law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun, who was the author of Roe v.
Wade and who taught me the constitutional principle that underlies a
woman's right to determine her own healthcare decisions.
Harry Blackmun was a Republican appointee. He was a Republican before
he became a jurist. But there was nothing partisan for him--and there
should be nothing partisan for us--about this decision. I am tempted to
call this 20-week abortion ban a Republican proposal, but when I think
about the Republicans I know--and especially Justice Harry Blackmun,
whom I revered--there is nothing Republican about this proposal. There
is nothing partisan about a proposal that seeks to interfere in this
fundamental right of privacy. It is an extremist, rightwing proposal
that happens to have been brought here by 46 of our Republican
colleagues--all of them men, except two--who are essentially trying to
tell the women of America what to do with their own bodies, when to
have children or not. That is fundamentally unconstitutional. It flies
in the face of Roe v. Wade and all of its progeny. It is a restriction
that has been struck down when adopted at the State level in at least
two courts, and the others that have adopted similar proposals will be
struck down, in my view, as well.
The consensus of the medical community, the legal community, and
ordinary citizens, particularly women, is that women have reproductive
rights that would be violated, dramatically and directly, by this
proposal. It violates those rights for totally baseless reasons--
policies founded on falsehoods. It is another excuse for rightwing
dogma and ideology, out of touch with America, to seek to put opponents
at a political disadvantage. It is transparently a political ploy.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists--the doctors
who are most qualified to present scientific, evidence-based facts--
disagree with the assertions and falsehoods that fetuses can feel pain
at 20 weeks. In fact, the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists wrote--and I am quoting directly from medical experts on
fetal health:

Sound health policy is best based on scientific fact and
evidence-based medicine. The best healthcare is provided free
of governmental interference in the patient-physician
relationship. Personal decision-making by women and their
doctors should not be replaced by political ideology.

Worse than the fabrications behind this bill are the very real
consequences that will come if it is passed. This nationwide abortion
ban would provide virtually no adequate exception when a woman's health
is at risk, when there are fetal anomalies or when there are dangers to
the health and well-being of a mother who is sick; or if her life is
threatened, this bill fails to guarantee that she has access to the
healthcare that she needs. If there is a fetal anomaly and a woman
learns that her child will be born with significant impairments or,
worse yet, a short life filled with pain, it would force her to carry
that child to term. If a woman is advised that her child will not
survive pregnancy at all, the most personal medical decisions of her
life would be usurped by a cruel, heartless, unconscionable,
unconstitutional law. She would be deprived of the right to make those
decisions with her family, her clergy, her doctors.
The American public disagrees strongly with this potential law, as
does the medical community, and individual doctors who have real-life
experiences disagree strongly with it as well. One doctor who practices
in Connecticut told me that for patients who are treated in that office
who choose to get an abortion after 20 weeks, it is oftentimes ``an
agonizing decision, an unexpected one, and too often a lonely one--a
decision that is deeply personal and altering.''
For many women, he told me, medical tests show a devastating issue
with a future child. ``A joyous event becomes a tragic one, as they
learn of a lethal condition, or a syndrome that will lead to a brief
life of suffering.''
I could quote other doctors. I could quote women who have been
through this experience. But without exaggerating, it is one of the
most deeply difficult, personal decisions that women have a right to
make, without the interference of a politician, an insurance
bureaucrat, or anyone else in positions of authority. It is their
decision.
Congress must keep its hands off women's healthcare. To my
colleagues, keep your hands off of women's healthcare. It is their
lives and their well-being and their personal privacy that are at
stake.
I am going to continue to fight this ban, painfully, because its
consequences would be so cruel, but also because it is certainly not
the Republican Party that I know that would advocate for it. It
certainly should not be partisan in any way, and it certainly should
not even be before us in this great Chamber, which has such respect and
such a profound role in our Constitution. To consider violating the
Constitution so dramatically is a disservice to this great body.

I yield the floor.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I join many of my colleagues in
voicing my strong opposition to S. 2311, the 20-week abortion ban bill.
This legislation puts political ideology ahead of women's health and
tramples on women's constitutional rights.
First, the 20-week abortion ban intrudes on private healthcare
decisions. Reproductive health choices are highly personal and
individualized and should be left squarely in the hands of women in
consultation with their physician, healthcare team, and loved ones. S.
2311 violates this principle by subjecting private healthcare choices
to an arbitrary and unscientific blanket ban.
Second, the 20-week abortion ban violates the longstanding
constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. In 1973, a 7-2 majority
of the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional
right to privacy includes the right to terminate a pregnancy. Since
then, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected bans on abortions
before viability, which generally occurs well after 20 weeks of
pregnancy. Today, 7 in 10 Americans support upholding Roe v. Wade.
A diverse coalition of Americans--including physicians, civil rights
advocates, and faith organizations--has come out against this
legislation for a number of reasons. The American Congress of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American College of

[[Page S537]]

