[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 15615-15652]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT--Continued


                           Amendment No. 4689

    (Purpose: To authorize grants to carry out programs to provide 
   education on preventing teen pregnancies, and for other purposes)

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4689, which is 
at the desk, and ask for its consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg], for himself, 
     Mr. Menendez, and Mrs. Clinton, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4689.

  (The amendment is printed in the Record of Monday, July, 24, 2006, 
under ``Text of Amendments.'')
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the amendment I am offering gets to 
the heart of the issue this bill purportedly means to address; that is, 
reducing the number of abortions. The best way to reduce the number of 
abortions is to prevent teen pregnancies in the first place. It is that 
simple.
  The amendment I am offering, along with Senators Menendez, Clinton, 
Schumer, Kennedy, Kerry, and Feinstein, is aimed at dramatically 
reducing teen pregnancy rates in the United States. This amendment will 
assist efforts by nonprofit organizations, schools, and public health 
agencies to reduce teen pregnancy through awareness, education, and 
abstinence programs.
  The root problem we are talking about today is not abortion, it is 
teen pregnancy. If we do nothing about teen pregnancy, yet pass this 
punitive bill, then it proves that this exercise is only a political 
charade and not a serious effort to combat the problem.
  The U.S. teen pregnancy rate is the highest by far among developed 
countries, and here is some of the evidence we use to prove this.
  In Germany, the teen pregnancy rate is 16 per 1,000. The U.S. rate is 
84 per 1,000. I ask my colleagues to look at this chart which shows 
several countries teen pregnancy rates compared with the U.S. This is 
teen pregnancy rate for ages 15 to 19, among developed countries per 
1,000 persons. In Sweden, it is 25 young women per 1,000; in France, it 
is 20 young women per 1,000; in Canada, 46; in Great Britain, 47; and 
here we are. Are we the winners in this contest? I hardly think so. We 
have 84 unintended teenage pregnancies per 1,000 persons.
  I mentioned before that Germany has a teen pregnancy rate of 16 per 
1,000,

[[Page 15616]]

and again, I mention the rate in the United States is 84 per 1,000. So 
it tells us that there is something terribly wrong about the way we do 
things here.
  I look further at Belgium, which has a teen pregnancy rate of 14 per 
1,000; the Netherlands, 12 per 1,000; and ours is 84 per 1,000. We 
cannot continue to ignore facts such as these. We can pass all the 
abortion restrictions we can think of, but unless there are fewer teen 
pregnancies, the results will be tragic for thousands of young women.
  In many cases, teen pregnancies result in abortion, but that is not 
the extent of the problem. We know that children of teenage mothers 
typically have lower birth weight deliveries, are more likely to 
perform poorly in school, and are at greater risk of abuse and neglect 
than other children. The sons of teen mothers are 13 percent more 
likely to end up in prison, while teen daughters are 22 percent more 
likely to become teen mothers themselves.
  Each year in the United States, approximately 860,000 young women 
become pregnant before they reach the age of 20. Eighty percent of 
these pregnancies--80 percent of 860,000. That is over 600,000 young 
women are unintended, and 81 percent of these young women are 
unmarried.
  So what are we doing differently in the United States that is 
separating us from the rest of the developed world? The answer is 
simple: the other countries promote full, comprehensive sex education 
programs, and in the United States--would you believe it--we don't 
allow funding for comprehensive sex education. I repeat that because 
some people may think they misheard me. The Federal Government will not 
fund comprehensive sex education programs despite the fact that 90 
percent of parents polled say that in addition to abstinence, sex 
education should cover contraception and other forms of birth control. 
But the Federal Government currently will not fund any programs that 
even mention contraception and restricts all of its funding to 
abstinence-only programs.
  I want to be clear, I am not against abstinence programs. In fact, 
our amendment will also fund abstinence programs. I think they can be 
effective at times. But the Federal Government's current policy of 
restricting funding to abstinence-only programs is producing the wrong 
result. Just look at how poorly our teenage pregnancy rates compare 
with other nations.
  We need to dedicate our scarce Federal resources toward medically 
accurate, age-appropriate education that includes information about 
contraception as well as abstinence. In many cases, particular types of 
contraception can help avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Isn't that 
a good objective as well? We have to be realistic about the hope that 
each and every teenager is going to abstain from premarital sex. Saying 
``Don't do it'' may work at times but not all the time.
  Look at another problem--youth smoking, for instance. Kids are 
bombarded with warnings not to smoke. These messages have cut teen 
smoking rates dramatically, but 1,500 kids a day still start smoking. 
So it needs intensity of education, comprehensive education.
  We remember First Lady Nancy Reagan's ``Just Say No to Drugs'' 
campaign. It worked for some kids but obviously not for others. For 
those teenagers who already are sexually active or who do become 
sexually active, we fail them if we don't teach them about 
contraception. If we are serious about reducing the number of 
unintended pregnancies, almost half of which tragically end in 
abortion--we have to implement programs that work so that our teenagers 
have the knowledge they need to bring about a positive future for 
themselves with the opportunity to pursue their dreams. We create a 
huge number of abortions as a result of the ignorance of what the facts 
are, about sex and young people.
  This year, the Federal Government will direct $176 million of 
taxpayers' money to abstinence-only programs. Some of these programs 
can be effective but often don't get the job done because many 
teenagers need to understand something about contraception and other 
aspects of a comprehensive sex education program. Research has shown 
that the most effective programs are the ones that encourage teenagers 
to delay sexual activity but also provide information on how they can 
protect themselves. What is more, research shows that teenagers who 
receive sex education which includes discussion of contraception are 
more likely to delay sexual activity than those who receive abstinence-
only messages.
  There was an interesting article in this Saturday's Wall Street 
Journal about a sex education program in Bamberg County, SC. The 
article said:

       More than a quarter of the families--

  In this county--

     live below the poverty line. Nearly half have only one parent 
     living at home . . .
       If ever there was a place to expect a wave of teen mothers, 
     it would be . . . among the flat farmlands of South 
     Carolina's Allendale and Bamberg Counties. Yet while teen 
     pregnancies are numerous on the Allendale side--

  That is the other side of the county line--

     adolescent girls on the Bamberg side have one of the lowest 
     pregnancy rates in the State. The county's rate has fallen 
     faster than the rate in most of the U.S.

  It is a startling revelation because, again, this is a county where 
so many people are below the poverty line, where typically teenage 
pregnancies occur, and in the neighboring county, which is better off, 
they have a far greater number than does Bamberg County.
  Why does that happen? This is an area which has had historically high 
teen pregnancy rates, but they decided to take bold action to improve 
their teen pregnancy prevention efforts. Bamberg County initiated a 
comprehensive sex education program in 1982. Since that time, the 
county's teen pregnancy rate has fallen by nearly two-thirds. If our 
objective here is to reduce abortions, then this is one exceptionally 
effective way to do it.
  Adjacent to Bamberg County, as I said, is Allendale County which has 
similar demographics, but Allendale County has not taken a 
comprehensive approach. Allendale restricts its programs to abstinence 
only. What is the result? Allendale County's teen pregnancy rate is 
more than twice as high as Bamberg's. In 2004, there were 24 
pregnancies per 1,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 in Bamberg 
County. In Allendale County, there were 54 pregnancies per 1,000--more 
than twice the rate.
  Abortion is a divisive issue, a tough issue, but we should all be 
able to agree that the best way or an effective way to reduce the 
number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, 
especially among unwed teenage girls. And the proven way to reduce the 
number of teen pregnancies is to provide youth with comprehensive sex 
education.
  When it comes to our children, we should do everything within our 
power to protect them. We can and we must help America's young people 
to do better, to make better choices and have brighter futures.
  So what we come down today is that this argument is not exclusively 
about abortion because if that were the case, then we would be giving 
comprehensive sex education wherever we have a young audience across 
the country and not saying as a Government: OK, we will give you the 
money, but you can't talk about an effective way to stop a pregnancy; 
we will not fund anything that tells you about contraception, about 
birth control, about thinking about how you plan your family.
  We are looking at raw politics here, Mr. President. What we are 
looking at is a way to compel young people to go through with unwanted 
pregnancies, and I think the way to stop that is to prevent these 
pregnancies in the first place.
  The way to prevent them is through knowledge.
  I urge my colleagues to think this thing through thoroughly so we can 
effectively control the number of abortions that are done every year in 
this society and not only think of the punishment we render by jailing 
people who assist in helping young women get abortions, about 
penalizing families, about forcing young women who might have been 
victims of incest to carry on and find subversive, secret ways to end

[[Page 15617]]

their pregnancies. That is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to 
present young people with knowledge about how they do not get 
themselves in a position where they want to consider an abortion.
  I hope my colleagues will think this problem through thoroughly as we 
debate this issue and recognize that the alternative is strictly a 
punitive one and should not be dictated. I hope they will support this 
amendment.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the Democratic leader and the Republican 
leader had a unanimous consent agreement on this bill, and during that 
time--the way the Senate operates--amendments were exchanged and 
language was handed to each side. We were prepared to debate amendments 
based on text we were given, and in a highly unusual move, the Senator 
from New Jersey has brought forward language that is different than 
what was provided to us in the unanimous consent agreement. At this 
time, having to go through the amendment to see what all the 
consequences of those differences are, I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, that time will be taken off my colleague's 
time.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have a parliamentary inquiry. I ask that 
the quorum be suspended so I can make a parliamentary inquiry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in a quorum call.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent and I would like to make a 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for 
getting through the process. It is not unusual for Senators to be 
permitted to modify their amendments. However, at this point I yield up 
to 15 minutes to my colleague from New Jersey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished senior Senator 
from New Jersey for yielding time and for his leadership on this issue.
  I rise in opposition to the Child Custody Protection Act in support 
of a real solution to the problem of teen pregnancy. I don't support 
the legislation because it is nothing more than a misguided election-
year ploy based on a false premise.
  Instead of punishment, we should be focused on prevention. Instead of 
putting people in jail, we should be preventing teens from getting 
pregnant in the first place. That is why I am joining my fellow Senator 
from New Jersey in offering a comprehensive approach to prevent teen 
pregnancy. Our amendment will help prepare young people with the 
knowledge and skills to make responsible decisions and offer them an 
opportunity to succeed in life.
  In a Senate filled with many different views on the right path for 
our country, it is refreshing to recognize we can all agree that we 
need to reduce the number of teenage abortions. But there is still 
disagreement about how to achieve that goal.
  Many in this Senate believe the answer is to criminalize caring 
adults and threaten innocent youth. I cannot disagree more. The 
solution to this problem does not lie in the courtroom but rather in 
our classrooms and afterschool programs.
  Don't take my word for It. Look at this past weekend's Wall Street 
Journal--not a bastion of liberalism. In an article ``Winning the 
Battle on Teen Pregnancy'' the Wall Street Journal examines a 
comprehensive sex education program in rural South Carolina and 
compares two similar neighboring counties. One has a very intensive, 
comprehensive sex education program, the other does not.
  The findings show that between 1982 when the Teen Life Center Program 
began and 2004, the county's estimated pregnancy rate among girls age 
15 to 19 fell by nearly two-thirds, making its teen pregnancy rate 
among the lowest in the State. By contrast, the neighboring counties, 
which did not have such a program, had one of the highest teen 
pregnancy rates in the State, about 2\1/2\ times their neighbor's rate.
  The article cites Douglas Kirby, a sex education expert:

       The Teen Life Center has played a major role over the years 
     in reducing teen pregnancy in the community it serves.

  Also:

       I do think it's one of the most promising approaches.

  He notes the program devotes an unusual amount of time in the regular 
school curriculum to comprehensive sex education. As this case study 
shows, we clearly need to be putting more resources into preventing 
teen pregnancy, not punishing pregnant teens.
  Rather than invest in proven programs such as the Teen Life Center, 
the Bush administration continues to insist on a narrow-minded, 
misguided approach of abstinence-only education. As this chart 
demonstrates, abstinence only simply does not cut it. The Bush 
administration invested almost $600 million for abstinence-only 
education between 2001 and 2005. Not only did we not see a reduction in 
the number of teens having sex, we actually saw a slight increase. What 
a rate of return. With a rate of return like that, any reasonable 
investor would have already fired their investment adviser long ago. 
The American taxpayers deserve a better rate of return on their 
investment, particularly one that is so critical on this subject.
  The amendment Senator Lautenberg and I are offering takes a 
comprehensive approach to preventing teen pregnancy by providing 
medically and scientifically accurate sex education programs and 
funding important afterschool programs--such as 21st Century Community 
Learning Centers, Trio, and GEAR UP, and the Carol White Physical 
Education Program--that build life skills, put teens on a path to 
college, and ultimately help open the door of opportunity for young 
people. And our amendment also includes a demonstration program to 
encourage new approaches to reducing teen pregnancy.
  It is time to do something more than criminalize grandmothers, 
trusted confidants, and clergy. It is time we do something to actually 
reduce the number of teen abortions. But, once again, the 
administration and this Congress have demonstrated their misplaced 
priorities by bringing this bill to the floor instead of meaningful 
legislation to prevent teen pregnancy.
  Instead of debating comprehensive sex education, which is supported 
overwhelmingly by 94 percent of parents in our country, the Bush 
administration has continued to pursue its unproven abstinence-only 
programs, which have the support of only about 15 percent of parents. 
And instead of working in a bipartisan manner to prevent teen 
pregnancy, the Senate leadership is continuing to pursue their 
misguided proposal to limit the options for young women.
  When the New Jersey Supreme Court struck down a law that would have 
required parental notification, they considered the effect that 
notification laws have had on other States. Their conclusion was the 
same as mine, and I quote:

       [A] law mandating parental notification prior to an 
     abortion can neither mend nor create lines of communication 
     between parent and child.

  For example, in Texas, a pregnant 16-year-old explained why she could 
not tell her mother she was pregnant. She said:

       My oldest sister got pregnant when she was 17. My mother 
     pushed her against the wall,

[[Page 15618]]

     slapped her across the face and then grabbed her by the hair, 
     pulled her through the living room, out the front door and 
     threw her off the porch. We don't know where she is now.

  Furthermore, the underlying bill does nothing to protect a young 
woman whose father rapes her. Despite such a despicable violation, he 
would still be allowed to make parental decisions on her behalf. 
Instead of punishing him, we would punish grandmothers or clergy who 
actually have to try to protect her from such an abusive relationship.
  Now, these are horrible situations, but they are real life 
situations, and by forcing a minor to ask an abusive, violent parent 
for permission, we are only adding to the abuse.
  Now, as a father of a beautiful and bright daughter and fabulous son, 
I would hope that my children would feel comfortable talking to me 
about their serious life decisions. And because I am blessed to have a 
great, open relationship with my children, I believe they would be 
comfortable bringing these issues to me. Unfortunately, our Government 
cannot legislate positive family relationships in every home, and not 
all families function like yours or mine. Sadly, not every parent can 
be their daughter's best advocate.
  Further, the New York Times analyzed six States that recently passed 
parental consent laws and discovered that these laws have done little 
to reduce the number of teen pregnancies or the number of abortions.
  As a matter of fact, look at this chart. You can see that the United 
States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy among all westernized 
developed countries. Despite what you hear from the Bush administration 
and some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, abstinence-
only programs and restrictions on a woman's right to choose are not the 
way to solve this problem. Clearly, we need a different direction.
  Our amendment offers a real, proven solution to this problem--not 
just a hallowed, base-building effort. We need to make sure we are 
standing up first and foremost for the health and safety of our 
children. The time has come to reduce the number of teen pregnancies, 
and thus teen abortions, in this country, and our commonsense amendment 
will do just that.
  We need to invest in our school, community, and faith-based 
organizations so they can teach scientifically and medically accurate 
family life education. We need programs that encourage teens to abstain 
from sexual activity. We need to educate young men and women about the 
responsibilities and challenges associated with parenting. We need to 
encourage parents to communicate with their teens about sex. We need to 
teach young people how to make responsible decisions. And we need to 
fund afterschool programs that will enrich their education and replace 
unsupervised hours that can lead to destructive behavior with 
constructive activities and positive role models.
  We know afterschool programs reduce risky adolescent behavior. 
Teenage girls who play sports, for instance, are more likely to wait to 
become sexually active, which means they are less likely to become 
pregnant.
  We know teen pregnancy has serious consequences for young women, 
their children, and communities as a whole. Too-early childbearing 
increases the likelihood that a young woman will drop out of high 
school and that she and her child will live in poverty.
  Unfortunately, this administration has done nothing to support these 
initiatives that reduce the number of teen pregnancies. Instead, the 
administration has brought a politically charged debate to the floor in 
the name of politics, while the real solutions for our teenagers are 
being ignored.
  Instead of preparing future generations with the important 
information they need to make responsible decisions, this 
administration keeps young people in the dark about medically and 
scientifically accurate sex information.
  Instead of funding important afterschool programs that will build 
life skills and put teens on the road to college, this administration 
is shutting the door of opportunity on young people.
  Instead of breaking the cycle of daughters of teen moms becoming teen 
moms themselves, this administration has made it harder for young 
mothers to go back to school and raise their children.
  Instead of ending the trend of sons of teen moms ending up in prison, 
this administration has increased the number of unsupervised hours and 
decreased the number of positive activities and role models in a teen's 
day.
  Let's join together to recommit ourselves to continuing to decrease 
the incidence of teen pregnancy and recommit ourselves to offering 
family life education and positive afterschool programs that will 
foster responsible young adults and responsible decisions.
  The time is now to invest in our teens. As all parents know, we place 
overwhelming pressure on ourselves to make sure we raise our children 
well. The decisions we make--and they make--will affect them for the 
rest of their lives. We cannot afford to let the doors close on them. 
Instead, we must continue to open that door of opportunity.
  I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this important 
amendment. We have an obligation to stand up and do the right thing. It 
is time to stop talking about putting people in jail, and time to start 
creating real opportunities for future generations. This amendment does 
that.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, one of the principal obligations of 
government should be to enable families to grow and prosper and bring 
new life into the world. Our policies and our actions should be aimed 
at helping all families thrive in this great land of opportunity. 
Surely, we can agree that Congress should do all it can to help young 
women make choices that will help them be part of such thriving 
families.
  In this land that cherishes individual rights and liberties, a woman 
has the constitutional right to make her own reproductive decisions, 
and I support that right. But abortion should be rare, as well as safe 
and legal. For that reason, being pro-choice also means helping women 
choose whether to become pregnant and providing them with support so 
they can make choices about their pregnancy that are not determined by 
their inability to afford or care for a child.
  Congress and the administration can take a number of constructive 
steps to enhance choice and help to reduce the number of abortions. 
Unfortunately, time and time again, this Republican Congress and this 
Republican administration have turned their backs on women who need our 
help.
  If Congress were serious about reducing abortions, we would be 
expanding family planning. But the administration and the Republican 
Congress have refused to increase funding for these important programs.
  A serious effort to create a true culture of life would also include 
providing additional options to teenagers who become pregnant, such as 
by supporting adoption and foster care. But last year this Congress 
limited the number of children eligible for foster care and reduced 
assistance to States for their foster care systems.
  Another way to reduce abortions is to promise a pregnant teenager 
that she and her child can rely upon some basic minimum of health care. 
For a third of all mothers and babies in America, that means Medicaid. 
Medicaid also provides the prenatal and pediatric care that children 
need to be healthy. But earlier this year, the administration proposed 
$13.5 billion in budget cuts to Medicaid.
  A further source of help to young women who are pregnant is through 
the maternal and child health services block grant, which serves 27 
million women and children. Here, too, an administration that calls 
itself pro-life should be doing all it can to provide services to 
infants. But the President's budget proposes only $693 million for a

[[Page 15619]]

program that was funded at $730 million just 3 years ago.
  If the administration wanted to reduce abortions, it would promise 
women that their infants will not go hungry. But President Bush has 
proposed cuts to the WIC Program that would reduce services across the 
program and cut out of the program entirely as many as 850,000 mothers 
and children.
  Abortions would be rarer if young mothers could depend upon 
childcare. This Congress has underfunded childcare by $10.9 billion. 
The result is that 600,000 fewer children will have their childcare 
subsidized.
  In short, there are many constructive steps that Congress could take 
today to reduce teenage pregnancy and promote a true culture of life. 
Instead, the Republican leadership has decided to play politics with 
the health of young women. The bill we are debating today does nothing 
to stand by young women in their time of need. It does nothing to 
prevent unwanted pregnancies. It does nothing to reduce abortions by 
letting women know that their infant will be fed, have good health 
care, and be cared for. It does not even prevent minors from crossing 
State lines to obtain an abortion. Instead, it threatens prison time to 
anyone who helps them to do so, even if the person providing assistance 
is a compassionate grandparent or aunt or uncle or even a member of the 
clergy.
  Congress ought to have higher priorities than turning grandparents 
into criminals. I believe parental involvement is extremely important 
to teenagers' lives, and never more so than when a minor must make an 
extraordinarily difficult decision. But the Federal Criminal Code is 
not the right tool to improve communication and trust between parents 
and their daughters.
  Constructive steps that would actually work to make abortion rare are 
contained in the Menendez-Lautenberg amendment on teenage pregnancy 
prevention. It calls for comprehensive sex education, not misleading 
abstinence-only programs. It increases the authorization for 
afterschool programs that encourage academic achievement, such as Trio, 
GEAR UP, and 21st Century Community Learning Centers that help keep 
teenage girls out of trouble. It increases funding for the Carol White 
Program, which encourages young women to become involved in sports, 
since we know that young women who participate in sports are far less 
likely to become pregnant.
  Why aren't we spending our time helping young women succeed instead 
of denying them help in their time of need? The answer is that real 
solutions would unite us at a time when Republicans want to divide us.
  I urge all of those who want to make abortion rare to rethink our 
shopworn slogans and pat answers. The way to foster a culture of life 
is not through a culture of war.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Who yields time?
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, we all agree that teenage pregnancy is a 
problem in the United States. And there are various views on the best 
way to deal with teenage pregnancy and how to prevent it and lower the 
rate of teenage pregnancies.
  The Lautenberg-Menendez amendment is an attempt to do that. I think 
it is a misguided attempt. Let me point out some of the problems that I 
think are present in this amendment. Let's talk a little bit about what 
the amendment does.
  First, sex education decisions have long been left to parents and 
local communities. When communities offer sex education programs in 
public schools, parents are typically heavily involved in deciding the 
scope of that education. Parental and local control of this issue is 
appropriate because the issues involved are uniquely related to 
parents' cultural, religious and moral values, and attitudes, as well 
as those of the community. The Menendez-Lautenberg amendment would send 
$100 million into localities in an effort to override the parents' and 
local community's decisions about how to raise their children. It is a 
prescriptive amendment about how these programs are to be set up.
  These grants would require recipients to conduct sex education 
programs and would prohibit the recipients from providing abstinence-
only education. All recipients of grant moneys would be required to 
teach children about all contraceptives, including condoms, the pill, 
and plan B emergency contraceptives. The amendment also reauthorizes 
and increases appropriations for a variety of other programs. I will 
talk about that in a moment.
  Under this amendment, none of the authorized moneys would be 
available for programs focusing on abstinence only or for programs that 
refuse to discuss controversial contraceptives such as plan B, which 
many Americans view as an abortion pill.
  There is a program out there called Best Friends. Under this program, 
teenagers are 6\1/2\ times less likely to have sex than their 
counterparts, about two times less likely to drink alcohol than their 
peers, eight times less likely to use drugs, more than two times less 
likely to smoke. Under this amendment, Best Friends would not qualify 
for grant monies available through this amendment.
  While the authors of this amendment have offered it in good faith it 
is misguided.
  Dr. Coburn and I got to know each other very well, when we served in 
the House together. He has been out there on the front lines, actually 
delivering babies. He talks to a lot of young girls and boys about 
their involvement or lack of involvement in sexual activities when they 
are young.
  I yield Senator Coburn 10 minutes to speak on the bill and this 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a philosophical debate. There are 
two questions we ought to ask ourselves: How many people think it is in 
the best interests of our young people to be sexually active outside of 
marriage? Is there anything positive that ever comes from that? Is 
there positive self-esteem? Is there disease? Are there consequences to 
the fact that when our young people make a decision to become sexually 
active, almost always there is a negative downside?
  Everybody in this body desires the best for our children. We desire 
the best for one another's children. We desire the best for every 
child. I have delivered over 4,000 babies. Most of those were Medicaid 
or teenage moms. I have been doing that for 23 years. I know the 
attitudes. I know what is going on. I can see.
  I have also seen every complication that can come about when we take 
the parents out of the loop, when we rationalize, well, if the parents 
aren't going to do it, the Government is going to do it for them. What 
we do is divide. We make division between children and parents. We do 
something out in the dark.
  I will never forget, I was in Stigler, OK, a small community. A 
farmer comes in there crying, with a bag in his hand. This was when I 
was a Congressman. He said: Congressman, how did this happen? My 13-
year-old last night came home from the health department. She went with 
a friend. She came home from the health department with contraceptives 
and condoms, oral contraceptives and condoms. He said: How is it that I 
can pay my taxes and I am undermined by the local health department in 
what my child gets? She wasn't even going for her as an appointment. 
But she is sold on the fact that she needs to do this. She had good 
enough training that she came to her parents with that and said: Here 
is what happened to me.
  The point is, as a practicing physician, I use every tool I can with 
young women to make sure they are well informed. But there is a tipping 
point about what the best medical advice is. This is debatable. But I 
would tell you the best medical advice we could give our young men and 
women, the best absolute medical advice is to stay abstinent until you 
are in a married relationship. Everybody in this body probably agrees 
with that.
  If that is true, if risk avoidance is the best message, why do we 
turn around and give 1200 percent more money to risk reduction than we 
do

[[Page 15620]]

risk avoidance? For every dollar we spend on abstinence education, we 
spend $12 on teaching people how to lower the risk. What is the message 
we are sending with that? We are going to spend $600 million this year 
on what this amendment does already. That is what we are going to 
spend. If you add up everything associated with this amendment, we are 
going to spend another $600 million. First, where are we going to get 
the money? We don't have it so we are going to borrow it from the very 
children we say we want to protect to do this.
  No. 2, we are winning the war in this country on teenage pregnancy. 
We are winning the war. We have the highest level of virgin 16-year-
olds we have had in 30 years in this country, both men and women, both 
girls and boys. I don't know if 1200 percent more of that is because we 
have comprehensive sex education or whether 100 percent of it is 
because of abstinence. I don't know that. But what I do know is, I am 
not going to vote for anything that destroys relationships as I have 
seen in my practice for young women for years.
  Does that mean somebody who can't get available maternal child health 
should be denied it? No. Does that mean somebody who seeks out the 
right guidance should be denied it? No. This isn't a debate about not 
doing what we are already doing. We are already doing it. The question 
is, should we do more? Should we penalize the best medical advice that 
is out there, which is to abstain? The consequences of that would be 
disastrous.
  The moral rationalization is if you make a mistake, there are no 
consequences. I have seen the consequences. Condoms on teenagers work 
about 50 percent of the time, if you add up all the studies. The STD 
rate for teenagers, even when used perfectly, for human papilloma virus 
is still 38 percent, the No. 1 cause of cervical cancer. We can 
rationalize our moral principle away or we can say: Here is where we 
should go. We are not talking about changing anything.
  The President was widely attacked that he hadn't increased moneys for 
all this. We don't have money to increase anything in this country. We 
are fighting a war. We have had Katrina. We are running a $350 billion 
deficit. We don't have money. So if we are going to do this, what 
program are we going to cut? Or are we going to offer another $600 
million? By the way, the title X program hasn't been authorized in 16 
years and we are still appropriating moneys.
  There is a difference in philosophy. It doesn't mean I am right or 
wrong. It doesn't mean those who oppose me are wrong or right. But what 
I have seen from experience is when we honor virtue, when we mentor 
integrity, when we encourage the right choices, what we get is right 
choices, honor, and integrity. When we rationalize the consequences of 
violating principles that are for a healthy productive life, we get a 
consumption of errors.
  I have so many stories I would love for this body and the American 
people to know about the people I have cared for, the consequences of 
when we rationalize a moral principle of being pure until you are in a 
married relationship. Is that prudish? Does it happen? It happens a lot 
more than we give credit for.
  The question we ought to ask ourselves is, would it happen more if we 
set the example, if we didn't glorify the other position, if we didn't 
rationalize the position?
  I am opposed to the amendment on three grounds. One, we are already 
spending a ton of money on comprehensive sex education. I am not 
opposed to that. I teach condoms. I teach barrier methods. I also teach 
the consequences and the failure rates. I teach the consequences of 
oral contraceptives. We only have about 10 kids a year die in this 
country because they are given birth control pills that the parent 
didn't even know about and they have a thromboembolic event because 
there is a family history that was never related. So it is OK to 
sacrifice those 10 young girls because we didn't want their parents, 
who could have made a decision, to know. We could have done that, but 
we are not going to do that. We are going to rationalize the behavior 
of something that is not as good for our children, that is not the best 
medical advice, and we are going to sacrifice those lives. I am going 
to oppose it because we are already doing it, No. 1.
  No. 2, we already have a markedly distorted ratio against the best 
medical advice on which we all agree, the best thing our kids could do 
is not be sexually active outside of a monogamous, long-term 
relationship. We all agree to that. There is not anybody who disagrees 
with that.
  And finally, why is it here? Why is it on this bill? It is because we 
don't want this bill. Some of us don't want this bill to pass.
  I will relate to you a story about a gal. I will call her Julie 
because I can't mention her name. Julie is dead. Julie was 16 years of 
age. Her parents didn't know she had a termination to her pregnancy. 
When I saw her in the ER at 2 o'clock in the morning, she had a fever 
and a little bit of bleeding. She had a botched abortion with an 
infection developed, what is called disseminated intravascular 
coagulation. And basically 3 days later, despite all the heroic events, 
she died. Why did she die? She died because we separated the choices 
that she made from her parents without their involvement. Would she 
have died if somebody had cared to know what her immediate post-op 
followup condition was? No. Had she had intervention earlier, would she 
have died? No. Her parents will never get over the fact that they 
weren't there. They blame themselves.
  I oppose this amendment and hope other Members will do so as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I yield 8 minutes to my colleague from 
New York State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I have great deal of respect for the 
experience of my colleague from Oklahoma. I believe he has served his 
patients in a conscientious, caring manner for all those 20-plus years 
he has been practicing medicine as an OB/GYN. He comes to the floor 
with his own experience. It is entitled to great weight because it is 
his experience. He has very passionately set forth his strong beliefs. 
I come from a different perspective. I have been a lawyer for a number 
of years. I was a law professor running a legal aid clinic at the 
University of Arkansas in Fayetteville not far from the Oklahoma border 
when one day in my office I got a call from one of the local judges 
telling me he had assigned me to a case. That was pretty common.
  I said: Judge, what kind of case is it?
  He said: Well, I want you to represent this man who has been accused 
of raping a 12-year-old girl he is related to.
  I said: Judge, I don't really want to do that.
  He said: Professor, you are going to do it because I am signing the 
order right now.
  So I did. I got into the details of this sordid crime and how this 
man who was related to this family had abused this child. And the 
family, to be charitable, wasn't really all that attentive or caring. 
They were people of very modest means. They lived a pretty disorganized 
life, and they didn't watch out for their children. There wasn't what 
we would call the kind of relationship and dialog and discussion that 
every one of us wants to have with our own children and would hope to 
nurture in others.
  So I did my duty and I represented this man. But I often wondered 
about that little 12-year-old girl. About a year later, my phone rings 
again. This time, it is the prosecuting attorney. He said: Well, 
Professor, we have another case for you.
  I said: I have done my part.
  He said: We need you. We want you to represent a father who is 
accused of impregnating both of his daughters. The older daughter has 
had her baby and she is about 14. The younger daughter is now pregnant. 
The older daughter has come to us and said that it was the father, and 
she is desperate for us to take her younger sister away from this 
environment.

