[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18139-18145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  LIFE AND THE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Maffei). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, we're going to be spending the next hour, I 
and my colleagues are going to be talking about issues that are really 
on the forefront right now of debate.
  We've been talking for weeks and will continue to talk about health 
care reform; but as these bills are rolling out of committee, we're 
learning new facts that are, I think, disconcerting to many of us, 
particularly those of us who are of the pro-life persuasion. So we're 
going to be talking this evening about the subject of life. We're going 
to be talking about abortions, preventing abortions, the up and down 
and the frequency of abortions. We may even get into end-of-life issues 
because all of these are relevant, of course, to what's going on with 
the health care debate today in Washington.
  I want to start out with the first slide and notice it says from 1973 
until the Hyde amendment was passed in 1976, Federal taxpayers were 
paying for 300,000 abortions per year, even though abortion was never 
mentioned in the original Medicaid statute. Think about that. There was 
no provision for abortions to be paid for under the Medicaid statutes, 
and yet 300,000 abortions per year were being provided, all at 
taxpayers' expense. How can this happen? How can this happen in America 
where something is being paid for, something that is unconscionable 
for, at least today, over 50 percent of Americans, and yet it's paid 
for by taxpayers?
  You know, it's interesting in the abortion debate, some of us are 
definitely against abortions. We call ourselves pro-lifers. There are 
those who are in favor of abortions. They, of course, call themselves 
pro-choice. But the interesting thing about this matter, many of those 
who call themselves pro-choice actually say that they would like to see 
fewer abortions, perhaps even no abortions if it could be done, even 
though they would prefer that there not be a law against that. In fact, 
a recent study showed that 69 percent of Americans are against 
taxpayer-funded abortions.
  So you have many different issues here. You have whether or not there 
should be abortions in the first place. You have the issue of those who 
even want to leave it to the mother would rather not see abortions, and 
then many Americans who really see no problem with the taking of life, 
don't want to have to pay for it, at least not through their taxes, of 
course.
  But you know, it's very interesting that, again, from 1973 until the 
Hyde amendment was passed, there were 300,000 abortions per year. In 
1976, something very interesting happened. The Hyde amendment was 
attached to an appropriations bill, and it prevented any further 
taxpayer funding of abortions except in the unusual case such as rape, 
incest, the health of the mother, of course; and we've seen a 
tremendous dip in the number of abortions. And, again, this slide 
illustrates the fact I mentioned a moment ago, 69 percent of Americans 
oppose taxpayer funding for abortions. That's a vast, vast majority of 
Americans.
  We go to slide three. Abortion advocates are using health care reform 
to advance a hidden agenda. And here's a quote from Wendy Chavkin, 
who's former board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health and 
Choice, obviously a pro-abortion advocate. She says, Public option--and 
that's referring to the current bills that are before us today, that 
is, the option of choosing a public plan, a government-run health care 
system--public option is key to the health reform, and using medical 
standard of care in language, instead of listing reproductive services 
that will siphon off votes, is key to this.

                              {time}  2100

  And what is she referring to? Well, if we talk about reproductive 
care, that of course implies reproductive services, including 
abortions.
  Well, if we just leave it to the medical standard of care and let 
someone else define that standard of care, then what we really end up 
with is a standard of care out there that can be dictated to all that 
means, of course, abortion services.
  So, really, what are we getting to in this entire debate and 
discussion? We're going to be getting into the weeds here in just a 
moment with my colleagues. But the bottom line is that if, according to 
the courts and according to the rules that can be provided by the 
administration, if abortion is not explicitly excluded under taxpayer 
funding, under Medicaid, any kind of single-payer, government-run 
health plan, if it is not specifically excluded, then it is included. 
Let me repeat that. If it is not explicitly excluded, it is included.
  What does that mean? It means that it is a de facto mandate. The 
courts over and over have judged that if Congress does not say it's not 
to be paid for, it is considered a standard of care and therefore will 
be covered.
  Again, I want to give you another quote here from the National 
Abortion Federation, which, ``supports health care reform as a way to 
increase access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including 
abortion care for all women.''
  So, you see, the pro-abortion people are using this to advance their 
own goals, and that is to get the number of abortions back up again. I 
don't understand how that is in any way a desirable goal, but it's 
obvious they're doing that.
  So what we're seeing here is a history that the more accessible 
abortions are--that is the easier they can be provided, and certainly 
for free without any costs--the fewer barriers there are, the more 
abortions there are going to be.
  Now I have a quote from Barack Obama, our President. He says, Well, 
look, in my mind, reproductive care is essential care, basic care. So 
it is at the center, the heart of the plan that I

