[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 37 (Thursday, February 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1578-S1580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Women's Healthcare

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I have often said healthcare is not 
political. It is personal, and there is no part of healthcare that is 
more personal than the decision if, when, and under what circumstances 
to have a child and who decides the medical course of action in a 
serious medical crisis.
  These decisions need to be made by women, their families, and their 
doctors. They should not be made by politicians who are more focused on 
their own political advantage rather than medical tragedies facing 
pregnant women at the end of pregnancy who want desperately to have a 
child.
  Our Republican friends know very well that nobody--and I mean 
nobody--in this Chamber supports infanticide. No one. In fact, in 2002, 
Congress voted unanimously--100 Members, including myself--to reaffirm 
that it is illegal, period. Suggesting otherwise is insulting and, 
frankly, disgusting, and it is beneath the dignity of the U.S. Senate.
  How dare the majority pretend to care about the health of women and 
children. If the Republican majority cares about the health of moms and 
their babies, why are you continuing to try to take their healthcare 
away? The President and the Republican majority have tried again and 
again and again to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  Let me remind you that before the Affordable Care Act, insurance 
companies could, and most of the time did, refuse to cover maternity 
care as basic healthcare for women, leaving parents with bills of tens 
of thousands of dollars for an uncomplicated birth.
  As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I was proud to author 
the provision requiring maternity care in the Affordable Care Act. I 
remember the debate. I remember a very specific debate with a former 
colleague from Arizona, and I remember Republican efforts to strip that 
provision to cover maternity care from the Affordable Care Act. 
Fortunately, they were not successful. Now the administration is 
legalizing and offering junk insurance plans that treat being a woman 
as a preexisting condition again.
  One study found that none--none--of the newly approved plans cover 
maternity care. Maternity care is not a frill. It is basic healthcare 
for women, and if we are seeing more and more of these healthcare plans 
being put on the market, where women assume they are going to be 
covered and once again will not be, that is outrageous.
  Why aren't we passing a bill to guarantee that prenatal care and 
maternity care are covered for moms and babies as essential healthcare 
in every insurance plan? I assure you, this medical care is essential, 
and until parts of the Affordable Care Act began to be unwound by the 
administration, it was viewed as essential care for every woman.
  How dare you pretend to care about the health of women and children 
while voting to dramatically slash Medicaid and healthcare for low-
income working families. When you gut Medicaid, you are keeping moms 
and babies from getting the healthcare they need. In fact, Medicaid 
provided prenatal care and maternity care for 43 percent of American 
moms and babies born in 2016--43 percent. Why aren't we voting to 
strengthen Medicaid? Why aren't we voting to strengthen Medicaid 
healthcare for moms and babies? Why isn't that being brought to the 
floor?
  A few years ago, the Senate Finance Committee reported out a bill 
that I led with Senator Grassley called the Quality Care for Moms and 
Babies Act. This bill would create a set of maternal and infant quality 
care standards in the Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid. 
The goal is simple: improving maternal and infant health outcomes. 
Shouldn't we all want to do that?
  Let me be clear. We have no uniform quality standards right now 
across the country for almost half of the births that occur every year. 
The Quality Care for Moms and Babies Act will help

[[Page S1579]]