[[Page 15621]]

  I said: You know, Mr. Prosecutor, find somebody else to do this.
  He said: Well, you did such a good job in that bad case last year, we 
just need you to do this.
  I said: I really don't want to do it.
  He said: Well, I am having the judge sign the order.
  I got deeply into the family dynamics of this perverse, incestuous 
family. I met the 14-year-old who already had a baby, and I met the 12-
year-old who was now pregnant with her father's baby. And my heart just 
broke. Who was that child supposed to talk to? Where was that child 
supposed to go? The sister was trying to help her younger sister. If 
she had a driver's license, she might have driven her to where she 
could have gotten medical care.
  A couple years later, I was practicing law in Little Rock, and 
Arkansas had a parental consent law with a judicial bypass. People were 
called by judges whenever this occurred and were asked to come and 
represent the young girl who was appearing before the court. I got 
called one day, as I was on the list as a practicing lawyer. So I went 
and met my client, a 15-year-old girl. She had been raped by her 
mother's boyfriend and was pregnant. Her mother could have cared less. 
Maybe her mother should have cared. Lord knows, I wish she had cared. 
But she didn't want to disrupt the relationship with the boyfriend. So 
the girl needed to come to court and get a judge to give her permission 
because there was no parent. There may have been a biological parent, 
but there wasn't a parent in any sense of the word other than biology.
  By that time, I had my own daughter and I thought, what a tragedy. 
You know, life isn't always the way we wish it would be. Sometimes 
tragedies happen and sometimes families are not just negligent but 
abusive. Sometimes young girls are taken advantage of by members of 
their family, people in whom they should be able to trust.
  So I just have to say that when we talk about experience, we can all 
bring experience to the floor of the Senate. We can talk about the many 
instances where things worked out, parents did do the right thing; they 
gave their children the right values, gave them the appropriate 
education to know how to take care of themselves, to respect 
themselves. But I have lived long enough to know that is not everybody. 
I wish it were. But in the meantime, we are going to sacrifice a lot of 
girls' lives. I think that is unfortunate, to say the least.
  We now know, because we have research to prove it, what works. We 
know that in South Carolina--for example, in a Wall Street Journal 
article recently was a story about small, impoverished towns that had a 
high rate of teenage pregnancy, and they decided they wanted to do 
something and they got help. They had one-on-one coaching sessions for 
parents who would come and participate. They preached abstinence, but 
they also taught about contraception and they made it clear what they 
wanted their children to do, how they expected them to behave to try to 
prevent irresponsible sexual activity and pregnancy. They tried to make 
both the young women and the young men accept responsibility for their 
actions.
  I know, too, in my State, we have a lot of grandmothers and aunts who 
are raising children. The Child Custody Protection Act would put any 
family member--a sister, aunt, or grandmother--in jail for helping a 
teenager deal with one of the most difficult decisions that any person 
has to make. I don't believe that these young women should make those 
decisions alone. Certainly, we are complicating the lives of everyone 
instead of doing our duty as parents, as family members, and as 
leaders, which is to inculcate and pass on values but to recognize that 
reality is messy. I have championed kinship care, and I know how many 
grandparents are raising children, and I know from my own personal 
experience how many older relatives who are faced with very difficult 
situations would be criminalized if they tried to reach out and help a 
young girl who asked them for that kind of assistance.
  The Child Custody Protection Act, while seeking to criminalize what a 
teenager does once she is pregnant, fails to address the issue of teen 
pregnancy in this country, the root of the problem.
  To address only how teenagers should behave once they become pregnant 
without any resources on the front end to prevent a pregnancy is 
shortsighted, to say the least.
  One of the most important initiatives I worked on as First Lady and 
am proud to continue to champion in the Senate is the prevention of 
teen pregnancy.
  In 1996, we worked with the National Campaign To Prevent Teen 
Pregnancy to set a goal to reduce teen pregnancy by one-third within a 
decade, and I am proud to say that we met that goal.
  But we did not do it overnight. We invested over a period of time. We 
invested in different programs and initiatives, recognizing that this 
issue could not be solved with a one size fits all approach. And 
according to the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, between 
1991 and 2004, the teen birth rate fell 33 percent to a record low for 
those aged 15 to 19.
  And while we are all pleased that the teen pregnancy rate has dropped 
since 1991--as I am that in my home State of New York, it's come down a 
full 10 percent--we also recognize that this is just a drop in bucket 
if we are truly going to get to the root of the problem and eliminate 
pregnancy among girls and boys who are far too often too young and 
unprepared, emotionally and financially, to be mothers and fathers.
  Sadly, even with this decrease, the United States continues to have 
the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births in the Western 
industrialized world.
  Today, 34 percent of young women become pregnant at least once before 
they reach the age of 20, and that results in about 820,000 teen 
pregnancies a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended.
  We also have an overwhelming body of evidence about the repercussions 
of teen parenting. Children born to teen moms begin life with the odds 
against them; they are more likely to be born a low birth weight baby, 
which is connected to a host of long-term health problems.
  They are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade and significantly 
more likely to be victims of abuse and neglect.
  In addition, girls who give birth as teenagers face a long, uphill 
battle to economic self-sufficiency and self-esteem, with only 32 
percent of teenage mothers who begin their families before age 18 ever 
completing high school.
  For all these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support the 
Lautenberg-Menendez amendment that seeks to increase funding to 
critical programs that are helping to decrease teen pregnancy in our 
country.
  Last week, CNN highlighted in a story what research has consistently 
shown: Teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education that includes 
discussion of contraception are more likely than those who receive 
abstinence-only messages to delay sexual activity and to use 
contraceptives when they do become sexually active.
  And this past Saturday, a Wall Street Journal article featured how 
small, impoverished towns in South Carolina are showing the lowest teen 
pregnancy rates in the country. Both places owe their success to 
comprehensive sex education. From one-on-one coaching sessions for 
parents and teens to teaching about contraception, the towns are 
proactive in making kids more aware of the dangers that are out there 
if they don't practice safe sex.
  This further reinforces the need to implement policies that support 
and educate young women about all of the facts, so that they do not 
become pregnant in the first place.
  Teenagers need to be educated that abstinence is the best defense 
against an unwanted pregnancy, and they also need to be educated and 
encouraged to exercise cautious decisions about sex.
  We should not have a cookie cutter approach to preventing teen 
pregnancy. In instances where young people

[[Page 15622]]

are sexually active and are likely to remain so, we need to ensure that 
they are encouraged to use contraception consistently and carefully.
  As policymakers, we need to recognize what works and what doesn't 
work, and to be fair, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of 
abstinence-only programs. I don't think this debate should be about 
ideology. It should be about facts and evidence. We have to deal with 
the choices young people make, not just the choice we wish they would 
make. We should use all the resources at our disposal to ensure that 
teens are getting the information they need to make the right decision 
and that we remain a part of the solution by supporting programs and 
policies that deal with all the layers of this issue, not just a one 
size fits all approach.
  Sadly, instead of putting resources into this important fight to 
prevent teen pregnancy, we are adding more penalties for those who try 
to help teens during their time of crisis.
  The Child Custody Protection Act would put any family member--a 
sister, aunt, grandmother--in jail for helping a teen cross State lines 
to obtain an abortion.
  I don't believe that any young woman should have to make this 
decision alone. Research actually shows that in most cases, young women 
already involve one or both parents when faced with an unintended 
pregnancy, without being required to do so by law. But, tragically, not 
every family is perfect. There are some instances in which a young 
woman simply cannot involve her parents, including rape, violence or 
incest; and for some in this body to pretend that those instances 
should not be considered in this debate is unconscionable. The Child 
Custody Protection Act glosses over these complicated situations, 
making criminals out of grandparents, clergy and other adults who try 
to act in good faith.
  Instead of criminalizing other caring adults in a teenager's life, we 
should do more to educate and involve parents about the critical role 
they can play in encouraging their children to abstain from sexual 
activity. Teenagers who have strong emotional attachments to their 
parents are much less likely to become sexually active at an early age.
  I am disappointed that this bill does not provide any exemptions for 
adult relatives or clergy who seek to provide guidance and support to 
young women seeking abortions.
  In the Senate, I have championed the Kinship Care Act which supports 
the many family members in New York and in America who are raising 
children who would otherwise be in the foster care system.
  The reality is, not every child is fortunate enough to be raised by 
their biological parents. Nationwide, more than six million children--1 
in 12 children--are living in households headed by grandparents. In New 
York City alone, there are over 245,000 adolescents already living in 
grandparent households.
  It's important to note that for many families, but these families in 
particular, the legal guardian who has physical custody and who 
provides a young woman with support and guidance are not one in the 
same.
  This bill fails to acknowledge the importance of close family members 
such as grandmothers and aunts, who often raise their relatives or play 
a significant role in their lives.
  In doing so, this bill creates a strong incentive for young women to 
seek risky alternatives she wouldn't have considered if permitted to 
seek counsel from her family and community. Major medical and public-
health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the 
American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health 
Association oppose governmental parental-involvement laws because of 
the risk to women's health.
  While we all hope that young women will involve their parents in 
these decisions, mandating parental consent has the serious potential 
to do more harm than good. In fact, during congressional testimony, Dr. 
Warren Seigel, an expert in adolescent medicine, stated that 
legislation mandating parental involvement ``represents bad medicine 
and places politics before the health of our youth.''
  The Child Custody Protection Act is a reflection of the misdirected 
priorities out there when it comes to truly doing something about 
unintended pregnancy. Rather than criminalizing family members and 
clergy who are trying to provide guidance to these young women in 
crisis, we should be working to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy in 
this country. There are far better ways to prevent pregnancy than 
putting people in jail. We could start by supporting family planning 
services and making sure we're providing medically accurate information 
in sex education classes that includes contraception.
  That is why my good friend Harry Reid and I have long championed the 
Prevention First Act here in the Senate which, among other important 
measures, ensures that Government-funded sex education programs provide 
medically accurate information about contraception.
  And that is also why I rise today to encourage all of my colleagues 
to support the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment because we need policies 
that support and educate our young women about the importance of 
prevention now more than ever.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, just a quick response to our colleague 
and friend from Oklahoma. The fact is, there are certainly different 
views than this well-trained physician offered on the floor of the 
Senate. Parents all across the country--some 90 percent of the parents 
of high school students--insist that they would prefer to have 
comprehensive sex education available for their children.
  The fact that this country of ours doesn't permit anything except 
abstinence only until marriage to be taught is outrageous. Where is the 
fairness? Where is the equity?
  In New Jersey, we have a different view about people's choice than 
they do in Oklahoma. That doesn't mean that Oklahoma is totally wrong 
or that New Jersey is totally right. But the fact is, it is not sinful 
conduct and we ought to encourage people to give the young women a full 
understanding about sex education so they know there are alternatives 
to exposing themselves to an unwanted pregnancy.
  It is outrageous that we want to close down the minds and 
opportunities for people to make a choice about what they do with their 
health and with their families.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I would like to make a few very brief 
remarks in relation to this particular amendment. There is one term 
used in this amendment that is of particular concern. The proponents 
say that they want a ``teen-driven'' approach to sex education. This is 
one of the things they want to encourage. I don't know about what kind 
of teenagers the rest of my colleagues were when they were teenagers, 
but when I was a teenager and if such a program was driven by me, that 
type of sex education program would look a lot different than one that 
would be driven by me as an adult and as a parent. I think focusing 
such a program in a manner that is ``teen-driven'' is just asking for 
problems, as far as what kind of mindset we want our sex education 
programs to contain. It is a minor example of a problem that is in this 
particular amendment.
  Mr. President, because we don't know how much debate we are going to 
have on the underlying bill, I will talk for a couple minutes about the 
bill itself. First, I want to respond to something Senator Clinton said 
when she spoke of the two sisters who were both raped by their father. 
That is a horrible, unimaginable situation. I applaud Senator Clinton 
for her efforts in that family situation. The Senator talked about the 
older sister who wanted to help the younger sister because the older 
sister, had herself, been impregnated. Senator Clinton had said the 
older sister would have gotten in trouble if she would have gone across 
State lines to help her younger sister obtain an abortion.

[[Page 15623]]

  What Senator Clinton pointed out is the exact purpose of this bill. 
The older sister had to get the judiciary involved to remove her sister 
from the abusive situation. Guess what. If the older sister would have 
taken her sister across State lines for an abortion, the legal 
authorities never would have been involved to take the child out of the 
abusive situation, and the younger sister would have been returned to 
an unsafe home where she would have been subjected to continued sexual 
abuse.
  That is the whole point of this legislation, Mr. President. The 
judicial bypass for parental consent or notification that is required 
in most States is the only instances in which this bill actually 
applies. So the bill, I believe, would be consistent with what I 
understand that Senator Clinton wanted for this girl: to get her out of 
an abusive situation.
  Mr. President, will the Chair remind me when I have 5 minutes 
remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, incest is a terrible act, a terrible 
crime. We should not be protecting the people who perpetrate these 
crimes. But at the same time, if there is incest involved we, as a 
society, must take steps to protect the young victims. Imagine a young 
girl who has had this terrible act committed against her and now 
somebody else with good intentions wants to take her across State lines 
to get an abortion. There are several problems raised by this scenario. 
If the judiciary can be involved, at least some of these crimes can be 
addressed. But if the crime remains secret from the parents and there 
is no judiciary involved, this girl will be forced to just goes back 
home, with the abortion hidden, to face continued victimization. The 
second concern that I have relates to the potential medical 
consequences that a young girl might face following an abortion. She 
might encounter a postsurgical infection, or complications if the 
abortion is performed with inaccurate or an incomplete medical history 
of the young girl, like administering some kind of medication or 
anesthesia to which the girl has an allergy. The young girl's parents 
may not know to watch for postsurgical complications. Each of these 
medical concerns become life threatening when friends or a member of 
the clergy are involved rather than the young girl's parents or the 
authorities.
  That is why I think some of the amendments coming up are ill-
conceived and why this bill is so important to enact. I hope that as 
this debate goes forward we can bring out more of these points. I know 
the leaders are trying to work out differences right now.
  I yield whatever time is remaining on this amendment to the Senator 
from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I come to the floor today proud that 
Republicans are working to build a future of hope, by securing our 
homeland, securing our prosperity, and securing our values.
  I believe today's debate over the Child Custody Protection Act cuts 
to the heart of who we are as a people. The ideas this bill is built 
on--preserving life, protecting our children, and upholding the rule of 
law--have defined the American character and shaped our society for 
over 200 years. Our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable among 
us is the surest test of our shared values and the key to our hope for 
a better future for our children and grandchildren.
  There are very few who would disagree that the teenage years are a 
vulnerable and formative time of life. Peer pressure and the anxiety it 
can bring are sometimes overwhelming. From decisions about where to 
attend college, or to understand the negative impacts of things like 
drug and alcohol abuse, parental communication and support are vitally 
important as these young people make these decisions that will 
determine the course of the rest of their lives. Parents need to be 
involved. So it puzzles me that those who oppose this bill would 
essentially give a green light to those who would circumvent State laws 
and rob parents of the chance to give their young daughters the 
physical care and the psychological support they so desperately need.
  Those who oppose this legislation claim that it would endanger teens 
facing truly abusive parents. So they want to strip the overwhelming 
majority of good parents of their rightful role and responsibility 
because of the misbehavior of a few.
  Let's be clear: No one wants to place these vulnerable girls, many of 
whom have already been victimized by older men, into a situation that 
creates more fear than they are already experiencing. That is why 
States have built careful safeguards into their laws to provide 
recourse to those who have genuine reasons to fear an abusive parent.
  I can imagine that the thought of facing any parent, no matter how 
loving, with the news of an unplanned pregnancy is a scary thing. But 
as a father of two daughters, I believe I speak for most parents in 
saying that the health and well-being of my girls is more precious to 
me than anything else in the world. Much worse than hearing of a 
pregnancy would be the news that a daughter was suffering from 
infertility or any of the other severe medical and emotional 
complications often associated with abortion--complications that, in 
many cases, might not be caught until it was too late if the parent was 
unaware of the procedure.
  Other critics argue that this bill would add complicated consent 
regulations or that it would somehow be unconstitutional. Nothing could 
be further from the truth. This legislation does nothing to override 
existing State laws or enforce any kind of Federal mandate on States. 
It simply strengthens the idea that the will of the people of each 
State, as expressed by their elected State officials, should not be 
circumvented for major surgical procedures that have such profound 
moral and medical implications. Furthermore, this bill is designed to 
uphold only those State laws which have been drafted carefully enough 
to pass constitutional muster.
  I am disappointed that this legislation has only attracted one 
Democratic cosponsor, but I am hopeful that my Democratic colleagues 
will not cave to pressure from the well-funded, profit-driven abortion 
industry, which includes Planned Parenthood and its lobbyist allies at 
Emily's List and NARAL. While they may provide significant sources of 
campaign funds, no amount of money can justify their ``abortion at any 
cost'' mentality, especially when that cost is the health and well-
being of teenage girls and the rights of parents who most want to 
protect them.
  An overwhelming majority of Americans understands that taking a minor 
across State lines to obtain an abortion without her parents' knowledge 
is not consistent with our shared values. The Child Custody Protection 
Act is a well-crafted, balanced piece of legislation, and I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join the American people in 
supporting it. It is an important step toward protecting our families, 
securing our values, and building hope for a better future for all 
Americans.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of the time.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote in 
relation to the Lautenberg amendment No. 4689 be at 4:05 p.m., with the 
remaining time between now and then equally divided between the 
proponents and opponents of this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. They have not been ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada.
  There is a lot of interest in this bill. People want to do something 
for our

[[Page 15624]]

young people. People want to avoid these horrible situations. My friend 
cited the case of a young woman who was raped by her father, yet in 
this bill, the father retains all rights to take her over a State line. 
Can you imagine, to sign a parental consent form, a father who raped 
his daughter? So we want to correct these problems.
  I yield 5 minutes to Senator Patty Murray and then 2\1/2\ minutes to 
Senator Lautenberg at the close of the debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator only has 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I was told we have until 5 after, equally 
divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair. It is the first time all day I have 
been correct.
  I yield to Senator Murray 5 minutes and then, at the end of the 
debate, Senator Lautenberg for 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the so-called 
Child Custody Protection Act. This is yet another one of those divisive 
bills with a deceptive title and a dangerous impact on women.
  Today, many Americans are upset about the direction in which our 
country is moving. One would think that the Republican majority would 
finally start addressing the real issues that affect working families 
every day--issues such as access to healthcare, high energy prices, 
fixing the prescription drug program, and protecting our ports.
  But instead, we are seeing yet another debate on election year 
gimmick. Last month, Republicans rolled out a constitutional amendment 
on gay marriage just so they could energize their base. Then they 
brought up a constitutional amendment on flag burning. Now we have a 
divisive bill that threatens the health of women and undermines our 
rights.
  It is no wonder that Americans are so frustrated with the Republican 
majority.
  Today families are facing real challenges, and once again, what we 
see here is the Republican leadership is playing election year games. 
To me, this is just the latest example of how Republicans have the 
wrong priorities.
  With a war overseas, painful cuts to education at home, veterans 
being denied healthcare, soaring energy costs, and mounting debt, the 
Republican majority is saying this is the most important issue we could 
be debating today.
  They should stop wasting time on divisive election year politics and 
start focusing on the real challenges facing the American people.
  We should be talking about pressing needs, not a dangerous and 
misguided bill that threatens the health of our Nation's young women.
  Today's debate comes in the context of a series of attacks on women's 
rights.
  Since 1994, we have seen a consistent and aggressive effort in 
Congress to limit a woman's right to choose.
  There have been more than 170 antichoice votes taken in Congress 
since 1994. This bill follows that troubling pattern.
  The legislation is not about protecting young women, or improving 
communication within families, or stopping sexual predators.
  Instead, it is just another attempt by Republicans to chip away at a 
woman's right to safe and legal reproductive health care.
  Let me turn to the substance of the bill.
  This legislation could criminalize a grandparent, aunt, or adult 
sibling, for responding to a request for help from a young woman in a 
crisis pregnancy situation.
  If any of these caring adults accompany a young woman across State 
lines to obtain reproductive health services, and the woman's home 
State has a parental-involvement law, then those caring adults could be 
criminally prosecuted.
  Today, an amendment will be offered to exempt grandparents and clergy 
from this onerous bill. It is the least we can do to minimize the harm 
of this legislation.
  But this law doesn't stop at turning caring adults into criminals. It 
would also criminalize anyone who transports a pregnant minor across 
any State line.
  Imagine a young woman living in a rural area with no reproductive 
health service providers and the nearest facility is in a large city 
just over the State line. If that young woman boards a bus or takes a 
taxi to the city to get an abortion, the person who drives her could be 
criminally liable under this law and sued by the parents.
  I think we all agree that a young woman facing a crisis pregnancy 
should be encouraged to talk to her parents. According to a study by 
Stanley Henshaw and Kathryn Kost, in the vast majority of these 
situations, the young woman does involve her parents. But tragically, 
in situations where women don't tell their parents, one-third of the 
young women are victims of abuse.
  In an ideal world, every young woman would take to her parents, but 
we don't live in an ideal world.
  The reality is that a young woman cannot always turn to a parent. We 
are not talking about a young woman who is afraid her parents will be 
ashamed or shun her. We are talking about serious situations where the 
young woman may be a victim of incest or abuse.
  A young woman who has an abusive home situation often accurately 
predicts the danger of telling a parent about a pregnancy. This bill 
would punish those young women if they seek the support and help of 
other family members or clergy.
  We live in a time when we have a lot of families who don't fit the 
traditional two-parent model. More and more grandparents are raising 
their grandchildren. Divorced parents are getting remarried, and young 
women can develop close relationships with their stepparents.
  In these families, the caring adult who is responsible for the day-
to-day care of a young woman would be criminally liable and could even 
be sued by an absentee parent.
  We also know that some young women have no other alternative but to 
go to another State to obtain reproductive health services. Access to 
these services all across our country is severely limited--87 percent 
of counties have no providers.
  There are States, such as Mississippi, that have only one provider. 
Our laws should reflect the reality that for some women, these services 
cannot be found locally.
  Unfortunately, the only thing this bill does do is ensure that young 
women who are intent on seeking reproductive health services ``go it 
alone.''
  If a young woman thinks that bringing a caring adult or supportive 
friend will get that person in trouble, she will make the trip on her 
own.
  You wouldn't want your children to drive home from the hospital after 
having surgery, but this legislation will result in young women driving 
themselves after having a medical procedure.
  How can my colleagues say that this bill is about the safety of young 
women when it actually endangers them more?
  Proponents claim that the ``judicial bypass procedure'' is an 
adequate protection for young women who feel they can't involve their 
parents. That is not the case.
  A young woman would have to go to a courthouse, get a hearing, tell 
the judge and anyone else in the courtroom her situation, and wait for 
a judge to rule.
  Now imagine that this happens in a small town where the judge is 
friends with her parents. Whether it is a big city or a small town, a 
young woman who has never been to court could find the whole process 
intimidating and overwhelming.
  This bill doesn't even have an exception to protect the health of 
young women. That raises huge constitutional questions.
  Since Roe v. Wade, every constitutional Federal law restricting a 
woman's right to choice has contained a health exception, and many laws 
have been struck down because they lack one.
  Should we really be saying that a young woman's health does not count 
when she faces a crisis pregnancy?