[[Page 18140]]

propose. Insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms 
of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care that's 
going to be absolutely vital.
  It's very clear where our President is going with this. Again, 
between the judicial branch and the executive branch--the judicial 
branch, of course, in courts--again and again saying if Congress does 
not exclude it, it is included, and then a President who feels very 
strongly that it should be included, then it's going to be there unless 
we do our job and we amend this bill and exclude it. It has been 
attempted on the Senate side and failed. And certainly we're going to 
try.
  This bill, of course, equals the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded 
abortion in history. In fact, I would say that it stands to increase 
the number of abortions greater than any time in history since Roe v. 
Wade. So we're really on the edge of another giant leap in terms of 
abortions.
  I'm going to end my originating comments here with this, and that is 
many of you may recall when our President was asked, When does life 
begin? And what was his response to that? He said, as a candidate for 
the President of the United States, he said, Well, that's above my pay 
grade.
  Well, I ask rhetorically, What is a higher pay grade than being the 
President of the United States? If he can't decide when life begins, 
then who do we go to? And that's going to be perhaps a matter of debate 
tonight.
  I'm a physician. I can say very clearly and without hesitation that 
life begins at conception. It's a biological truth. It's biological 
fact. There's no way to argue around that. Many have tried. Some say 
that, Well, it's at the point of viability. But that, of course, is a 
moving target. Babies are surviving younger and younger in gestation.
  So, as we go forward in the debate tonight, we certainly want to 
include all these issues relative to abortion.
  My colleague Joe Pitts, Congressman Pitts, who has been at the 
forefront of the abortion debate for many years, really brings a lot of 
experience to us tonight. I want to recognize the gentleman and 
certainly give him the opportunity to use as much time as he may 
desire.
  Mr. PITTS. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate your overview and 
scheduling this hour over this so-called health reform and the abortion 
connection because this health care reform plan contains a hidden 
abortion mandate that the American people don't even realize is there.
  It will mean that health care insurers will be forced to cover 
abortions. It will mean that taxpayer money will be used to subsidize 
abortions. Both a mandate and a subsidy against the moral objections of 
millions of pro-life Americans under the proposed health care reform 
bill which we're considering now in the Energy and Commerce Committee, 
on which I sit. And we began opening statements today. We will begin 
markup tomorrow. And it will continue next week for 3 more days.
  Virtually under this bill every individual would be required to have 
health care that meets what they call minimum benefit standards.
  Now, the bill does not design these minimum benefit standards, but 
instead it establishes a new government health board called the Health 
Benefits Advisory Committee. This committee is chaired by the Surgeon 
General and, in concert with the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, will issue binding decrees on what is and is not considered a 
minimum Federal benefit standard.
  There is absolutely no doubt, as the gentleman from Louisiana stated, 
that this process will result in mandated coverage of abortion, along 
with Federal subsidies for such coverage, unless Congress explicitly 
excludes abortion services.
  When talking about health care reform, the gentleman mentioned 
President Obama himself stated that reproductive care is essential 
care, basic care. And Secretary Clinton just recently clarified that, 
``Productive health includes access to abortion.''
  History has demonstrated, as he pointed out, that unless abortion is 
explicitly excluded, administrative agencies and the courts will 
mandate it. We have seen this time and time again. The Federal Medicaid 
statute was silent on the issue of abortion, but the administration and 
the courts deemed abortion on demand to be mandated coverage. And, as a 
result, over 300,000 abortions a year were paid for with taxpayer funds 
before it was stopped.
  In 1979, Congressman Henry Hyde asked the Indian Health Services 
where they found their authority to pay for abortions. They responded, 
``We would have no basis for refusing to pay for abortions.'' In both 
of these cases, explicit exclusions had to be added to ensure that 
taxpayers would not have to continue to pay for abortions.
  And so every year when Labor and HHS that covers Medicaid is adopted, 
we have to adopt the Hyde amendment. It's an annual event.
  Under this bill, any individual who does not have a plan that meets 
the minimum benefit standards, they will be forced to pay an additional 
2\1/2\ percent penalty. Tax penalty. Any employer who does not provide 
coverage to his employees that meets these standards will pay up to an 
additional 8 percent tax penalty.
  And so that means all premium payers and taxpayers in America who do 
not want a plan that pays for abortion will be penalized for it. In 
addition to mandating this coverage for abortion, the bill will also 
provide massive subsidies for abortion.
  The bill both authorizes and appropriates funding for premium 
subsidies. So we won't have to appropriate money in the future if we 
pass this bill. And without explicit language to clarify that taxpayer 
dollars cannot and should not fund abortion, massive subsidies for 
premiums and cost-sharings will be used to pay for abortions against 
the moral objections of, as I have said, millions of pro-life 
Americans.
  The issue here is simple: Americans should not be forced to have 
their tax dollars pay for abortion. And that's why I'm going to offer 
amendments in the Energy and Commerce Committee in the markup to 
eliminate the mandate, to eliminate the subsidies, and also to keep the 
bill from preempting State laws.
  This bill is basically an end run to establish FOCA--Freedom of 
Choice Act. All the pro-life community knows what that is. This bill 
would preempt all State laws that would interfere with this bill and 
access to abortion.
  We should not be forced to be unwitting participants as the abortion 
industry uses this law to mainstream the destruction of human life into 
Americans' health care industry. Health care is about saving and 
nurturing life, not about taking life. Abortion is not health care. And 
this bill seeks to establish that.
  The majority of Americans, as was pointed out, do not support public 
funding for abortion, use of their taxpayers dollars for abortion, and 
they should not have this abortion coverage forcefully thrust upon 
them.
  And so with that, I thank the gentleman for scheduling this hour. 
It's very important that we alert the public as to what is coming down 
the pike in the next couple of weeks so they can get involved and 
express their views to their Members so that they reflect their views 
here on the floor.
  Mr. FLEMING. If the gentleman would allow, I'd like to ask a 
question. Congressman Pitts, are you saying then that perhaps the other 
side of the aisle, the pro-choice or the pro-abortion folks, are really 
piggybacking onto a bill that has nothing to do with abortion in order 
to reach their goals, their aims that they perhaps have been trying to 
attempt for many years?
  Mr. PITTS. They know, in response to the gentleman, they know that if 
the bill is silent on the issue of abortion, they will control who's 
appointed to the Benefits Advisory Committee. And they have expressed 
their intent, from the President on down to all the organizations who 
have lobbied for this health care bill, that they intend that abortion 
will be a basic essential service.
  And so they're relying on that advisory committee, on the Secretary 
of