Nurse-Midwives, for instance, have said that the legislation ``. . .
would dictate how physicians should care for their patients based on
inaccurate and unscientific claims.'' The American Civil Liberties
Union has said this legislation ``. . . directly contradicts
longstanding precedent holding that a woman should `be free from
unwarranted governmental intrusion' when deciding whether to continue
or terminate a pre-viability pregnancy.'' And Three dozen faith-based
organizations have written in opposition to this legislation, saying,
``The proper role of government in the United States is not to
privilege one set of religious views over others but to protect each
person's right and ability to make decisions according to their own
beliefs and values.''
We should be working to open up access to reproductive healthcare for
more women and families, not fewer. Effective family planning services,
including birth control, have a proven record of boosting health and
economic mobility while reducing unwanted pregnancies.
The U.S. Senate has urgent priorities to address. We should not be
wasting time on another misguided attempt to take away women's
healthcare and constitutional rights. I strongly oppose S. 2311.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I rise today to express my opposition to
the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This blatant attempt to
ban later abortion undermines decades of legal precedent and directly
challenges the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The Supreme
Court made clear that women in this country have a constitutional right
to autonomy over their individual health and well-being. If passed,
this bill would impose burdensome and medically unnecessary limitations
on women, particularly those in low-income, medically underserved
areas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 99
percent of abortions are performed before 21 weeks of pregnancy. Many
of the abortions that are performed after 20 weeks are medically
necessary because the mother's health is at risk or because of a fetal
anomaly. This bill has no exception to protect a woman's health and no
exception for cases where there is a fetal anomaly.
This bill harms women who are victims of sexual assault and minors
who are the victims of incest. It requires rape victims to provide
written proof that the victim obtained counseling or medical treatment
from a specified list of locations, and it requires the minor to
provide written proof that she reported the crime to law enforcement or
a government agency.
These provisions are designed to perpetuate a culture of not
believing women and trying to discredit the victims of sexual assault.
To make matters even worse, this bill punishes doctors by threatening
them with 5 years of jail time for violating the ban. This bill, if
passed, will take women back to the days of back-alley abortions, where
doctors were in fear of providing lifesaving, medically necessary
procedures to women and where women were forced to take drastic and
dangerous measures in order to have the procedure performed.
Many of my Republican colleagues talk about keeping Big Government
out of people's lives, but when it comes to one of the hardest and most
intimate decisions a woman can make--a decision that she wishes to make
between herself, her family, and her doctor--these same colleagues
believe that the government, and not the woman, knows better. They
believe that the government, and not the woman, should dictate what a
woman should do with her body. They believe that the government should
have the power to force a woman to forgo a medically necessary
procedure. They believe that a woman should be stripped of that power,
stripped of the choice of what is best for herself.
Empowering women is one of the most important things we can do for
the future of our country. Core to women's constitutional liberties is
autonomy over their own health and well-being. In order to truly
support women, we need to safeguard and improve, not limit, access to
comprehensive healthcare, including abortion.
For all of these reasons, I will be opposing S. 2311.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, as we vote this evening on the Pain-
Capable Child Protection Act, I speak to the bill as a doctor who
practiced in a hospital for the uninsured for decades. I mention
working in a hospital for the uninsured because the uninsured are
vulnerable, but if the uninsured are vulnerable, among those, the
uninsured pregnant woman is particularly vulnerable. If we are to say
she is particularly vulnerable, then we can say her unborn child is
most vulnerable of all. So I speak to these folks with that background.
Our country has struggled to find a balance between those of us who
are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. As a pro-life doctor, I
think the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act strikes a balance.
Again, as a physician, let me say it is an obligation--our society's
obligation--to care for the woman who is pregnant. Again, she is among
the most vulnerable. Her child is the future of our society.
We all agree to this. You can see we agree because our social
programs provide a safety net both for her and her unborn child.
Example: Society pays for well-baby visits through Medicaid or through
special programs for women if they are uninsured. If that child is born
healthy, then he or she is more likely to be a healthy person, to
contribute to society, to have life, liberty, and be able to pursue
happiness.
Those of us who are pro-life and pro-choice can differ when the child
within the womb deserves protection as a distinct human, but society
has agreed at some point that protection is allowed. Again, I am pro-
life. I think the protection should be when the child is conceived, but
right now the law is divided.
If a pregnant woman and her child were killed by a reckless driver,
there are two counts of manslaughter filed against that reckless
driver--one way society acknowledges the life within the womb.
On one hand, let's be clear, a woman has the right to terminate that
pregnancy at another point in the pregnancy. On the other hand,
partial-birth abortion says that child's life cannot be terminated when
she is coming through the birth canal. I think the rationale for this
is that as a child comes through the birth canal, we recognize that
child can live independently, if allowed to proceed. If you will, the
criteria is: Does the child have the ability to live independently from
the mother? Again, I think that is the rationale for the partial-birth
abortion ban.
As it turns out, a child who is 5 months old within the womb has the
ability to live independently. Again, I speak as a physician. When you
see a baby in the womb at 5 months, it is incredible.
A friend of mine who works for me--actually, he and his wife are
expecting now, and they are excited. They went and got the ultrasound,
and they saw the child sucking on his thumb or her thumb--they don't
know or they don't want to know. Nonetheless, it is marvelous what they
see inside--the child. You can see him yawning, stretching. At 18
weeks, you can find out if it is a boy or a girl--and, thanks to modern
medicine and the amazing neonatal intensive care doctors and nurses we
have in this country, babies delivered as early as 20 to 22 weeks can
survive and live healthy lives, perhaps one day to become the Presiding
Officer in the Senate of the United States.
In recent years, medical research has shown that unborn children can
feel pain as early as 20 weeks after they are conceived. As a doctor, I
have to look at the scientific evidence we have when it comes to the
beginning of life. At 20 weeks, studies have provided strong evidence
that babies can feel pain despite the fact that the nerve connections
between the different parts of the brain are still developing. That is
why fetal anesthesia is routinely administered when unborn children
require surgery in the womb.
By the way, doctors know this. I just got a letter from the Louisiana
Academy of Family Physicians. One of their folks, Dr. Gravois, called
me last night. Here is a statement from their letter:

Representing more than 1,900 physicians, including active
practicing physicians, residents in training and medical
student members, as well as the patients in Louisiana, the
Louisiana Academy of Family physicians

[[Page S538]]

is the voice of family medicine in Louisiana. As advocates
for our patients, in August of 2015, the LAFP Congress of
Delegates passed the following resolution on Late Term
Abortions:
Resolved, that the LAFP is against performing elective
abortions 20 weeks and after, and further be it Resolved . .
. .

It goes on, but that is the take-home point. Family physicians take
care of both the mother and her child, the totality of it.
By the way, I will say this bill includes explicit--explicit--
exceptions when a mother's life is at risk or in cases of rape and
incest, again, attempting to strike society's balance between those of
us who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice.
Versions of this law have already been passed in 20 States, including
my State of Louisiana, but all babies who feel pain deserve the same
protection. Most Americans agree, even some who believe abortion should
be legal. Polls show that majorities of women, Independents, and
Democrats support this protection. So I hope my colleagues will join in
supporting this commonsense, humane legislation.
It is estimated this bill will protect 12,000 to 18,000 babies per
year. Protecting unborn babies who can feel pain is the right thing to
do. Protecting their right to life is the right thing to do.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this important legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Madam President, I am grateful for the comments the
Senator from Louisiana just shared. He is a physician. I am not a
physician. I am a chemical engineer, and I believe it is important, as
the Senator from Louisiana believes, that we look at science when we
have this debate about abortion.
Our Nation loses anywhere between 13,000 and 18,000 children a year
to late-term abortion. The numbers of children aborted overall are well
over 600,000. The focus on the debate today and on the vote coming up
this evening is on late-term abortion.
I remember a few months ago having a discussion with a young man, a
father of several children, about abortion. We were just two guys
chatting, having a snack in the kitchen. He brought up a question--he
didn't come from a pro-life perspective--and he asked my views.
He said: Let me ask you a question. At what point should an abortion
be legal? We took it out to the very end of gestation. If the baby is
literally ready to be delivered, should an abortion be allowed at that
moment? He said: Of course not.
OK. Well, let's back it up a day. What about if you are 8 months and
28 days, should abortion be allowed in that situation? Well, of course
not. That is way too close to the actual date of giving birth.
So we kind of moved upstream toward conception. So where do you draw
the line?
I believe that life begins at conception because that is that magical
moment when a life begins, when unique DNA is created, but I realize it
is a very contentious issue in our Nation. So one line we can draw is
at 20 weeks, and I will talk about why I think 20 weeks is a place we
can start to get bipartisan support to stop late-term abortions.
In fact, this young man I was chatting with teared up, and he said:
Steve, you realize that when we were pregnant with one of our
daughters--they have five children--at about 10 or 12 weeks they had a
test run because it looked like there may be an abnormality in the baby
and the doctor recommended an abortion.
He said: What is the alternative? We can wait a few more weeks, when
we have a better idea of what is going on there with that little baby,
but it puts the mother at perhaps a greater risk.
They decided to wait a few more weeks. A few weeks later when they
came back with the test, the baby came back clear, and they now have a
healthy, beautiful young girl who is 5 years old. With tears in his
eyes, he said: I am so glad we chose not to abort; that we chose life.
At 20 weeks, babies have 10 fingers and 10 toes. They can suck their
thumb. They can yawn. They can stretch. They can make faces. Science
also shows these babies are capable of feeling pain.
I became a first-time dad 28 years ago. I still remember taking David
to his first well-baby appointment, when Cindy and I would go to the
pediatrician and get those well-baby checks. When they would give them
shots--I think the hardest part as a parent is to see that nurse or
doctor give a shot to your little one. Those cries of pain were
excruciating for Cindy and for me. He doesn't remember it. We remember
it. It may indeed hurt us more than it hurt him at the time, but he
felt pain.
My heart breaks for those thousands of babies who are able to feel
pain as they are losing their life to abortion. Our ears may be deaf to
their cries physically, but we don't have to live in ignorance, not
when research, not when the science, not when common sense shows that
these unborn children can feel pain.
There is a reason unborn babies are given anesthesia with fetal
surgery. That is why we must pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child
Protection Act. It is unconscionable as a nation we are allowing unborn
children as old as 20 weeks--5 months--well beyond halfway of the 9-
month gestation period--that we allow them to be killed today in this
country.
In fact, do a Google search for ``20 weeks.'' You don't have to type
in ``baby.'' Just type in ``20 weeks.'' If you are watching this and
have a smartphone, a computer, type in ``20 weeks'' in the Google
search bar there and hit search or enter. Then, take a look at the
pictures that come up that match the simple term ``20 weeks.'' This is
one of the pictures you will see when you Google that.
I believe there is a principle that people believe what they discover
for themselves. What is happening right now is--because of technology,
because of the precision and the clarity of ultrasounds today, what we
can see now in the womb is incredible. It is no wonder the attitudes of
millennials--those ages 18 to 24--in the last 6 years are becoming
increasingly more pro-life, in fact up 9 points, from 44 percent to 53
percent. I think part of the reason is in the hands of their
smartphone. When you take a look at the images, how can you say that is
not a baby? That is a 20-week baby. We are on a horrible list of just
seven countries that allow elective abortions after 20 weeks. China and
North Korea join the United States on that list.
Before I got involved in politics and public service, I worked in the
private sector for 28 years. One of the companies I worked for was
Proctor & Gamble. While at Proctor & Gamble, I was asked to go to China
to help launch operations there to produce and sell products, Americans
brands, to the Chinese consumer.
I had a large operation. One day, one of my managers--a young man,
Chinese, wonderful, very bright, very capable, one of our future stars.
He and his wife were both P&G employees, both Chinese.
He said: Steve, I need to go to the police station this afternoon. I
said: Well, is there something wrong? He goes: Well, no. It is going to
be OK. Then he kind of looked away.
I said: But you are asking for time off of work to go to the police
station. Is there something I can help you with or is there something
wrong?
He said: Well, my wife and I did not have permission from the police
to get pregnant--with the one-child policy then.
He said: We just discovered that she is pregnant.
I said: Well, do you want to keep the baby?
He said: Oh, we want to keep that baby. We are very excited about it.
But we won't be allowed to keep that baby.
I said: What can I do?
At this moment, we were focused on saving that baby.
He said to me: What might help is a case of shampoo.
We were there producing brands like Pantene, Vidal Sassoon, Crest
toothpaste, Tide detergent. I arranged to get a case of shampoo and
gave it to him.
He came back the next day, with a smile on his face, and said: We got
the problem resolved.
They became parents of a beautiful little girl who today is an
amazing young woman.
As an American citizen, I believe in our founding principle that all
men and

