[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2891-S2892]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Abortion

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, last week, the Trump administration proposed 
new rules to finally bring Federal policy back in line with Federal 
law. This should not be controversial in a republic committed to the 
rule of law. But this new policy touches the question of abortion, 
which tempts all three branches of our Federal Government to turn 
truth, justice, and the law inside out in the service of violence. 
President Trump, to his credit, is resisting those temptations and 
affirming what the law should do--affirming the fact that the law 
should do what the law says.
  The particular law in question is the Public Health Service Act. 
Every year, it allocates hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to 
public health centers across the country. Under the 1970 statute, no 
Public Health Service dollars ``shall be used in programs where 
abortion is a method of family planning.'' That is, the bill was 
expressly written to fund healthcare for lower income communities, 
including family planning services, but not to fund or facilitate 
abortion, which, of course, is the opposite of healthcare.

[[Page S2892]]

  Yet in the 1980s, the General Accounting Office found that abortion 
providers were colocating their nonabortion and abortion-providing 
services and just keeping two different sets of books. This put 
patients, policymakers, and taxpayers in an impossible position. So 
regulations correcting this obvious abuse of the law were implemented; 
then they were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  Subsequent Democratic Presidents rescinded these regulations, leaving 
the abortion industry free to indulge its ever-growing appetite for 
Americans' blood and treasure. This is the unacceptable status quo that 
the Trump administration would correct.
  By reinstating some of those prior regulations, President Trump is 
following through on his campaign promise to the American people to get 
taxpayer money out of the abortion industry. This is to his great 
credit. Wherever you stand on the question of legalized killing of 
unborn children, it is essential that we draw the line at taxpayer 
funding of it.
  The new rule would indeed reduce the flow of Federal dollars to 
abortion providers, including the billion-dollar behemoth of the grisly 
industry, Planned Parenthood. Even a modest step in this direction--in 
this case, about 15 percent--is to be commended.
  In addition to incremental reform, this new rule is also a clarifying 
asset. After all, it does not deny Planned Parenthood or any colocated 
clinics anything. It doesn't deny anything to them. It simply offers 
them a choice, and given Planned Parenthood's protestations that 
abortions are just a tiny fraction of what Planned Parenthood does, the 
choice should be easy enough.
  If, despite their billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and 
private donations, Planned Parenthood and its accomplice organizations 
can't afford two local facilities--one for abortion and one for 
nonabortion care and counseling--they will just have to choose which 
clinic to keep open. They will have to decide--or, perhaps, just 
publicly admit--what business it is that they are really in: healthcare 
or abortion, life or death. Of course, we already know the answer. That 
is why Planned Parenthood is widely expected to lead a lawsuit to block 
the regulation just as soon as it is implemented.
  As the New York Times recently put it, abortion is to Planned 
Parenthood what the internet is to Facebook; that is, like justice and 
the rule of law are to the American Republic.
  Our abortion-on-demand legal regime today is doubly unjust, first, 
because it was created by judges rather than elected lawmakers and, 
second, because it denies the undeniable humanity of the unborn. 
President Trump's new policy would improve the law on both counts. 
First, it would bring the administration of the law back into line with 
Congress's clear, statutory text. Second, it would signal that in this 
White House, the protection of innocent human life will be the guiding 
principle that it should be in any civilized society.
  The new rule will protect Americans' right to protect themselves and 
the unborn from taxpayer-funded abortions and, hopefully, create just a 
little more space for the weakest and the most vulnerable among us to 
grow, to thrive, and to hope that we will one day see that inevitable 
day not so far from now when our laws and our hearts answer the 
immutable call of justice, love, and respect for the dignity of the 
human soul.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Massachusetts.