[[Page 18141]]

Health and Human Services, on the courts, on the administrators to 
guarantee that this will be provided. Friends, this is the big battle 
for our time. This is the greatest civil rights issue of our 
generation. And if we lose this battle, it's over.
  Now is the time for all citizens to weigh in if they don't want their 
tax dollars used to set up this massive abortion scheme that's coming 
through this bill.
  Mr. FLEMING. Well, I thank the gentleman for his comments and 
certainly will be happy to discuss this further as we go along this 
evening.
  Again, I want to underscore and emphasize the comments here that, as 
the gentleman says, abortion is not health care. In fact, I would say 
the taking of innocent life is not health care. In fact, as a physician 
I have a sworn honor not to take life, of course unnecessarily, and 
certainly innocent life; only to do so if it of course protects other 
life, such as in the case of perhaps an ectopic pregnancy, if you will, 
or a mother who's bleeding to death. When there's no viability of the 
fetus or the embryo to begin with, that's a lifesaving measure.
  But elective abortion--that is what this is. That is not health care. 
That is taking innocent life. And there is no way--in as many ways as 
we have tried to debate this, no one has ever been able to come up with 
a solid response to that argument that killing the unborn baby at any 
stage in life beyond conception is and always will be the taking of 
innocent life.

                              {time}  2115

  Well, this is an extremely interesting debate. I want to turn to my 
friend from the Corn State of Iowa, Steve King, Congressman King. I 
know he is itching to add some very important comments, so I yield to 
my friend.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman, the doctor from Louisiana, 
for organizing this Special Order this evening, and I thank my 
colleagues who have come to the floor to stand up for life and to make 
this argument, Mr. Speaker, before the American people tonight here on 
the floor of the House of Representatives.
  I think, first and foremost, Dr. Fleming made the point of this 
profound question, of this question about: When does life begin? It's a 
question that I will not hear answered from over here on this side of 
the aisle where we find so many people who are promoting the idea of 
compelling all Americans, including pro-life Americans, to fund 
abortions in this country under all circumstances and also in foreign 
lands. Many of those votes have gone up on this floor.
  I'll lay out how I deal with this from time to time when I've gone 
into a school auditorium to visit with students and when I've had the 
principal hand me the cordless microphone and say, They're yours for 50 
minutes or for whatever time there might be.
  In that conversation, I'll ask them to ask themselves two questions. 
I'll say, You're young people, and you're establishing your principles 
and your values for life, and these are profound questions that you'll 
be asked. So the first question I'll ask is:
  Is all human life sacred in all of its forms? Do you believe in the 
sanctity of human life?
  They'll look at each other a little bit. Some will understand it 
instantly, and some of them won't understand it at all, and for others, 
it will soak in a little bit. Then I explain it:
  Is your life sacred? Is the life of the person next to you sacred? 
Are the lives of your families, of your brothers, of your sisters, of 
your parents, of your aunts and your uncles, of the people in your 
classes, and of your closest friends sacred? Do you believe in the 
sanctity of human life?
  They come to a unanimous position. They look around and say yes. They 
realize that their families, their friends, their neighbors--that every 
human life on this planet is a sacred, unique creation from God. When 
they come to that conclusion--and it's always unanimous in the 
gymnasium or in the auditorium or wherever it might be--then I ask 
them:
  Now that you've answered the first question of whether you believe in 
the sanctity of human life and now that you've all said ``yes'' and 
``amen,'' the next question then is: At what instant does life begin?
  Dr. Fleming has said, and I agree, that life begins at the instant of 
conception and that you have to choose an instant because, otherwise, 
it's a moving target, and otherwise, it's guesswork with sacred human 
life. So it's throughout that 9 months of gestation, and it came to me 
this way:
  When my first son was born, my first child, I held him in my arms, 
and I just looked upon a miracle, and I thought, How could anyone take 
this child's life at this moment, at this moment shortly after his 
birth? But then I asked myself the question, What is unique about this? 
What would be different about his life the moment before he was born? 
He's still a child. He's still a unique creature from God. So I just 
quickly rationalized back through that period of time of those 9 months 
that he'd been forming, and there is no instant there that you could 
pick as the time and say, well, he was a human being, a sacred human 
being at this point, but not a moment earlier. So you have to choose an 
instant that life begins, and the only instant that exists in the whole 
process is at fertilization, conception.
  So I asked those students then another question, which was: What if 
someone walked by the door to this gymnasium, which was full of these 
students, and stuck a gun through the door and looked the other way 
away from them and pulled the trigger and ran down the hallway and the 
security people chased him down and captured him outside and cuffed 
him? Now you'd all be safe except for what might have happened.
  Did he kill somebody or didn't he?
  They looked at each other, and they said, Well, we don't know. I 
said, That's my point, but if there is a dead body in the gymnasium, he 
killed somebody. Whether he knows or whether you know, it's still a 
fact, and he's still guilty of murder, of premeditated murder.
  So it isn't a matter of saying, Well, I don't know for sure, so I'm 
just going to go ahead and err and have an abortion. It's a matter of 
that precise line and of thinking of that precise moral question. I'm 
not casting aspersions or blame or guilt on anyone. I'm just asking 
young people to think about this. I'm asking adults to think about 
this. I have never found anyone who I've debated this issue with--and 
there have been many--who can respond to those questions. If they're 
asked the first question--is human life sacred in all of its forms?--
and if they say ``yes,'' as we all do, then there is no escaping the 
fact that that human life begins at the instant of conception. That is 
at the core of this debate.
  Here we have a Congress that seems to have political power and 
support and campaign contributions that flow into the coffers of, at 
this point, a majority of the Members in the House of Representatives. 
I've watched Members gravitate towards their power base and put up the 
votes that flatter the people who show up at their fund-raising events.
  I will never forget the night we had the vote here in early 2007 on 
the Mexico City language. The gentleman from New Jersey, whom we'll 
hear from in a moment, offered that amendment. I was over about that 
far back, and as Chris Smith said, We won the debate and we lost the 
vote. Over on this side, there were 30 or so who were jumping up and 
down, clapping, cheering and hugging each other. If I'd been closer, I 
could have told you whether they'd had tears of joy, but they were 
elated that they had defeated our effort to block Federal funding for 
abortions in foreign lands.
  I looked at that, and I thought, How could anyone have it in his 
heart to exhibit such joy at funding abortions and at the end of life 
of innocent babies in foreign lands? First, I don't think that was 
their joy. Tonight, I did. As I think it over, no, it was more that 
they believed that they had landed a blow against the political 
opinions of the people here of most of us on this side of the aisle and 
of about a good 30 pro-lifers on the other side of the aisle. Political 
opinions? These are profound,