[[Page S539]]

women are endowed by their Creator--with a capital ``C''--with certain
unalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.
As a person of faith, I believe--and those who are people of faith--
we are called to help the most vulnerable in our society. As a Senator,
it is my honor to support this legislation, the Pain-Capable Unborn
Child Protection Act.
I thank my colleague Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma for his
leadership on this issue. I urge the rest of my colleagues to join us
in standing up and protecting those who do not have a voice on the
floor of the U.S. Senate this afternoon and join us in protecting human
life.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. SASSE. Madam President, as we consider this legislation to
protect 20-week-old babies who feel pain, I want to ask my friends in
this body to put aside whip counts and score cards, politics and
reelection, and let's talk today simply about beauty and about science.
We love beauty. Beauty calls us. Beauty inspires us. Beauty
captivates us. It is part of what makes us human. It is not surprising
that there is almost nothing more universal on this Earth, almost
nothing more beautiful, than our natural impulse to care for a little
baby.
We all start in the same place--vulnerable and dependent in every
way. We all ``ooh'' and ``aah'' over sonogram pictures of our children,
our grandchildren, our nieces, our nephews, even sonogram pictures from
a stranger on a bus or a plane. We all ``ooh'' and ``aah'' in the same
way. When we look at those pictures, we love. We love. You don't have
to be taught this. You don't have to be conditioned to love. You don't
have to be conditioned to know that we should help the vulnerable. This
isn't because of economics. This isn't because of politics. We love
because they are babies. You don't need anyone to explain this to you.
Every one of us has experienced this when we have seen the sonogram
pictures. We should note that this love is not just a feeling; it is
also built on and backed up by facts.
As we consider whether these unborn babies--having been carried by
their mamas for almost 5 months--deserve legal protection, whether they
deserve our protection, we should think, too, about the science and
what is becoming clearer year by year and month by month.
I want to associate myself with the comments of the Senator from
Montana who preceded me. A huge part of why the millennials are
becoming more pro-life than the two generations older than they are is
because they are seeing these sonogram images, and it is changing them
year by year and month by month.
I have been on the floor for about 45 minutes today, and I have heard
many claims about polling and facts that just aren't true. I am not
here to argue this case and argue how we should vote on this
legislation because of polls; I am here because we should all love
babies. That is why we should be doing this. But just at the level of
polling, there have been claims on the floor today that are absolutely
not true.
Younger people are becoming more pro-life, as the Senator from
Montana said, year over year right now, and it is because of the
prevalence and the pervasiveness of sonogram technology. This movement,
the pro-life movement, is ascendant, and it is because people are
grappling with science, grappling with images, and grappling with the
reality of that intrinsic feeling we have to love.
We can and we should appeal to ethics. We can and we should discuss
human dignity. We should reaffirm intrinsic value. For now, for this
conversation today, we can limit ourselves to just scientific facts. As
we consider those facts, I want to respectfully ask my colleagues in
this Chamber today, where will we draw the line? No one seriously
disputes that the little girl in that image is alive. No one seriously
disputes that that little girl is a human being--no one. There is no
one in this Chamber and there is no one outside this Chamber who has
ever looked at that sonogram image who will come to the floor and say:
Do you know the debate I want to have? I want to say that baby is not
alive and she is not a human.
Somebody who is going to vote no on the legislation today should come
to the floor and make that case, say that is not a life and that is not
a human, because it is not true, and no one believes it.
The science is clear. We all know and understand that little baby in
that sonogram image is a unique and separate being. We know she has
unique DNA from her mother, and she has DNA that is unique from her
father. The baby apps are now telling new moms and dads-to-be when that
baby is the size of a sesame seed, then a blueberry, and then an apple.
With the help of the sonograms, we are now catching pictures of her
sucking her thumb, flexing her arms and legs, yawning, stretching,
making faces. Here is what is really new the last couple of years: We
are catching pictures and images of her responding to voices--familiar
voices of other human beings that she is already in community with,
people who are called to love her.
As early as 20 weeks postfertilization, which is about halfway
through the pregnancy, scientists and our doctors now tell us that this
unborn baby can feel pain. In fact, it has become routine procedure of
late for us to give unborn and premature infants anesthesia for their
fetal surgeries. Why? This is new. We didn't used to do this. Why do we
do it? It is because we have new scientific evidence that they feel
pain. It turns out that babies who are 20 weeks along in gestation are
pain-capable inside mom's uterus.
As Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand testified before the Congress, ``The human
fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks gestation,
if not earlier, and the pain perceived by the fetus is possibly more
intense than that perceived by term newborns.''
Not only can she feel pain, not only do the images show us that she
recoils from being poked or prodded, advances in modern medicine are
now helping babies who are born at 22 weeks, at 21 weeks, and at 20
weeks postfertilization survive outside the womb. The pain that those
babies feel outside the womb is supporting the evidence that those
babies also feel pain inside the womb, which leads me to ask my
friends: Have our hearts grown cold to truth? Have we become
indifferent to questioning our previously held convictions? Are we
indifferent to what the science is clearly showing us?
This body, captive to abortion zealot-activists, might be ignoring
the sonograms. That might be what is happening in this body today, but
the American people are actually listening to the science and the
sonograms. Contrary to those bizarre claims that were made on the floor
a couple of times over the last hour, a hefty majority--it is not
close--of Americans support this legislation, including a supermajority
of women, including most young people, including most Independents, and
now ticking up just shy of half of all Democrats. This should not be a
partisan issue, and in the future, it will not be because more and more
people are looking at these images. It is not going to be a partisan
issue; it is going to be a bipartisan issue. But you have to tell the
truth--that those pictures are pictures of babies, and they are alive,
and they deserve our protection. But have our hearts in this body grown
cold to the truth?
We should also not forget the mothers because the pro-life message is
about being both pro-baby and pro-mother. Late-term abortions are
actually not safe, even for the mother. Women seeking abortion after 20
weeks are 35 times more likely to die from an abortion than when done
in the first trimester--35 times more likely.
The United States is one of only seven countries on Earth that allow
elective abortion after 20 weeks, and we are actually tied with only
three other countries as having the most permissive abortion regime on
Earth. Do you know who our peers are? North Korea and China. That is
who our peers are. If our rhetoric about human rights should mean
anything, it should mean we don't want to be on a ``human rights
worst'' list with North Korea and China. That is where we are today.
There are many reasonable people who are going to argue against this
legislation. They are reasonable in other ways in life, and they want
to make an argument about the very complicated issues about abortion in
the