make sure every mom--every mom--gets the best pregnancy care possible 
and every baby gets a healthy start. Why isn't that a top priority for 
action in the U.S. Senate, to protect the health of moms and babies?
  Let's also be clear. We have a real healthcare crisis that we need to 
address in this country. In most of the world, fewer and fewer women 
are dying from child birth but not in the United States. In fact, our 
maternal mortality rate is climbing. More women are dying, and our 
infant mortality rate ranks a shameful 32 out of 35 of the world's 
wealthiest nations. The United States of America is 32 out of 35 
countries--wealthiest countries in the world--in the number of infants 
that are dying in birth. That is something we need to have a sense of 
urgency to act on.
  There are a lot of things on healthcare. There are a lot of things to 
improve outcomes for children and moms and give them a healthy start 
and a healthy life that we should be doing right now, as well as 
stopping the administration from undermining basic healthcare for women 
and children. It is time to stop the cynical political stunts and start 
protecting--really protecting--the health of moms and babies.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I am glad to join Senator Stabenow, who 
was on the floor just now, to respond to the shameful lies and gross 
exaggerations that have been claimed by some on the other side of the 
aisle.
  Earlier this week, we voted on legislation that some of my colleagues 
claimed was needed to outlaw infanticide--the killing of babies. How 
absurd. It is, and has always been, illegal to kill any human, 
including infants.
  So what was in that legislation we voted on earlier this week? To 
honestly discuss the bill, we need to have a factually and medically 
accurate conversation about abortion.
  A healthy fetus becomes potentially able to live outside the womb at 
about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Very few abortions occur after that--less 
than 1 percent--and generally are performed either because the fetus 
has a fatal condition or the pregnant woman's life or health is at 
severe risk. These are heartbreaking situations involving very wanted 
pregnancies--hardly the time for the heavy hand of government to reach 
into our wombs.
  Under this bill, doctors will be required to resuscitate infants born 
with fatal conditions, even if the parents did not want these measures 
that could prolong their infant's suffering and instead wanted to spend 
the limited time they had with their baby comforting their child and 
holding them close.
  How dare anyone pretend to know what care is best for these families 
instead of trusting them and their doctors to decide. How dare Congress 
interject itself into a decision we have no business deciding for 
others. Yet this is exactly what this bill would have done.
  I encourage my colleagues to read stories from women who have been 
speaking up about their experiences with abortion later in pregnancy. 
These stories are usually found on the internet as well as in the 
national press, as more women feel under attack and are coming forward 
to tell their stories. Perhaps, in hearing from these women, my 
colleagues will realize what these women need is compassion, not 
condemnation.
  Stories like that of Dana Weinstein, who bravely told her story to 
CNN. Years ago, Dana and her husband learned at 31 weeks that their 
daughter's brain had a severe defect. Doctors told the couple their 
daughter would not be able to suck or swallow and would most likely 
suffer from uncontrollable seizures upon birth. They heard what a 
resuscitation order would entail. They listened to what an existence, 
short-lived or otherwise, would look like. They were briefed on hospice 
care.
  After the diagnosis, the kicks in Dana's belly, which had given her 
so much joy, became unbearable. She feared her daughter was seizing and 
may be suffering. Ultimately, Dana and her husband decided to get an 
abortion. For this baby they loved, it felt like--in their words--``a 
more peaceful path for her passing.''
  These are the stories. Compassion and understanding are what is 
needed in these instances, but instead of compassion, what my 
colleagues have offered this week is inflammatory political rhetoric 
and shaming and intimidating women and their providers who care for 
them in an attempt to score partisan points.
  President Trump--never missing an opportunity to score partisan 
points--weighed in on Twitter claiming that Senate Democrats ``don't 
mind executing babies after birth.''
  Today former Governor Scott Walker said to a crowd at the 
Conservative Political Action Conference that ``people are taking 
already-born babies from the hospital and aborting them there''--a 
comment that doesn't even make sense.
  Republican National Committee chair, Ronna McDaniel, chimed in at the 
same conference, calling the choice that women like Dana make murder. 
These charges are false, incendiary, and this sort of language is 
intended to incite the Republican Party's base. It emboldens violence 
against abortion providers--violence which nearly doubled from 33 
reported death threats or threats of harm in 2016 to 62 in 2017, 
according to the National Abortion Federation.
  The hard truth is, the Republican Party hurts women. One of the ways 
they are doing this is by working as hard as they can to set up 
barriers or to eliminate entirely safe and legal abortions wherever 
they can.
  They demonize women who face the heartbreaking situation of needing 
an abortion later in pregnancy, oftentimes for medical reasons.
  They want to cut off crucial healthcare dollars to providers who even 
discuss abortion with patients. This is a gag rule that this 
administration is seeking to impose.
  They create loopholes to allow businesses to exclude coverage for 
contraception for workers, and to make sure that these and all of their 
other efforts stick, they pack the Federal courts with a line of 
aggressively anti-choice judges to uphold Federal Agency actions and 
State laws restricting abortion access.
  Doing the bidding of these rightwing ideologue supporters like the 
Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, Donald Trump has sent 
us judicial nominee after nominee with records of attacking a woman's 
right to choose as laid out in the Supreme Court's opinion in Roe v. 
Wade and restated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
  These nominees come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I 
serve, and parrot the line provided for them by the Trump 
administration. When asked if they will respect precedent and uphold 
Roe v. Wade, they say they will ``follow the law.'' Then, when they get 
confirmed, they are in a position, with their lifetime appointments, to 
do exactly the opposite.
  The prime and most dangerous example of this kind of bait and switch 
is Brett Kavanaugh--a notoriously rightwing political lawyer appointed 
by George W. Bush to the second highest court in the United States--the 
Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
  Kavanaugh was not even on Donald Trump's original so-called short 
list of possible Supreme Court nominees--not the list released before 
the 2016 election and not the first list released thereafter. No, 
Kavanaugh only found a place on that list after he wrote a harsh 
dissent in a case involving a young refugee's right to an abortion.
  A minor, then 17 years old, was being kept in the custody of the 
Department of Health and Human Services because she had entered the 
United States without documentation. Where she was held in Texas, in 
order to access abortion services, a minor must have parental consent 
or receive permission from the judge. This is called a judicial 
bypass--to proceed without that parental consent.
  In this case, called Garza v. Hargan, the young woman did go through 
the process of going to court and receiving a judicial bypass. She had 
people willing and able to transport her and to