[[Page 18142]]

deeply held moral convictions that are tied and rooted in our religions 
as well. That's what this discussion and this debate are about.
  When I see language that comes out that sets up, essentially, a 
mandatory national health care plan that has no exemption in for 
abortion or for the funding of abortion, if it's not an explicit 
exclusion, as the gentleman said, then we know by deep and long 
experience that there will be federally funded abortions.
  By the way, I don't believe there's a conscience clause in all of 
these hundreds of pages in the bill either, and President Obama would 
not allow a conscience clause. He has opposed that along the way. He 
has appointed as his Office of Legal Counsel a young lady who has been 
a strong advocate for abortion and who has argued a number of cases for 
the National Abortion Rights Action League. It looks like the Senate is 
poised to confirm a justice to the Supreme Court who has a fairly 
significant record in advocating for or in coming down with decisions 
that enable more and more abortions.
  We need to draw a bright moral line. Laws that we pass in this 
Congress are laws that are rooted in the moral foundation of our 
people, and if we see that 51 percent of the people in America 
characterize themselves as pro-life--and that's the number that we're 
looking at here tonight--and if you slice and dice that and if you go 
on up the line and if you define ``pro-life'' as, maybe, someone who 
makes an exception for the life of the mother and then as someone who 
makes exceptions for rape and for incest and maybe as someone who makes 
an exception and says we should not do partial birth abortion, you get 
almost up to 100 percent. Hardly anybody believes that you should take 
a baby who is almost born and draw their brains out while they're 
struggling for life. We put an end to that in this Congress, and it was 
a struggle to do so, and it was twice before the United States Supreme 
Court.
  I've seen numbers that take us all on up into the 70th and higher 
percentile of self-professed pro-life people, depending on how you 
define it. Yet when we have 69 percent of the people in this country 
that argue you should not use taxpayers' dollars to fund abortions--and 
certainly I'm among those, and I think we're unanimous in that--that is 
big debate. It's a profound debate. It goes to the heart of the moral 
core of the people of the United States of America. I am grateful that 
the gentleman from Louisiana, who has demonstrated a lifetime as a 
practitioner in the health care industry and who understands this 
clearly, has brought this issue to the floor, and I stand united with 
you.
  I yield back.
  Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Pitts.
  Mr. PITTS. I want just to highlight something that the gentleman from 
Iowa said. I think this is really a good way to explain it.
  When does a baby's life have value?
  Now, we know no one in this Congress would kill a 1-month-old baby or 
a 2-week-old baby, but if you could make life a line and put that 
dividing line at birth, what makes a baby that is 2 weeks old any more 
valuable than a baby who is 2 weeks before birth? What makes a 1-month-
old baby any more valuable than one who is a month before birth? What 
makes a 3-month-old baby more valuable than a 3-month premature baby? 
If you go back on that line, when on that line does this baby's life 
begin to have value?
  Those of us who hold the sanctity of life, I think, would believe 
that, from the moment of conception, as a little embryo, that that 
small, tiny human being has value. We know that its blood type is 
different than its mother's. It couldn't receive a blood transfusion 
from its mother. It probably couldn't receive a skin graft from its 
mother. In fact, by about 9 to 10 weeks, 11 weeks, which is when most 
abortions are done, that little baby has its fingerprints that are 
completely unique from any other individual's ever born. It has dream 
patterns on its brain waves. It sucks its thumb. If you put a light 
intrautero, it will hold up its hand and will turn its head. It feels 
pain. It is a little, unique individual in a little life support system 
that is not very big, but it is certainly just as valuable as any other 
baby. That's why we speak up for these little ones who can't speak for 
themselves.
  They are subject to the most gruesome, horrific procedure known to 
mankind. I remember the chairwoman of the Feminists for Life speaking 
to a group of us. She said abortion is the most violent form of death 
known to mankind and that abortion always has two victims--one dead, 
one wounded. One is the baby and one is the mother. She said an 
abortion breaks a woman's heart, and there are a lot of people who have 
suffered from this, and we need to do something about that.
  I thought your illustration was really right on. It's a good way of 
illustrating why we're speaking up tonight for these little unborn 
children and for their moms.
  I yield back.
  Mr. FLEMING. Reclaiming my time, before I go to the gentlelady, I 
wanted to follow up on that, on the perspective of having unique 
fingerprints, for instance.
  You know, at the moment of conception, that baby has a DNA pattern 
that is unique unto history. No one has ever had the same DNA pattern. 
No one ever will have the same DNA pattern, and that does make that a 
unique human being, but here is something else to ponder, I think:
  Why is it that we think so differently about the born child versus 
the unborn child when there may only be a few-days' difference? I've 
thought about this and have pondered this. It is a unique capability 
that human beings have, which is to dehumanize. We have the ability to 
dehumanize other human beings. I can give you some great examples.
  Look at Nazi Germany. Millions of Jews and Poles and others were 
exterminated because they were not thought to be truly human, but a 
human cannot do this to his own species unless he thinks one is a 
subhuman or a nonhuman. Look, of course, at the days of slavery. How 
could we have the Founding Fathers of our country think in terms of 
freedom for all and yet enslave our fellow man? The only way to do it 
is to think of those people as not being human.
  That is the reason that people today can abort children, even to the 
point of partial late-term abortion, which is to think of them as 
nonhumans, and I think that's something that we really have to reassess 
in our lives--certainly our religious values. My values as a Christian 
suggest that a life is a life. Think of all the George Washingtons and 
the Abraham Lincolns and the Einsteins who are being aborted every day, 
people who could add so much to our future.
  Anyway, we have a lot to cover, and I want to thank the gentlelady 
from North Carolina, Virginia Foxx. She is about the most hardworking 
Con-
gressperson I know up here, and I always like to turn to her for 
valuable advice on things, so I yield to the gentlelady.