[[Page S540]]

first trimester. There are many reasonable people who can have a
reasonable debate about that. But when you listen to the arguments
being made today, they are not actually grappling with today's
legislation; they are talking about abortion in general. But nobody is
telling us why we are tied with only China and North Korea as having
the most permissive abortion regime on Earth.
My friends, beauty and compassion can stir our hearts, and science
and facts should still confirm the truth. This legislation--the actual
legislation we are voting on today--is pro-baby, it is pro-mom, and it
is pro-science. These little babies, who are capable of feeling pain,
deserve legal protection. They deserve our protection. I invite--I beg
my colleagues to join in that conviction and to vote yes on this
legislation today.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to join so
many of my colleagues to speak in support of the Pain-Capable Unborn
Child Protection Act. I thank Senator Graham for his continued
leadership on this issue. I supported this bill when Senator Graham
introduced it last Congress, and I am pleased Leader McConnell has
brought this to a vote.
Regulating abortion after 20 weeks of conception--when a child can
feel pain--is a prudent measure that reflects the basic decency of our
humanity and brings us in line with most of the Western world.
Science demonstrates that human life begins at conception, and our
understanding of neonatal development is increasing by the day.
As a member of the Labor-HHS subcommittee on Appropriations, I have
championed funding for the National Institute of Health. At the NIH,
the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has
advanced our knowledge of pregnancy and development in the womb. Under
this institute, the Neonatal Research Network has pioneered research
that has led to techniques that save the lives of children in their
earliest stages, when these children are at their most vulnerable.
Such research tells us children who are 20 weeks old--those this bill
will protect--experience what a newborn will: reacting to noise,
sucking their thumbs, and, as this bill's title indicates, feeling
pain. The research has led to advancements in medical care for
premature babies, and 23 percent of those delivered 20 weeks after
fertilization can now survive long term outside of the womb. This
percentage will surely increase as advances in neonatal care continue.
Despite what we know, the United States is one of only seven
countries in the world, among nations such as China and Vietnam, that
permits elective abortion after 20 weeks. As a result, the
Congressional Budget Office estimates more than 10,000 babies are
aborted each year after 20 weeks of conception.
What we can't lose sight of as a society is that, when we are talking
about abortion, we are talking about the end of the most defenseless of
human lives. This is true at all stages of pregnancy, regardless of
whether it is early in the pregnancy or in the late stages, when
children are more developed and more capable of surviving outside of
the womb.
So often we turn to scientific evidence and research to support the
need for new policies. In this case, the research shows that these
children have a chance to survive, a chance to grow. They can feel;
they can move. We cannot ignore these reactions and feelings, which are
indicative of human life and with them comes the need for legal
protections--protections we would not hesitate to provide for those
living outside the womb.
Indeed, we have laws that treat animals more humanely than unborn
children. This vote gives the Senate an opportunity to send a message
showing who we are as leaders and as a society as a whole, one that
protects the weak and the voiceless, instead of one that permits their
destruction.
One in five children who are born at this 20-week stage are capable
of surviving with suitable care. Rather than be discarded, they are to
be given every opportunity to fight for the life that we protect for
them. It is what we instinctively do as parents and as human beings.
We recoil when we hear of children who are harmed in any manner; yet
the ability to terminate an unborn child's life when it is viable
outside of the womb is something that is not only tolerated, but
passionately defended. If there was anything else claiming the lives of
10,000 children each year, all 100 of us in the Senate would be
standing up demanding action to address the matter.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a sensible measure
that protects the lives of women and children in accord with judicial
rulings. It has been passed by the House of Representatives, it has the
support of a majority of Americans--men and women alike--and I call on
my colleagues to support passage of this life-affirming legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

Nomination of David Stras

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I rise today to strongly support an
important nomination and also to tell you my position on the
legislation before the U.S. Senate right now, the one Senator Sasse has
just spoken eloquently about.
First, I strongly support the nomination of Minnesota's Supreme Court
Justice David Stras to serve as a circuit judge on the U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Second, I strongly support the
passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. I will briefly
address both of these issues.
Over the next couple of days, the Senate will vote on whether to
invoke cloture and then confirm the nomination of Justice David Stras
to serve on the Eighth Circuit. Justice Stras is eminently qualified
and exceptionally bright. He has received praise and support from the
legal profession and across the political spectrum.
Justice Stras is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. He graduated
No. 1 in his class from Kansas School of Law in 1999. He served as a
law clerk to two Federal circuit judges and to a Justice on the U.S.
Supreme Court. Justice Stras has served on the Minnesota Supreme Court
since his appointment in 2010. In 2012, he ran for a full 6-year term.
He handedly defeated his opponent, winning 56 percent of the vote.
Justice Stras has received wide bipartisan support from the Minnesota
legal community. He has taught law for many years at the University of
Minnesota. He also teaches law at the University of Iowa, which is in
my home State. Many of the faculty, including even liberal professors,
such as Professor Shelly Kurtz, strongly endorse Justice Stras's
nomination. His time in the private sector was spent at two highly
regarded law firms.
During his service on the Minnesota Supreme Court, Justice Stras has
participated in over 750 cases. As my colleague Senator Klobuchar
noted, Justice Stras's judicial record demonstrates that he is
impartial and apolitical in his writings. Justice Stras has sided with
the Minnesota Supreme Court majority 94 percent of the time. Justice
Stras has dissented one-third of the time with then-Justice Alan Page,
who was the first African-American justice in Minnesota and has a
record of being very liberal. Former Justice Page strongly endorses
Justice Stras's nomination to the Eighth Circuit, and four former
justices from all political stripes also endorsed Justice Stras's
nomination. This shows me that Justice Stras will not be a rubberstamp
for any political ideology. I am convinced Justice Stras will rule
fairly and impartially, finding and applying the law as written, not
legislating from the bench.