[[Page 15625]]

  Is this Senate ready to tell young women that their health and safety 
do not matter?
  This bill doesn't care about a young woman's health--and it barely 
even cares about her life. That is because the bill's exception for a 
life-threatening situation is very narrow and very limited.
  In addition, according to experts who have studied it, this bill 
could effectively nullify the laws of States that allow physicians to 
provide confidential medical services to minors, such as my home State 
of Washington.
  The people of my State have twice affirmed a woman's right to choose. 
That is the settled position of our State. This bill could reach into 
my home State and effectively eliminate those protections.
  No matter how one feels about this bill, I think everyone should be 
concerned that Federal intervention could undermine the ability of 
States to set their own laws on this difficult subject.
  The House version goes even further, potentially making criminals out 
of Washington State physicians who follow the laws of Washington State.
  Proponents of this bill claim that it is needed to prevent sexual 
predators from taking pregnant young women across State lines to obtain 
reproductive health services against their will. But that is not how 
the bill is written.
  If it were truly meant to prevent sexual predators from harming young 
women, why would it criminally prosecute a young woman's family 
members, including grandparents, aunts, or adult siblings? Why is the 
scope of this bill so broad that it includes clergy members and even 
unknowing taxi drivers?
  Every one of us wants to reduce the numbers of abortions that occur.
  Instead of forcing the Government deeper into sensitive and personal 
family relationships, we should focus on preventing teen pregnancies.
  Mr. President, to summarize, across the country today, Americans are 
very worried about what is going on, whether it is access to health 
care, high energy prices, prescription drug programs, or protecting our 
Nation's security. But instead what we are seeing this afternoon is an 
election year gimmick.
  Last year, we saw a constitutional amendment on gay marriage to 
energize their base, and then they brought up a constitutional 
amendment on flag burning, and now we are having a debate, instead of 
on the issues which are on the front burner for every American family, 
about the health of women and how we are going to undermine their 
rights. I find that very sad.
  Let me talk a few minutes about the substance of this bill. As my 
colleague from California said, this is a bill which is going to 
criminalize a grandparent or an aunt or an adult sibling for simply 
responding to a request for help from a young woman who is in a crisis 
pregnancy situation. We will see later an amendment to exempt 
grandparents and clergy from this onerous bill. I hope we do that. It 
is the least we can do.
  But I think what we should all agree on is that a woman who is facing 
a crisis pregnancy should be encouraged to talk to her parents. In 
fact, we have seen studies by Stanley Henshaw and Kathryn Kost that in 
the vast majority of situations, a young woman does involve her 
parents. But tragically, in situations where women don't tell their 
parents, one-third of those young women are victims of abuse. Those are 
the women we are going to be affecting by legislation such as this.
  In an ideal world, the young woman would talk to her parents, but too 
often, too many young women do not live in an ideal world today. They 
cannot turn to a parent. We need to make sure they have the 
availability of health care for their needs, and this bill takes that 
away.
  Unfortunately what this bill really does is ensure that young women 
who are intent on seeking reproductive health services go it alone. If 
a young woman thinks that bringing a caring adult or supportive friend 
will get that person in trouble, she will make that trip on her own. 
You wouldn't want your children to drive home from the hospital after 
having surgery, but this legislation is going to result in young women 
forced to drive themselves home after a medical procedure.
  I don't see how my colleagues can say this bill is about the safety 
of young women when it actually endangers them more. This bill doesn't 
even have an exception to protect the health of young women, and that, 
frankly, raises huge constitutional questions about which we have 
heard.
  This bill doesn't care about a young woman's health, it barely cares 
about her life, and that is because the bill's exception for a life-
threatening situation is very narrow and very limited and, according to 
experts who studied it, this bill will effectively nullify the laws of 
States such as mine that allow physicians to provide confidential 
medical services to minors.
  For that reason, I will oppose this bill, but I do commend the 
Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg, who is offering an amendment 
that we will be voting on that is a comprehensive approach to 
reproductive health care for our teenagers. It will help reduce teen 
pregnancy, and that is its goal. That amendment would be a good step 
forward, but even that addition is not going to save this flawed bill.
  We should be working on ways to reduce the number of crisis 
pregnancies among teens and women alike. That is why, on issues such as 
emergency contraceptives, I fought so hard to make sure the FDA makes 
its decision based on science on whether that drug is safe or 
effective.
  Unfortunately, the bill we have in front of us today is just another 
ploy for the majority to get their base excited in an election year 
and, frankly, I am deeply concerned that women's lives are being used 
as pawns in a political debate. I believe women's rights should never 
be traded away in a ploy for votes.
  I hope we send a message that we know our country is facing serious 
challenges and we are going to spend our very limited time addressing 
those challenges and fighting for all of our families.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this dangerous, divisive, and 
misguided bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the Senator from California said twice 
today that this bill protects a father who commits incest with his 
daughter. In other words, he can commit a crime and still take her 
across State lines to get an abortion.
  That argument is illogical. Obviously, a father is a parent. In a 
State with a parental consent law, he is a parent with rights under 
State law. If he wants his daughter to have an abortion, to cover up 
his own crime, he can freely give his consent to allow his daughter to 
have the abortion in their State of residence. That father doesn't have 
to take his daughter across State lines. As a result, this bill does 
not affect such an outcome one way or the other. His abuse of his 
daughter in that situation is not only morally wrong, it is illegal. 
This bill doesn't affect that situation one way or another. So to say 
we are protecting a father's right to go across State lines--it is an 
argument, frankly, that just doesn't hold water. It just doesn't. This 
bill doesn't have anything to do with what the Senator was saying.
  Let's just talk about what the bill does. This bill says that if a 
State has enacted a parental consent or a parental notification law and 
if a teenage girl in that State gets pregnant and somebody besides her 
parents wants to take that child across State lines to avoid those 
parental consent or parental notification laws in direct violation of 
what the people of that State want, in direct violation of what the 
parents would want, that act, transporting a child across state lines, 
is a Federal offense. And that crime is punishable with time in prison.
  Look at the consequences of not having this bill. I would point out, 
in order to put this in its proper context for my colleagues, that over 
two-thirds of the girls who have been taken across State lines for an 
abortion have boyfriends who are over 20 years of age. So typically, 
you would have a teenage girl

[[Page 15626]]

with a boyfriend who is significantly older than her. And in the 
context of that relationship, the young girl becomes pregnant. 
Sometimes that pregnancy is the result of a forcible rape, where the 
girl does not consent; in most cases, it is at least statutory rape. 
This legislation will help law enforcement stop adult men from preying 
upon underage girls and violating the law with respect to the crime of 
rape--statutory or otherwise. Which is the right thing to do. This bill 
makes it a further crime if that male takes this young girl across 
State lines to get an abortion to cover up his tracks, basically to try 
to eliminate the evidence of his crime. Without this bill, the man who 
has already taken advantage of a young girl can further endanger her, 
by forcing her to have an abortion, with potential emotional scarring 
beyond what she has already gone through and potential physical 
scarring. In an abortion, some women actually become sterile because of 
the procedure, because of complications from the procedure.
  The parents of most children in the United States are responsible. To 
take away their ability to be involved in something that is so 
important, so potentially life-altering with this teenager I believe is 
just wrong, and I think that is why 80 percent of the American people 
support this legislation.
  In polls I have seen, 60-plus percent of people who call themselves 
pro-choice support this legislation.
  We are in a society that is so deeply divided over moral issues, and 
none more divided than this issue--the issue of whether you call 
yourself pro-life, or pro-choice, or anti-choice, or pro-abortion, or 
whatever names that are tossed around. I believe reasonable people can 
at least come together on some restrictions on abortion. This is one of 
those reasonable restrictions. That is why over 80 percent of the 
American people support this legislation.
  It is only constitutional when--and this law only applies when--the 
States have judicial bypass. For those people who are concerned about 
whether in the case of incest the girl is going to be subjected to some 
kind of further abuse, it is reasonable that the judicial bypass is 
there and the reason the courts have recognized that for the parental 
consent cases. We are not forcing States to do anything as far as their 
laws are concerned. We are upholding the intent of the people of each 
State by saying don't circumvent the laws of our State by taking a 
minor outside of our State. The people of that State have spoken. I 
think we should at this point in time try to respect the laws the 
people of that State have enacted. Most importantly, we protect the 
parents' rights and the health and the lives of children across the 
United States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, before we yield the 2\1/2\ minutes, this 
issue of incest is extraordinary. The bill as written ``protects the 
predators on our children who have committed incest.'' All you have to 
do is read it. These parents, these fathers, retain their parental 
rights in the bill. And even under the Ensign amendment it says they 
cannot sue a friendly person for helping their daughter. The government 
under this bill can still go after a grandma, or a clergyman who says 
to a young child, Let me help you, your father raped you. Those vicious 
criminals retain all their rights. It is an absolute outrage.
  The point is, why I am in favor of the Lautenberg amendment is the 
Lautenberg amendment says let us take a step back, let us prevent these 
pregnancies. And if people want to vote against teen pregnancy 
prevention, I guess they have a right to do that. How they would 
explain it is beyond me. We are talking 800,000 teenagers who get 
pregnant, and in about 18 percent it was not intended.
  I thank Senator Lautenberg and yield to him the remaining time before 
the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized. The 
Senator has 1 minute.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, how incomprehensible it is that we 
have a position on the one hand that refuses to acknowledge in this 
body there are other ways to control teenage pregnancies than 
abstinence. We are not against abstinence. There are funds provided in 
the President's budget for 2007 for abstinence--$204 million. This 
amendment asks for additional funding to supply comprehensive 
education. We heard from the Senator from South Carolina saying that he 
describes our values as shared values. But we are not sharing values 
with the people in South Carolina from Bamberg County who had the 
lowest rate of teenage pregnancies after they started a program for 
comprehensive education in South Carolina. The Senator from South 
Carolina said we had to have shared values on these things. But these 
are shared values.
  I hope our colleagues will look at this fairly, and think about the 
women who are hurting because they are prevented from getting an 
education and vote ``no'' on this bill and ``yes'' on my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, one last point related to instances where 
a father has raped his daughter and whether his rights are protected 
under this bill. We have an amendment that will address the concerns 
raised with respect to that issue. The Senator from California 
mentioned that the grandfather could be sued under this bill, could be 
prosecuted under this bill if he took his granddaughter across State 
lines to get the abortion. In that circumstance, the grandparent should 
be calling the local authorities. If it is a clergy, a friend, whoever 
it is that has knowledge of a crime against a child, that person should 
be calling the local authorities so that young child can be removed 
from that awful situation that she is forced to live in. The 
authorities should be involved, and in those cases where pregnancy 
results, the young girl, with the help of her grandparent, clergy 
member or other adult can seek a judicial bypass. I am confident that a 
judge hearing that case would allow an abortion under judicial bypass. 
But if the grandparents or the clergy truly care about, or the friend 
truly cares about that young girl who has been a victim of incest, then 
that adult should contact the local authorities. That is how an adult 
would be acting in the best interests of the child. Otherwise, all the 
adult is doing is taking her across State lines for an abortion, 
bringing her back to her home state, and returning her into the same 
very harmful situation that she was in before.
  I yield the remainder of time. I call for the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CHAFEE). The question is on agreeing to 
the amendment. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 48, nays 51, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 214 Leg.]

                                YEAS--48

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Collins
     Conrad
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                                NAYS--51

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain

[[Page 15627]]


     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Feinstein
       
  The amendment (No. 4689) was rejected.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. THUNE. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the next 
20 minutes, the first 10 minutes be taken by the Senator from Illinois, 
Mr. Durbin, and then the 10 minutes following that would be allotted to 
Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is a difficult issue for most 
Americans, the issue of abortion. There are strongly held feelings on 
both sides and the American people are conflicted. When you probe and 
ask them what they think about abortion, first, they would rather not 
talk about it. I think that is a natural human reaction because we know 
it is a delicate and difficult issue. Secondly, they basically say: 
Well, I don't want to criminalize someone who goes out for an abortion, 
but is there any way to reduce the number of abortions in this country? 
I think that is a natural reaction by most, that we should keep 
abortion legal, not a crime, but reduce the incidents of abortion in 
our country.
  So we have a bill before us today which deals with one aspect; and 
the aspect is, what do we do about the fact that some States have laws 
that require parental consent before a person who has not reached 
adulthood would have an abortion performed and some States do not have 
those laws? What if you move from one State to the other? What law will 
apply?
  Senator Ensign of Nevada brings us his bill and suggests that if you 
knowingly remove a person across one border where parental consent is 
required to another State where it is not required, the person who took 
that minor to that abortion clinic in the State without parental 
consent is going to be liable not just for a civil lawsuit that can be 
filed against them by the parents but also for a crime.
  Their idea is to reduce the likelihood that young people will be 
taken across a State line to a State without parental consent by 
imposing new civil penalties and criminal penalties on those who would 
transport them.
  Senator Boxer of California has come before us and pointed out some 
real problems with this bill. What about the situation where the young 
girl we are talking about has been a victim of incest? Would the father 
then have the right to bring a lawsuit against someone who took the 
daughter he abused across the State line? Nobody wants to talk about 
this issue. This is not the kind of thing you wake up in the morning 
and say: I hope the debate today will be about abortion and incest. But 
that is what we face. We are talking about writing the laws of the land 
in a way that is sensible. You say: That has to be a rare situation. 
Yes, it is. I am sure it is. But for that life and that person and that 
crime, it could be the most important and tragic event that ever 
happened in their lives. That is why we have to take this very 
seriously. We have to write these amendments very carefully.
  The thing that troubles me about this debate is evidenced in the vote 
we just took. Senators Lautenberg and Menendez came to the floor and 
said: If we are truly going to reduce the number of abortions, then we 
have to deal with the reality of family planning and sex education, 
other issues that politicians don't jump forward to speak about. They 
suggested we start creating programs that have been proven to be 
effective, that will help educate young people so they will avoid 
unwanted pregnancies and avoid the diseases and problems that may 
result therefrom.
  What happened on this vote? What happened on a vote where we were 
talking about sex education as part of our approach? It was defeated. 
The approach which is dominant now is not to deal with the reality of 
young people and their knowledge of what they face if they make the 
wrong decision but, rather, punishment, to suggest to them that what 
they have done is not only morally wrong but could be criminal.
  My wife and I have raised three children, two daughters. I know that 
to be a parent is to be countercultural. So many times we would say: We 
don't want you to go to that movie or look at that book; you can't 
watch this television show. Parents do that all the time in the hopes 
that you instill in your kids values they can live by and that they 
will make the right decisions. I never felt at any point that ignorance 
was a virtue. I felt with our kids, as many parents do, you have to be 
honest with them about the realities of life and what they will face.
  The question of abstinence comes up on the floor. It is brought up by 
many. That is the first thing we told our kids: Stay away from sexual 
activity. This is something you shouldn't do. That is the best advice 
from a parent to a child. But beyond that, what more should you tell 
them? Senator Lautenberg suggests you should tell them more in certain 
circumstances, and it was rejected 48 to 51.
  You might ask why we are debating this issue this day. I think it is 
important for us to reflect on why this happens to come to the Senate 
floor today. This issue is before the Senate today for two or three 
reasons. One reason is many Republican Senators who traditionally vote 
against abortion voted for stem cell research last week. This is a 
make-good vote. This is so some of them can remind their antiabortion 
constituencies they are still in their corner. I understand that.
  Secondly, it is a way to kill time in the Senate rather than address 
the real issues the American people care about. This debate over this 
issue is taking time away from any debate on gasoline prices, on health 
insurance, on jobs.
  Third, of course, it fires up a political base on the Republican side 
for the upcoming election.
  A Gallup poll asked 1,000 Americans this open-ended question: What do 
you think is the most important problem facing this country today? They 
asked 1,000 Americans a few months ago. The top vote getters: The war 
in Iraq, gasoline prices, immigration, health care, and the economy. 
Where did the issue of abortion show up on this list? It tied for No. 
33. Less than one half of 1 percent of people said abortion was the 
most important problem facing America today. But it is the most 
important issue in the mind of the Republican leadership that we should 
be debating on the floor of the Senate.
  I hope we are able to work out an amendment to deal with the reality 
of the issue of incest, which is part of the debate, sadly. Perhaps the 
most egregious part of this bill is the fact that there is no exception 
for the case of incest. It empowers the parent who may be guilty of the 
crime to file a lawsuit and recover money because someone else took the 
victim across a State line. That is hardly where we want to go. Many 
incest victims are understandably frightened and don't want to tell 
their parents anything for obvious reasons.
  Listen to the words of Sharon from New Hampshire, raped by her father 
at the age of 17:

       Imagine being 17, pregnant after being raped by your 
     father, alone, isolated, afraid to tell anyone for fear your 
     parents would find out and that, if they did, you would be 
     further humiliated, harassed and abused. . . . I felt and 
     feared these things.

  Consider the case of Spring Adams, a 13-year-old girl from Idaho, 
raped by

[[Page 15628]]

her father and impregnated. A private organization learned about the 
girl, made arrangements to take her to the nearest abortion clinic 6 
hours away to have an abortion. The night before Spring was to leave, 
her father discovered it. When Spring went to sleep that night, her 
father went into her room and shot her to death with a rifle.
  These aren't isolated incidents. One study showed that 30 percent of 
the minors who had an abortion without telling their parents had 
previously experienced violence or threats of violence in their family. 
That is the real world. We should deal with the real world when we 
write these laws.
  I think Senator Ensign understands changes have to be made to this 
bill. I hope we will make them. Let us all agree on this: We need to 
find ways to reduce the incidence of abortion. We need to find ways 
that are sensible and sensitive. Merely telling people you can't do it, 
you shouldn't do it, may not be enough. Education may be part of it as 
well. It is unfortunate the Senate has rejected the Lautenberg 
amendment which would have moved us closer to the point where that 
would have been available in some areas where good family planning 
information would have been available. It was rejected by the Senate.
  Now we come before the Senate with this bill that is subject to 
amendment. We are hoping we can find a reasonable compromise on a very 
difficult and divisive issue.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. I want to go back to the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment. 
It is extraordinary to me; when we try to talk about common ground on 
the issue of pregnancy prevention, doesn't my colleague believe one 
area we ought to all come together on, regardless of whether we call 
ourselves pro-choice or anti-choice, would be preventing pregnancies 
among teens?
  Mr. DURBIN. That ought to be the starting point. Shouldn't we all 
agree on that? If we are going to reduce the incidence of abortion, one 
of the things we should do is make sure young people are aware of 
consequences. We should stress abstinence. The Lautenberg amendment put 
that as the highest priority. But then have family planning information 
available so young people know that there are ways to protect 
themselves. I think that was a reasonable starting point. We had a few 
from the other side of the aisle join us with that amendment but 
clearly not enough.
  Mrs. BOXER. If my friend will further yield, is my friend aware there 
are 800,000 pregnancies among young women and that we could prevent 
these unwanted pregnancies and all of the attendant upset among 
families and that we had an opportunity to do that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds and for 
Senator Santorum to have an additional 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Here we had a chance to do something to prevent these 
unintended pregnancies. This bill focuses on a small number of cases. 
It seems to me by two votes we lost that vote. It is an issue, wouldn't 
my friend say?
  Mr. DURBIN. I would say we have to find very common ground on a 
divisive issue. That was a good starting point. Unfortunately, it did 
not prevail today. We will go on with this debate, but I hope those of 
us who look at this issue and worry over how to reduce the number of 
abortions can work to find some common bipartisan ground to help 
strengthen families and educate their children about the consequences 
of their actions, to promote abstinence but not to promote ignorance.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Child 
Custody Protection Act. I congratulate the majority leader for 
scheduling time for this important piece of legislation, as well as 
Senator Ensign for the terrific work he is doing in managing the 
legislation as the author of the bill.
  This is very important legislation. It has been described many times 
so I won't go into detail. What we are trying to do is protect children 
from being taken across State lines to avoid parental involvement laws. 
As a father of six children, two daughters, I believe parents should be 
involved in the health care decisions of minor children. I am not alone 
in that regard. The vast majority of Americans believe in parental 
consent laws when it comes to having abortion procedures done on 
minors, that parents should be involved in that decision.
  The Senator from Illinois described situations that are certainly the 
exception rather than the rule. When those exceptions arise, in all of 
the States there is a judicial bypass. The Senator from Illinois 
described some pretty horrific circumstances of incest or rape. Here 
you have a situation where if we don't have this law, the rapist or the 
person who committed the incest against this minor child could take 
that child across State lines, never report it to the police, have the 
abortion done, and the parents never know about it. Nobody knows about 
it, and the child is back in the home and potentially in the same 
threatening environment the child was in in the first place. At least 
under our parental consent laws and with this statute, if we are 
successful, the court can get involved. We can remove that child from 
the dangerous situation.
  I don't know why allowing someone surreptitiously to avoid state 
parental consent laws is a benefit to the child. If anything, it is the 
opposite. That is not a rational reason for objecting to this statute.
  Again, I suggest the American public overwhelmingly feels the same 
way. Parents deserve and should have the ability to be consulted and 
notified or give consent, depending on the State, to a medical 
procedure as severe and serious as an abortion.
  If you look at the poll question, do you agree or disagree that a 
person should be able to take a minor girl across State lines to obtain 
an abortion without her parents' knowledge--this isn't consent, it is 
just knowledge--15 percent agree, 15 percent agree with that statement 
that she should be able to be transported across State lines; 82 
percent disagree. They said people should not be able to take a child 
across State lines without the knowledge of their parents. Seventy-five 
percent strongly disagree with the current state of the law which is 
you can transport children across State lines in order to circumvent 
state parental involvement laws.
  In Pennsylvania, all of the surrounding states but the State of Ohio 
have weaker laws on parental involvement than the State of 
Pennsylvania. So a child in the northwestern part of our State can go 
up to New York or, in the eastern part of the State, New Jersey or 
Delaware or, in the southern part of our State, Maryland, West 
Virginia, all of which have laws that are not as favorable to parents 
and children as Pennsylvania with respect to consent.
  This is, unfortunately, not a hypothetical for those of us in 
Pennsylvania. There are cases, unfortunate cases of children being 
taken by a boyfriend or his family members across State lines and the 
horrible consequences that result.
  We also have abortion clinics from other States that advertise in 
Pennsylvania. There are a couple of ads I will put up on the board. 
This is northeastern Pennsylvania. Scranton is there, up near the New 
York border. Here in the Scranton Yellow Pages is the All Women's 
Health and Medical Services in White Plains, NY, a toll free number; 
``We are here if you need us.'' This is, again, advertising in White 
Plains, NY, which is not that close to Scranton. It is at least 50 
miles away. And it talks about no consent, no waiting period. There is 
a parental consent provision in the Pennsylvania statute that was 
upheld as constitutional back in 1992. There is a 24-hour waiting 
period. Again, the clinic is advertising no consent, no waiting period, 
directly aimed at minors in Pennsylvania urging them to come and have 
abortions at their clinic across the State line.

[[Page 15629]]

  Here is another one. This is at the other end of the State, the 
southern part of our State. This is the Yellow Pages in Lancaster. 
Atlantic Women's Medical Services, Inc., no parental consent, 16 years 
and older. The Pennsylvania law is 18 years of age. So if you are 16, 
17, they require no consent; again, directly targeted at a State, 
encouraging women and others to bring young women across the State line 
for abortions. They advertise abortions to 24 weeks, the abortion pill, 
low fees, all trying to make sure these young girls know that abortions 
are available without consent.
  This is not a hypothetical. This is direct marketing to minors, 
direct marketing in the Yellow Pages to minors who are desperate and, 
in many cases, afraid and feel alone. They are marketing to these 
vulnerable children to get them to not talk to their parents but to 
come and get an abortion out of State, against their State laws. This 
is, again, not just a hypothetical but a real-life situation. And which 
I will share a case.
  We had a case in Lancaster, PA, which began on Christmas Eve, 2004. A 
14-year-old told her mother she was pregnant. The parents were prepared 
to be supportive, to help that child in whatever decision she made and 
in scheduling appointments with doctors, counselors, and other programs 
that could help this child get through this very difficult situation. 
The daughter chose to have the baby and raise it with the love and 
support of her family.
  But the boyfriend's family didn't like the young girl's decision and 
began to harass and coerce the girl and her family in order to 
intimidate her into getting an abortion. The mother called the local 
police for advice and even called an abortion clinic to see how old you 
needed to be to have an abortion in Pennsylvania because she was afraid 
that her daughter might be pressured toward an abortion. She was told 
the daughter needed to be 16 though that was actually incorrect because 
she needed to be 18 to have an abortion without consent. Therefore, her 
mother thought she was protected.
  That wasn't the case. In mid-February, she sent her daughter off to 
school, but the daughter never made it there. Her boyfriend's family 
met her and her boyfriend down the road, put them in a cab and then on 
a train, and then a subway to New Jersey, where his family met them and 
took them to an abortion clinic where one of them had made an 
appointment. The young girl had second thoughts, but she was told they 
would leave her in New Jersey if she didn't undergo an abortion.
  After the abortion, the family of the boyfriend, who may have been 
attempting to conceal the evidence of his statutory rape, drove her 
back to Pennsylvania. Again, this left the young woman completely 
unprotected with the state not being able to go after this young man 
and his family for taking her across state lines for an abortion. That 
is what it seems was behind the parents trying to get rid of this 
child. This is a situation which should not happen. We have State laws 
that protect children and parents and their rights to be able to 
nurture and help their children along the way.
  This was a difficult circumstance, and as I said before, there are, 
unfortunately, others. We even have in the State of Pennsylvania 
organizations outside of these legal clinics that are trying to give 
advice and help to minor children on evading the parental consent laws. 
There is an organization called the Women's Law Project. It says here 
in their publication, ``Is it legal for teen-aged women to cross State 
lines to get an abortion?'' This is a document which is handed out and 
given to young women to help them avoid the State laws that are in 
place for parental consent. It says:

       Yes. However, the adult may risk a charge of interfering 
     with the custody of a minor. Adults who are accompanying 
     young women under 14 to out-of-State abortion providers 
     should contact a lawyer for the Women's Law Project.

  So if you are over 14 years of age, they assure you that you can go 
to an abortion clinic out of State. If you are under 14, your 
accompanying adult may have to call our lawyers to take care of the 
situation.
  This is a real-world situation, a problem we are confronted with in 
this country. All we are trying to do is let the State laws, the 
collective wisdom of the people of Pennsylvania, have effect, have 
efficacy; that the laws which are put in place are there to protect 
children and the rights of parents. The only one that can stop others 
from getting around those protections and avoiding State laws is the 
Federal Government, by stopping the interstate transportation of these 
children for the purpose of abortion.
  So this is a vitally important piece of legislation for the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is one in which I am hopeful that 75 
or 80 percent of the Senate will agree with when it is all said and 
done because it is vitally important, for the health of our children 
and for the stability of families, to give families and children this 
legal protection. That is what we are doing. That is what these States 
have done--given legal protection from further abuse of minors who find 
themselves in a situation where they are pregnant and under, obviously, 
a horrible situation in their lives. They need their parents. Where the 
parents are the problem or a threat to them, there is a judicial 
bypass. We have in place safeguards where parents are the problem, 
which, again, is a minority of situations. We do have protections in 
place.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. The bill creates a civil cause of action the parents can 
bring. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania believe that in one of those 
rare, tragic cases of incest and the father is the reason for the 
incest, he should be allowed to bring a civil cause of action against 
the person who has transported the victim?
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Nevada has an amendment which is going 
to take care of that situation. I will defer to him, if he would like 
to answer that question on how the amendment would work to preclude 
that problem.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Pennsylvania has 
expired.
  The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, to answer the Senator from Illinois, we 
are going to fix that. We realized we needed to fix that problem, and 
we have an amendment. The Senator addressed this, and that will be one 
of the amendments that is coming up.
  I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Kansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada, and I 
thank the leadership for bringing up this topic. It is commonsense and 
pro-family legislation. I hope we pass it in an overwhelming fashion 
through this body and that it arrives on the President's desk once we 
go through conference committee and get it back here and that it can 
become the law of the land.
  The bill has been described in many different iterations. I believe 
people understand the concept of what is being put forward about 
involving the family. I believe this is a significant pro-parent, pro-
child, pro-life piece of legislation. It is a bill that everybody knows 
is to help to preserve this role by making it illegal for somebody to 
take a child across State lines for an abortion, thereby circumventing 
parental rights laws in the State where the child resides. That is all 
well known. The issue I wish to deal with briefly, if I could, is the 
commonsense feature of this legislation.
  Everybody has talked about the examples of how you cannot get an 
aspirin in school without the parents' permission. You virtually cannot 
do any medical procedure without the parents' permission, except an 
abortion. Everybody looks at that, and they are quizzical and wonder 
why there is this exception.
  I wish to talk about the commonsense feature of this. Why is it that 
we don't give aspirin to children at school? Why is it that we require 
that