                              {time}  2130

  Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I appreciate you organizing this 
Special Order tonight and the comments of my colleagues from 
Pennsylvania. My colleague from Iowa and you have both been very 
eloquent tonight. I won't try to add a lot to the really terrific 
comments that you all have made, but I did want to come and lend my 
support to this Special Order tonight and say that I certainly share 
with you the horror of the fact that this bill is going to be the 
largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in history. We spoke out 
against it in the Rules Committee. We've been speaking out against it 
for days but to no avail. And I was thinking also about what you were 
saying a few minutes ago about dehumanizing. I think that one of the 
big concerns that I have and that many people are having in the debate 
that we've been having with health care funding and with the attempt by 
the Obama administration and Speaker Pelosi to turn our health care in 
this country upside down, the greatest health care system in the world, 
to turn it upside down and have it be given over to government control 
is the great fear that many of us have about rationing care and the 
fact that

[[Page 18143]]

we are concerned that the attitude toward abortion, which has permeated 
our colleagues on the other side, is going to be extended to other 
people in our culture, particularly to the elderly. And I agree with 
you. It doesn't take much to go from not recognizing the humanity of an 
unborn child to not recognizing the humanity of someone with a handicap 
or a challenge, a physical challenge, to not recognizing the worth of 
an older human being. I think that is a great fear that many of us have 
in our country.
  I was thinking about the rules process. Being the newest member of 
the Rules Committee and going through the appropriations process for 
the first time, we have been protesting for the last 3 weeks the way 
the majority has handled rules and the way it's handled amendments. We 
have been closed out from being able to offer amendments that would put 
folks on the record for how they feel, not just about this issue, which 
I think is by far one of the most important issues we're dealing with 
in this Congress, but on lots of them. Today we had 11 amendments from 
our colleague Jeff Flake. I voted for every single one of those 
amendments because it cut pork-barrel spending and earmarks. However, 
the argument from our colleagues on the other side is that there isn't 
enough time to have an open rules process because they want to get 
through appropriations right away; and yet if we had an open rules 
process, we could have put some of the amendments that have been put 
together by you, Congressman Pitts and others--one dealing with access 
to abortion, for example. Again, we know that this bill that you have 
been talking about is going to require abortion clinics in communities 
that don't want abortion clinics. We know that 85 percent of 
communities in this country do not have them, yet this bill is going to 
mean that there are going to have to be abortion clinics or abortion 
providers made available in those communities; and the reason we were 
told that we couldn't offer these amendments to try to stop these 
things was because there wasn't enough time.
  The other point I would like to make is, this afternoon the Rules 
Committee met; and we are going to deal with a bill that is not at all 
needed right now. But it's going to deal with opening up more Federal 
lands to wild horses and donkeys. Yet we are passing legislation that 
is going to result in the deaths of millions of unborn children. People 
are saying to me, What has happened to our country? I am frightened to 
death for our country and the direction in which it is going. And I 
think there are very few things that will point out the inconsistencies 
in the way people around here talk about things and what they actually 
do than to say, We took up the time in the Rules Committee today; and 
we're going to have on the floor tomorrow a rule which is going to deal 
with that issue about wild horses and wild donkeys; and yet we don't 
have the time to debate whether or not we want to take money from 
people who are strongly morally opposed to abortion and allow abortions 
to be done with our taxpayer money. So I believe the American people 
are waking up. I just hope they come out with a strong voice and say, 
This is not what I want my country to be doing.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentlelady for those comments. Of course 
very adroit, to the point, essential and important; and it also speaks 
to the process that we're going through in which these really weighty 
debates, weighty issues are being ignored and much more trivial issues 