Justice Stras is a very accomplished and impressive nominee. He has a
long judicial record of impartiality. I strongly support his
nomination, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.
Madam President, I also come to the floor to urge my colleagues to
join me in supporting the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
This commonsense bill recognizes that the government has an interest in
protecting our children from the excruciating pain they are capable of
experiencing during late-term abortions. This is a bill many Americans,
including a majority of women, broadly support, and it is time we get
this bill passed.
As the Judiciary Committee chairman, I convened a hearing on this
bill in 2016. Three witnesses, including a

[[Page S541]]

Northwestern professor of pediatrics, a woman who survived a botched
abortion as a baby, and a former abortion provider, offered compelling
evidence in support of this very important legislation.
There is also the history of an Iowa boy, Micah Pickering, who is
living proof that we need to do more to protect unborn babies at this
stage of development. Micah and his parents visited me in Washington
last September. They told me that when Micah was born at 20 weeks
postfertilization, he received intensive care, including medication to
minimize his pain and discomfort. Babies like Micah, born in the fifth
month of pregnancy, are capable of feeling such pain. That is why it
has now become routine procedure to give premature infants anesthesia
for fetal surgeries.
How could anyone think these unborn babies would not experience the
same excruciating pain from abortions when premature babies like Micah,
from Iowa, are being born at the same stage of development and are
surviving late term?
Once again, I call upon my colleagues to support the passage of this
bill, entitled the ``Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,'' and to
embrace at the same time the sanctity of an innocent human life.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I join Senator Grassley and my colleagues
in supporting the bill before us today.
As we debate this issue, it always seems to be such a defining issue
in terms of who we are and whom we hope to be. No country in Europe
allows a pregnancy to be ended this late in the pregnancy. No country
in Africa allows a pregnancy to be ended this late in the pregnancy.
Only six other countries in the world allow pregnancies to be ended at
any time. As I have listened to the debate today, the debate about 20
weeks, it sounds to me like it wouldn't matter to the opponents of the
bill if it were at 30 weeks, certainly, or at 21 weeks or at 20. There
is no week one can pass here.
The other bill we should vote on, which the House has passed, is the
born-alive bill. There are people in the country today who actually
oppose the born-alive bill. When a baby during an abortion process is
born alive, my understanding is, you can't step in and take the life of
that living child, but you can all step back from the table, on which
that baby lies in front of you, and let the baby die.
Obviously, there is a point at which we are not going to be able to
talk to each other in a way that apparently will persuade anybody.
Maybe hearts will not change, and maybe minds will not change in the
Senate today, but as many of my colleagues have pointed out, they are
changing in the country. People realize there is a time when that child
has every opportunity, with a little help, to live independently. That,
surely, would be too late to end that life in the minds of most people.
In the minds of younger people? It is more of the view of older people
that life should be saved, but 63 percent of all Americans say we
shouldn't continue to allow this to happen.
Senator Grassley just said and others have said a majority of women,
a majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, a majority of young
people all believe this is not an acceptable place for us to be. Why
would we want to be one of seven countries in the world that would
allow abortion at any time? Why would we want to be one of four
countries in the world that would allow abortions at a time when it is
widely accepted that the child being aborted--the life being taken--is
a child who can feel pain?
As we come to this point today--and while a majority of Senators, I
think, will vote for this, though not a big enough majority to put it
on the President's desk--I think, once again, we have to ask ourselves:
At what point do our friends on the other side, who clearly disagree
with us on this issue, feel a life is clearly a life that should be
saved? Would you vote for the born-alive bill? Would you vote for this
bill if it were at 25 weeks? Would you vote for this bill if it were at
28 weeks? I don't hear any of that in the debate. It is just: This is
not the government's business. At some point, it is the government's
business. Protecting life is at some point the government's business.
When the Presiding Officer and at least one other person and I served
in the House, we changed the law. It was Laci and Conner's Law. When a
homicide is committed and the woman is pregnant and the child is lost
also, that is considered in law as a double homicide--two lives having
been taken at that point, two lives at 20 weeks or at 12 weeks or at 15
weeks. I am not sure where that threshold begins, but I do know we have
decided this is not just one crime; that it is two crimes when that
happens.
We have an opportunity today to define something that is pretty
clearly and significantly defining as to who we are as a nation.
Otherwise, virtually every country in the world wouldn't have stopped
doing this, if it ever had allowed it to happen in the first place.
I urge my colleagues to join in passing this bill--in standing up for
those who cannot defend themselves--and to understand that harm is
done, and when harm is done in this way, our society is harmed by that
harm.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska has generously
allowed me to intrude on her time for a half a minute to say that I
strongly support this legislation--the Pain-Capable Unborn Child
Protection Act.
Science is on our side in supporting this legislation, and public
opinion is on our side in supporting this legislation. There are 60
percent of women, 64 percent of Independents, and 56 percent of
Democrats who support ending late-term abortions, which is what we are
trying to do. Medical practice is on our side in this legislation, and
world opinion and world practice are on our side.
Let me simply reiterate that we in America are among a grim group of
seven countries who permit abortions after 20 weeks--Canada and the
Netherlands in the West and then China, North Korea, Singapore, and
Vietnam. We are in a grim group that includes North Korea and China. We
may not have the votes this time, but we are advancing the issue, and
we are going to continue to fight for the unborn, particularly those
who are capable of feeling pain after 20 weeks.
I thank the Senate for its time, and I particularly thank the Senator
from Nebraska for indulging me for a moment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, over my time in public service, I have
been committed to supporting commonsense, pro-life measures that offer
empathy for women and for unborn children. Too often, women experience
despair and pain and judgment from others during unplanned pregnancies.
We should offer compassion for these expectant mothers, and they need
to know we will continue to support them in the challenging years
ahead. We should also be willing to protect the most innocent among us,
the unborn, who can feel pain and have the chance at viability.
I rise to discuss the bill that the Senate will consider shortly--the
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
This is a reasonable bill that has the support of 47 Senators. This
kind of legislation has passed in many States, including in my own. My
State of Nebraska has a proud tradition of being pro-life. We were the
first State in the country to pass a 20-week abortion ban. The bill
before us today would enact the same policy at the Federal level, and
doing so makes sense.
As a State senator, I was a strong supporter and cosponsor of that
legislation. It passed in Nebraska because we focused on areas of
agreement, and like the bill we are debating today, the legislation
provided exceptions for rare and dangerous circumstances. This bill
passed overwhelmingly in Nebraska by a vote of 44 to 5, and it had the
support from pro-choice and pro-life senators from both parties--
Republicans and Democrats.
The enduring support for this kind of legislation across the country
and the world is pretty easy to understand, in that it is a righteous
cause that is based on science. It states that abortions during the
sixth month of pregnancy should only be allowed in moments of extreme
danger and with exceptions.