[[Page 15630]]

parents are involved in the medical decisions of their children? The 
reason, I think--and most people look at it as common sense--is that 
there are consequences to this. If this happens, if the child has a 
response to the aspirin or if the child has some reaction to a minor 
surgery, the parent needs to be involved. Something might happen, so 
the parent needs to know. We need to take care of the child. The 
parents have the role of being entrusted with that child's life and 
working with that child and therefore needs to be actively engaged in 
knowing what is going on with the child.
  We have held hearings in the Senate and in the House of 
Representatives, and many States have held hearings on the impact of 
abortion on women. There are groups that are formed about the impact of 
abortion on women, both physically and psychologically. We have had 
expert witnesses present and testimony about how abortion impacts and 
harms women physically and psychologically. There have been books 
written on this topic. Some people say: We don't think it has as big an 
impact as you say it has. Others say: I think it has a bigger impact. 
That debate can be taken, I suppose, to any medical procedure on a 
child.
  The point of the issue is that we have the parents there to help them 
help the child, and they decide. That is who is making the decision. 
That is who is making the decision on whether the child gets minor 
medical care at the school. You want the parents involved. They are the 
guardians, the ones who are responsible.
  Here is a situation where, clearly, you have a physical impact on the 
child. I believe clearly that you have a psychological impact on that 
child. I think that has been documented. Others question whether that 
has been fully documented. Clearly, on a number of women who have 
abortions, there is a psychological impact. Isn't it simply common 
sense that parents would be involved in such a monumental decision that 
is going to impact this child for the rest of their life and that 
parent would be involved in helping the child to process what is the 
wise decision, the right thing to do, the appropriate thing, what the 
options are and the sorts of things they can do? Particularly at a time 
when the child is going to have to process this in a difficult 
emotional situation, the parent needs to be involved and should be 
involved to give that wise counsel, prudent counsel, to the child 
involved in this particular circumstance.
  Parents can and do help present all of the health facts to their 
children and help them make a prudent decision. That is just basic 
common sense. It is the right thing that we ought to do. Parents can 
help to spot abusive situations which might not otherwise be evident to 
the child. Without parental involvement, abortion can be forced upon a 
young woman by, in some cases, an abusive male figure in order to cover 
up a crime.
  The role of parents in protecting children is essential. This cannot 
be delegated to any other person. Yet in this law, we even provide for 
the judicial bypass procedure. Especially when a daughter is facing an 
unintended pregnancy, parents need to be involved. We talk a lot on the 
Senate floor and have worked over the years to try to build more and 
stronger family units. One of the key ways to do that is to have the 
parents more involved in the decisionmaking of the child, particularly 
when health consequences are there. This is one on which that should 
take place.
  When a child is undergoing this procedure, it does clearly terminate 
a young life growing in the mother's womb. That has an impact on the 
child psychologically, if in no other fashion. Parents need to be 
involved in helping to process how that is going to be handled for the 
child.
  I believe this legislation is a step in the right direction. It would 
go some distance toward helping protect parents' rights and children's 
health. It would help integrate and build that relationship between the 
parent and child.
  I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation. I hope, as a message 
to the country, we can pass it in a large bipartisan fashion and send a 
signal to people that this makes good sense. It is appropriate for us 
to do.
  It is not simply that you are pro-life or you are pro-choice; 
therefore, we are going to split on those lines. Rather, we should look 
at this as parents, as we virtually all are on this floor, and saying 
as a parent, whether I am pro-life or pro-choice, I would want that 
sort of information for my child, and I would want to be able to have 
that information to process as a parent, and that I would say to my 
legislators I am one way or the other on the abortion debate, but as a 
parent I believe it is my duty to know this. This is my duty to be 
involved in this type of decisionmaking for my child.
  I think that is why, while we have a lot of debate about the issue of 
abortion in the country, this is so strongly supported by people 
because so many people look at this outside the abortion debate, and 
they look at it much more as a parental debate, as to how they observe 
and they deal and they want to deal with this particular issue. I urge 
my colleagues to look at it that way as well. Take it out of the grid 
of the abortion debate and put it into the decisionmaking grid of a 
parent. I think if we do that, we will pass this in a strong bipartisan 
fashion.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from California is 
recognized.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield myself time off the bill. How many 
minutes is remaining on our side on the general debate on the bill?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 25 minutes remaining.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have not yet had a chance to lay out my 
objections to this bill. I would like a chance to do that and, of 
course, those objections have just been elevated given the fact that by 
just two slim votes, we failed to adopt teen pregnancy prevention 
legislation, which is, of course, one of the most important issues we 
face in our society today. We have 800,000 young women whose 
pregnancies could have been prevented if they had such education.
  Here we are dealing with a bill that seems to come back before the 
Senate every election for reasons that the other side can explain. 
Instead of tackling the issues of health care for our young people, 
insurance for our young people, pregnancy prevention for our young 
people, we are dealing with an issue that impacts just a few people. 
But so be it.
  The good news is, we have had a debate on teen pregnancy prevention. 
The whole country got to see it, and they got to see where the votes 
lined up. It is pretty clear.
  The other good news is that we had a debate on stem cell research, 
and we saw a very similar situation where we picked up a few votes on 
the other side but not enough votes. The President vetoed stem cell 
research. You want to talk about a health issue, you want to talk about 
helping the health of our young people who have juvenile diabetes or 
those who are paralyzed because of an accident; if you want to talk 
about helping people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. But oh no, the 
President vetoed that. Another four or five votes in this Chamber could 
have made the difference between having stem cell research and not. But 
now we are not going to have it.
  Frankly, in my State, we took matters into our own hands, and 
Republicans and Democrats together voted for stem cell research, and we 
have a $3 billion program. This isn't a partisan issue in my State. But 
oh boy, it is a partisan issue here. It just shows how far to the right 
we have come in the national debate.
  So instead of doing something to improve a lot of our people, we are 
looking at this small issue. We are looking at a bill that, as it is 
now drafted, protects incest predators. We are working on that, hoping 
to come to some joint approach that can stop that problem, or part of 
it anyway.
  As drafted, this bill throws grandmothers in jail and violates our 
Constitution. I would say this bill has a problem.
  Again, we tried to make it better, but even our amendments did not go

[[Page 15631]]

far enough. We did not have an exception for rape. If a young girl gets 
raped and she runs to the most trusted adult she knows, perhaps her 
grandma, and her grandma takes her into her loving arms because she is 
too scared to go to her parents for whatever reason. We have situations 
and I will share those with you where girls were so fearful, so 
frightened, and with good reason, that they couldn't go to their 
parents. So they go to a loving grandmother. And guess what? Under this 
bill, the parents can sue the grandmother. Unbelievable. That is Big 
Brother all right. Talk about family values interfering straight in. It 
is unbelievable.
  We tried to fix the thrust of this bill to add on a Teen Pregnancy 
Prevention Act. We couldn't do it.
  So this bill, at the end of the day, focuses on a small number of 
young women crossing State lines with an adult to get an abortion and 
ignores 800,000 pregnancies which could have been prevented.
  We had our chance. We had our chance, but, oh no, it is going to be 
about political correctness. It is going to be about rightwing 
ideology. Oh no, we can't do that.
  This bill does nothing to increase communications between parents and 
teens. It does nothing to stop sexual predators. Most young women who 
become pregnant already turn to their parents for help.
  This is a wonderful country. We have loving families, for the most 
part, loving open families who say to their kids, as I certainly did to 
mine, and my husband did: Anything you have on your mind, you just come 
to us. You feel free to tell us. That is how it should be.
  When I was a child, my mother said I could tell her anything, and I 
did. I told her anything. She loved me unconditionally and helped me 
through whatever problem I might have had.
  With my own children, I tried to emulate my mother. I hope and I 
think I did that. They are now grown. They take care of me.
  But what about young people who don't have that warm feeling in their 
families? What about the millions of victims of violence and abuse? 
This bill, as it is drafted, hurts just those victims. It doesn't mean 
to. That is not the purpose of it. But we have found out in our lives 
that some bills have unintended consequences, and this one sure does.
  As this bill is drafted, a father who commits incest and takes his 
daughter over a State line--we are trying to fix it, and we hope we can 
fix it--that father has rights under this bill. It is an outrage.
  Nearly half of pregnant teens who have been abused or assaulted are 
found to be abused and assaulted by a family member. That is the sad 
truth. Thirty percent of minors who don't tell their parents have 
experienced violence in the home. In other words, they are too fearful 
to go to the home where they have suffered violence. They fear violence 
or they worry that, in a rage, their parents will kick them out if they 
tell them they have become pregnant.
  Don't we want them to be safe and secure? Don't we want them to have 
help from a caring adult? I would hope so. But under this bill, a 
clergy member who really cares about the family could be sued by 
parents who abuse their children. A loving grandma or a loving aunt 
could be sued. Oh, there are no exceptions allowed.
  Senator Feinstein, unfortunately, is suffering from the flu and 
cannot be here today. She had an amendment--she cannot offer it--that 
would have exempted caring clergy and caring relatives. She couldn't be 
here.
  This bill is so imperfect that I cannot begin to count the ways.
  In my State, as I mentioned previously, parental notification laws 
have been voted down. In general, we all want to have adult consent. I 
believe it is important to help guide a young person through such a 
decision. But when we look at some of the unintended consequences of 
these bills and the fine print of these bills, we find that they are 
going to have the opposite effect of what we want. Instead of helping 
the minor, it puts her at risk.
  We know some specific cases: A 12-year-old whose pediatrician 
discovered she was pregnant. It turned out the rapist was her 
stepfather and the mother wasn't living with the girl. The doctors 
recommended that her Aunt Vicki bring her to a specialist in a 
neighboring State. She was only 12 years old, the aunt said. It is bad 
enough to go through incest, but then to have a child from that incest. 
We should all agree that only the father should go to jail, not the 
caring relative, Aunt Vicki.
  I know it is very difficult to talk about this topic, but some very 
sick people do rape. Fathers do rape, uncles do rape and even 
impregnate their daughters.
  Look at these newspaper stories from around the country.
  ``An American Tragedy.'' This is from The Oregonian:

       A 13-year-old girl in Idaho whose father had impregnated 
     her. . . . the morning she was supposed to have an abortion, 
     her father, who admitted his guilt, walked into her room with 
     a rifle . . . shot her in the head and then he shot himself.

  How does this bill prevent that? This bill will frighten a girl, make 
her more alone because she can't go to a caring adult because a caring 
adult could be sued by a parent. So she is scared. She gets in a car. 
She drives over the State line by herself. She is all alone. The father 
finds out, grabs her. She has no protection. He shoots her, shoots 
himself.
  What are we doing here? Why don't you look at what you are doing. Why 
don't you look at the practical impact of what you are doing?
  Here is another: ``Teen Accuses Father of Rape,'' The Journal News, 
Westchester County, NY.

       . . . man was arrested and charged with first degree rape 
     of his teenage daughter. The man tried to force his daughter 
     to take an unknown pill to cause a miscarriage because he 
     believed she was pregnant.

  This happens too often.
  ``Father Sentenced for Raping Daughters,'' Newark Advocate:

       Man convicted of raping his two daughters. . . . the girls 
     were 13 and 17 at the time of the crimes.

  ``Man Charged with Incest is Arrested in North Carolina'':

       Police said a father raped and impregnated his 16-year-old 
     daughter and raped his step-daughter who is mentally and 
     physically disabled.

  The way this bill has come to us from the committee protects the 
father. Senator Ensign and I are working hard--and I hope we can reach 
agreement--to solve the problems of this bill. But the way the bill 
passed the other body, they didn't pay any attention to this. 
Wonderful, we pass a bill that protects fathers who rape their 
daughter. It is basically a bill that, all of that incest aside, really 
will wind up in a young woman getting into a car on her own, frightened 
to death to tell her parents, and driving alone.
  ``Ordeal Ended/Dad's Arrest Ends Years of Rape for Teen,'' Newsday.

       For years, a convicted child sex offender used his Bronx 
     home as a pornographic movie studio for sex videos of himself 
     and his young daughter. The girl had tried at least once to 
     alert someone--her mother . . . her mother took no action.

  ``Her mother took no action.'' As Senator Ensign and I try to reach 
an agreement on an incest amendment, let me be clear: We are not going 
to reach that mother. I, if I go along with this, am giving up a lot of 
my amendment. This is still an imperfect bill, and I will show you in a 
checklist my amendment versus the Ensign amendment and what we try to 
do in our amendment.
  The Ensign amendment, as was originally proposed--we support it--
stops a father who has raped his daughter from suing the trusted adult 
who helped his daughter end the resulting pregnancy. We applaud that 
amendment, and that amendment will hopefully be adopted.
  But we don't stop with that because the Ensign amendment doesn't go 
far enough. We want to stop a father who has raped his daughter from 
exercising any parental consent rights. We want to stop all criminal 
prosecution or jail time for a trusted adult who helps a victim of 
incest.
  Imagine under this bill a child goes running to a nextdoor neighbor 
whom she loves, a kind of an aunt to her, and she says: Please help me, 
please help

[[Page 15632]]

me. I am pregnant. My father raped me. I can't go in that house. I 
can't tell my mother. My mother won't believe me. The nextdoor neighbor 
helps her. Under this bill the mother and the father can sue. We have 
to fix that. We are not going to fix it today. We can't reach all of 
what I am trying to do because I can't get agreement on the other side. 
It is still going to be an awful problem.
  We also stop a father who has raped his daughter, or any other family 
member who has committed incest against a minor, from transporting her 
across State lines to obtain an abortion.
  We don't want these perpetrators of incest to take their victims 
across the State line. We are working hard under the parameters of this 
bill to address the issue of incest.
  At the end of the day, if our negotiations go well, we will have 
taken care of two of the five Boxer provisions. Will I be happy that 
these three provisions are not taken care of? No. I am not happy. It is 
outrageous that we can't get it all done. So be it. Let the people 
judge. But we will do as much as we can to improve this bill.
  This bill as written protects the rights of brutal fathers. There are 
not many out there, but there are some.
  There is only one thing that we can do to make matters worse than 
parental consent: that is giving these sexual predators more power over 
their children to keep on perpetrating these acts and then saying they 
know how to handle it. They can handle it. Just take a child in the car 
and go.
  The bill as written actually forces some young incest victims to get 
permission from their rapist fathers to get an abortion. Can you 
imagine? We have to fix that. And it allows the predator fathers to 
take their daughters across State lines.
  We are trying hard to reach an agreement to take care of this 
problem. I am grateful that we may get two-fifths of the way there on 
my amendment.
  I will work hard if this bill becomes law to fix this bill. I will 
introduce legislation to fix this bill. I will also prepare legislation 
that goes further than this and says if someone is a victim of rape and 
they are fearful of telling their parents, that parent, adult, or 
grandma can't be sued.
  We really have a long way to go. This bill has many problems. It 
sends a message to young girls: Go it alone. Avoid all of this. Get in 
your car and go it alone. Don't take anyone with you. If you get in 
trouble at your moment of need, this bill says go it alone. She can go 
across the State line on her own. This bill doesn't do anything about 
it--only if she has a parent with her to help her.
  I believe this bill is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has been 
clear that abortion restrictions must not impose an undue burden on 
women, and they must include a health exception. There is no health 
exception in this bill. If a doctor takes a girl across State lines 
because he worries about her health, and if she doesn't get an abortion 
right away and faces paralysis or faces infertility, there is no 
exception in this bill. The doctor can be sued.
  What kind of message are we sending to young women? Go it alone. What 
kind of message are we sending to fathers who commit incest or mothers 
who turn a blind eye to it? Oh, don't worry. You are protected. Maybe 
Boxer will get two of her provisions, but we are not going to give you 
the five. I thought it was one nation under God, indivisible.
  I didn't think when we cross over State lines we are going to have 
the pregnancy police look in our cars. This is unconstitutional. You 
don't have to carry the laws of your own State on your back. If you go 
through another State and there is a speed limit that is different than 
the one you live in, you obey the laws of the State you are in. That is 
the law you carry on your back, not the State you left. No one could go 
gambling in Nevada if we said: If you live in Tennessee and no gambling 
is allowed, you can't go gamble in Nevada because you will be arrested 
by the police at the border.
  There are different criminal acts and different penalties in 
different States. Some have tough laws. We know that. States have 
rights.
  We find it interesting how someone only supports the States when they 
agree with them. But if they don't agree with that State's law, then 
they try to force another State's law onto the State with which they 
disagree. I don't know of any other law in history, with the exception 
of the Fugitive Slave Act, that has required citizens to carry the laws 
of their own State on their backs. That was back in the days of 
slavery. If you ran away to another State, you were still stolen 
property until the court said no.
  If you look at the constitutionality issue, if you look at the fact 
that victims of rape are left in deep trouble, as are victims of 
incest, if you look at the fact that good, kind, loving people like 
grandmas and grandfathers could go to jail for helping their 
granddaughter--no matter how you look at this bill, I believe you 
should come to the conclusion that this bill has major problems.
  Parental consent--you know something, Senator Ensign is right. People 
support the idea that a parent should be contacted by their child and 
talked to when a child has an unintended pregnancy. We want that so 
much. I want that so much.
  I also want kids to know they could talk to their grandma, they could 
talk to their grandpa, they could talk to their clergy, they could get 
help when they need it.
  I don't believe the American people support throwing grandma in jail 
because she embraced her granddaughter and said: My God, I am worried 
that your parents, your dad might hurt you if you tell the truth. She 
throws her arms around the granddaughter and protects her and helps her 
through a crisis.
  I believe stopping an abortion is worth preventing a teen from having 
a lifetime of paralysis, infertility, or worse, and yet there is no 
health exception in this bill. I think people want us to stop using 
this issue as a political football.
  I know who brought this up. It is brought up by the other side of the 
aisle every time we have an election.
  I hope we can join hands to stop teen pregnancies. We had a chance to 
do it. But no, we had a vote and we lost that vote. It is unreal. We 
got a couple of Republicans, but not enough.
  I hope the American people are watching this debate. If our goal is 
to help our young people--and that is the stated goal--there are a lot 
of ways we could help rather than scaring them to death and making them 
go it alone in a desperate situation, making criminals of their 
grandmas and their grandpas and their clergy.
  I am sad that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act didn't pass as part 
of this bill. It would have made this bill better. I am glad that we 
are going to have some coming together on the incest amendment, 
although as I said, it is only going to take care of two of the five 
problems we have relating to the bill. But at least we are making a bit 
of progress.
  The bill, to me, is blatantly unconstitutional. It violates our core 
principles of federalism. It puts caring adults in jail and endangers 
the health and lives of our most vulnerable teens. On that basis it 
ought to be defeated.
  I believe this bill will pass. I also believe our incest amendment 
will pass. I think that is important. We should have two votes on that. 
I think it is important to have those recorded votes so that the 
message goes to the House that their bill blatantly helps the 
predators. I call it the ``Incest Predators Protection Act.'' Thank you 
very much. I know my time is up. I yield the remainder of my time at 
this time.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from 
South Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada, Mr. 
Ensign, for his leadership on this issue and for yielding time and for 
bringing this important matter before the Senate.
  My colleague from California mentioned that this is an election year 
ploy. But I think the last time this was voted on in the Senate was in 
1998. That was a cloture vote. I don't know that there has ever been an 
up-or-down vote in the Senate. It has been voted on in the House.

[[Page 15633]]

  I think most people see this particular provision as something that 
is a commonsense approach to this issue. Obviously, there are a lot of 
labels that are thrown around in this very contentious debate in our 
country. But when it comes to this particular issue, the courts have 
laid out some parameters under which States can operate when it comes 
to statutes that they adopted that impose conditions and restrictions 
on abortion. The undue burden requirement that came out of the Planned 
Parenthood v. Casey decision many years ago created this scenario where 
if there is not an undue burden, that statutes enacted by States can 
impose restrictions. And many States have done that.
  One that many States have adopted is the issue of parental consent or 
parental notification. In fact, there are about 37 States to date that 
have adopted in some fashion that particular legislation. Thirty-seven 
States have enacted statutes imposing legal obligations on pregnant 
minors to notify or gain the consent of their parents before getting an 
abortion. S. 403, which we are debating today, does not supercede or 
otherwise alter any of those laws, nor does it impose any parental 
notice or consent requirement on any State. These are States that 
adopted these laws. The bill would only give effect to a State's 
parental involvement law if that law is constitutional. Therefore, any 
State parental consent law given effect under this bill must contain a 
judicial bypass provision which allows the minor girl to petition a 
judge to waive the parental notification requirement.
  Just to give you an example of States that have enacted these types 
of laws, my State of South Dakota, for example, requires that a minor 
under the age of 18 have the consent of one parent or judicial bypass 
to obtain an abortion. States in my region and neighboring States such 
as North Dakota, require the same thing, only it requires two parents' 
consent or judicial bypass. Nebraska requires essentially the consent 
of one parent or judicial bypass. Iowa requires that a minor must have 
the consent of one parent or grandparent or judicial bypass. Wyoming 
requires that a minor under the age of a eighteen must have the consent 
of one parent or judicial bypass. In Minnesota you must have the 
consent of two parents or judicial bypass. Montana, again, one parent 
or judicial bypass.
  My point very simply is that the States and State legislatures have 
found, within their purview, ways that are constitutional to address 
what is a very gripping issue for the country, one that has created a 
great deal, obviously, of debate for the past 30 some years, and I 
suspect will continue to be debated not only here in legislative bodies 
but in front of the courts.
  The courts have laid out a framework, a set of parameters. States 
have acted accordingly. All this simply does is reinforce those State 
laws and allow parents to be involved in probably what, without 
argument, has to be one of the most consequential decisions a teenager 
will ever make. As a parent of two teenage daughters, we talk about 
everything. We talk about where our children want to go to college. I 
have a teenager who is starting college this year. We talk about who 
they hang out with on a regular basis. We talk about what they wear, 
obviously, their apparel. We talk about who they date. We talk about 
who they associate with, all the decisions that they make in their 
lives on a daily basis. We try to stay very involved and engaged in 
their lives, for obvious reasons, because that is important as a 
parent.
  I have a 16-year-old who will be a junior in high school. Ironically, 
in 27 States in this country, my 16-year-old can't get a tattoo without 
the permission of a parent. In 27 States, my 16-year-old cannot get her 
body pierced without permission of a parent. Yet we would allow what, 
arguably, would be the most consequential decision that child could 
ever make to go without consultation with a parent. It seems to me that 
common sense dictates, and I think most people around this country 
would agree, whatever side of this issue they find themselves on, this 
is a very common sense way to proceed. Allowing someone to essentially 
bypass a parent and take a minor, a teenager, across the State line to 
have an abortion is something that crosses not only State lines but 
crosses the lines of what most Americans would concede makes common 
sense when it comes to the way we raise our children and the kind of 
culture we want to have in our country.
  I have to say I sure as heck as a parent would not want some other 
person taking one of my daughters somewhere to have this procedure when 
the emotional, the health, the medical ramifications of that decision 
could be so consequential in terms of my daughters, or any daughter, 
any teenager or any minor's future. I cannot imagine that this does not 
meet the common sense threshold, the test that most Americans would 
apply--again, irrespective of what side they find themselves on this 
particular issue.
  If you look at this bill, and ultimately what it is designed to do, 
there are several things that would happen. I believe, if this act 
passed, it would substantially cut down on the number of minors who 
obtain abortions. It has been shown that parental involvement laws can 
decrease abortions among minors by 8 to 9 percent. Furthermore, Senate 
bill 403 will likely magnify that effect since minors often cross State 
lines to evade their home State laws. The bill does not infringe on 
States' rights. It merely gives teeth to existing State laws. In fact, 
the Federal Government will prosecute individuals in violation of this 
act. Senate bill 403 does not mandate individual States to enforce laws 
which they have not passed.
  Additionally, this legislation does not criminalize doctors or the 
young women who obtain abortions. It prosecutes only those who take 
minors across State lines in an effort to evade parental involvement 
laws. In States that do not have parental notification laws, nearly 40 
percent of minors keep their pregnancies secret. Since abortion is a 
major surgical operation, I believe parents need to know if their 
daughters undergo an abortion so they will be able to help them with 
any potential complications, including both the physical, emotional, 
and mental complications that can arise from the procedure. In cases 
where this would be inappropriate because of an abusive relationship, 
the judicial bypass is still an option.
  Senate bill 403 will help parents keep their daughters out of 
inappropriate and/or predatory relationships. The American Academy of 
Pediatrics Committee on Adolescents estimates that almost two-thirds of 
adolescent mothers have partners over the age of 20. Additionally, in 
58 percent of cases where a daughter does not notify her parents of her 
pregnancy, her boyfriend is the one who accompanies her for the 
abortion.
  Combining those two statistics suggests a substantial number of 
abortions are obtained in an attempt to avoid statutory rape laws. 
Underage children cannot obtain an aspirin at school without parental 
consent, but nothing prevents a minor from being transported from her 
current State where parental consent is required to another State where 
she can legally obtain an abortion without any parental consent. That 
is what this legislation intends to correct. Abortion clinics in States 
where there are no parental consent laws actually advertise in States 
requiring parental consent by using ``no parental consent required'' 
ads.
  This legislation is not unreasonable. As I said earlier, 27 States 
require a minor, a person under the age of 18 today, to obtain parental 
consent to get a tattoo. Essentially, 27 States also require minors, 
persons under the age of 18, to get parental consent to get piercings, 
including ear piercings.
  It seems to me, again, as a parent of two teenage daughters, as well 
as someone who is observing the debate we have in this country over 
this particular issue, this is a reasonable, commonsense approach, a 
measure that has been discussed and debated, the constitutionality of 
it addressed.
  My colleague from California, Senator Boxer, said this is 
unconstitutional. As I said before, the courts have

[[Page 15634]]

 said as long as it does not impose an undue burden, these types of 
restrictions fit within the parameters of what is constitutional. 
Furthermore, under the Commerce Clause, the way this particular bill is 
worded fits within that constitutional framework. I don't think that is 
a valid argument.
  One of the arguments that was made, as well, by my colleague from 
California had to do with the issue of incest. A judge found Arizona 
Planned Parenthood negligent for failing to report to Child Protective 
Services an abortion performed on a 13-year-old girl in foster care. 
This girl's case dates back to 1998 when she went in for an abortion at 
a Planned Parenthood abortion facility accompanied by her 23-year-old 
foster brother with whom she was having a sexual relationship. Planned 
Parenthood did not notify authorities until the girl returned 6 months 
later for a second abortion, according to court records.
  There are lots of examples that can be used, obviously, to support 
what this legislation attempts to accomplish. As I said before, this 
issue has not been debated in the Senate for some time, although I will 
say it has been acted on by the Congress--not in the Senate but by the 
House of Representatives. The House earlier this year passed this bill 
by 270 to 157 or something like that, and had voted in 1998, 1999, and 
2002. I was a Member of the House during those years and in every case 
this legislation passed the House and passed it by very sizable 
margins.
  It would make sense that the House, having acted on it this year, 
having gotten approximately 270 votes in support, that we have a debate 
in the Senate and have an up-or-down vote on this legislation which, as 
I said earlier, I believe is a reasonable, commonsense approach to 
dealing with what is a very controversial, contentious issue in the 
country today.
  Most Americans would agree that parental notification, parental 
consent, allowing parents to have involvement, input, consultation, 
with a teenager who was pregnant and is considering having an abortion, 
rather than having that teenager taken across State lines in a way that 
contradicts the will of the parents, makes a lot of sense. Again, it is 
an affirmation of parental involvement, parental rights, an affirmation 
of States rights, for that matter, too, if you look at all the States 
that have enacted laws. Thirty-seven States have enacted, in some form, 
this kind of requirement. Whether it is notification of one parent and 
judicial bypass or two parents and judicial bypass, but, clearly, there 
is precedent with all the States that have taken steps. This does not 
circumvent in any way those State laws. It simply affirms those laws in 
many respects because the States that have acted in a way that would 
require this kind of a notification, this kind of consent, this kind of 
involvement on a parental level.
  Right now, people who are going around that requirement and going 
across State lines to have abortion procedures are getting around State 
laws. This is simply a way of drawing parents into the debate and 
making sure that, regarding teen abortions in this country, the States 
have acted accordingly and have adopted statues that require some kind 
of consent, notification, consultation, that those laws are respected, 
and, again, that parents' rights are asserted in this process.
  I simply add, in closing, my State of South Dakota has this kind of 
law on the books. This is something a vast majority of South Dakotans 
would be very supportive of. As someone who is raising teenage 
daughters, who on a daily basis is conferring and consulting and 
discussing the decisions they make, the day-to-day decisions they make, 
I cannot imagine, for the life of me, not having some input, some 
opportunity to weigh in on an issue of this consequence, that would 
have the kind of long-term effects--health and emotional effects--on a 
young girl.
  This is about the health of our young girls. It is about the rights 
of parents. It is about States that have acted in accordance with what 
the courts have given them authority to do and making sure we are 
standing behind those States and making sure their laws are enforced.
  I hope when we vote on this--and, again, I appreciate the Senator 
from Nevada for his leadership on this issue--we will get a big vote in 
the Senate. It is the right vote. It has been a lot of years--8 years. 
1998 was the last time we had this debate in the Senate. At that time, 
we got to a cloture vote, but we did not have an up-or-down vote on the 
underlying bill.
  The substance of this bill needs to be voted on. I hope it will be 
voted on today, that it will be a big vote coming out of the Senate, 
and we can put this on the President's desk and have it signed into 
law, which I believe is what a vast majority, I know a vast majority of 
South Dakotans would believe, and I believe also a vast majority of 
Americans.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)
 Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the 
Child Custody Protection Act, which imposes criminal penalties on those 
who help transport a minor across State lines to obtain an abortion if 
she does not first meet the parental involvement requirements of her 
home State.
  My primary concern with this legislation is that it unnecessarily 
puts minors' health and well-being in danger. In addition, the language 
is so broadly written that it has the effect of harshly punishing those 
adult family members and loved ones who try to help a young woman in a 
time of need.
  In addition to criminalizing the actions intended to assist a young 
woman with a difficult decision, this bill would create a new civil 
action where parents can file a lawsuit against the individual 
assisting the minor this means relatives, teachers, other trusted 
adults as well as potentially the doctor, nurse or clinic staff all 
could face civil court action.
  As a mother and a grandmother, I would argue that, in a perfect 
world, young women and their parents should communicate openly about 
all major decisions, including whether to terminate a pregnancy. And, 
in fact, many young women do involve a parent in these decisions. 
However, the reality is that not all young women live in a household 
where they can turn to their parents. Some young women face physical, 
sexual or emotional abuse from their parents; some families do not have 
open, supporting relationships. For these young women, they may be more 
comfortable confiding in an older sister, aunt, or a grandparent. Yet 
this bill would turn these trusted relatives into criminals if they 
helped her seek an abortion. An unplanned pregnancy is upsetting at any 
age, and this legislation would deprive young women of support when 
they most need it.
  First and foremost, this bill flies in the face of accepted legal 
precedent. While it reflects a great deal of concern for potential 
harms and the violation of parents' rights, it ignores the legal rights 
of young women to choose safe medical care that protects their health.
  The legislation lacks an essential, constitutionally required 
exception in cases where the restriction it places on the ability of a 
young woman to get an abortion endangers her health. I am very 
concerned that once again language is being proposed that would omit 
this essential protection for women and girls.
  The bill provides some limited exceptions to its criminal and civil 
liability by allowing a sister, aunt, grandmother, or friend to help a 
girl cross a State border to get an abortion if her life was in danger. 
But it does not protect actions taken if her health was in danger.
  First of all, the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that there 
must be protection for both the life and health of the mother.
  The Supreme Court has ruled time and again from Doe v. Bolton, 1973, 
to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992, to Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000, 
that any law restricting access to abortion must contain an exception 
to protect a woman's health.
  Most recently, three Federal courts in California, New York, and 
Nebraska