are focused on here in this body. Again, we're talking this evening 
about the pro-life issues and the potential, if this bill passes, the 
ObamaCare, the single-payer health care reform plan that's coming out 
of the House and the Senate as well and the fact that just simply by 
not addressing the issue of taxpayer-funded abortions is actually 
allowing for them and providing for them through what is really a de 
facto mandate process.
  With that, I want to recognize my friend Chris Smith from New Jersey. 
Congressman Smith has taken a point on pro-life issues so often. We 
have so much, of course, to thank him for in this respect. And with 
that, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Dr. Fleming, thank you very much for your 
leadership. It is so reassuring in so many ways having a distinguished 
medical doctor like yourself leading the fight, as you have done so 
ably, and to have some of our other docs who are speaking out so 
eloquently on behalf of the most fundamental human right of all, and 
that is the right to life. I find it appalling--and I know you do and 
our colleagues who are here tonight--that unborn children and the 
preciousness and the innate value of their lives is so easily cast 
aside by this Congress, regrettably by the abortion President, 
President Obama, who has systematically, since he has taken office, 
through policy reversal, through policy reinterpretation and through 
legislative proposals that he has made, including one that passed today 
that will force taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand in the District 
of Columbia. And we know when that happens, there will be more 
abortions, and the tragedy of that is beyond words. Young boys and 
girls who will never taste the sunshine, never see the light of day, 
never enjoy the everyday happiness, joy and challenges that all of us 
face. Their lives will have been snuffed out, killed in a very--as Joe 
Pitts just said a moment ago--a violent procedure, as you know so well 
as a medical doctor, of dismembering a child. I hope the American 
people finally at long last rip away the facade, the veil of secrecy 
that has so enveloped the abortion issue all of these years, whereby 
children are hacked to death by the abortionist, poisoned, as you know 
so well, with chemical poisons that effectuate the death of a fragile 
innocent body, a little child who wants to live and yet he's killed.
  Mr. FLEMING. If I might reclaim just for a moment, if the gentleman 
will yield. In the late-term abortions--I've never seen one, but my 
understanding is that a trocar is inserted into the womb, into the 
skull of the baby, and the brains are sucked out, among many other 
things. Here we are concerned about waterboarding, and yet these kinds 
of techniques are done on our innocent children.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I would also point out that this Congress 
almost 4 years ago passed legislation, got 250 votes in favor of 
legislation that I offered, cosponsored by Mr. Pitts and many other 
colleagues, that basically said that unborn children feel pain. The 
evidence is overwhelming, at least from the 20th week on and probably 
before. And while this hacking maneuver, the D&E abortion is occurring, 
the child in that first few minutes of that gruesome, brutal 
decapitation--but it starts with arms and legs--suffers and feels 
excruciating pain. And as Dr. Sunny Anand has said, who is one of the 
pioneers in anesthesia for unborn children for benign reasons, 
surgeries and fixing children or at least helping to ameliorate spina 
bifida and other problems, you have to give anesthesia to these 
children or they feel it. Well, the abortionist has no such concerns 
and brutally kills the child.

                              {time}  2140

  Let me just say a couple of points, and again, we have got to ask the 
questions, and Americans really have to ask the question, why the rush 
to enact Mr. Obama's exceedingly expensive, complex and potentially 
ruinous restructuring plan without the benefit of comprehensive 
hearings on it and a thorough vetting of the actual bill text, rushing 
right to a markup before the Americans can look at it and decide what 
are the consequences, short, intermediate and long term to the 
legislation?
  ObamaCare, as we now are seeing so clearly, is the greatest threat 
ever to the lives and the well-being of unborn children since Roe v. 
Wade itself legalized abortion right up to the moment of birth. We have 
made serious, modest but serious, attempts that have passed at the 
State and Federal level to mitigate abortions' reach by denying Federal 
funding, by putting in things like women's right-to-know laws, parental 
notification, waiting periods, all of which have lessened and reduced 
the number of abortions. All of that is at

