[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            WOMEN OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ARE NOT PAWNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, American women have been outraged by 
Republican attacks on reproductive health this term. We saw it in the 
decision that was later reversed by the Susan G. Komen Race for the 
Cure when it initially pulled funding for Planned Parenthood for breast 
cancer screenings, and we saw it again in Republican attempts to defund 
Planned Parenthood, and then again to block access to contraceptives as 
part of health insurance.
  More seriously, beneath the radar, there has been a far-right 
campaign, as announced by anti-choice forces, that will emerge in the 
markup of H.R. 3803, a frontal attack on abortion rights as guaranteed 
by Roe v. Wade. Representative Trent Franks, the sponsor of H.R. 3803, 
and anti-choice forces have unleashed a full-fledged attack on Roe and 
the Nation's women, using women in the Nation's Capital as pawns.
  The District of Columbia Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a 
bill without any scientific basis, seeks to ban all abortions in the 
District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with very limited 
exceptions. However, Roe v. Wade requires viability to be determined 
only by a physician and not by statute. Although the bill is nominally 
addressed only to women in the District of Columbia, it seeks to rally 
the most extreme Republicans by achieving a Federal imprimatur, however 
bogus or limited, for use in an ongoing campaign across the Nation to 
get States to defy the law of the land under Roe v. Wade. Several 
conservative States have already passed similar laws, but neither 
Congressional Republicans nor anti-choice organizations has the nerve 
to proceed in the usual way with a post-20-week abortion ban bill for 
the Nation because they know that women and their supporters would 
angrily turn back such an attack on Roe v. Wade.
  The full and equal American citizens who live in the Nation's 
Capital, pay Federal taxes, and go to war demand to have their laws 
respected--especially by unaccountable Members of Congress. By moving 
the post-20-week abortion ban only in conservative States and targeting 
the District, which has no vote on such a bill on this floor, even 
though it affects only our residents, Republicans show they lack the 
courage of their own convictions and the courage to make this bill 
apply nationally, even in a Republican-controlled House where they 
would surely win. They target the District of Columbia women because 
they fear the wrath of the Nation's women that a nationwide bill would 
surely bring.

                              {time}  1050

  Well, we will not stand by as Republicans, who claim to favor small 
and local government, attempt to pass legislation affecting my 
constituents but not theirs in an act of disdain for the Federalist 
principles they profess.
  Fortunately, the scheduled markup of the bill has helped us and pro-
choice organizations to alert women across the United States that the 
D.C. label on this bill is a cover for a bill that seeks to undermine 
the reproductive rights of women across the United States.
  Women have been watching closely ever since the first attacks on 
reproductive health in the House this term. With the post-20-week D.C. 
abortion bill, Republicans have left no doubt that the reproductive 
freedom of America's women depends upon a Democratic Congress and a 
Democratic President.

                          ____________________