[[Page 15635]]

declared the partial birth abortion ban, which was passed by Congress 
and signed into law in 2003, unconstitutional and permanently enjoined 
its enforcement.
  All three courts concluded that the law was unconstitutional because 
it lacked an exception to protect a woman's health.
  This measure before the Senate today ignores these precedents and 
demonstrates a complete disregard for the health of young women.
  Secondly, in addition to being unconstitutional, this is bad public 
policy. If a girl turns to her sister to ask for help because she is 
having complications with a hidden pregnancy how are either of them 
going to know whether the complication is life threatening or not? Do 
we really want to create a situation where a girl's sister, aunt, 
grandmother or friend has to step into the shoes of a doctor and 
determine whether complications with a pregnancy are life threatening 
or face criminal and civil charges for helping her? This could occur 
even if the girl wants to continue her pregnancy but because of health 
complications cannot.
  Does Congress really want to say it is the best public policy to have 
young women and girls who are in traumatic situations not get medical 
assistance because it could result in an abortion for a non-life-
threatening complication?
  Let's be clear, that is the impact of this legislation. I believe it 
is unconstitutional and bad public policy. A pregnant minor who feels 
she cannot confide in a parent is already left with few options.
  She can seek a judicial bypass. But few young women have the tools to 
navigate our complex legal system. The legal system is very difficult 
for the average adult to manage let alone a minor in an extremely 
difficult and vulnerable position. In addition, the legal system has 
demands that further restrict a girl's access; for instance, court 
hours are usually 9 to 5, requiring a young woman to miss school in 
order to appear in court. And many girls are reluctant to discuss such 
a personal decision that could involve traumatic experiences with a 
judge.
  She may delay her decision. However, an abortion that occurs later in 
her pregnancy will be more dangerous and complicated than one that 
occurs in the early stages of her pregnancy. She may opt to travel out 
of State, alone, undergoing a medical procedure with no family or 
friends there to support her.
  She may seek a dangerous and illegal abortion. A pregnant minor who 
cannot safely tell a parent about her situation faces enough obstacles. 
We do not need to criminalize well-intentioned assistance provided to 
her.
  I am also concerned that it is not only the young women making a 
deliberate choice not to tell a parent of an abortion who would suffer 
under this bill. Access to abortion is declining in this country, for 
women of all ages. Eighty-seven percent of counties no longer have a 
doctor who will perform an abortion. For many women, the most 
convenient provider is across State lines.
  An older sister or aunt accompanying a minor to the nearest provider 
may unwittingly become a criminal. Even if neither woman intended to 
evade parental consent laws, this act of family support would be 
criminalized. A grandmother or sister could have no idea that she is 
violating a Federal law when she helps a family member access legal 
medical care.
  But proponents of this legislation would like you to believe that 
this debate is not about young women who can no longer find a doctor 
who will provide full services in their home State. To them, this is 
not about the young women who, for whatever reason, need to look beyond 
a parent for adult support.
  While supporters of this bill are correctly horrified by stories of 
girls kidnapped by older boyfriends and forced into having abortions 
they did not want, this legislation does not create a limited solution 
to fix that problem. In fact, in many cases the actions in these 
circumstances are already illegal. Laws prohibit kidnapping. Laws 
prohibit statutory rape. Medical ethics require that physicians obtain 
informed consent from the patient before performing any medical 
procedure. People who violate these laws can already be prosecuted. I 
welcome a debate on policies that will crack down further on sexual 
predators who abuse young women.
  If there is a problem that current laws are not being enforced, then 
let's address that; if there is a problem that these laws are not 
strong enough, then let's address that, but let's not criminalize 
behavior of a loving family member, friend, or confidant who is trying 
to help a young girl in a traumatic time in her life.
  This bill is not about protecting vulnerable young women from crime. 
It is about limiting their access to a constitutionally protected 
medical procedure. This legislation does reflect a great deal of 
concern for potential harms and the violation of rights--of parents.
  Under this proposal, a parent has legal recourse if his or her 
supposed ``right'' to stop their daughter's abortion is violated. 
Parents can sue to collect damages.
  This bill, in fact, could create a situation in which a mother sues a 
grandmother for helping her granddaughter exercise her right to choose. 
Yet it leaves a young woman with no recourse for the violation of their 
right to seek and receive safe medical care of her choice.
  This legislation also runs counter to basic notions of federalism, 
linking a young woman to the law of her home State no matter where she 
may be living. No other State laws follow her to college or summer 
camp.
  In this country, State laws do not extend beyond State borders. When 
residents from my home State of California travel to Nevada for 
vacations, they are allowed to play the slot machines, even though 
gambling is illegal at home. There is no reason why laws should reach 
across State lines to restrict access to a safe and legal medical 
procedure.
  I wish this were a perfect world. I wish we could legislate that 
every child has a loving and stable parent to guide him or her through 
the trials of adolescence. I wish we could legislate that every family 
talk openly and honestly about the risks of sexual activity.
  But we cannot. Parental consent laws do not create these idealized 
families. Instead, they further burden those that are already troubled. 
A young woman facing an unplanned pregnancy in an unstable situation 
must be able to turn to another trusted adult--without the fear of 
subjecting the adult to Federal criminal liability.
  The very fact that we are having this debate is a clear demonstration 
of the leadership's misplaced priorities. They claim this is a women's 
health issue, a family values issue.
  We have only a few legislative days remaining this year. There are so 
many other problems we should be addressing.
  We should be debating ways to prevent these difficult situations from 
arising in the first place. We should be discussing policies that 
promote honest information about reproductive health and ready access 
to contraceptives. No teen should face an unplanned pregnancy. Those 
that do must not face it alone.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this bill that endangers 
young women's health and turns their relatives into criminals.

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate considered legislation 
that proponents claim will reduce the number of abortions. But in 
reality everyone knows this legislation will do little to lower the 
number of abortions, and it will do even less to protect the role of 
parents in our society. In a move that is all too typical of the 
coarsening partisanship of this city and of this Congress, instead of 
bringing before the Senate legislation that could actually reduce the 
number of abortions, the Senate Republican leader decided to just check 
another on the Republican ``To Do'' list before election day this 
November.
  It is sad that the Senate has missed this opportunity to enact 
legislation to reduce teen pregnancy. Every Senator agrees that we 
should do more to reduce incidences of teen pregnancy. And

[[Page 15636]]

yet the bill debated in the Senate today is little more than a 
political stunt that will do little to reduce the number of abortions.
  This is not the first time we have faced legislation like this which 
reflects a political calculus, not a policy consideration. In 1998, 
just prior to that year's election, the Republican leadership brought 
forward a similar bill. I opposed that legislation as well, as it 
failed to take meaningful steps towards reducing abortions and because 
it threatened to endanger victims of rape, incest, or abusive family 
situations.
  If the Senate Republican leadership were really serious about 
reducing the number of abortions among young women, they'd get serious 
about efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. 
Research shows that reducing unintended pregnancies significantly 
reduces the rate of abortion. And the good news is that we know what 
works to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. In fact, the 
amendment offered by Senators Lautenberg and Menendez earlier today, 
which I cosponsored, would take meaningful steps to reduce teen 
pregnancy. Communities need to provide education for our children so 
they understand the serious consequences of their decisions; we need to 
support effective, existing after-school programs that provide academic 
enrichment for at-risk kids; and we need to invest in new efforts to 
help reduce teen pregnancy.
  If the Senate leadership were really serious about reducing the 
number of abortions, they would get serious about providing support for 
foster care and adoption. Instead, last year this Congress limited the 
number of children eligible for foster care and reduced funding for 
state foster care systems. What kind of family values does that 
represent?
  If the Senate leadership were really serious about reducing the 
number of abortions, we would address the problems that working 
families face in raising their children. We would increase the minimum 
wage and extend the earned income tax credit so that the decision 
whether to have an abortion is not based on whether there is enough 
money to support the child.
  This is where we should be focusing our energy--on providing families 
with the tools they need to raise a family; on providing mothers with 
the care they need to carry out their pregnancies, and on educating our 
teens about the consequences of their actions.
  But then again, the Child Custody Protection Act isn't intended to 
reduce teen pregnancies. In fact, it accomplishes very little except to 
risk taking a very young victim of rape or incest--a victim of an 
abusive family situation--someone who is just plain scared--and putting 
someone they turn to at risk of criminal prosecution, jail time and 
fines if they decide to help a minor with one of the most painful 
decisions a person could be asked to make. It targets the most 
vulnerable minors--those needing the most help because of poor family 
relations or even serious abuse--and makes it more difficult for them 
to receive critical advice and support.
  Is it right to punish a victim of incest by forcing her to get 
consent from the very person who impregnated her? What rational person 
wouldn't agree that she has been victimized enough already? Is it 
really smart, or fair, or right to punish and remove the caring adult 
who a young woman in this situation is relying on to get her through 
such an ordeal? Is it right to consider sending a grandparent, a clergy 
member, a doctor, or a counselor to prison if a terrified young woman 
has nowhere else to turn?
  This discussion isn't about most families. If one of my daughters 
were in a terrible situation, I believe they could and would turn to me 
or to their late mother. I know they could. I think every one of us in 
the Senate know our children would turn to us in a time of desperation. 
That is how we raised our kids. Ideally all young women facing an 
unplanned pregnancy will turn to their parents for guidance when faced 
with this kind of decision. And in most cases they do. In fact, one 
study found that the overwhelming majority of parents in states without 
mandatory parental involvement laws knew of their child's pregnancy. 
But 30 percent of young women who did not tell their parents about 
their decision did so out of fear of violence in the family or fear of 
being forced to leave home. What does that tell you about these 
situations? It tells you this bill does not address the real-life 
tragic situations in which awful decisions are being made.
  This bill is not the way we should be addressing the problem of 
unwanted pregnancies. We should not be criminalizing grandparents or 
clergy or doctors who try to help young women in horrible situations. 
We should not be criminalizing that small percentage of people willing 
to accompany a minor-in-need to obtain an otherwise legal abortion.
  Here's the bottom line: If this bill had simply made exceptions for 
young women in abusive situations--like rape, or incest--and ensured 
that children who were endangered if they turned to their parents would 
have a responsible, caring adult to turn to, I would have voted for it. 
And I guarantee so would all of my colleagues. Mr. President, 100 to 0, 
that's the kind of statement we could have made--but that kind of unity 
was sacrificed on the altar of Republican wedge-issue politics.
  Of course, parents should be fully involved in all decisions 
regarding their children, but refusing to take into account possible 
family dysfunction, including abuse or incest, would be both 
unconstitutional and unacceptable. It would be dangerous. It would be 
anything but pro-life. Not every child is lucky enough to have a 
supportive family, and I can't imagine that any person would fail to 
understand that it just doesn't make sense for a 16-year-old who has 
been raped or abused by a parent to get consent from that abuser. There 
must be a way to bring a supportive and nurturing adult into that 
difficult decision. This bill forecloses that possibility.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, just last week the Senate unanimously 
approved landmark legislation that will help protect American children 
from violent sexual predators and other such criminals who would do 
them harm.
  I proudly cosponsored and worked to strengthen that bill--The Adam 
Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 because the States 
needed, and asked for, the Federal Government's help to detect and 
deter violent sexual predators. The nationwide sex offender database 
and registration requirements are critical components that help prevent 
violent sexual predators from slipping underground and out of sight. 
Indeed, the Senate's passage of the Adam Walsh Act was a banner day for 
the safety of our children.
  And today, Mr. President, the Senate will consider another important 
measure to protect the health and safety of American children--in 
particular, female minors. I am referring, of course, to S. 403, the 
Child Custody Protection Act. I am proud to join Senator Ensign and a 
bipartisan group of over 40 Senators that have cosponsored this 
legislation.
  This long-overdue proposal amends the Federal Criminal Code to 
prohibit the transportation of a minor across State lines--without 
parental consent or notification--in order to obtain an abortion. To 
date, at least 37 States have laws on the books that require a minor 
girl who wishes to have an abortion to notify or obtain the consent of 
her parents. But let's be clear: this bill neither establishes a 
Federal parental consent law, nor supersedes existing State laws. It 
merely reinforces the prerogatives of those States that have enacted 
parental notification and consent laws.
  So the question before the Senate today is a straightforward one: 
Should Congress safeguard the legislative choice made by those States 
that have chosen to preserve the role of parents and guardians in the 
health and medical decisions of their children--particularly, their 
minor daughters? I believe that we must safeguard State prerogatives by 
protecting parental rights.
  If a State has on its books a constitutionally sound parental 
notification or

[[Page 15637]]

consent law, parents in that State should not have to fear that their 
minor daughters can legally be driven into a neighboring State to 
receive an abortion.
  This is not a hypothetical concern. The New York Times reported that 
``Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia [Pennsylvania has a parental 
consent law] has a list of clinics, from New York to Baltimore, to 
which they will refer teenagers, according to the organization's 
executive director . . . .''
  Even more disturbing, there is evidence that abortion clinics in 
States bordering Pennsylvania--States that don't have parental 
involvement laws--will advertise the lack of such requirements and use 
it as a selling point in their advertisements directed at minors in 
Pennsylvania.
  I also worry that interstate transportation of minors to have 
abortions may be used to conceal criminal activity--like statutory 
rape. I, for one, believe that we ought to make it a Federal crime for 
an adult male who impregnates a young girl to transport her out of her 
home State--without the knowledge and consent of her parents--in order 
to have an abortion. That is just common sense.
  Mr. President, this legislation is not about abortion rights. It is 
about protecting the health and safety of children and preserving the 
role of parents in decisions concerning their child's medical care.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, as a cosponsor of the Child Custody 
Protection Act, I am pleased to see that this legislation is finally 
being considered and hopeful that it will be passed quickly.
  S. 403 makes subject to fines or imprisonment up to 1 year anyone who 
``knowingly transports a minor across a State line, with the intent 
that such minor obtain an abortion, and thereby in fact abridges the 
right of a parent under a law requiring parental involvement in a 
minor's abortion decision, in force in the State where the minor 
resides.''
  The provision I cite is an admirably clear piece of legislative 
language. It not only makes a salutary change in existing law; it 
provides an convincing explanation as to why it is needed.
  Notwithstanding the abortion debate's notoriously divisive character, 
parental involvement statutes constitute an area of near-consensus 
around which pro-life and pro-choice Americans can come together.
  Forty-five States--including my own--have enacted statutes aimed at 
ensuring that parents of minor girls are not deprived of the 
opportunity involved in this most sensitive decision, one with profound 
implications for their daughters' physical and mental health.
  Public opinion polls demonstrate overwhelming support for the 
proposition that in all but the most extraordinary circumstances--in 
which instances, the State statutes in question provide for a judicial 
bypass--parents must be involved in decisions affecting the health of 
their minor children.
  Unfortunately, the public record now provides ample evidence 
suggesting that these laws are frequently circumvented--often by 
individuals who by facilitating an abortion may be covering up evidence 
of a crime: statutory rape.
  When abortionists buy advertisements in the yellow pages directories 
serving communities in neighboring States with parental involvement 
statutes, and when they adorn the ads with helpful reminders that their 
services can be obtained without parental consent, both the authority 
of State lawmakers and the sanctity of the parent-child bond are 
mocked.
  As a father and grandfather, I believe it is vital that the Senate 
today draw a line against this egregious manifestation of the abortion 
culture. Colleagues who support a liberal abortion regime but claim 
that they want the practice to be rare should welcome this opportunity 
to support a unifying commonsense measure that helps give effect to 
public policies embraced by legislators of both parties in the States.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I will vote in favor of the 
Child Custody Protection Act.
  I support the Florida law which was enacted after voters approved an 
amendment to the Florida Constitution. The law requires that Florida 
parents must be notified prior to their minor child obtaining an 
abortion, and it provides that a judge can grant an exception.
  This act will help ensure that minors in Florida consult with their 
parents before obtaining an abortion in another State, while also 
preserving the ability of minors to seek a judicial waiver when that 
notice is not in the best interest of the minor.
  The ultimate goal must be to prevent teen pregnancy so that none of 
our children find themselves in these difficult situations, and thus I 
also supported the amendment to provide Federal grants for programs 
that educate minors on the use of contraceptives and abstinence.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it has always been my firm belief that 
minors should be required to notify their parents prior to seeking an 
abortion. I cannot help but believe that in nearly every case, young 
women do themselves, their babies, and their families well to seek 
guidance from their parents or legal guardians before making such a 
serious decision. Most parents honestly do have their daughters' best 
interests at heart. Consequently, how can parents not be informed when 
their children are confronted with making one of the most critical 
decisions of their lives, one which carries with it such extraordinary, 
expensive, and irretrievable consequences?
  I have a long history of support for parental notification in such 
difficult circumstances. In 1991, I supported legislation that would 
have required entities receiving grants under Title X of the Public 
Health Service Act to provide parental notification in the case of 
minor patients seeking abortions.
  While I support parental notification, I would also observe that we, 
as a nation, must work harder and do more to ensure that young women 
understand the consequences of unwanted pregnancy before they find 
themselves in such a predicament. We need to return to a time when 
abstinence was respected, not denigrated. A time when young men and 
women were praised and rewarded spiritually, emotionally, and 
financially--for doing the right thing.
  Today, little girls are encouraged to become sexual at younger and 
younger ages by a consumer society that cares more about what it can 
sell than what it can teach. The entertainment culture, with its 
``sleaze'' does all Americans, and particularly young women, a 
despicable disservice. Repulsive lyrics and morally offensive videos 
degrade women to the point where little girls as young as 10 or 12 
years of age come to believe that their only real value lies not in 
themselves but in bearing the child of a teen-aged boy. How truly sad.
  We all recognize that the family is, and has been, in crisis. We 
would all like to see a reduction in unwanted pregnancies and abortion. 
No one is pro-abortion. But the question remains, what are we doing to 
prevent these unwanted pregnancies--meaning what are all of us 
together, on both sides of the aisle, doing to prevent them? Aren't 
there more creative ways in which we could be bolstering the self-
esteem of young women?
  Let us not forget that the future of humanity passes through the 
family, and that each of us must, in our own way, fulfill our duty to 
preserve the family. As John Kennedy once put it so succinctly and so 
beautifully, ``On Earth, God's work must truly be our own.''
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Child 
Custody Protection Act, which prohibits transporting a minor across 
State lines to obtain an abortion if doing so abridges a parental 
notification or consent statute in the State in which the minor 
resides. The bill also provides an exception for cases where an 
abortion is necessary to save the minor's life. I am proud to say that 
I am a cosponsor of this bill and I supported it in past Congresses.
  One of the most important roles of parents is to provide guidance and 
comfort to their children. Parents are

[[Page 15638]]

more mature and possess the wisdom of experience that children simply 
cannot possess. In no other circumstance is the need for parental 
guidance more important than when a child requires medical care. Who is 
in a better position to provide a child's relevant medical and 
psychological history and other valuable medical information than a 
parent? Not only has the Supreme Court recognized the importance of 
parental rights with regard to the ``care, custody, and control of 
their children'' as ``perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty 
interests,'' they have also acknowledged the importance of parental 
guidance and consent when a child is faced with a difficult decision by 
stating ``the law's concept of family rests on a presumption that 
parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and 
capacity for judgment required for making life's difficult decisions.''
  At a time when a school nurse cannot even administer aspirin to a 
child with a headache without parental consent, how can we allow a 
child to have an abortion, a major medical procedure with potentially 
deadly consequences, without parental consent? I can think of no other 
time when parental guidance and consent is more important than when 
that parent's minor daughter is pregnant and contemplating abortion. A 
minor girl, who is undoubtedly under incredible stress, does not have 
the maturity to make the decision to have an abortion on her own. And, 
it makes matters worse when the girl receives pressure to have an 
abortion from the father, the father's family, or others.
  As a father, it appalls me to learn that oftentimes older adult males 
pressure young mothers to have an abortion without telling anyone and 
transport these young girls into States without parental consent laws 
to hide instances of statutory rape. Studies show that the majority of 
today's teenage mothers are being impregnated by adult men. One study 
of 46,500 schoolage mothers in California found that two-thirds of the 
girls were impregnated by adult males, with the median age of the 
father being 22 years old. The fact that many of these adult males 
could be charged with statutory rape creates an incentive for them to 
transport young girls across state lines to have an abortion to avoid 
criminal prosecution.
  Mr. President, the pro-abortion lobby has come out in full force 
against the Child Custody Protection Act saying that it infringes upon 
a girl's right to have an abortion. I have two major objections to that 
argument. First, I do not believe that a minor child has the right to 
an abortion without her parents' consent. At a time when children 
cannot even be given aspirin without parental consent, they should not 
be able to undergo a major medical procedure with potentially deadly 
consequences without parental consent. Second, the Child Custody 
Protection Act is not about the right to have an abortion; it is about 
protecting the rights of parents and the well-being of children. It is 
commonsense legislation that says if one State has established a legal 
principle for its residents, neighboring States should not discourage 
those residents from following that principle. This is hardly a radical 
or extreme proposal; rather, it is necessary, constitutional, and it is 
carefully and narrowly drawn. I hope that my colleagues can support 
this very important, commonsense legislation, which protects our most 
vulnerable citizens--our children.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, this morning we are continuing our 
discussion of the Child Custody Protection Act, S. 403. This is an 
appropriate debate, and it comes at an appropriate time.
  Last week, the Senate passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and 
Safety Act. That important bipartisan bill, which the President is 
expected to sign this week, will empower the Federal Government to step 
up the fight against sexual predators of children.
  The bill we passed last Thursday is a serious bipartisan achievement, 
and for good reason. Republicans and Democrats alike can agree on the 
need to protect minors from abuse. That same purpose, the desire to 
protect children, is what motivates the Child Custody Protection Act, 
and my hope is that we can come together on this bill as well, 
Republicans and Democrats, and pass this legislation.
  The American people have spoken. Our States have spoken. Though the 
media might not always hear the message, Americans are quite unified, 
and have been for a long time, on the issue of abortion. 
Supermajorities of the American people think that some regulation of 
abortion is appropriate. Nowhere is this more obvious than on the issue 
of parental consent and notification laws.
  Most Americans understand that a parent or a guardian should be 
involved in this decision. The Child Custody Protection Act will give 
Federal support to State laws requiring this involvement, laws that are 
too often circumvented when young girls are taken across State lines to 
obtain an abortion, often with the assistance of the predatory men 
responsible for their pregnancies.
  These actions are terrible for families and young women. They are a 
danger to a young woman's health and to her spirit. And, indeed, the 
involvement of a parent or guardian is critical when a young woman is 
making a choice of this magnitude, and we should do our part to support 
these parental involvement laws.
  This bill does so by making it a Federal crime to transport a minor 
across a State line to obtain an abortion that would not be permitted 
absent parental involvement in the State where the minor resides. This 
is a limited and a reasonable bill. It specifies that neither the minor 
nor a parent can be prosecuted or sued for violation of the act. It 
also provides defendants in a prosecution or civil action an 
affirmative defense if they believed the required parental notice or 
involvement took place. Finally, it creates a private right of action 
for the parent or guardian whose rights are violated by a person who 
violates the act.
  This is a balanced bill. And my hope is that my colleagues will 
support it.
  Forty-four States have enacted laws that require some level of 
parental involvement in a minor's decision to obtain an abortion. 
Parental involvement laws are not a divisive issue. They are reasonable 
regulations. At many middle schools and high schools, you cannot get an 
aspirin from the school nurse without permission from your parents. 
Would it really make sense to allow a young girl, perhaps only 14 years 
old, to obtain an abortion without her parents' involvement?
  The liberal pro-abortion interest groups routinely tell us that women 
must have completely unfettered access to abortion throughout their 
pregnancies. And they typically give two reasons. First, this is a 
private, medical decision between a woman and her doctor. And second, 
this is a moral choice that the woman should be able to make without 
any interference at all. These principles are taken to extremes by 
these groups. They lead to opposition of almost any regulation of 
abortion, including informed-consent laws, and even partial-birth 
abortion. Parental involvement regulations are commonsense and widely 
supported by the American people. But the reasoning of these interest 
groups leads them to a position of abortion absolutism--there can be no 
interference at any time with the decision to undergo this medical 
procedure.
  I disagree with these arguments. Even so, taking these groups on 
their own terms leads me to believe that they should actually support 
parental involvement laws. After all, if abortion is a medical 
procedure, do we really want minors electing invasive medical 
procedures without a parent or guardian knowing about it? And if the 
decision to have an abortion is a profound moral choice, do we really 
want a child to make that choice without consulting with the parents 
who are responsible for teaching and raising that child? Of course not. 
And so the American people have reasonably, and responsibly, endorsed 
with considerable bipartisan support, the parental involvement laws 
that exist in 44 States.
  Recently, my home State of Utah passed its own law. It is a good law. 
And it is a careful law. My State requires that before a minor obtains 
an

[[Page 15639]]

abortion there must be notification of, and consent by, a parent or 
guardian. Our parental consent requirement prohibits a doctor from 
performing an abortion without first obtaining the written consent of a 
parent or guardian. And consistent with the Supreme Court's requirement 
that some judicial bypass be included in a parental consent statute, 
Utah allows a minor to obtain an abortion without the consent of a 
parent or guardian if a court finds by the preponderance of the 
evidence that the minor has given informed consent and is mature enough 
to be capable of giving her informed consent or that the abortion would 
be in the minor's best interest. That is a reasonable balance. The 
interest groups that oppose any and every restriction on abortion 
always tell us that this is an important choice. Well, if it is an 
important choice, I believe we should require that a minor's choice be 
an informed one.
  Utah law also requires that a doctor, prior to performing an 
abortion, notify a parent or guardian. Again, this is reasonable. Why 
would we allow a young woman to undergo a medical procedure without 
first notifying those charged with her well-being? We would not allow 
it for a routine checkup, much less any other invasive surgical 
procedure. And Utah's legislators were careful in the way they went 
about this. They knew that in certain circumstances, a young woman 
might not want to notify her parents. For that reason, there are 
generous exceptions to this notice requirement.
  If a medical emergency exists, the notice requirement is waived. If 
the physician reports to the proper State agency that the pregnancy 
occurred through incest, or if the child is a victim of abuse, the 
parent responsible for the physical or sexual abuse need not be 
notified. And if the legal parent or guardian has not assumed 
responsibility for the young girl's upbringing, that parent or guardian 
need not be notified.
  Utah's citizens are not unique. As the citizens in most other States 
have, Utahns have determined that some level of parental involvement in 
this process is an important one. The interest groups disagree. And as 
a result, there is some opposition to this commonsense bill.
  Here is the bottom-line. Forty-four States have parental involvement 
laws. In my opinion, some of those State parental involvement laws are 
ineffectual, but in 26, parents are effectively guaranteed the right to 
parental notification or consent. Yet with minor children, too often 
they are being taken across State lines, to a State with a more liberal 
abortion policy, to obtain an abortion without their parents' 
involvement. Taking a minor across State lines without her parents' 
knowledge? Most people would call this kidnapping. And in many cases, 
the actions come close.
  I want to thank my colleague from Alabama, Senator Sessions, for 
chairing a hearing in the Judiciary Committee on this subject in the 
108th Congress. The hearing was very informative. This is what we 
learned from the testimony presented there:
  The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Adolescence has found 
that ``[a]lmost two thirds of adolescent mothers have partners older 
than 20 years of age.''
  The National Center for Health Statistics concluded that ``among 
girls 14 or younger when they first had sex, a majority of these first 
. . . experiences were nonvoluntary. Evidence also indicates that among 
unmarried teenage mothers, two-thirds of the fathers are age 20 or 
older, suggesting that differences in power and status exist between 
many sexual partners.''
  In a study of over 46,000 pregnancies by school-age girls in 
California, researchers found that ``71%, or over 33,000, were fathered 
by adult post-high-school men whose mean age was 22.6 years, an average 
of five years older than the mothers . . . Even among junior high 
school mothers aged 15 or younger, most births are fathered by adult 
men 6 to 7 years their senior. Men aged 25 or older father more births 
among California school-age girls than do boys under age 18.''
  I could go on, and I want to thank Professor Teresa Collett of the 
University of St. Thomas School of Law for putting these statistics 
together in her testimony. They are important. They remain 
uncontroverted by those opposed to this bill. And they tell an 
important story.
  Many thousands of teenage pregnancies are caused by predatory males, 
many years the girl's senior, who should be prosecuted for statutory 
rape. Let's be clear. Many thousands of teenage pregnancies are caused 
by felonious activity--scared and pregnant young girls; wounded and 
abused by these sexual predators.
  And parental involvement laws go a long way toward making sure that 
people become aware of this abuse. Yet currently, it is too easy for 
these predators to circumvent these laws.
  We have heard of older men, or their mothers, or their friends, who 
take these vulnerable young girls across State lines to get an 
abortion, and get rid of the evidence of the crime. And then when these 
girls are dumped back at home, those who care for them and love them 
are oblivious to what they have been through. This is not only 
physically dangerous. It is a threat to the spirit of a wounded and 
confused young woman.
  This is not some hypothetical situation. In the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, we heard from Joyce Farley of Dushore, PA. In 1995 her 
daughter, Crystal, was raped and impregnated by a 19-year-old man whose 
mother then took Crystal for an abortion into the State of New York.
  This was not a decision for this man, or his mother to make. These 
people were not interested in making the right decision for Crystal. 
They were making a decision that was in the best interests of the man 
who raped this child.
  The Child Custody Protection Act would protect these young women. It 
would protect the rights of parents.
  The decision to obtain an abortion is an important one. It is a 
medical decision, but it is also so much more. It is a decision that 
will impact a woman for the rest of her life. And it is a decision that 
a minor should, in most cases, make with the involvement of a parent or 
a legal guardian.
  This important bill that my colleague from Nevada, Senator Ensign, 
has introduced will go a long way toward discouraging the abuse that 
often leads to teenage pregnancy, toward protecting minors from 
predatory males, and toward protecting the constitutionally recognized 
right of States to involve parents in these important decisions.
  I look forward to this debate. There should be some bipartisan 
consensus on this issue, and my hope is that we will reach one. This is 
a bill that is worthy of our support. It protects the rights of parents 
that have been recognized by the States that we represent.
  We should do our best to support those rights. I encourage my 
colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am disappointed that the Senate is 
bypassing normal procedure to debate a controversial bill on which the 
Senate refused to proceed 8 years ago. That was the last action taken 
on this kind of bill. Since then 8 years have passed. Our Constitution 
has not changed. I am thankful for that. The complex issues and 
federalism concerns that so many Senators voiced 8 years ago still 
remain. So if anything has changed, it is difficult to know. Instead of 
regular order and allowing the committee of jurisdiction to gather the 
facts, to consider the legislation, to amend it or reject it, we find 
ourselves proceeding almost helter-skelter on what is a very serious 
matter with important personal, privacy and legal implications.
  It is a striking contrast that we turn to this bill after last week's 
bipartisan unifying effort in which we took four months to hold nine 
hearings and work with our counterparts in the House to reauthorize key 
provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. If that process 
exemplified the Senate at its best, this proceeding stands in sharp 
contrast. The press is reporting that the Senate is being required to 
turn to