[[Page 18144]]

risk right now with this ObamaCare recommendation.
  Despite Mr. Obama's oft-repeated statement that he wants to reduce 
abortion, just last week he told that to the Pope, a couple weeks 
before that to a big audience at Notre Dame University, and he says it 
over and over again. Well, words should have meaning. They should have 
consequences and actions should comport with those words. And in this 
case, they are diametrically opposed. He says one thing and does 
precisely the opposite.
  The ugly truth is that if his so-called health care reform care bill, 
if enacted, will lead to millions of additional deaths to children and 
millions of mothers will be wounded. Even the pro-abortion Guttmacher 
Institute has found that between 20 and 35 percent of Medicare-eligible 
women who would choose abortion carry their pregnancies to term when 
public funding is not available.
  I remember when Henry Hyde was told, and it was like a revelation, 
the great Henry Hyde, the human rights leader, the finest orator 
perhaps ever in the history of this institution and the Hyde amendment 
author that proscribes Federal funding for abortion in the Medicaid 
program, when he learned that, by this extrapolation, that it was 
really true that millions of kids had survived because of his 
legislative leadership, and Jim Oberstar who was there that day and 
helped craft that legislation of the Hyde amendment in the 1970s, Henry 
Hyde had a big tear in his eye, knowing that there were kids walking 
all across America, now some of those kids, young adults, having their 
own children because the money wasn't there to facilitate their violent 
death.
  Henry Hyde and all of us who have been part of this know that because 
of these efforts, uphill as they are, children will survive, and 
mothers will avert this irreversible decision. ObamaCare opens the 
spigot of public funding and does more to facilitate abortion than any 
action since Roe, and this is the big issue. And I hope every American 
realizes, despite all of the cheap sophistry that is being thrown about 
here, what is at the core of this is an abortion promotion and the 
facilitation of it and spending for it.
  Despite the fact that a majority of Americans don't want to fund 
abortion, and every poll shows that, the Obama-Dingell-Kennedy bill 
will force every taxpayer and premium payer in the United States to pay 
for and facilitate every abortion in the country.
  ObamaCare will absolutely mandate abortion on demand, even in private 
insurance plans, which will lead to many more abortions. On April 2, 
Secretary Sebelius admitted that most private plans ``do not cover 
abortion services except in certain instances.'' That radically changes 
under ObamaCare. The legislation vests new, and you have gotten into 
this, Doctor, new huge, sweeping powers into an Obama-appointed 
committee that will be crafted after the legislation is signed into 
law, establishing essential health benefits all plans must include.
  That is the dirty little secret about this bill. They are waiting 
until after it is all inked and signed by the President, and then these 
so-called experts will say, this is what every minimum plan needs to 
have in it, and we have no doubt whatsoever that abortion will be in 
the mainstay of what they provide.
  NARAL's president has said, If indeed we can advance a panel or 
commission, then I'm very optimistic about reproductive health being 
part of the entire package. In 2007, Mr. Obama told Planned Parenthood, 
Reproductive care is essential care, we are absolutely in favor of 
reproductive care. But then as Hillary Clinton said in response to a 
question I posed at the Foreign Affairs Committee, she said, of course, 
reproductive health includes access to abortion.
  So they use word games to cloak and stealth it. But the bottom line 
is that what they are talking about is abortion on demand.
  Pro-abortion organizations believe they are on the verge of the 
biggest expansion of abortion ever. The president of the Religious 
Coalition for Reproductive Choice said, Let there be no mistake, basic 
health care includes abortion service.
  ObamaCare will also exponentially expand the number of abortion mills 
in this country by requiring that any insurance provider contract with 
essential community providers. And guess what? Planned Parenthood, 
which itself does over 300,000 abortions every year, a staggering loss 
of children's lives, many of those children are from adolescents, young 
minor girls who get abortions there, often without parental 
notification or consent, on June 17 billed itself in a media blitz as 
essential community health care providers.
  So they will be integrated with the health care insurance companies 
and a number of clinics which have dwindled and gone down over the 
years, as well as doctors willing to commit these grizzly acts will 
grow because there will be a mandate from Uncle Sam, from the White 
House and from this Congress if this is allowed to happen.
  So I just want to say to my colleagues one last thing. In the early 
1980s I was the prime sponsor of the Federal funding ban under the 
Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. We had a very big floor 
fight in this battle. We won it. President Reagan signed it into law, 
and the government plan that I'm in, and I suspect all of you are in, 
and many government employees, if not all, but most, all of a sudden 
did not provide for abortions.
  In the first year, when President Clinton had his Presidency, and the 
Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, we lost that rider in 
the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. The Clinton administration 
swung into action and ordered all of the insurance companies to carry 
abortion. There was no language in the bill, no pro-life language, no 
pro-abortion language, no language, but that meant they could order, 
just like they did with the Hyde amendment under President Carter in 
the 1970s that necessitated the Hyde amendment in the first place.
  So let me say to my colleagues on the Democratic side, and perhaps 
those on the Republican side who haven't really gotten it yet, if there 
is no language in here proscribing abortion, explicit language, it will 
be there. The Benefits Advisory Committee will order it, and as we have 
found with public funding, no language equals abortion subsidization, 
which leads to a significant skyrocketing of abortions in this country.
  We want fewer abortions. We want to affirm life and love them both, 
mother and child. So I thank you, Dr. Fleming, for giving us this 
opportunity to hopefully alert the American people that the abortion 
industry is looking really, in a very quick way, in a hurry-up offense, 
to take the most offensive acts against children, innocent children, 
and with their taxpayer dollars, yours and mine.
  I yield back, Dr. Fleming.
  Mr. FLEMING. Well, thank you to the gentleman, Mr. Smith, from New 
Jersey, for your truly passionate, eloquent statements. It is obvious, 
Congressman, that you have a deep passion that sits on your heart very 
heavily. And it is one of the things that is deeply distressing for you 
and for many of us here in this body.
  Just to reframe, again, what our discussion is and what we are really 
talking about, we are not really debating abortion. That has been 
debated endlessly, and everyone knows where we are. What we are 
debating is a tremendous Federal expansion of abortions that will occur 
with this bill. Why? Not because there is a single word, no language at 
all that says there must be, but simply from an absence of language. 
And what that means is, and it is because of the courts and the 
administration, it is just the way the law works around here, but just 
suffice it to say if it doesn't exclude it, it includes it. And that 
means that you, the taxpayer, and those paying premiums, will be paying 
for the abortions of others, whether you like it or not.
  We are also represented tonight by another New Jersey Congressperson, 
Congresslady Schmidt, who has probably run more marathons than the rest 
of the body put together. And obviously her physique reflects that 
fact. So she has a lot to bring to us when it