[[Page S542]]

Basic embryology shows that the human nervous system is developed
within the first 6 weeks of pregnancy. Our sensory receptors for pain
are developed around the mouth as early as 10 weeks and are present in
the skin and mucosal surfaces 20 weeks into gestation. The connections
between the spinal cord and the thalamus--the part of the human body
that deals with pain perception--is present at 20-weeks' gestation as
well. None of this is debatable. It is a fact.
We also know babies have been born and have survived and thrived
before the current 24-week limit. In March of 2017, the academic
journal Pediatrics discussed a girl in Dallas who, in 2014, was born at
21-weeks' gestation. Today, she is a typical, happy 3-year-old who is
living her life to the fullest and has a bright future ahead of her.
Over time, views on this divisive issue have evolved toward the side
of pro-life policies because, as we gain more knowledge about pregnancy
and gestation, we understand the humanity of the unborn. We recognize
them as the people they are--and this movement is on the rise. Nearly
two-thirds of Americans support legislation prohibiting abortion into
the sixth month of pregnancy. This includes almost 80 percent of the
millennial generation--those most likely to be affected by such
restrictions. It is gaining momentum because it is a movement backed by
science. It is a movement of truth, and it is a movement of love.

We have an opportunity to join together and support the basic truth
that all life is sacred. We should protect the child in the womb,
especially when he or she can feel pain. We can make a statement that
every person is deserving of life and deserving of love.
I believe that life is a gift from God--a gift to be lovingly
cherished. I ask my colleagues to support this reasonable piece of
legislation.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, in the last few years, I have watched
attempt after attempt to restrict a woman's right to choose. This
legislation bans a woman's access to abortion after 20 weeks of
pregnancy, regardless of the risk to her health, and it weakens the
protections for women who are victims of rape and incest. It would also
allow for criminal prosecution of doctors and nurses who provide
healthcare to a woman in these most difficult circumstances.
For years we have seen politicians at the Federal and State levels
push to limit a woman's access to reproductive healthcare. The goal is
to completely eviscerate this right. From 2010 to 2016, States adopted
334 restrictions on women's access to comprehensive reproductive
healthcare. These include laws that require mandatory waiting periods
which have no medical basis, force doctors to give patients inaccurate
medical information, and restrict access to contraceptives.
In just 1 year, the Trump administration has attempted to restrict
women's access to birth control, attempted to defund Planned
Parenthood, supported legislation to dismantle the Affordable Care Act
and its protections for women's health, created new government offices
to undermine women's healthcare, and nominated judges who openly oppose
women's privacy rights under Roe v. Wade.
This bill is yet another attempt to harm women by criminalizing their
healthcare, even threatening the doctors who care for them with years
in prison.
Think of a pregnant woman who is planning for her family's future,
and then something goes terribly wrong. She is experiencing a
miscarriage. This happens to women every day. It is not just scary
medically, it is extremely painful and emotional. Under this bill, a
woman's health is put at risk, and her doctor could be threatened with
criminal prosecution. If a woman's miscarriage hasn't completed, her
health could rapidly deteriorate from fever and infection. If this bill
passes and a woman goes to the hospital, no doctor could help her.
Because under this legislation, there is no exception to protect a
woman's health. None.
Only if a doctor can be certain that a woman is close to death could
they legally intervene, and that I think is unconscionable.
I have heard from women in California who were thrilled to be
pregnant, only to receive the devastating news that their babies had
fatal anomalies and would not survive. Let me give you an example.
Rosalie, from Northern California, wrote to me and stated:

Our baby's heart was severely deformed. He was missing
parts of his brain, and his lungs likely would not have
supported him breathing on his own, ever.
We found all of this out at 19.5 weeks. . . . If we were a
few days late under this bill, we would have been forced to
carry our baby to term only to have him suffer for a few
minutes, days, weeks, and then die.

Families dealing with situations like Rosalie's deserve compassion
and support for this heart-wrenching situation. But instead, this
legislation leaves them with no options.
Last Congress, at a Judiciary Committee hearing, we heard from
Christy Zink, who learned late in her pregnancy that her baby was
missing the central connecting structure of the two parts of his brain.
She told us in public testimony:

At no point in this decision and the resulting medical care
would the sort of political interference under consideration
have helped me or my family.
What happened to me during pregnancy can happen to any
woman.

This bill is not only harmful to women like Rosalie and Christy, but
it is unconstitutional, and it violates Roe v. Wade. Look at the
challenges to two States that enacted 20-week bans--Arizona and Idaho.
Both were struck down at the circuit court level as unconstitutional.
Let me read that again. Two States, Arizona and Idaho, with this
legislation--it was struck down at the circuit court level as
unconstitutional. The Supreme Court refused to review Arizona's case.
Idaho didn't appeal.
It is also important to point out that this bill weakens protections
for women who have been victims of rape or incest. Rape victims would
no longer be able to access healthcare unless they could show proof
that they received medical treatment or counseling for the rape or
reported the assault to law enforcement. I find this shocking.
Think of a young girl who is a victim of sex trafficking. She is
beaten, imprisoned, and raped by multiple men each night. She gets
pregnant. This law would require this rape victim to go to law
enforcement or a government official to access medical care. These
girls don't have control over their own bodies. They have no freedom.
To deny medical care to rape and incest victims because they don't have
the right paperwork or have not reported their assault to police is
unworkable and, I believe, cruel.
It is deeply troubling that we are using valuable floor time for this
dangerous bill. The current funding bill expires in 10 days, and we
still don't have a legislative solution for Dreamers. That is what we
should be taking up right now. Instead, Republicans have chosen to
spend the Senate's time trying to turn back the clock, debating on
legislation that would drive us back to pre-Roe v. Wade.
I remember those days. I know what it was like. We knew then and we
still know today that banning abortion does not end it; it just means
that women undergo unsafe procedures, and lives are lost.
It is 2018. Women are more than half the population of this country.
We run Fortune 500 companies. We are leaders in government. We are the
heads of households. The Constitution of the United States guarantees
our right to privacy and our right to access to reproductive
healthcare. I, for one, will not see these rights stripped away.
Thank you very much.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr.President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I want to thank all of my colleagues on
this side of the aisle who have joined in this debate and are having
their voices heard. You are on the right side of history. You are where
America will be. It is just a matter of time until we get there.
To my colleagues on the other side, I appreciate your passion, but I
think you are on the wrong side of history.