[[Page 15640]]

this bill at this time as part of the Republican-designed run up to the 
elections. Having spent time on a constitutional amendment that would 
have cut back on the Bill or Rights, having wasted precious time 
seeking to write discrimination into the Constitution, this is next on 
their campaign checklist of items needed to rev up their voting base. 
In fact, having just seen the President reject our efforts to authorize 
Federal funds for vital stem cell research with his first official 
veto, they now rush to reopen the abortion debate. I am a little 
surprised they are not seeking another vote on some further 
intervention into the circumstances of Terri Schiavo and her family.
  In fact, the bill before us, like the legislation rushed to the floor 
to intervene in Florida's legal system in the case of Terri Schiavo, is 
another case of congressional overreaching and of trying to federalize 
decisions that previously have been left to the States. I unequivocally 
support the goal of fostering closer familial relationships and the 
value of encouraging parental involvement in a child's decision about 
how to respond to an unplanned pregnancy. We all do. That is not the 
issue. I thank Senators Boxer, Menendez, Lautenberg, and Feinstein for 
bringing amendments seeking to make this legislative consideration 
worthwhile and beneficial to those in need of government help, rather 
than an imposition of the heavy hand of government intervention. I 
support their amendments.
  The underlying bill, however, raises challenging issues of federalism 
that caused many of us to reject it before and will lead me to oppose 
it, again. I find it ironic that many of the same people who insist 
that fully considered State laws on civil union and civil partnership 
and marriage not be respected, are those who in the context of this 
legislation insist that State laws be held to bind people even when 
they travel outside their States, and that Federal criminal law become 
the enforcement mechanism to ensure that they are binding.
  The underlying bill does little to strengthen communication and trust 
in families. While I know as a father that most parents hope their 
children would turn to them in times of crisis, no law will make that 
happen. No law will force a young pregnant woman to talk to her parents 
when she is too frightened to do so. This bill does not increase the 
perception of choices for such young women. Rather, it is likely to 
drive young women who are afraid to seek help from their families away 
from their families and greatly increase the dangers they face from an 
unwanted pregnancy.
  The nature of our Federal system revolves around States maintaining 
their historically dominant role in developing and implementing 
policies that affect family matters, such as marriage, divorce, end-of-
life choices, child custody and policies on parental involvement in 
minors' abortion decisions. I respect that. I respect each State to 
define those family relationships and have resisted Federal intrusion 
into those matters. Congress should not dictate the nature of family 
relationships. I had hoped we learned our lesson on this when the 
American people reacted with outrage to the President and Congress 
intervening in the Terri Schiavo matter.
  Twenty-six States have adopted parental consent or notification laws 
that are currently enforced and meet the bill's definition of a ``law 
requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision.'' That 
means that the remaining States--the 24 States that include Vermont--
either have opted for no such law, or have decided on a State law that 
allows for the involvement of adults other than a parent or guardian in 
the minor's reproductive decision. While I respect the 26 notification 
law States, I also respect the 24 other States and the privacy rights 
guaranteed by the Constitution. The direct consequence of this bill 
would be to federalize the reach of the most constricted notification 
laws and to override the policies in the remaining States.
  It is telling that the bill does not expressly establish a Federal 
parental consent requirement. It does not directly override the various 
State laws in this area of traditional State interest. Instead, it 
seeks to do indirectly what it will not and likely could not do 
directly. Doing so makes it no less an abuse of Federal power. The 
underlying bill would use the power and resources of the Federal 
Government to force favored States' laws into effect in the other 
States that have made other legislative choices. It would impose a law 
that a State has chosen not to adopt on that State, regardless of the 
choice its people have made through the legislative process. Most 
troubling of all, it would create a Federal crime as a mechanism for 
such Federal interference. It is an affront to federalism and an 
exercise in heavy-handed overcriminalization.
  Make no mistake: Despite the proponents' contention that this bill 
does not attempt to regulate any purely intrastate activities, the 
effect of this bill would be to impose the policies of certain States 
on the remaining ones. Just because some in Congress may prefer the 
policies of certain States over those in the others does not mean we 
should give those policies Federal enforcement authority across the 
Nation. Doing so is not only wrong, it sets a dangerous precedent.
  An example apart from family law: Should residents of States that 
prohibit gambling not be able to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City 
or the many other places that now allow it? It is the nature of our 
Federal system that when residents of a State travel to neighboring 
States or across the Nation, they must conform their behavior to the 
laws of the States they visit? When residents of each State are forced 
to carry with them only the laws of their own State, we will have 
turned our Federal system on its ear.
  Congress has wisely repealed laws in the past that require residents 
of each State to carry with them only the laws of their own State. We 
saw this when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed. 
That outlawed slavery and repealed article IV, section 2, paragraph 3 
of the Constitution, which authorized return of runaway slaves to their 
owners. That constitutional authority and such laws as the Fugitive 
Slave Act of 1793 enabled slave owners from slave States to reclaim 
slaves who managed to escape to free States or territories. None of 
us--and certainly not the sponsors of this legislation--would ever 
condone slavery. Those discredited laws and the infamous Dred Scott 
case are about the only precedent we have for a bill like this that 
would use the force of Federal law to enforce a particular State's laws 
against people wherever those people may travel.
  I was proud in November, 2004, when the Senate unanimously passed a 
resolution sponsored by Senators McCain, Hatch, Kennedy, and Reid to 
express the sense of the Senate that John Arthur ``Jack'' Johnson 
should be pardoned for his ``crime'' of transporting a white woman 
across State lines for ``an immoral purpose.'' The injustice done to 
Jack Johnson was something we all joined to try to correct many years 
later. Let us not allow the misuse of Federal power, again.
  This bill would sweep into its criminal and civil liability reach 
extended family members, including grandparents or aunts or uncles, who 
respond to a cry for help from a young relative by helping her travel 
across State lines to terminate a pregnancy. In addition to close 
family members, any other person to whom a young pregnant woman may 
turn for help, including health care providers and religious 
counselors, could be dragged into court and face prison time on 
criminal charges. Rev. Doctor Katherine Hancock Ragsdale once helped a 
stranger, a 15-year-old girl. The girl feared for her safety if her 
father learned of her pregnancy, and she had no relative to turn to for 
help. She was alone and desperate. Should offering comfort subject 
Reverend Ragsdale to Federal prosecution?
  The purported goal of this bill, to foster closer familial 
relationships, will not be served by threatening to throw into jail any 
grandmother or aunt or sibling who helps a young relative. The

[[Page 15641]]

result of this bill will be to discourage young women from turning to a 
trusted adult for advice and assistance. Instead, these young women may 
be forced then into the hands of strangers or into isolation.
  Keep in mind what this bill does not do. It does not prohibit 
pregnant minors from traveling across State lines to have an abortion, 
even if their purpose is to avoid their parents. The perverse effect of 
the bill, if it is to be followed, would be to encourage more young 
women to travel alone to obtain abortions. I will not support an effort 
that may lead back to the days of ``back alley'' abortions. How can 
anyone view these outcomes as desirable or fostering closer familial 
ties? Young pregnant women who seek the counsel and involvement of 
close family members when they cannot confide in their parents--for 
example, where a parent has committed incest or there is a history of 
child abuse--would subject those same close relatives to the risk of 
criminal prosecution and civil suit, if the young woman subsequently 
travels across State lines to terminate her pregnancy. Is that really 
what we want? We should not compound these most difficult circumstances 
by taking actions that if successful will succeed in isolating young 
pregnant women, forcing them to run away from home or pushing them to 
seek protection from strangers at a time of crisis.
  No law will force a young pregnant woman to involve her parents in 
her abortion decision if she is determined to keep that fact secret 
from her parents. No law can force a familial connection that does not 
exist. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the percentages 
of minors who inform parents about their intent to have abortions are 
essentially the same in States with and without notification laws. The 
President remarked just last week that ``governments can't change 
hearts.'' States have found that there are families in which parental 
notification laws are not effective.
  While doing nothing to foster familial relationships, this bill would 
do serious damage to important federalism and constitutional 
principles. The underlying bill imposes significant new burdens on a 
woman's right to choose and impinges on the right to travel and the 
privileges and immunities due under the Constitution to every citizen. 
Peter J. Rubin of Georgetown University Law Center and Laurence H. 
Tribe of Harvard Law School have argued that this language, adopted by 
the House in 2002, violates both ``the rights of States to enact and 
enforce their own laws governing conduct within their territorial 
boundaries, and the rights of the residents of each of the United 
States . . . to travel to and from any State of the Union for lawful 
purposes, a right strongly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.'' These 
leading constitutional scholars contend that the bill as drafted is 
unconstitutional. I will ask that a copy of their analysis be printed 
in the Record, at the conclusion of my statement.
  For all these reasons--legal, constitutional, practical and 
institutional--I will vote against the underlying bill. I urge all 
Senators to respect federalism, the Constitution and families by 
rejecting this attempt to politicize fundamental decisions and family 
relationships.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the 
aforementioned analysis be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                September 5, 2001.
     To: United State House of Representatives Committee on the 
         Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution
     From: Laurence H. Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional 
         Law, Harvard University Peter J. Rubin, Associate 
         Professor of Law, Georgetown University
     Re H.R. 476 and Constitutional Principles of Federalism

                              Introduction

       We have been asked to submit our assessment of whether H.R. 
     476, now pending before the House, is consistent with 
     constitutional principles of federalism. It is our considered 
     view that the proposed statute violates those principles, 
     principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. 
     That statute violates the rights of states to enact and 
     enforce their own laws governing conduct within their 
     territorial boundaries, and the rights of the residents of 
     each of the United States and of the District of Columbia to 
     travel to and from any state of the Union for lawful 
     purposes, a right strongly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 
     its recent landmark decision in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 
     (1999). We have therefore concluded that the proposed law 
     would, if enacted, violate the Constitution of the United 
     States.
       H.R. 476 would provide criminal and civil penalties, 
     including imprisonment for up to one year, for any person who 
     ``knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the 
     age of 18 years across a State line, with the intent that 
     such individual obtain an abortion. . . [if] an abortion is 
     performed on the individual, in a State other than the State 
     where the individual resides, without the parental consent or 
     notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have 
     been required by that law in the State where the individual 
     resides.''
       H.R. 476, Sec. 2 (a) (proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431(a)(1) 
     and (2)). In other words, this law makes it a federal crime 
     to assist a pregnant minor to obtain a lawful abortion. The 
     criminal penalties kick in if the abortion the young woman 
     seeks would be performed in a state other than her state of 
     residence, and in accord with the less restrictive laws of 
     that state, unless she complies with the more severe 
     restrictions her home state imposes upon abortions performed 
     upon minors within its territorial limits. The law contains 
     no exceptions for situations where the young woman's home 
     state purports to disclaim any such extraterritorial effect 
     for its parental consultation rules, or where it is a 
     pregnant young woman's close friend, or her aunt or 
     grandmother, or a member of the clergy, who accompanies her 
     ``across a State line'' on this frightening journey, even 
     where she would have obtained the abortion anyway, whether 
     lawfully in another state after a more perilous trip alone, 
     or illegally (and less safely) in her home state because she 
     is too frightened to seek a judicial bypass or too terrified 
     of physical abuse to notify a parent or legal guardian who 
     may, indeed, be the cause of her pregnancy. It does not 
     exempt health care providers, including doctors, from 
     possible criminal or civil penalties. Nor does it uniformly 
     apply home-state laws on pregnant minors who obtain out-of-
     state abortions. The law applies only where the young woman 
     seeks to go from a state with a more restrictive regime into 
     a state with a less restrictive one.
       This amounts to a statutory attempt to force this most 
     vulnerable class of young women to carry the restrictive laws 
     of their home states strapped to their backs, bearing the 
     great weight of those laws like the bars of a prison that 
     follows them wherever they go (unless they are willing to go 
     alone). Such a law violates the basic premises upon which our 
     federal system is constructed, and therefore violates the 
     Constitution of the United States.

                                Analysis

       The essence of federalism is that the several states have 
     not only different physical territories and different 
     topographies but also different political and legal regimes. 
     Crossing the border into another state, which every citizen 
     has a right to do, may perhaps not permit the traveler to 
     escape all tax or other fiscal or recordkeeping duties owed 
     to the state as a condition of remaining a resident and thus 
     a citizen of that state, but necessarily permits the traveler 
     temporarily to shed her home state's regime of laws 
     regulating primary conduct in favor of the legal regime of 
     the state she has chosen to visit. Whether cast in terms of 
     the destination state's authority to enact laws effective 
     throughout its domain without having to make exceptions for 
     travelers from other states, or cast in terms of the 
     individual's right to travel--which would almost certainly be 
     deterred and would in any event be rendered virtually 
     meaningless if the traveler could not shake the conduct-
     constraining laws of her home state--the proposition that a 
     state may not project its laws into other states by following 
     its citizens there is bedrock in our federal system.
       One need reflect only briefly on what rejecting that 
     proposition would mean in order to understand how axiomatic 
     it is to the structure of federalism. Suppose that your home 
     state or Congress could lock you into the legal regime of 
     your home state as you travel across the country. This would 
     mean that the speed limits, marriage regulations, 
     restrictions on adoption, rules about assisted suicide, 
     firearms regulations, and all other controls over behavior 
     enacted by the state you sought to leave behind, either 
     temporarily or permanently, would in fact follow you into all 
     49 of the other states as you traveled the length and breadth 
     of the nation in search of more hospitable ``rules of the 
     road.'' If your search was for a more favorable legal 
     environment in which to make your home, you might as well 
     just look up the laws of distant states on the internet 
     rather than roaming about in a futile effort at sampling 
     them, since you will not actually experience those laws by 
     traveling there. And if your search was for a less hostile 
     legal environment in which to attend college or spend a 
     summer vacation or obtain a medical procedure, you might as 
     well skip even the internet, since the theoretically less 
     hostile laws of other jurisdictions

[[Page 15642]]

      will mean nothing to you so long as your state of residence 
     remains unchanged.
       Unless the right to travel interstate means nothing more 
     than the right to change the scenery, opting for the open 
     fields of Kansas or the mountains of Colorado or the beaches 
     of Florida but all the while living under the legal regime of 
     whichever state you call home, telling you that the laws 
     governing your behavior will remain constant as you cross 
     from one state into another and then another is tantamount to 
     telling you that you may in truth be compelled to remain at 
     home--although you may, of course, engage in a simulacrum of 
     interstate travel, with an experience much like that of the 
     visitor to a virtual reality arcade who is strapped into 
     special equipment that provides the look and feel of 
     alternative physical environments--from sea to shining sea--
     but that does not alter the political and legal environment 
     one iota. And, of course, if home-state legislation, or 
     congressional legislation, may saddle the home state's 
     citizens with that state's abortion regulation regime, then 
     it may saddle them with their home state's adoption and 
     marriage regimes as well, and with piece after piece of the 
     home state's legal fabric until the home state's citizens are 
     all safely and tightly wrapped in the straitjacket of the 
     home state's entire legal regime. There are no constitutional 
     scissors that can cut this process short, no principled 
     metric that can supply a stopping point. The principle 
     underlying H.R. 476 is nothing less, therefore, than the 
     principle that individuals may indeed be tightly bound by the 
     legal regimes of their home states even as they traverse the 
     nation by traveling to other states with very different 
     regimes of law. It follows, therefore, that--unless the right 
     to engage in interstate travel that is so central to our 
     federal system is indeed only a right to change the 
     surrounding scenery--H.R. 476 rests on a principle that 
     obliterates that right completely.
       It is irrelevant to the federalism analysis that the 
     proposed federal statute does not literally prohibit the 
     minor herself from obtaining an out-of-state abortion without 
     complying with the parental consent or notification laws of 
     her home state, criminalizing instead only the conduct of 
     assisting such a young woman by transporting her across state 
     lines. The manifest and indeed avowed purpose of the statute 
     is to prevent the pregnant minor from crossing state lines to 
     obtain an abortion that is lawful in her state of destination 
     whenever it would have violated her home state's law to 
     obtain an abortion there because the pregnant woman has not 
     fully complied with her home state's requirements for 
     parental consent or notification. The means used to achieve 
     this end do not alter the constitutional calculus. 
     Prohibiting assistance in crossing state lines in the manner 
     of this proposed statute suffers the same infirmity with 
     respect to our federal structure as would a direct ban on 
     traveling across state lines to obtain an abortion that 
     complies with all the laws of the state where it is performed 
     without first complying also with the laws that would apply 
     to obtaining an abortion in one's home state.
       The federalism principle we have described operates 
     routinely in our national life. Indeed, it is so commonplace 
     it is taken for granted. Thus, for example, neither Virginia 
     nor Congress could prohibit residents of Virginia, where 
     casino gambling is illegal, from traveling interstate to 
     gamble in a casino in Nevada. (Indeed, the economy of Nevada 
     essentially depends upon this aspect of federalism for its 
     continued vitality.) People who like to hunt cannot be 
     prohibited from traveling to states where hunting is legal in 
     order to avail themselves of those pro-hunting laws just 
     because such hunting may be illegal in their home state. And 
     citizens of every state must be free, for example, to read 
     and watch material, even constitutionally unprotected 
     material, in New York City the distribution of which might be 
     unlawful in their own states, but which New York has chosen 
     not to forbid. To call interstate travel for such purposes an 
     ``evasion'' or ``circumvention'' of one's home-state laws--as 
     H.R. 476 purports to do, see H.R. 476, Sec. 2(a) (heading of 
     the proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431) (``Transportation of minors 
     in circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion'')--is 
     to misunderstand the basic premise of federalism: one is 
     entitled to avoid those laws by traveling interstate. Doing 
     so amounts to neither evasion nor circumvention.
       Put simply, you may not be compelled to abandon your 
     citizenship in your home state as a condition of voting with 
     your feet for the legal and political regime of whatever 
     other state you wish to visit. The fact that you intend to 
     return home cannot undercut your right, while in another 
     state, to be governed by its rules of primary conduct rather 
     than by the rules of primary conduct of the state from which 
     you came and to which you will return. When in Rome, perhaps 
     you will not do as the Romans do, but you are entitled--if 
     this figurative Rome is within the United States--to be 
     governed as the Romans are. If something is lawful for one of 
     them to do, it must be lawful for you as well. The fact that 
     each state is free, notwithstanding Article IV, to make 
     certain benefits available on a preferential basis to its own 
     citizens does not mean that a state's criminal laws may be 
     replaced with stricter ones for the visiting citizen from 
     another state, whether by that state's own choice or by 
     virtue of the law of the visitor's state or by virtue of a 
     congressional enactment. To be sure, a state need not treat 
     the travels of its citizens to other states as suddenly 
     lifting otherwise applicable restrictions when they return 
     home. Thus, a state that bans the possession of gambling 
     equipment, of specific kinds of weapons, of liquor, or of 
     obscene material may certainly enforce such bans against 
     anyone who would bring the contraband items into the 
     jurisdiction, including its own residents returning from a 
     gambling state, a hunting state, a drinking state, or a state 
     that chooses not to outlaw obscenity. But that is a far cry 
     from projecting one state's restrictive gambling, firearms, 
     alcohol, or obscenity laws into another state whenever 
     citizens of the first state venture there.
       Thus states cannot prohibit the lawful out-of-state conduct 
     of their citizens, nor may they impose criminal-law-backed 
     burdens--as H.R. 476 would do--upon those lawfully engaged in 
     business or other activity within their sister states. 
     Indeed, this principle is so fundamental that it runs through 
     the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in cases that are nominally 
     about provisions and rights as diverse as the Commerce 
     Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the right to travel, 
     which is itself derived from several distinct constitutional 
     sources. See, e.g., Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U.S. 324, 
     336 n. 13 (1989) (Commerce Clause decision quoting Edgar v. 
     Mite Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 643 (1982) (plurality opinion), 
     which in turn quoted the Court's Due Process decision in 
     Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 197 (1977)) (``The limits 
     on a State's power to enact substantive legislation are 
     similar to the limits on the jurisdiction of state courts. In 
     either case, `any attempt ``directly'' to assert 
     extraterritorial jurisdiction over persons or property would 
     offend sister States and exceed the inherent limit of the 
     State's power.''').
       The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed this fundamental 
     principle in its landmark right to travel decision, Saenz v. 
     Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). There the Court held that, even 
     with congressional approval, the State of California was 
     powerless to carve out an exception to its otherwise-
     applicable legal regime by providing recently-arrived 
     residents with only the welfare benefits that they would have 
     been entitled to receive under the laws of their former 
     states of residence. This attempt to saddle these interstate 
     travelers with the laws of their former home states--even if 
     only the welfare laws, laws that would operate far less 
     directly and less powerfully than would a special criminal-
     law restriction on primary conduct--was held to impose an 
     unconstitutional penalty upon their right to interstate 
     travel, which, the Court held, is guaranteed them by the 
     Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
     See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 503-504.
       Although Saenz concerned new residents of a state, the 
     decision also reaffirmed that the constitutional right to 
     travel under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article 
     IV, Section 2, provides a similar type of protection to a 
     non-resident who enters a state not to settle, but with an 
     intent eventually to return to her home state: ``[B]y virtue 
     of a person's state citizenship, a citizen of one State who 
     travels in other States, intending to return home at the end 
     of his journey, is entitled to enjoy the `Privileges and 
     Immunities of Citizens in the several States' that he visits. 
     This provision removes `from the citizens of each State the 
     disabilities of alienage in the other States.' Paul v. 
     Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180 (1869). It provides important 
     protections for nonresidents who enter a State whether to 
     obtain employment, Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U.S. 518 (1978), to 
     procure medical services, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 200 
     (1973), or even to engage in commercial shrimp fishing, 
     Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385 (1948).''
       Saenz, 526 U.S. at 501-502 ( footnotes and parenthetical 
     omitted).
       Indeed, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), which was 
     decided over a quarter century ago, and to which the Saenz 
     court referred, specifically held that, under Article IV of 
     the Constitution, a state may not restrict the ability of 
     visiting non-residents to obtain abortions on the same terms 
     and conditions under which they are made available by law to 
     state residents. ``[T]he Privileges and Immunities Clause, 
     Const. Art. IV, Sec. 2, protects persons . . . who enter [a 
     state] seeking the medical services that are available 
     there.'' Id. at 200.
       Thus, in terms of protection from being hobbled by the laws 
     of one's home state wherever one travels, nothing turns on 
     whether the interstate traveler intends to remain permanently 
     in her destination state, or to return to her state of 
     origin. Combined with the Court's holding that, like the 
     states, Congress may not contravene the principles of 
     federalism that are sometimes described under the ``right to 
     travel'' label, Saenz reinforces the conclusion, if it were 
     not clear before, that even if enacted by Congress, a law 
     like H.R. 476 that attempts by reference to a state's own 
     laws to control that state's resident's out-of-state conduct 
     on pains of criminal punishment, whether of