[[Page 18145]]

comes to the discussion of health, and we are really anxious to hear 
about that. So with that, I would like to yield to the gentlelady.
  Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you, Dr. Fleming.
  I am actually not from New Jersey, but my husband was raised there. 
I'm from Ohio. And I'm very proud of that because I'm from the area 
where the right-to-life movement was actually born under the direction 
of Dr. Jack and Barbara Wilke. I'm also the Chair of the Congressional 
Women's Pro-Life Caucus, and I truly believe that our movement is at 
its best when we speak for those populations that are most vulnerable. 
We all believe that human life is sacred, and we are the female voices 
for the fight for life here in Congress.

                              {time}  2150

  Our movement has made great strides in creating a culture of life. A 
recent Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans do consider 
themselves pro-life. And a recent Zogby poll said that 69 percent of 
respondents support the Hyde amendment to prevent taxpayer dollars from 
funding abortions under Medicaid. Most Americans, I truly believe, feel 
that abortion should be rare and we should be looking for ways to 
reduce the number of abortions performed.
  Unfortunately, the massive health care bill that this House is 
considering seeks to take us in the opposite direction. Unless amended, 
this bill will mandate abortion coverage for nearly every insurance 
plan in America, because--as has been stated before and I'll state it 
again--if abortion mandates are not specifically excluded, the courts 
will rule that they must be included.
  The coming days and weeks are the most important, I believe, for the 
pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade. As our Congress, this body, takes 
up comprehensive health care reform, I believe we the pro-life group in 
this body must mobilize and ensure that our voices are heard so that 
our Nation's voices are heard. Because if we don't act, every American 
will be forced to pay for these services, whether through their 
premiums or taxes. Abortion rates have fallen over the last 30 years, 
but if we fail to act, I wholeheartedly believe we will see abortion 
rates skyrocket.
  Health care, you know, Dr. Fleming, and you know this all too well--
you took that oath--is about saving lives. It's about providing our 
help, our love, our compassion, our prayers to the young women who need 
it. Health care reform should be about finding ways to do that better, 
not mandating coverage that we all agree will not do that. We should be 
doing things to make abortion rare. After all, everyone, including that 
unborn child, deserves the right to life.
  Dr. Fleming, thank you so much for bringing this to the attention of 
this body and of the American people. You are a great American and 
hopefully you will save a life because of this action.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back, and I 
apologize, from Ohio instead of New Jersey. I'm getting my Schmidts and 
my Smiths mixed up this evening. Briefly in the final moments, I want 
to pitch back to Mr. Smith from New Jersey.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Dr. Fleming, thank you and say to my friend 
from Ohio, thank you for that extraordinarily eloquent statement, as 
usual.
  Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me just make a couple of points, Doctor. 
The abortion industry is seeking a bailout. This is the abortion 
bailout bill and it needs to be seen as that. The number of abortions 
are going down because of ultrasound and because of educational 
efforts. This would mandate private insurers to cover abortion--and 
public as well--expand venues, the killing centers, to do abortions.
  But there's something that I would like your take on. The former 
director of the National Abortion Federation has said that the number 
of abortions are going down, also, because there are physicians who 
either can't or won't perform this, quote, essential service in her 
view. The American Medical News reported that abortion is a matter of 
choice in this country, not only for women but for physicians as well. 
All over the country most physicians are choosing not to do it. The San 
Francisco Chronicle has said those who run abortion clinics, even in 
large cities, say that recruiting doctors is now their most serious 
problem. To which we say, thank God that doctors are doing what the 
Hippocratic oath has told them and admonished them to do.
  I would like your take on that.
  Mr. FLEMING. I appreciate that. We're going to be running out of time 
and I'm going to give you a brief response to that. When I was in the 
Navy, I had a friend who was an OB-GYN who specifically refused to do 
abortions. He said it was against his conscience. He retired and went 
into the local town nearby to go into practice and his practice began a 
little slow and soon within months he became the most prolific 
abortionist in town.
  So in answer to your question, the reason why so many people, or 
those who have done it in the past have done it, it's obvious. It's 
money. It's a very lucrative trade. But on the other hand in the 
medical communities, in the communities at large, there's been 
tremendous social pressure against that. As a result, I think many have 
decided it isn't worth the money.
  This has been a wonderful hour. I do thank my colleagues for visiting 
and adding so many wonderful comments. We could spend another couple of 
hours on this.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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