[[Page S1580]]

pay for the health services she needed, but the radical Trump appointee 
in charge, well known for his anti-abortion views, decided it would be 
in her best interest to find adult sponsors for her first, presumably 
to help her make a decision, but the Texas court had already decided 
she could make her own decision, and she did.
  She challenged the Trump appointee and his Agency, and ultimately a 
majority of the DC Circuit agreed with her that she had the legal right 
to an abortion and the Federal Government could not delay any further.
  Brett Kavanaugh, sitting on that circuit, disagreed and wrote a 
dissent, which must have captured the attention of those in charge of 
Donald Trump's Supreme Court short list because not long after his name 
appeared on that list.
  What did he write to earn his place on the list and eventually a 
nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court? He wrote a dissenting opinion 
that falsely characterized the Garza case as one about parental 
consent, which we know was not so because a judicial bypass was already 
in place.
  He wrote the dissent using the code words of the extreme anti-choice 
and anti-women wing of the Republican Party. He accused the majority on 
that court of creating ``a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in 
U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.'' He 
was wrong. There was no new right being created.
  He falsely claimed that by permitting the abortion ``[t]he majority's 
decision represents a radical extension of the Supreme Court's abortion 
jurisprudence.'' He was wrong again. The majority decision was correct 
under Roe v. Wade.
  He wrote it was not an undue burden for this young woman to be 
prevented from getting an abortion until a sponsor family could be 
found for her. This was not even a legal argument, but he based his 
dissent on it. That is the dissent that moved Brett Kavanaugh to the 
head of the line on the short list for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme 
Court, where he sits.
  So when he came to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing, some 
Senators--myself included--were rightly skeptical that he would respect 
precedent if confirmed. At his hearing, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein 
asked Judge Kavanaugh about Roe v. Wade and its status as settled 
precedent. He testified that Roe was ``settled as a precedent of the 
Supreme Court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis.''
  He further went on: ``Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirms Roe and 
did so by considering the stare decisis factors. So Casey now becomes a 
precedent on precedent.''
  It sure sounds like someone who will apply the precedents of Roe and 
Casey and others who rely on them, doesn't it? That is not so.
  The very first opportunity he got, Brett Kavanaugh, as Supreme Court 
Justice, voted against following precedent. Not 4 months after his 
confirmation, Justice Kavanaugh voted in the minority in a Supreme 
Court case called June Medical Services v. Gee to allow a restrictive, 
anti-abortion law in Louisiana to take effect.
  This law would have so restricted access to abortion that only one 
provider would have been left in the entire State of Louisiana of 4.7 
million people. Even Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority to 
block the law. That is because it was clear from recent precedent in 
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that such restrictions don't meet 
constitutional standards.
  Justice Kavanaugh's cavalier attitude to the burden that he would put 
on a woman's ability to exercise their constitutional right is no 
surprise. His callous disregard for the way unwanted pregnancies can 
change the lives of women and children is not unexpected, and his 
willingness to hew to the party line of his supporters and ignore the 
assurances he gave the Senate is simply par for the course with Trump 
judicial nominees. This is what they do. It is an abuse of power, and 
women across the country are paying for it.
  Why do my colleagues across the aisle use this Chamber, time and 
again, to bring forward political shams that shame and retraumatize 
women who face profoundly heartbreaking situations? The will of over 
half of this country is 67 percent of Americans support Roe v. Wade and 
access to safe and legal abortion. Sixty-seven percent of Americans 
support a woman's right to choose.
  How is it that Republicans continue to bring forward bill after bill 
and amendment after amendment that goes against a constitutionally 
protected right of women--of women? This is why I say Republicans hurt 
women.
  I am proud of the vote I cast in opposition to the sham bill we voted 
on this week. My vote was rooted in fact and understanding about what 
an abortion in later pregnancy actually means. It was rooted in the 
understanding that when faced with these difficult situations, these 
decisions are best left to a woman and her doctor. These decisions 
should not rest with the U.S. Senate.
  My vote was cast with a clear understanding that if unchecked or 
unchallenged, this administration and this Senate will continue to 
assault a woman's right to choose and chip away at it bit by bit, where 
it will end up being a nullity, and that is what they want.
  I will continue to stand in opposition to attacks that seek to limit 
the personal freedom of women across the country and what would be more 
of a personal freedom for a woman than to exercise control over her own 
body?
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.