[[Page 15643]]

     that resident or of whoever might assist her to travel 
     interstate, would violate the federal Constitution. See also 
     Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629-630 (1969) 
     (invalidating an Act of Congress mandating a durational 
     residency requirement for recently arrived District of 
     Columbia residents seeking to obtain welfare assistance).
       In 1999, this Committee heard testimony from Professor Lino 
     Graglia of the University of Texas School of Law. An opponent 
     of constitutional abortion rights, he candidly conceded that 
     the proposed law would ``make it . . . more dangerous for 
     young women to exercise their constitutional right to obtain 
     a safe and legal abortion.'' Testimony of Lino A. Graglia on 
     H.R. 1218 before the Constitution Subcommittee of the 
     Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, 
     May 27, 1999 at 1. He also concluded, however, that ``the Act 
     furthers the principle of federalism to the extent that it 
     reinforces or makes effective the very small amount of 
     policymaking authority on the abortion issue that the Supreme 
     Court, an arm of the national government, has permitted to 
     remain with the States.'' Id. at 2. He testified that he 
     supported the bill because he would support ``anything 
     Congress can do to move control of the issue back into the 
     hands of the States.'' Id. at 1.
       Of course, as the description of H.R. 476 we have given 
     above demonstrates, that proposed statute would do nothing to 
     move ``back'' into the hands of the states any of the control 
     over abortion that was precluded by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 
     (1973), and its progeny. The several states already have 
     their own distinctive regimes for regulating the provision of 
     abortion services to pregnant minors, regimes that are 
     permitted under the Supreme Court's abortion rulings. That, 
     indeed, is the very premise of this proposed law. But, rather 
     than respecting federalism by permitting each state's law to 
     operate within its own sphere, the proposed federal statute 
     would contravene that essential principle of federalism by 
     saddling the abortion-seeking young woman with the 
     restrictive law of her home state wherever she may travel 
     within the United States unless she travels unaided. Indeed, 
     it would add insult to this federalism injury by imposing its 
     regime regardless of the wishes of her home state, whose 
     legislature might recoil from the prospect of transforming 
     its parental notification laws, enacted ostensibly to 
     encourage the provision of loving support and advice to 
     distraught young women, into an obstacle to the most 
     desperate of these young women, compelling them in the moment 
     of their greatest despair to choose between, on the one hand, 
     telling someone close to them of their situation and perhaps 
     exposing this loved one to criminal punishment, and, on the 
     other, going to the back alleys or on an unaccompanied trip 
     to another, possibly distant state. This Federal statute 
     would therefore violate rather than reinforce basic 
     constitutional principles of federalism.
       The fact that the proposed law applies only to those 
     assisting the interstate travel of minors seeking abortions 
     may make the federalism-based constitutional infirmity 
     somewhat less obvious--while at the same time rendering the 
     law more vulnerable to constitutional challenge because of 
     the danger in which it will place the class of frightened, 
     perhaps desperate young women least able to travel safely on 
     their own. The importance of protecting the relationship 
     between parents and their minor children cannot be gainsaid. 
     But in the end, the fact that the proposed statute involves 
     the interstate travel only of minors does not alter our 
     conclusion.
       No less than the right to end a pregnancy, the 
     constitutional right to travel interstate and to take 
     advantage of the laws of other states exists even for those 
     citizens who are not yet eighteen. ``Constitutional rights do 
     not mature and come into being magically only when one 
     attains the state-defined age of majority. Minors, as well as 
     adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess 
     constitutional rights.'' Planned Parenthood of Central 
     Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 74 (1976). Nonetheless, 
     the Court has held that, in furtherance of the minor's best 
     interests, government may in some circumstances have more 
     leeway to regulate where minors are concerned. Thus, whereas 
     a law that sought, for example, to burden adult women with 
     their home state's constitutionally acceptable waiting 
     periods for abortion (or with their home state's 
     constitutionally permissible medical regulations that may 
     make abortion more costly) even when they traveled out of 
     state to avoid those waiting periods (or other regulations) 
     would obviously be unconstitutional, it might be argued that 
     a law like the proposed one, which seeks to force a young 
     woman to comply with her home state's parental consent laws 
     regardless of her circumstances, is, because of its focus on 
     minors, somehow saved from constitutional invalidity.
       It is not, for at least two reasons. First, the importance 
     of the constitutional right in question for the pregnant 
     minor too desperate even to seek judicial approval for 
     abortion in her home state--either because of its futility 
     there, or because of her terror at a judicial proceeding held 
     to discuss her pregnancy and personal circumstances--means 
     that government's power to burden that choice is severely 
     restricted. As Justice Powell wrote over two decades ago:
       ``The pregnant minor's options are much different from 
     those facing a minor in other situations, such as deciding 
     whether to marry. . . . A pregnant adolescent . . . cannot 
     preserve for long the possibility of aborting, which 
     effectively expires in a matter of weeks from the onset of 
     pregnancy.''
       ``Moreover, the potentially severe detriment facing a 
     pregnant woman is not mitigated by her minority. Indeed, 
     considering her probable education, employment skills, 
     financial resources, and emotional maturity, unwanted 
     motherhood may be exceptionally burdensome for a minor. In 
     addition, the fact of having a child brings with it adult 
     legal responsibility, for parenthood, like attainment of the 
     age of majority, is one of the traditional criteria for the 
     termination of the legal disabilities of minority. In sum, 
     there are few situations in which denying a minor the right 
     to make an important decision will have consequences so grave 
     and indelible.''
       Bellotti v. Baird (Bellotti II), 443 U.S. 622, 642 (1979) 
     (plurality opinion) (citations omitted).
       Second, the fact that the penalties on travel out of state 
     by minors who do not first seek parental consent or judicial 
     bypass are triggered only by intent to obtain a lawful 
     abortion and only if the minor's home state has more 
     stringent ``minor protection'' provisions in the form of 
     parental involvement rules than the state of destination, 
     renders any protection-of-minors exception to the basic rule 
     of federalism unavailable.
       To begin with, the proposed law, unlike one that 
     evenhandedly defers to each state's determination of what 
     will best protect the emotional health and physical safety of 
     its pregnant minors who seek to terminate their pregnancies, 
     simply defers to states with strict parental control laws and 
     subordinates the interests of states that have decided that 
     legally-mandated consent or notification is not a sound means 
     of protecting pregnant minors. The law does not purport to 
     impose a uniform nationwide requirement that all pregnant 
     young women should be subject to the abortion laws of their 
     home states and only those abortion laws wherever they may 
     travel. Thus, under H.R. 476, a pregnant minor whose parents 
     believe that it would be both destructive and profoundly 
     disrespectful to their mature, sexually active daughter to 
     require her by law to obtain their consent before having an 
     abortion, and who live in a state whose laws reflect that 
     view, would, despite the judgment expressed in the laws of 
     her home state, still be required to obtain parental consent 
     should she seek an abortion in a neighboring state with a 
     stricter parental involvement law--something she might do, 
     for example, because that is where the nearest abortion 
     provider is located. This substantively slanted way in which 
     H.R. 476 would operate fatally undermines any argument that 
     might otherwise be available that principles of federalism 
     must give way because this law seeks to ensure that the 
     health and safety of pregnant minors are protected in the way 
     their home states have decided would be best.
       In addition, the proposed law, again unlike one protecting 
     parental involvement generally, selectively targets one form 
     of control: control with respect to the constitutionally 
     protected procedure of terminating a pregnancy before 
     viability. The proposed law does not do a thing for parental 
     control if the minor is being assisted into another state 
     (or, where the relevant regulation is local, into another 
     city or county) for the purpose of obtaining a tattoo, or 
     endoscopic surgery to correct a foot problem, or laser 
     surgery for an eye defect. The law is activated only when the 
     medical procedure being obtained in another state is the 
     termination of a pregnancy. It is as though Congress proposed 
     to assist parents in controlling their children when, and 
     only when, those children wish to buy constitutionally 
     protected but sexually explicit books about methods of birth 
     control and abortion in states where the sale of such books 
     to these minors is entirely lawful.
       The basic constitutional principle that such laws overlook 
     is that the greater power does not necessarily include the 
     lesser. Thus, for example, even though so-called ``fighting 
     words'' may be banned altogether despite the First Amendment, 
     it is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court held in 1992, for 
     government selectively to ban those fighting words that are 
     racist or anti-semitic in character. See R.A.V. v. City of 
     St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 391-392 (1992). To take another 
     example, Congress could not make it a crime to assist a minor 
     who has had an abortion in the past to cross a state line in 
     order to obtain a lawful form of cosmetic surgery elsewhere 
     if that minor has not complied with her state's valid 
     parental involvement law for such surgery. Even though 
     Congress might enact a broader law that would cover all the 
     minors in the class described, it could not enact a law aimed 
     only at those who have had abortions. Such a law would 
     impermissibly single out abortion for special burdens. The 
     proposed law does so as well. Thus, even if a law that were 
     properly drawn to protect minors could constitutionally 
     displace one of the basic rules of federalism, the proposed 
     statute can not.

[[Page 15644]]

       Lastly, in oral testimony given in 1999 before the 
     Subcommittee on the Constitution, Professor John Harrison of 
     the University of Virginia, while conceding that ordinarily a 
     law such as this, which purported to impose upon an 
     individual her home state's laws in order to prevent her from 
     engaging in lawful conduct in one of the other states, would 
     be constitutionally ``doubtful,'' argued that the 
     constitutionality of this law is resolved by the fact that it 
     relates to ``domestic relations,'' a sphere in which, 
     according to Professor Harrison, ``the state with the primary 
     jurisdiction over the rights and responsibilities of parties 
     to the domestic relations is the state of residence. . . and 
     not the state where the conduct'' at issue occurs. See 
     transcript of the Hearing of the Constitution Subcommittee of 
     the House Judiciary Committee on the Child Custody Protection 
     Act, May 27, 1999.
       This ``domestic relations exception'' to principles of 
     federalism described by Professor Harrison, however, does not 
     exist, at least not in any context relevant to the 
     constitutionality of H.R. 476. To be sure, acting pursuant to 
     Article IV, Sec. 1, Congress has prescribed special state 
     obligations to accord full faith and credit to judgments in 
     the domestic relations context--for example, to child custody 
     determinations and child support orders. 28 U.S.C. 
     Sec. Sec. 1738A, 1738B. These provisions also establish 
     choice of law principles governing modification of domestic 
     relations orders. In addition, in a controversial provision 
     whose constitutionality is open to question, Congress has 
     said that states are not required to accord full faith and 
     credit to same-sex marriages. Id. at Sec. 1738C.
       But the special measures adopted by Congress in the 
     domestic relations context can provide no justification for 
     H.R. 476. There is a world of difference between provisions 
     like Sec. Sec. 1738A and 1738B, which prescribe the full 
     faith and credit to which state judicial decrees and 
     judgments are entitled, and proposed H.R. 476, which in 
     effect gives state statutes extraterritorial operation--by 
     purporting to impose criminal liability for interstate travel 
     undertaken to engage in conduct lawful within the territorial 
     jurisdiction of the state in which the conduct is to occur, 
     based solely upon the laws in effect in the state of 
     residence of the individual who seeks to travel to a state 
     where she can engage in that conduct lawfully.
       The Supreme Court has always differentiated ``the credit 
     owed to laws (legislative measures and common law) and to 
     judgments.'' Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 232 
     (1998). For example, while a state may not decline on public 
     policy grounds to give full faith and credit to a judicial 
     judgment from another state, see, e.g., Fauntleroy v. Lum, 
     210 U.S. 230, 237 (1908), a forum state has always been free 
     to consider its own public policies in declining to follow 
     the legislative enactments of other states. See Nevada v. 
     Hall, 440 U.S. 410, 421-24 (1979). In short, under the Full 
     Faith and Credit Clause, a state has never been compelled 
     ``to substitute the statutes of other states for its own 
     statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is 
     competent to legislate.'' Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. 
     Industrial Accident Comm'n, 306 U.S. 493, 501 (1939). In 
     fact, the Full Faith and Credit Clause was meant to prevent 
     ``parochial entrenchment on the interests of other States.'' 
     Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U.S. 261, 272 (1980) 
     (plurality opinion). A state is under no obligation to 
     enforce another state's statute with which it disagrees.
       But H.R. 476 would run afoul of that principle. It imposes 
     the restrictive laws of a woman's home state wherever she 
     travels, in derogation of the usual rules regarding choice of 
     law and full faith and credit.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I cannot support the Child Custody 
Protection Act. First, I object to the decision to bring this bill 
directly to the floor, circumventing the Senate's committee process. I 
remember when this bill came before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 
the 105th Congress. We held a hearing, debated and voted on amendments, 
and even issued a committee report with minority views. Mr. President, 
that was in 1998; surely, the factual basis of this legislation has 
changed since then. I do not see why the Leadership feels that this 
bill no longer deserves the serious consideration that it received 
eight years ago.
  In addition, this bill is an overreach of Federal power that comes at 
the expense of the health and safety of young women. The notion that 
one State may not impose its laws outside its territorial boundaries is 
a core federalist principle, and I believe this bill might very well 
violate the Constitution if enacted. States should retain their right 
to enact and implement appropriate policies within their territorial 
boundaries. The Child Custody Protection Act would preempt these rights 
by allowing the laws of certain States to essentially trump the laws in 
other States.
  In an ideal world, all young women who face this difficult decision 
would be able to turn to their parents. But we do not live in an ideal 
world, and the reality is that there are young women who feel they 
cannot turn to a parent out of fear of physical or mental abuse, 
getting kicked out of the house, or worse. This bill would deny these 
young women the ability to turn to another trusted adult for help. Many 
national medical and public-health organizations, including the 
American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 
the American Psychological Association have expressed grave concern 
about mandatory parental consent laws for these reasons.
  Our focus in the Senate should be on ensuring that unintended 
pregnancies do not happen in the first place. For these reasons, I 
intend to continue my work in the Senate to ensure that all women have 
access to the best information and reproductive health services 
available. If we do that, abortions will become even more rare, as well 
as staying safe and legal.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the Child 
Custody Protection Act. I support the intent of the act, which seeks to 
protect the health and safety of pregnant minors, as well as the rights 
of parents to be involved in the medical decisions of their minor 
daughters. However, I believe this act might have gone further in 
protecting young women in situations of family abuse or incest.
  As a parent of two, I understand the importance and centrality of 
family, and an essential element of that: the parent-child 
relationship. The Supreme Court noted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey 
that parental involvement laws related to abortions ``are based on the 
quite reasonable assumption that minors will benefit from consultation 
with their parents and that children will often not realize that their 
parents have their best interests at heart.'' It is important that, to 
the extent possible, a young woman be able to consult with her family 
before making the decision to have an abortion.
  Unfortunately, some young women, particularly victims of incest or 
family violence, cannot safely involve parents in their decision to 
obtain an abortion. In such a circumstance, as my colleagues have 
rightfully pointed out, the minor girl could seek a judicial bypass, 
which would allow the girl to petition a judge to waive the parental 
involvement law. The bypass is intended for situations of incest or 
family abuse, and would allow for the involvement of appropriate state 
authorities, making it more likely that the minor girl will be removed 
from the abusive situation and that the abuser will be brought to 
justice. The bypass option is fundamental to the rights of the minor, 
and exists to protect her safety.
  Constitutional law requires a parental consent law to contain a 
judicial bypass provision. However, the circuit courts are divided as 
to whether parental notification laws also must contain a judicial 
bypass. I am concerned for those girls who are in an abusive family 
situation and who reside in states that could enact a parental 
notification law without a bypass option. I believe something must be 
done to strengthen the bypass requirements in this bill to ensure the 
protection of minor girls with abusive families.
  Given the unanimous consent agreement, I do not have the opportunity 
to amend the Child Custody and Protection Act on the floor in order to 
strengthen the bypass option in cases of parental notification. I will 
look to my colleagues in conference to consider adding a provision that 
would ensure, with respect to parental notification, that minor girls 
in incestuous or family abusive situations be able to seek a bypass, 
whether it be the judicial bypass or, as in Utah, the medical bypass, 
which permits a physician to waive the parental notification 
requirement in cases of incest or family abuse. The physician must also 
notify State authorities.
  It is right to protect pregnant girls and their families from those 
who do not have the minor girl's best interest at heart. Mr. President, 
I only ask that everything be done to protect the health and safety of 
those minor girls seeking an abortion who feel they cannot safely turn 
towards their family.

[[Page 15645]]


  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I am the parent of two young daughters. And 
as a parent, it is my sincere hope that my daughters will always feel 
they can come to me or my wife with any problem. So, even though I 
strongly believe in a woman's right to choose, I also believe that 
young women, if they become pregnant, should talk to their parents 
before considering an abortion.
  But I also know that the reality is different for many young women. 
Some don't live in a traditional two-parent household. Others don't 
have a parent in whom they are comfortable confiding. For these young 
women, the most trusted adult in their life may be a grandparent, an 
aunt, or a clergy member.
  I certainly hope these trusted adults would want to help a young 
person through a difficult time like a pregnancy. Unfortunately, this 
bill all but eliminates this option for young women. Instead of 
encouraging pregnant teens to seek the advice of adults, this bill 
criminalizes adults who attempt to help a young woman in need and 
essentially abandons them to confront a difficult issue on their own.
  In fact, this bill would criminalize adults even if they were not 
attempting to help a young woman in need. Under this bill, if a 
grandparent gave a young woman a ride across a state line--say from 
South Dakota into neighboring Iowa--and that young woman ended up 
seeking an abortion, that grandparent could spend up to a year in 
prison.
  Now, there are a lot of other problems with the bill: there is no 
health exception, no judicial bypass, and the notion that one State's 
laws can take precedence over another State's laws is unconstitutional 
and unacceptable. But the fundamental flaw with the bill is its 
criminalization of compassion. At a time when teenagers most need help, 
this bill would instead force caring and trusted adults--whether it's 
an older sister, an aunt or grandparent, or health professionals, 
social workers, or a minister--to stand to the side and watch the young 
woman go it alone.
  I wish this bill was an honest effort to confront the real issue 
here: unwanted teen pregnancies. No one in this body--whether pro-
choice or pro-life--wants young women to seek abortions. But this bill 
does not address this serious issue. I hope we can work to pass 
legislation that will provide young people today with the information 
they need to prevent unwanted teen pregnancies. I regret that I am 
unable to support this bill today.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the Child 
Custody Protection Act. I oppose this bill for three reasons. The first 
is that it does nothing to promote the health and safety of our 
children. The second is that I do not believe it can pass 
constitutional muster. The third reason I oppose this bill because it 
is just another example of the continual assault on women's 
reproductive freedom.
  I strongly believe that minors should involve their parents in all 
important decisions. This includes the decision to have an abortion. 
Research shows that most women voluntarily involve their parents when 
making this decision. However, I recognize that there are some young 
women who cannot talk to their parents about this issue. Some young 
women may not live with either of their parents, and instead live with 
a grandparent, aunt, or another adult relative. Some young women may be 
growing up in households where they experience physical and sexual 
abuse and may be threatened with further abuse should their parents be 
aware of a pregnancy. Yet young women facing pregnancy crisis need help 
and support.
  There are no exceptions in this bill which address the realities of 
women's lives. The reality is that some young women come from abusive 
homes. The unfortunate reality is that sometimes young women are raped 
by their fathers, and this results in a pregnancy. And, the reality is 
that a young woman may need a trusted adult whether it be a 
grandparent, older sibling, priest or rabbi, to accompany them if they 
choose to get an abortion.
  This bill does not help these young women. In fact, this bill says to 
women who cannot involve their parents that they have to go it alone. 
That is why I voted for the Feinstein amendment which would have 
allowed other trusted adults like grandparents or clergy members to be 
allowed to step in when a young woman could not go to her parents for 
help. This amendment was a step in the right direction. It acknowledged 
that unfortunately some young women cannot talk to their parents about 
this very important decision.
  That is why I also voted for the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment. This 
amendment addresses the causes of teen pregnancy. The amendment takes 
positive steps to prevent teenage girls from getting pregnant in the 
first place. It funds teen pregnancy prevention programs in schools and 
community settings. The amendment provides funding to keep teens out of 
trouble and on the road to success. It restores budget cuts to after 
school programs and physical education classes.
  I also oppose this bill because it does not pass constitutional 
muster. Not only does it totally ignore cases where a young woman's 
health is threatened. That clearly undermines the major holding in 
Stenberg v. Carhart which requires any law regulating abortion must 
contain an exception for a woman's health. Let's be clear: because this 
bill does not contain an exception to protect the health of young women 
it will be ruled unconstitutional.
  Finally, I oppose this bill because it is yet another assault on 
women's reproductive freedom. I strongly support a woman's right to 
choose and have fought to improve women's health during the more than 
two decades I have served in Congress. Whether it is establishing 
offices of women's health, fighting for coverage for contraceptives, or 
requiring Federal quality standards for mammography, I will continue 
the fight to improve women's health.
  Today, I will oppose S. 403 because it forces young women who are 
dealing with a crisis pregnancy to go it alone and deprives them of the 
advice and assistance of a trusted adult. It assumes that every family 
is safe, stable, and supportive. The bill ignores that some minors 
cannot go to mom and dad for help. It does not make our children any 
safer. I urge my colleagues to vote against S. 403.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today in support of S. 403, the 
Child Custody Protection Act. This bill prohibits transporting minors 
across State lines to obtain an abortion without parental notice or 
consent. I have and will continue to fight for the protection of 
children in the womb as well as the safety of minors.
  I believe that life begins at the moment of conception and that 
children in the womb deserve the same rights and protection as all 
other human beings.
  The Child Custody Protection Act will not only help protect these 
children in the womb, it will also protect their young mothers and 
families by involving parents who have their best interests at heart.
  I believe we can all agree that our young girls must be protected, 
and the laws put in place for that purpose must be upheld. Currently, 
45 States have laws that require notification, consent, or some type of 
consultation with a minor's parent or guardian before she can legally 
have an abortion. However, there are no laws to prevent a minor from 
crossing State borders and having an abortion performed in a State 
without such laws.
  This practice disregards abortion policies of individual States, 
implicates interstate commerce, and endangers young girls by allowing 
them to have dangerous abortion procedures performed without the 
guidance of their parent or guardian. The Child Custody Protection Act 
prohibits transporting a minor across a State line for the purpose of 
obtaining an abortion if doing so circumvents a parental notification 
or consent statute in the minor's residing State.
  The Child Custody Protection Act will not change the parental 
notification or consent laws of any individual State, but will help to 
enforce these laws by helping to prevent minors from being taken out of 
a State for an abortion without a parent's knowledge or consent. This 
bill will actually reinforce State policies that are already in place.

[[Page 15646]]

  Sadly, many young girls have been taken out of State by an individual 
other than her parent or guardian to obtain an abortion and have been 
subjected to unsafe and unlawful abortion procedures that endanger them 
physically and mentally. Abortion can cause physical and emotional 
complications for a young girl, and these dangers are greatly increased 
by taking her away from of the influence of her parents or guardian, 
placing her in the hands of an individual who does not have her best 
interests in mind.
  Crystal Farley Lane was one such victim. When she was 12 years old, 
she became pregnant after tragically being raped by a 19-year-old man. 
Rosa Hartford, the man's mother, then took Crystal from her home in 
Pennsylvania, without her mother's knowledge or consent, to New York, 
where there were no parental consent laws, to have an abortion. After 
the procedure, Ms. Hartford abandoned young Crystal, who had serious 
medical complications, 30 miles from her home. When Crystal's mother, 
Joyce Farley, found out what happened and tried to help by asking the 
abortionist for Crystal's medical records, she was denied. Fortunately, 
Ms. Farley was able to help her obtain the medical care she needed in 
time, despite this obstacle by the abortionist.
  Crystal's near-death experience could have been prevented had the 
Child Custody Protection Act been in place. Instead, there are 
currently no laws to prevent people like Ms. Hartford from taking 
Crystal out of Pennsylvania to obtain an abortion without parental 
consent.
  Ms. Farley poignantly testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee 
that, ``situations such as this are what the `Child Custody Act' was 
designed to help prevent. I am a loving, responsible parent whose 
parenting was interfered with by an adult unknown to me.''
  In another instance, Marcia Carroll's 14-year-old daughter was forced 
into having an abortion by her boyfriend's family. The family took her 
from Pennsylvania to New York without Ms. Carroll's knowledge or 
consent, left her alone to have an abortion that she did not want to 
have, and then left her a block from her home in Pennsylvania. This 14-
year-old girl had to go through a frightening and painful abortion 
procedure on her own and was then left to deal with the physical and 
emotional pain from an abortion that she did not want to have.
  I find it terribly unjust that there are no laws to prevent 
situations such as these from happening and that families have no 
recourse against those who are responsible.
  Very often, adult men, who are on average 6 to 7 years older than 
their victims, are the culprits of this violating crime against these 
young girls. Two-thirds of these adult men are 20 years of age or 
older. Additionally, more than half of the time it is a girl's 
boyfriend who takes her to another State to have an abortion without 
her parents' consent. An abortion performed in a jurisdiction that 
prohibits release of the medical records destroys any evidence that 
might have been used against a perpetrator to prosecute him for 
statutory rape and leaves him free to continue preying on these young 
girls without consequence.
  The incongruity of this status is striking. There are so many 
restrictions to protect our minors from making bad decisions by 
requiring parental consent for their actions. They must have parental 
consent to take medication at school, even an aspirin. They cannot go 
on a school field trip without a permission slip signed by a parent. 
Why, then, can a young girl who cannot take an aspirin without the 
consent of her parents, cross a State border and have an abortion 
without notifying them? And why can an adult be prosecuted for giving a 
child aspirin but not for taking her to another state to have an 
abortion?
  By reinforcing State abortion laws requiring parental notification or 
consent, the Child Custody Protection Act will protect our young 
daughters from making or being coerced into poor, irreversible, life-
changing decisions. I believe we can all agree that action must be 
taken to prevent the evasion of laws created to protect minors and 
their families and help preserve the precious lives of children in the 
womb. I ask that this Chamber quickly pass this lifesaving legislation.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition of the Child 
Custody Protection Act, S. 403. This bill is not about reducing the 
numbers of abortions in America. S. 403 is about politics played at the 
expense of young women in the United States. S. 403 would make it a 
Federal crime for adults other than guardians to transport a minor 
across State lines to obtain an abortion. This is not nearly as simple 
as it may sound. S. 403 is another direct attack on the reproductive 
rights of women. It turns its back on young women who do not inform 
their parents about their decision to obtain an abortion even if they 
face threats of personal harm. S. 403 would criminalize grandmothers, 
religious leaders, aunts and uncles, and doctors fighting for the 
health and well-being of young women. This bill would take us back to 
the time before Roe v. Wade where women did not have the right to 
control their own bodies and too often were forced to seek an abortion 
at any cost.
  The supporters of S. 403 want us to believe that there is a 
significant problem with young women being transported involuntarily 
over State lines to receive unwanted abortions without their parents' 
consent. But this is not what this bill is about. The majority of young 
women involve their parents in a vital decision such as this. In fact, 
over 60 percent of young women involve their parents in their decision 
to have an abortion. For adolescents 14 years and younger, the number 
is 90 percent.
  So what is happening in cases when young women choose not to involve 
their parents? Studies show that in one-third of the cases where young 
women do not involve a parent, they fear family violence or being 
forced to leave the home. Research tells us that almost 50 percent of 
pregnant young women with a history of physical abuse report that they 
were hit during their pregnancy. Unfortunately, the person they were 
most often hit by was a family member.
  The truth is adolescents that are most at risk for teen pregnancy are 
also the most likely to come from violent homes. Here, they often may 
not receive the parental guidance they need to make healthy decisions. 
Therefore, many experts tell us that teens at greatest risk for teen 
pregnancy also suffer the most from mandatory parental consent laws. 
These are young women that often do not have access to good parental 
support and guidance. They are likely to turn to other adult role 
models in their lives--grandmothers, aunts, cousins, or sisters for 
that guidance and support.
  But S. 403 would send these people--grandmothers, aunts and religious 
figures--to prison for assisting young women in need. Mr. President, is 
this the way the Nation should be focusing on as a solution to teen 
pregnancy? Why don't we work together to reduce the numbers of 
unintended pregnancies and give people the social supports they need to 
make healthy choices? Why aren't the administration and the 
congressional majority talking about finding new pregnancy prevention 
programs that do not include jails?
  Instead, this administration and the majority in Congress are 
initiating programs that are reversing the declines in abortion rates 
that we saw in the late 1990s. The Bush administration is more 
concerned with parental notification laws that we know hurt teens and 
would only affect a minority of cases than with actually preventing 
abortions. On their watch, abortion rates have stopped declining. In 
fact, according to government statistics, 90 percent of the States that 
attract the most out-of-State abortions actually have moderate to 
strict parental involvement laws. S. 403 will do nothing to keep young 
women from having to make a difficult choice--it will only make it 
harder for them.
  The American Psychological Association has listed studies that show 
that parental notification laws increase adolescent stress and anxiety. 
They increase the likelihood of teenage pregnancy. Parental 
notification laws also