[[Page S543]]

What we are trying to do here today is to proceed to a bill. It is
called a motion to proceed. But I think what we are trying to do is
proceed to a better America. We are one of seven nations on the entire
planet to allow abortion on demand after 20 weeks; that is, the fifth
month of pregnancy.
What do we know about unborn children at that stage of development?
We know that for a doctor to operate on that unborn child, they provide
anesthesia because it hurts the child, and no doctor wants to hurt the
child in an effort to save the child's life. Listen to what I said.
Medical practice dictates that if you are going to operate on a 20-
week-old, unborn child, you provide anesthesia because science tells us
that the baby can feel pain.
Can you only imagine the pain it will feel from abortion? There is a
reason that there are only seven countries in the world that allow
this. The question for America is, Do we want to stay in this club or
do we want to get out? I want out.
Twenty States have a version of this bill, and more are taking it up
as I speak. When informed of what we are trying to do, the majority of
pro-choice people support this. Abortion is a divisive issue, and it is
an emotional issue, but in the fifth month of pregnancy, I think most
Americans are going to side with what we are trying to do--stopping
abortion on demand in the fifth month.
Does it make us a better nation? I would say it does not.
So we are trying to proceed to make sure that America will be a
better place and that we become part of the mainstream of the world
when it comes to protecting unborn children after the fifth month of
pregnancy.
If you look at a medical encyclopedia and read about the birthing
process, parents are encouraged in the fifth month to sing to a child
because the child will begin to associate your voice with you. Read it.
There is literature of all kinds stating what you should do in the
fifth month to enhance the relationship between you and your unborn
child.
We do allow exceptions to save the life of the mother. It is a
terrible situation when we have to pick between the mother and child,
and there is an exception for that situation. The result of rape or
incest if the child was a minor--when it comes to a pregnancy caused by
a rape, we require that the law enforcement authorities be notified of
the rape before the abortion, not at the time it occurred, and I think
most Americans would want people to come forward and report rape.
It is a difficult situation, but we have commonsense exceptions, and
this is a commonsense bill designed to change America in a commonsense
way. It is a motion to proceed to put us in better standing as a nation
in the world at large, I believe. It is also a motion to withdraw--
withdraw from the club of seven nations that allows abortion on demand
at a time when doctors can save the baby's life, but to do so they have
to provide anesthesia because that baby can feel so much pain.
Savannah Duke is a young lady in South Carolina. She is 17 years old.
She goes to high school in Spartanburg, SC. She does all the things
that a 17-year-old would do. She is an incredibly gifted young lady. At
20 weeks, it was discovered that she was missing a leg, and the doctors
feared she would have severe birth defects. Her parents, Wendy and
Scott, when deciding what to do, could see the baby move, and they
decided not to opt for an abortion. She is in high school today.
There is Micah from Iowa, as you probably heard from Senator Ernst,
who has been a stalwart on this issue. He was born at 20 weeks and is
alive today to tell about it.
This is not about medical viability. Roe v. Wade says that there is a
compelling State interest to protect the unborn at medical viability. I
would argue that the difference between medical viability in 1973 and
2018 is enormous. What we are trying to do is provide a new theory to
protect the unborn, and it goes something like this: Can a legislative
body prohibit an abortion on demand at a time when science tells us
that the baby feels excruciating pain, at a time when science tells us
that parents should sing to their child, at a time when science tells
us that a baby has well-connected tissues and can feel pain and, on
occasion, can also survive? My answer is yes; it is OK for Congress and
State legislators to pass laws saying that in the fifth month, we are
going to disallow abortion on demand. There will be exceptions, but
they will be rare. There are 10,000 cases every year that are protected
by this law.
So what are we trying to do? We are trying to proceed forward to a
better day in America. We are trying to get out of a club where there
are only six other members. We are trying to reconcile the law with
science.
To my friends on the other side who talk about science a lot, count
me in. Science is very important. We should listen to our scientists.
When it comes to climate change, I do. I am convinced that climate
change is real.
You should listen to what doctors tell you about the unborn child in
the fifth month. You should listen to what medical science is able to
do to save the child's life. You should listen to the stories of people
who actually make it at 20 weeks. You should understand that
excruciating pain is felt by an unborn child in the fifth month, and
America does not want to be in the club of seven countries that allow
abortion on demand.
I don't know where the vote will turn out. It is probably going to be
short of 60, but to those who believe in this issue, we will be back
for another day. We are never going to give up until we get America in
a better place. The better place, I think, would be having a country
that recognizes that, in the fifth month of pregnancy, the law will be
there for the child, because science is on the child's side, and we
will reconcile our laws to science.
We know what science says about a baby in the fifth month. We know
what the law says: They can be aborted on demand. I think there is a
disconnect, not only between science and law but between what is right
and where we are today. I just don't see how this makes us a better
nation, to continue this practice of allowing babies to be aborted on
demand in the fifth month of pregnancy when we know they feel a lot of
pain. I just don't see how that makes us a better nation. We will get
there, Mr. President, with your help and the help of others.
A majority of the American people are on our side when they
understand what we are trying to do. There are 20 States who have some
version of this, and it is just a matter of time until most States
will.
As to this debate, I don't think it is a waste of time. I want to do
two things. I want to get out of the club of seven nations that allow
abortion on demand of babies that feel excruciating pain when they are
operated on to save their lives, and I can work on behalf of the
Dreamers, too. I can do two things at once. I can talk about getting
America in a better spot when it comes to babies during the fifth month
of pregnancy and finding a better life for Dreamers. I think it is kind
of odd that somehow you can't do one without the other.
I want all of these Dream Act kids--young adults now--to stay in the
country they know. They have no other place to go. On average, they
were brought here at the age of 6 and, if you told them to go home, it
wouldn't be some foreign country. It would be the home they were raised
in and the life they know. So it makes perfect sense to me that we
should be trying to find a solution to secure our border and fix a
broken immigration system and deal compassionately with millions of
young people who, through no fault of their own, have no place else to
go but America.
It also makes sense to me that we can talk about this issue at the
same time and that we as a nation will rise to the occasion and
withdraw from a club where there are only six other nations on the
planet that allow a baby to be aborted in the fifth month of pregnancy
at a time when that child can feel excruciating pain and young parents
are encouraged to sing to the child. If science urges you to sing to
the child, I want the law to stop an abortion unless there is a darn
good reason. Our time will come, for the Dreamers as well as the baby.
Our time will come.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S544]]

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on
leader time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Nomination of David Stras

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I know we have a vote coming up soon.
First, on the judge vote, today the Senate will vote on cloture on
the nomination of David Stras for the Eighth Circuit in Minnesota.
Senator Franken opposed this nomination and did not return his blue
slip, but Senator Grassley scheduled the confirmation hearing and a
markup anyway. It is my understanding that the new Senator from
Minnesota, Ms. Smith, intends to vote against his nomination.
If Judge Stras is confirmed, it will mark the first time since 1982
that a circuit court nominee was confirmed without both home State
Senators returning blue slips in support of a hearing. Democratic and
Republican chairs have stuck to the blue slip rule, despite the
tensions in this body. So this is a major step back--another way that
the majority is slowly and inexorably gnawing away at the way this body
works and making it more and more and more like the House of
Representatives. It is not a legacy, if I were the leader or a Member
of that party, that I would be proud of.

Republican Tax Bill

Mr. President, tomorrow President Trump will address the Nation in
his first State of the Union. We all look forward to hearing what the
President has to say. One thing we can expect is for the President to
link any good piece of economic news to the Republican tax bill, as the
majority leader does most days and did again today. Of course, the
reality of the Republican tax bill is much different than the image
painted by the leader's cherry-picked examples.
One of the real impacts of the tax bill has been massive giveaways to
wealthy investors and corporate executives. The very wealthiest and the
most powerful got the overwhelming majority of the breaks. As for
individuals, some got increases, some stayed the same, and some will
get a little bit.
Companies have announced multibillion-dollar stock-buyback
repurchasing programs, which benefit wealthy shareholders, not workers.
According to Morgan Stanley, ``83% of analysts indicated that companies
would put gains from lower taxes to use for share buybacks, dividends,
and mergers and acquisitions.'' So we will have less competition
because this tax bill has given the big corporations money so they can
buy other corporations and reduce competition.
Even though Republicans sold it as a job creator, there have been a
slew of layoffs in this country just after the tax bill passed.
Walmart, which made a big to-do of what it was doing for its workers,
is shuttering 63 Sam's Club warehouses and laying off 1,000 workers at
their headquarters. Macy's will cut 5,000 jobs. Carrier, a company the
President promised to save, is still bleeding jobs. Kimberly-Clark will
cut up to 5,500 jobs, and their chief financial officer said the
savings from the Republican tax bill gave them the ``flexibility''--his
word--to make these reductions. So the tax bill is actually leading to
a whole lot of layoffs. We don't hear that from President Trump or our
Republican colleagues, but it is true.
Another one of the real impacts of the tax bill will be felt on tax
day, when the Nation's highest income earners, the top 1 percent, will
get an average tax cut of roughly $50,000, while more than 9 million
middle-class families will face a tax increase, according to the JCT
and the Tax Policy Center.
It is true that bipartisan, deficit-neutral tax reform could have
delivered more jobs and better pay for the middle class, but President
Trump and congressional leaders opted for a partisan bill that rewarded
their wealthy donors, big corporations, and the superrich, and it
increased the deficit that our children and grandchildren will have to
pay by $1.5 trillion. I don't expect the President or the Republican
leader to mention these facts. I certainly don't think the President
will mention them in the State of the Union. But Democrats will
highlight them in days to come.

Issues Before the Senate

Now, Mr. President, when we passed the last extension of government
funding, we gave ourselves a lengthy to-do list: Pass a budget, provide
disaster aid, negotiate a healthcare package, and protect the Dreamers.
We have been talking about these issues for months without resolution.
Now is the time to start solving them. We have waited too long to fully
fund our military. We have waited too long to dedicate more money to
the opioid crisis, which is stealing 40,000 American lives a year. We
have waited too long to improve veterans healthcare, which our veterans
receive. Many are waiting in line still to get treatment. We waited too
long to address failing pension plans, which are the safety net for so
many teamsters, carpenters, miners, and people approaching retirement.
We have waited too long to give the 800,000 Dreamers the peace of mind
that they will not be deported by the only country they have known.
We need to address these issues soon--no more delay. We hope our
moderate Senators will strive to find a narrow bill on DACA and border
security that can actually pass. Expanding this beyond DACA and beyond
border security, as the White House framework tries to do, will only
delay a solution to this time-sensitive problem.
Now, my guest at tomorrow's State of the Union will highlight the
urgency of a few issues I have just mentioned. Her name is Stephanie
Keegan. She is from Putnam County, NY. Her son Daniel, a veteran of the
war in Afghanistan, died from an opioid overdose. At the time, Daniel
was suffering from a severe case of PTSD. His nerves were shattered by
war. He waited 16 months for treatment at the VA--16 months, after he
served us so well. That is a shocking amount of time for a young man
who bravely served his country to wait for his country to serve him.
Daniel died 2 weeks before he was given his first appointment at the
VA.
There are many things that can be done to change this situation, Mrs.
Keegan told me. She is so right. We can provide better healthcare to
our veterans. We can do more to fight the scourge of opioid addiction.
We can fulfill the promise to hundreds of thousands of pensioners who
need money. We can make sure Social Security works. We can make sure
the kids waiting for college who have to pay for college can get there
a little easier. So I hope Stephanie's presence at tomorrow's speech
inspires an urgency to tackle these challenges.

FBI

Finally, Mr. President, I want to return to a topic I addressed at
some length last Thursday--the ongoing scorched-earth campaign by the
White House, rightwing media, and some Republicans in Congress to
destroy the integrity of the FBI and the investigation into
interference in the 2016 election. This ongoing scorched-earth campaign
weakens law enforcement and weakens the FBI--one of our best agencies.
We recently learned that President Trump, at one point last summer,
directed the firing of Special Counsel Mueller--what would have been a
shocking and unambiguous obstruction of justice--only to be pulled
back.
Today, we learned that the Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe,
will be stepping down immediately. He has been attacked by the White
House relentlessly.
As soon as this evening, the House will vote to release the contents
of a secret memo prepared by the Republican majority on the House
Intelligence Committee that insinuates the FBI and Department of
Justice's investigation into Russia's interference in our elections is
politically biased.
According to the ranking member of that committee, Representative
Schiff, this memo is full of innuendo and glaring omissions. It
presents evidence without context and jumps to unfounded conclusions.
We should call it what it truly is: a slanderous memo of GOP talking
points.
This is not an erudite study. This is a bunch of talking points to
discredit an agency that is doing a good job, that we all have
supported and respected over the years.

[[Page S545]]

If Republicans vote to release their memo of partisan talking points
tonight, they should also vote to release the memo prepared by Ranking
Member Schiff, and let everyone judge both on the merits. Let both
memos go forward. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. It
would be absolute hypocrisy for House Republicans to release their memo
and not allow Representative Schiff to release his.
Everyone should keep in mind who is promoting this stuff. Who is
promoting these rightwing talking points, defaming the FBI? None other
than Russian-linked bots. They are using the hashtag ``Release the
Memo'' 100 more times than any other hashtag by Kremlin-linked
accounts. Putin and the Kremlin are trying at all times to undermine
our democracy through the spread of false information.
What does it say about the Republican memo that the Kremlin is
pushing it more than they are pushing anything else right now? At this
point, every American should wonder whether the House Republicans are
working harder for Putin or for the American people--at least those
House Republicans who put together this memo.
This Republican talking points memo is part of a pattern of behavior
from this White House and their Republican allies in Congress--not
everyone, just some--and the hard-right media. They do not welcome the
results of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, so they are trying
to smear the investigation and the entire FBI before it concludes. We
all know agents; we all know how hard they work and how decent they
are.
The attacks on the credibility of the FBI are beyond the pale. They
have fueled wild speculation and outright paranoia--talks of ``coups''
and ``deep states'' and ``secret societies.'' It brings shame on the
folks propagating this nonsense, but more crucially, it diminishes our
great country.
When prominent voices in one of our country's two major political
parties are outright attacking the FBI and the Department of Justice--
the pillars of American law enforcement--they are playing right into
Mr. Putin's hands. They are unfairly and dishonestly clouding a crucial
investigation into Russia's interference in our elections--a matter of
most serious concern for every American. It is abhorrent. It must stop.
I yield the floor.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to S. 2311, a bill to amend title 18, United States
Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children, and for other
purposes.
Mitch McConnell, John Boozman, Jerry Moran, Marco Rubio,
Deb Fischer, John Barrasso, Richard Burr, John Cornyn,
Thom Tillis, John Hoeven, Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, James
M. Inhofe, Steve Daines, Mike Crapo, James Lankford,
Roy Blunt.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to proceed to S. 2311, a bill to amend title 18, United States
Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children, and for other purposes,
shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin)
and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 25 Leg.]

YEAS--51

Alexander
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Casey
Cassidy
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young

NAYS--46

Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden

NOT VOTING--3

Baldwin
McCain
Nelson
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are
46.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.

____________________