[[Page 15647]]

make it more likely that teens will turn to extralegal and unsafe 
methods of abortion that could result in serious injury.
  I wished we lived in a world where parents would always be involved 
in their children's health decisions. I would want any young woman in 
America contemplating abortion to trust her parents enough and feel 
safe enough to involve them in her decision. Unfortunately, that is not 
the reality that many of our young women face. They cannot go to their 
parents for fear of abuse and violence. This bill does nothing to 
protect these young women by including a strong judicial bypass, and 
does not take into consideration the difficult situations these young 
women face.
  I cannot even list the numbers of groups that have come out in strong 
opposition of S. 403, but they include the American Civil Liberties 
Union, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Women's 
Association, the National Organization for Women, the National 
Partnership for Women & Families, and the Republican Majority for 
Choice. I am joining those groups in opposition to S. 403.
  S. 403 is another attempt at curtailing a woman's right to choose--in 
this case, young women, who are often the most vulnerable to violence 
and abuse from those that are supposed to be protecting them. I ask my 
colleagues to defeat S. 403.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President. I rise today in support of legislation 
protecting the most important relationship of all: that of parents and 
their children. The family is the fundamental, crucial and 
indispensable building block of our civilization, and parents are at 
its center. Yet, when it comes to one of the most important decisions 
in life, children are being kept from the guidance of their parents. I 
am talking, of course, about the decision whether or not to have an 
abortion.
  The American people believe that parents should be involved in 
deciding whether their daughter should undergo an abortion. Statistics 
consistently show this, and the Supreme Court has upheld this. As the 
Court noted in the decision of H.L. v. Matheson: ``the medical, 
emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious 
and can be lasting; this is particularly so when the patient is 
immature.'' In the case of Parham V. J.R. the Court said ``[t]he law's 
concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what 
a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment 
required for making life's difficult decisions.''
  Convinced of the soundness of this reasoning, at least 48 States have 
enacted laws requiring consent of or notification to at least one 
parent, or authorization by a judge, before a minor can obtain an 
abortion. Unfortunately, this wise policy is being undermined.
  Thousands of children every year are taken across State lines by 
people other than their parents to secure secret abortions. As we 
speak, abortion providers across the Nation, operating in States with 
no parental consent or notification laws, are taking out advertisements 
in phonebooks outside of the State where they operate in order to 
attract underage patients in neighboring States with different laws. 
They are doing this in my home State of Idaho. They are doing this in 
Pennsylvania, blatantly trumpeting the fact that their clinics, outside 
of Pennsylvania, do not require parental notification as Pennsylvania 
does. In essence, these abortion providers are encouraging people to 
circumvent one State's parental notification law by crossing the border 
into another for a secret abortion.
  The tragedy is that thousands of non-related adults take this 
suggestion every year in successful attempts to circumvent the law. In 
one highly publicized case, a 12-year-old girl living in a State with a 
constitutionally upheld parental notification law became pregnant by an 
18-year-old man. The man's mother took her for an abortion in a 
neighboring State with no parental notification requirement. The 
mother's actions were discovered, and she was convicted of interfering 
with the custody of a child. A prominent proabortion legal defense 
organization appealed the conviction on the grounds that she merely 
``assisted a woman to exercise her constitutional rights'' and as such 
was herself protected from prosecution by the Constitution. This 
reasoning cannot stand.
  To say that, because the Court in Roe v. Wade declared most abortions 
constitutionally protected during the first trimester, that therefore 
minors have an absolute right to abortion without so much as notifying 
their parents, and that third parties--whatever their motives--have the 
right to transport them across State lines for a secret abortion, is to 
stand constitutional protections on their head. It is to strip children 
of the natural protection of their parents. There is hardly another 
circumstance warranting the need for parental guidance and judgment 
more than when a young daughter becomes pregnant and is considering an 
abortion. For the sake of our children and our families, this must 
stop. As a Nation, we loosen our precious family ties at our peril.
  I must also note that Idaho is unable to enforce parental 
notification and consent laws that have passed the State legislature 
and have been signed into law by the Governor. Nearly 20 other States 
are in the same situation. These laws are all enjoined due to lawsuits 
brought by organizations intent on imposing their flawed understanding 
of the United States Constitutional protections on the American people, 
and judges willing to support it. It is my hope that this litigation 
will be resolved and that the right of elected officials to make and 
enforce laws under their jurisdiction will be upheld.
  I strongly support and am cosponsoring the Child Custody Protection 
Act. Children must receive parental consent for even minor surgical 
procedures. Children must receive parental consent to take an asprin 
from their school nurse. I want to make it a Federal offense to 
transport a minor across State lines with intent to avoid the 
application of a State law requiring parental involvement in a minor's 
abortion, or judicial waiver of such a requirement. The profound, 
lasting physical and psychological effects of abortion demand that we 
help states guarantee parental involvement in the abortion decision. 
That means, at a minimum, seeing to it that outside parties cannot walk 
around State parental notification and consent laws on a whim or as a 
means to hide illegal activity. We can no more afford to allow State 
laws to be ignored than we can afford to allow family ties to be 
further undermined. For the sake of our families, I urge my colleagues 
to defend both by supporting the Child Custody Protection Act.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today in support of parents' 
most basic right and responsibility: to be actively involved in their 
children's lives, particularly in times of crisis. For that reason I 
wholeheartedly support S. 403, the Child Custody Protection Act.
  I was an original co-sponsor of this bill when my good friend from 
Nevada, Senator Ensign, introduced it in 2005. S. 403 will make it a 
Federal offense to transfer a minor across State lines to obtain an 
abortion in order to evade a parental notification or parental consent 
law in the State in which the minor resides.
  I am sure that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will agree 
with me that every abortion is a tragic occurrence. The weight of such 
a decision falls heavily on any woman, particularly a minor. That is 
exactly the time that a child should be able to rely on a parent's 
counsel. And that is exactly the time a parent has a responsibility to 
be a parent, and get involved in their child's life.
  Let me stress that S. 403 will not impose any new law or requirement 
on any State. Nor does it alter or supersede any existing State laws. 
All that this bill will do is reinforce state laws that are already in 
effect, and prevent them from being evaded by miscreants who would 
transport a minor across State lines for an abortion and cut the 
parents out of their child's life at such a crucial time.
  This bill will promote the health of pregnant teens by ensuring that 
their parents--the people best equipped to

[[Page 15648]]

make major medical decisions, answer questions about medical history, 
and help their child through the physical and emotional recuperative 
process--are present. And the bill also contains an exception if an 
abortion is necessary to save the life of the minor.
  There is already a national consensus in America that a parent should 
be involved when a minor girl faces such an important decision. Forty-
five States have enacted laws recognizing the need for responsible 
adults to give guidance to minors in decisions about abortion. And 37 
States have parental notification or parental consent laws, including 
Kentucky, which has the latter. What we are doing here is an entirely 
appropriate Federal role: reinforcing the States' power to pass and 
enforce laws which are entirely constitutional. When I say that the 
State law in question must be constitutional, that is also provided for 
in the bill. S. 403 will only reinforce a State law if that law has 
passed constitutional muster.
  Some critics will claim that this bill will grant too much influence 
to parents in their children's lives, and that young girls ought to be 
able to go and get an abortion without talking to their mom or dad. I 
am a little surprised at that line of thinking. I think that, 
generally, it is a good thing for kids to talk to their parents and ask 
them for help when they need it. But in any event, we have laws that 
give parents a say in what their kids do for matters far less serious 
than abortion.
  Twenty-seven States currently require parental consent--not just 
notification, but consent--before a child under age 18 can get a 
tattoo. And 27 States require parental consent before a child under age 
18 can get a body piercing. So if the opponents of this bill had their 
way, a 14-year-old girl could evade State law to get an abortion--but 
not a tattoo.
  Perhaps thousands of underage girls get taken across State lines for 
abortions every year. Studies have shown that the majority of these 
girls have male partners older than 20. Many of these men are 
committing statutory rape. These girls are in trouble and need the 
advice of a mom or a dad to help them out of their desperate 
situations. This Senate ought to take the side of the parents over the 
side of the criminals.
  Throughout my career, I have consistently stood for protecting the 
unborn and promoting a culture of life. I don't like that people are 
spiriting young girls away from their parents to get them to have 
abortions, and evading State law to boot. If this law means fewer 
abortions in America, I will celebrate that.
  But I want to stress to my colleagues who may take an opposing view 
that the central issue of the Child Custody Protection Act is parental 
rights. Parents ought to have the right to be heard at such a pivotal 
moment in the children's lives, and States ought to have the 
expectation that their duly passed laws ensuring just that are 
enforced.
  What opponents of this bill forget is that no parent wants anyone to 
take their children across State lines--or even across the street--
without their permission. This is a fundamental right, and the Congress 
is right to uphold it in law.
  Not one girl should have to make a decision--or worse, be forced into 
a decision that she will regret for the rest of her life because her 
mom and dad weren't there to lean on. It is this Senate's 
responsibility to see that doesn't happen. I urge my colleagues to 
support this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, to update our colleagues on what has been 
going on, we had three amendments still pending on this bill. Senator 
Boxer and I, and our staffs, with the leadership on both sides, have 
been working together. We think we have come up with a compromise 
amendment. It will be the Boxer-Ensign amendment. We will be making a 
unanimous consent request in a few moments.
  I thank Senator Boxer and her staff for the way they have worked 
together with us, coming to an agreement. This is a good example of how 
people who fundamentally disagree--passionately--on an issue can 
actually find some common ground and work together at least on an 
amendment. That is what we have done today. I am very pleased with what 
the staffs have done and the compromise we have reached. It is very 
satisfying.
  Let me spend a few minutes talking on the bill as the final details 
are being worked out. This is an important piece of legislation, not 
because of the huge numbers it will affect--I have had that question 
from reporters: How many girls actually get taken across State lines to 
get an abortion? Sadly, no one knows the answer to that because it is 
not reported.
  As a matter of fact, right now when it happens, the parents have no 
rights to the information, so they cannot find out even after the fact. 
They find out by rumor or maybe their child ends up telling them later 
where they had it done. We had cases where they tried to get the 
information, but, frankly, the clinic would not release the 
information. We have no idea how many victims are out there--the 
records are not kept anywhere--or how often this happens.
  I have tried to put myself in a situation that I would want my 
Senator representing me. I try to say, okay, I am an average person, 
how would I want my Senator representing me? I happen to be the father 
of a little girl. We have three kids. Our middle child is a little 
girl. She happens to be with me this weekend in Washington. In the 
coming years, as she matures as a young woman, I think about if some 
20-year-old preyed on her when she was in her teenage years and got her 
pregnant and then somehow, because we had a parental consent law, which 
I hope we do someday in Nevada, and the 20-year old said: I won't date 
you anymore unless you get a secret abortion. He thinks: I will 
convince her somehow, manipulate a very vulnerable young woman. I will 
convince her that I won't see her anymore if she doesn't get the 
abortion--or whatever means needed to persuade her to get an abortion. 
If there is a parental consent law in my State, I will decide to go 
someplace else where they don't require it. In other words, he gets 
around the will of the people of the State of Nevada or any state that 
requires parental involvement.
  In a case such as that, I would be totally devastated as a parent 
because I would not be able to help my daughter through this time 
because I would not even know about it. I would not know if she had a 
complication from the surgical procedure of abortion. I would not 
know--if she had a complication in the middle of the night and she 
started bleeding--that I should be watching for something that could be 
going wrong. If she had a fever, I would probably say: Honey, we will 
get you some Advil or Tylenol. And maybe I would hold her for a little 
while. And she would be afraid to tell me what was going on and, 
without me knowing, that could develop into very serious complications 
overnight. Complications that could even be life threatening.
  Well, I try to put myself in those kinds of situations as a Senator 
and say: How would I want to be represented? And this is how I would 
want it. I would want somebody to stand up and say: The rights of 
parents should be respected. That is what we are doing in this bill. 
But more than that, for the well-being of these teenage girls, the vast 
majority of them would be better off if the parents were involved.
  Now, we realize there are cases where that is not the case, where 
there is an abusive parent. There are exceptions. That is part of the 
amendment compromise we are working to reach. I think it is a good 
compromise. In a situation--that has been brought up here on the floor 
many times where there has been a girl impregnated who is in her 
teenage years, we do not want to make unreasonable exceptions that make 
these laws ineffective.
  There was an amendment that would have said: We will make an 
exception to allow the clergy to take a girl across State lines. They 
wanted an amendment that said the grandparents should have an 
exception. Well, let me address those two exceptions because they 
sound, on their face, reasonable. We

[[Page 15649]]

have case after case after case of documentation where the clergy was 
actually the person who was impregnating the teenager. We have all read 
about the scandals with some of our clergy. Clergy are human beings 
and, just like any other, they can be flawed human beings. We know 
that. Just because they have a white collar on does not mean they are 
perfect human beings.
  Some of those imperfections can be seen in cases of sexual abuse by 
members of the clergy with teenagers. For instance, there have been 
members of the clergy who have taken minor children across State lines 
to avoid parental consent laws. And because they are clergy--they are 
supposed to be this authority figure--the girl does not want to 
question them and she goes across State lines and has a secret 
abortion.
  The exception that was going to be offered in one of the amendments 
would have allowed that member of the clergy, which was not defined, to 
be exempt from prosecution under this bill. I cannot support such an 
exemption.
  Not only that, any one can become a member of the clergy. In fact, 
last night I asked my staff, because I had heard you could become a 
member on the internet fairly easily, and within 3 minutes she became 
an ordained minister. So, anybody could go on the Internet and 
officially be recognized as an ordained minister, officially by our 
courts. Leaving it open that a 20-something-year-old who has 
impregnated a teenager could become a minister and could still fall 
under the clergy exception.
  Let me address the grandparent case. In the case of the grandparents, 
you have a situation where maybe there was incest in the family, and 
the grandparent feels they care about the child, and they want to help 
them. Most grandparents are loving, and they will want to help the 
child in that case. The Senator from California and others have made 
the case that they should not be prosecuted under this law because they 
took the child across State lines to get an abortion because they only 
thought they were trying to help.
  Well, I would make the argument that if those grandparents cared 
about that child who was in a situation where they were in an abusive 
home--they were raped by their father--the grandparents should contact 
the authorities, get the authorities involved to stop the cycle of 
abuse. You would use the judicial bypass for such case. Judicial bypass 
would mean that you would not have to go across State lines if that was 
what the outcome would be, to have an abortion. You would have the 
judiciary, the authorities involved.
  If the authorities were involved, you take that girl out of that 
abusive situation and protect her. If you allow for the grandparent 
exception and allow secret abortions, that is not going to happen. In 
too many cases, it is easier to get the abortion, and hide the problem, 
saving the family from embarrassment. If you go to the authorities, it 
may become public. That is why I think we need to not have the 
grandparent exception and the clergy exception.
  So, Mr. President, we are still waiting for the amendment to come 
down in its final form. As soon as it does, we will be entering into a 
unanimous consent agreement. But let me wrap up because it has been a 
very good debate, with strong emotions on each side.
  I think this is a bill Americans can come together on and find common 
ground. I have mentioned before there are good people on both sides of 
the abortion debate with deeply held beliefs. I believe life begins at 
conception and that child is a child and has a soul from the time they 
are conceived. That is why I believe that same child deserves 
protection throughout their life. I also know that people look at it 
differently on the other side, and they too have deeply held beliefs.
  So Americans have been saying: Can't we at least find some middle 
ground? Can't we find some ground to at least make some reasonable 
restrictions on abortion and support parents rights? I believe we have 
brought forth a bill today that finds that common ground. Eighty 
percent of the American people support this legislation, and they do 
that because it is reasonable. From a protection of parents' rights 
perspective; from a protection of the girl's perspective; from going 
after some of these, literally, sexual predators, these 20-something-
year-olds, who are taking these teenagers across State lines; from a 
law enforcement perspective; from a lot of different ways this is a 
reasonable piece of legislation. That is why I introduced it, why I 
support it so strongly, and why I am happy we are finally having this 
debate on the Senate floor.
  I want to thank my colleagues, especially Senator Boxer, on the other 
side of the aisle for allowing the debate to happen, for bringing this 
thing to a final vote, where we can get passage on this bill and then 
go to a conference with the House and, hopefully, work out the 
differences between the House and the Senate. My hope and prayer is we 
can get this bill actually signed into law by the President this year.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, again, for the benefit of our colleagues, 
we are waiting patiently to have the amendment we agreed on to come 
before us. Then we are hoping at the right time, Senator Ensign will 
make a unanimous consent request for a vote on an amendment we have 
agreed on, and then vote on final passage. So hopefully we will have 
that done very soon. As soon as it is done, I will yield the floor and 
allow the Senator, the good Senator from Nevada, to make his unanimous 
consent request.
  The Senator from Nevada wants to protect our daughters. He is a dad 
of a daughter. I am a mom of a daughter. I want to protect our 
daughters. So let's not get confused on this point. We all want to 
protect our daughters. We all adore them. We want them to be safe, and 
we want them to get the help they need. We want them healthy. We want 
them well. We do not want them afraid.
  But I do fear that this bill, the way it is drafted--and, yes, we are 
going to make a little bit of a correction on the incest part, but not 
as much as we should, but some--we are going to make some progress, and 
I am grateful for that. Basically, the way this bill is drafted, it is 
going to frighten our daughters because here is the way it works, 
folks: If you are a young woman in a parental notification State, you 
will take matters into your own hands because you are too frightened to 
go to your parents.
  Now, we all hope all parents will be open and loving and caring and 
helpful and will be able to be approached when a young woman becomes 
pregnant and it is an unintended pregnancy. We would hope and pray that 
family, that loving family, will sit around and talk about what ought 
to happen here, what is the best thing for everybody. I am pro-choice. 
I am for whatever the family decides. If they decide that the best 
thing is to raise that child in the family, that is their choice. If 
they decide it is best if the young woman exercises her right to 
choose, which is her right in this country--and has been since 1973--
she has that right.
  That is what we hope happens, that there will be these conversations. 
Of course, my friends on the other side of the aisle do not want a 
choice. They want to force her to have the child. They are against Roe 
v. Wade, but that is another debate. That is a debate we take to the 
people, and that is a debate that the pro-choice people win. They do 
not want Senator Boxer or Senator Ensign involved in that family 
discussion, saying: But, no, you must have this child. You must not 
have any rights to choose. They do not want that. People do not feel 
comfortable with it. They want to deal with this their own way, with 
their own God, with their own family, with their loving family members. 
But that is not before us.
  What is before us is a very narrow bill that deals with a very narrow 
circumstance where there is a young woman who does not go to her 
parents, mostly because she is scared to death to go to them. For 
whatever reasons, in her mind, she is fearful: Will they--if she is 
from a violent home--beat her

[[Page 15650]]

up? Will they hurt her? Will they verbally abuse her? Will they be 
disappointed? And that weighs on her.
  So what we are saying with this bill to that girl in a parental 
notification State is: You are alone. You can't go to anyone else. You 
can't go to your grandma who you adore, you can't go to your grandpa, 
you can't go to your big sister, you can't go to your Aunt Susan, you 
can't go to your clergy who has taken care of you and looked after you.
  So you can't go to your doctor. You can't do this because they could 
be sued and put in jail. That is what this bill does. Is that America? 
Rather than go to the people who she knows who adore her, love her, 
care about her, would counsel her, would help her and, perhaps, by the 
way, talk her into speaking to her parents or going with her to speak 
to her parents, this bill says: Go it alone, get in your car, get in an 
airplane, don't take anyone with you, don't tell anyone else, because 
that person can be sued and, worse, put in jail.
  These are our kids. My God, what a situation. And somehow this is 
supposed to be a wonderful thing we are doing, a family-values thing we 
are doing. I don't think you can force families into these situations. 
We don't know enough to be able to do that. There will be unintended 
consequences. We will have suicides. We will have very serious 
problems.
  As we wait around here in these last moments of this debate--and I am 
hopeful we can bring it to a close--let me say again that I thank 
Senator Ensign for coming my way, not quite halfway, on the issue of 
incest. Because the bill as written allowed a father who raped his 
daughter to have all kinds of parental rights: the right to sign an 
agreement that she could have an abortion, the right to take her over 
State lines, the right to sue a loving and caring adult who helped her.
  I wish to show this chart which I have shown previously. Under this 
amendment we are hoping is coming to us momentarily, we will stop a 
father who has raped his daughter from suing the trusted adult who 
helped his daughter end the resulting pregnancy. So in the case of 
incest, if the child goes to grandma, the incestuous father cannot sue 
grandma.
  Then, at the end, Senator Ensign was not willing to take these three 
provisions which I will debate. He did take my last provision.
  We now stop a father who has raped his daughter or any other family 
member who has committed incest against a minor from transporting her 
across State lines to obtain an abortion. That would be a crime.
  The three things that are not done, which is why I think this 
amendment falls short: we haven't stopped a father who has raped his 
daughter from exercising parental consent rights; we haven't stopped 
all criminal prosecution or jail time for a trusted adult who helped a 
victim of incest; and we haven't stopped all civil suits against a 
trusted adult who helped a victim of incest. But we have taken care of 
two issues. For that I am grateful because this bill will become law. 
It will be sent to the President, who will sign it. Unlike his veto on 
the stem cell bill, which he should have signed, because that bill 
would help our families, help our children with juvenile diabetes, help 
grandmas and grandpas with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, help our 
youngsters who were paralyzed--he vetoed that. He will sign this one.
  This is a political bill. It did come to us in 1998 just before the 
election. Let's face facts. We know when it came.
  My friend from Nevada is right when he says people support parental 
notification. They do want to believe we could all to go our parents 
with these problems. But let me tell you what they don't want. They 
don't want to give incest predators any rights whatsoever. They would 
want to make an exception in this bill for rape victims so that if you 
are a victim of rape and you were too scared to tell your parents, you 
could go to your grandmother, but not under this bill. A victim of 
rape, you are too scared to tell your parents because of the 
circumstances--maybe it was date rape, maybe you just can't explain it. 
Maybe you are frightened to death. You go to your grandma. She could be 
sued by the parents and she could be put in jail by the Federal 
Government. Send your grandma to jail. That is what we are doing here 
today. Why? Because she loved her granddaughter, because she was there 
for her granddaughter, and because by stepping in, she may have really 
saved a tragedy from occurring.
  I don't believe the American people want us to be this radical. I 
think they would have wanted us to do more exceptions to this bill. 
Seventy percent of the American people oppose abortion laws that put 
people in jail. I don't believe Americans think that stopping an 
abortion is worth causing a teen a lifetime of paralysis, infertility, 
or worse. This bill, if it does get signed into law, and I say it will, 
and unless it is overturned by the courts, which I think it might be, 
but if it isn't, it basically will put these young women in a situation 
where they feel the world is closing in on them. That is not right.
  I will close my debate and urge a ``yes'' vote on the Boxer-Ensign 
amendment that will go part way toward solving the predator incest 
issue. Then I would urge a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill because 
of all the problems it creates that we have not been able to address.
  I thank the staffs on both sides. We have had a long and difficult 
day, emotional issues for us all. Yet we have handled it in such a way 
that I am hopeful that momentarily we will have a unanimous consent 
request to resolve the procedures governing the rest of the evening.
  I yield back my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ENSIGN. I ask 
unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Boxer 
be recognized in order to offer an amendment; provided further that 
there be 5 minutes for Senator Boxer and----
  Mrs. BOXER. I only need 30 seconds.
  Mr. ENSIGN. That we have 1 minute for Senator Boxer, 1 minute for 
Senator Ensign, and following that time, the Senate proceed to a vote 
in relation to the Boxer amendment. I further ask that following that 
vote, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on 
passage of the bill with no further intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4694

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], for herself and 
     Mr. Ensign, proposes an amendment numbered 4694.

  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

         (Purpose: To punish parents who have committed incest)

       On page 4, line 5, strike the period and insert ``, unless 
     the parent has committed an act of incest with the minor 
     subject to subsection (a).''.

       On page 5, after line 12 insert the following:

     ``Sec. 2432. Transportation of minors in circumvention of 
       certain laws relating to abortion

       ``Notwithstanding section 2431(b)(2), whoever has committed 
     an act of incest with a minor and knowingly transports the 
     minor across a State line with the intent that such minor 
     obtain an abortion, shall be fined under this title or 
     imprisoned not more than one year, or both.''

  Mrs. BOXER. I thank Senator Ensign. I had an amendment to solve this 
incest predator problem. He came to me almost halfway. We didn't quite 
get there, but it is a start. Again, for the benefit of my colleagues, 
two out of five provisions I wanted are in this

[[Page 15651]]

amendment. This amendment stops a father who has raped his daughter 
from suing the trusted adult who helped his daughter end the resulting 
pregnancy, and it stops a father who has raped his daughter or any 
other family member who has committed incest against a minor from 
transporting her across State lines. This is an improvement. The reason 
we want to have a vote on it is because we hope it is a strong 
statement going into the conference on this bill. Again, we still need 
to fix many more provisions of this bill.
  I believe, at the end of the day, it doesn't make our teenagers any 
safer. It will make them fearful. It will make them feel alone. I think 
the bill is unconstitutional. I hope we have some ``no'' votes to send 
a message that this bill needs a lot more work.
  I thank Senator Ensign and his staff and my staff. It has been a 
tough day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, to wrap up, I encourage a ``yes'' vote on 
the Boxer-Ensign amendment.
  I thank my staff and Senator Boxer's staff and particularly name Pam 
Thiessen and Alexis Bayer on my staff for the great work they have done 
on this bill and Chris Jaarda for some of the number crunching he did 
on the bill as well.
  I hope we get a strong bipartisan vote on final passage. To alert our 
Members, these will be two votes, and then we will be completely done 
with this bill.
  I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I ask for the yeas and nays on final passage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the yeas and nays may be 
requested on final passage.
  Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
4694.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 98, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 215 Ex.]

                                YEAS--98

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Coburn
     Feinstein
       
  The amendment (No. 4694) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read 
the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the bill having been 
read the third time, the question is, Shall the bill, as amended, pass? 
The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 65, nays 34, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 216 Ex.]

                                YEAS--65

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner

                                NAYS--34

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Cantwell
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Collins
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Harkin
     Jeffords
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Obama
     Reed
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Feinstein
       
  The bill (S. 403), as amended, was passed, as follows:

                                 S. 403

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Child Custody Protection 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. TRANSPORTATION OF MINORS IN CIRCUMVENTION OF CERTAIN 
                   LAWS RELATING TO ABORTION.

       (a) In General.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after chapter 117 the following:

 ``CHAPTER 117A--TRANSPORTATION OF MINORS IN CIRCUMVENTION OF CERTAIN 
                       LAWS RELATING TO ABORTION

``Sec.
``2431. Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws 
              relating to abortion.

     ``Sec. 2431. Transportation of minors in circumvention of 
       certain laws relating to abortion

       ``(a) Offense.--
       ``(1) Generally.--Except as provided in subsection (b), 
     whoever knowingly transports a minor across a State line, 
     with the intent that such minor obtain an abortion, and 
     thereby in fact abridges the right of a parent under a law 
     requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion 
     decision, in force in the State where the minor resides, 
     shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 
     one year, or both.
       ``(2) Definition.--For the purposes of this subsection, an 
     abridgement of the right of a parent occurs if an abortion is 
     performed on the minor, in a State other than the State where 
     the minor resides, without the parental consent or 
     notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have 
     been required by that law had the abortion been performed in 
     the State where the minor resides.
       ``(b) Exceptions.--
       ``(1) The prohibition of subsection (a) does not apply if 
     the abortion was necessary to save the life of the minor 
     because her life was endangered by a physical disorder, 
     physical injury, or physical illness, including a life 
     endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the 
     pregnancy itself.
       ``(2) A minor transported in violation of this section, and 
     any parent of that minor, may not be prosecuted or sued for a 
     violation of this section, a conspiracy to violate this 
     section, or an offense under section 2 or 3 based on a 
     violation of this section.
       ``(c) Affirmative Defense.--It is an affirmative defense to 
     a prosecution for an offense, or to a civil action, based on 
     a violation of this section that the defendant reasonably 
     believed, based on information the defendant obtained 
     directly from a parent of the minor or other compelling 
     facts, that before the minor obtained the abortion, the 
     parental consent or notification, or judicial authorization 
     took place that would have been

[[Page 15652]]

     required by the law requiring parental involvement in a 
     minor's abortion decision, had the abortion been performed in 
     the State where the minor resides.
       ``(d) Civil Action.--Any parent who suffers harm from a 
     violation of subsection (a) may obtain appropriate relief in 
     a civil action, unless the parent has committed an act of 
     incest with the minor subject to subsection (a).
       ``(e) Definitions.--For the purposes of this section--
       ``(1) a `law requiring parental involvement in a minor's 
     abortion decision' means a law--
       ``(A) requiring, before an abortion is performed on a 
     minor, either--
       ``(i) the notification to, or consent of, a parent of that 
     minor; or
       ``(ii) proceedings in a State court; and
       ``(B) that does not provide as an alternative to the 
     requirements described in subparagraph (A) notification to or 
     consent of any person or entity who is not described in that 
     subparagraph;
       ``(2) the term `parent' means--
       ``(A) a parent or guardian;
       ``(B) a legal custodian; or
       ``(C) a person standing in loco parentis who has care and 
     control of the minor, and with whom the minor regularly 
     resides, who is designated by the law requiring parental 
     involvement in the minor's abortion decision as a person to 
     whom notification, or from whom consent, is required;
       ``(3) the term `minor' means an individual who is not older 
     than the maximum age requiring parental notification or 
     consent, or proceedings in a State court, under the law 
     requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion 
     decision; and
       ``(4) the term `State' includes the District of Columbia 
     and any commonwealth, possession, or other territory of the 
     United States.

     ``Sec. 2432. Transportation of minors in circumvention of 
       certain laws relating to abortion

       ``Notwithstanding section 2431(b)(2), whoever has committed 
     an act of incest with a minor and knowingly transports the 
     minor across a State line with the intent that such minor 
     obtain an abortion, shall be fined under this title or 
     imprisoned not more than one year, or both.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of chapters for part I 
     of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to chapter 117 the following new 
     item:

``117A. Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws 
  relating to abortion..........................................2431''.

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. DURBIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I congratulate Chairman Ensign for managing 
this bill, an important bill that we have passed and that the House has 
passed, and now it is time for us to go to conference. I thank 
leadership and the managers on both sides because we were able to 
address a very important issue and had appropriate amendments under an 
agreement that was reached, and conclusion was passage as we just heard 
by 65 to 34 on this bill.
  With regard to that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
immediately proceed to the consideration of H.R. 748, the House 
companion measure; provided that all after the enacting clause be 
stricken and the text of S. 403, as amended, if amended, be inserted in 
lieu thereof; the bill then be read a third time and passed, and the 
Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, 
and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees with a ratio of 7 to 
5.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, on behalf 
of myself and other Senators, I will object to the appointment of 
conferees at this point. This is an issue which has been debated for a 
short time here on the floor and never went through the Senate 
Judiciary Committee for consideration. It is our belief that at this 
point in the session asking for a conference committee is premature.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the objection is heard. And I will say that 
I am disappointed. This bill passed the House of Representatives on 
April 17, 2005, and just passed this body 65 to 34 expressing the will 
of the Senate. Routinely, we would go to conference with the House and 
the Senate bill and move forward. I understand that objection is made. 
I am very disappointed that is the case. I hope we can get to 
conference just as soon as possible. I do hope that the objection we 
heard tonight does not represent obstruction in taking this bill to 
conference, because that would be the normal course. But we will 
address this in the future.
  Again, I am disappointed that we are being stopped from going to 
conference tonight.

                          ____________________