[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14573-14582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS PROTECTION ACT

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 421, I 
call up the bill (H.R. 3504) to amend title 18, United States Code, to 
prohibit a healthcare practitioner from failing to exercise the proper 
degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or 
attempted abortion, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 421, the bill 
is considered read.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 3504

       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 ``Born-Alive Abortion 
     Survivors Protection Act''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds as follows:
       (1) If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, 
     the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws 
     of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of 
     such laws.
       (2) Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a 
     hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the 
     protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or 
     for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other 
     facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a 
     patient within its care.

     SEC. 3. BORN-ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION.

       (a) Requirements Pertaining to Born-Alive Abortion 
     Survivors.--Chapter 74 of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting after section 1531 the following:

     ``Sec. 1532. Requirements pertaining to born-alive abortion 
       survivors

       ``(a) Requirements for Health Care Practitioners.--In the 
     case of an abortion or attempted abortion that results in a 
     child born alive (as defined in section 8 of title 1, United 
     States Code (commonly known as the `Born-Alive Infants 
     Protection Act')):
       ``(1) Degree of care required; immediate admission to a 
     hospital.--Any health care practitioner present at the time 
     the child is born alive shall--
       ``(A) exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, 
     and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as 
     a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care 
     practitioner would render to any other child born alive at 
     the same gestational age; and
       ``(B) following the exercise of skill, care, and diligence 
     required under subparagraph (A), ensure that the child born 
     alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.
       ``(2) Mandatory reporting of violations.--A health care 
     practitioner or any employee of a hospital, a physician's 
     office, or an abortion clinic who has knowledge of a failure 
     to comply with the requirements of paragraph (1) shall 
     immediately report the failure to an appropriate State or 
     Federal law enforcement agency, or to both.
       ``(b) Penalties.--
       ``(1) In general.--Whoever violates subsection (a) shall be 
     fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 5 
     years, or both.
       ``(2) Intentional killing of child born alive.--Whoever 
     intentionally performs or attempts to perform an overt act 
     that kills a child born alive described under subsection (a), 
     shall be punished as under section 1111 of this title for 
     intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.
       ``(c) Bar to Prosecution.--The mother of a child born alive 
     described under subsection (a) may not be prosecuted under 
     this section, for conspiracy to violate this section, or for 
     an offense under section 3 or 4 of this title based on such a 
     violation.
       ``(d) Civil Remedies.--
       ``(1) Civil action by a woman on whom an abortion is 
     performed.--If a child is born alive and there is a violation 
     of subsection (a), the woman upon whom the abortion was 
     performed or attempted may, in a civil action against any 
     person who committed the violation, obtain appropriate 
     relief.
       ``(2) Appropriate relief.--Appropriate relief in a civil 
     action under this subsection includes--
       ``(A) objectively verifiable money damage for all injuries, 
     psychological and physical, occasioned by the violation of 
     subsection (a);
       ``(B) statutory damages equal to 3 times the cost of the 
     abortion or attempted abortion; and
       ``(C) punitive damages.
       ``(3) Attorney's fee for plaintiff.--The court shall award 
     a reasonable attorney's fee to a prevailing plaintiff in a 
     civil action under this subsection.
       ``(4) Attorney's fee for defendant.--If a defendant in a 
     civil action under this subsection prevails and the court 
     finds that the plaintiff's suit was frivolous, the court 
     shall award a reasonable attorney's fee in favor of the 
     defendant against the plaintiff.
       ``(e) Definitions.--In this section the following 
     definitions apply:
       ``(1) Abortion.--The term `abortion' means the use or 
     prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other 
     substance or device--
       ``(A) to intentionally kill the unborn child of a woman 
     known to be pregnant; or
       ``(B) to intentionally terminate the pregnancy of a woman 
     known to be pregnant, with an intention other than--
       ``(i) after viability, to produce a live birth and preserve 
     the life and health of the child born alive; or
       ``(ii) to remove a dead unborn child.
       ``(2) Attempt.--The term `attempt', with respect to an 
     abortion, means conduct that, under the circumstances as the 
     actor believes them to be, constitutes a substantial step in 
     a course of conduct planned to culminate in performing an 
     abortion.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections for chapter 
     74 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item pertaining to section 1531 the following:

``1532. Requirements pertaining to born-alive abortion survivors.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 1 hour, 
equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member 
of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.
  The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) and the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Judy Chu) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and to include extraneous materials on H.R. 3504, 
currently under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Millions of people have viewed videos of representatives of the 
organization Planned Parenthood, which performs some 40 percent of all 
abortions each year. Those videos, recorded undercover, include 
discussions of instances in which during the course of an attempted 
abortion a baby is born ``intact.''
  As one doctor caught on tape said: ``Sometimes . . . if someone 
delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then they''--the 
babies--``are intact. But that's not what we go for.''
  Another business executive said: ``If you had intact cases, which 
we've done a lot, we sometimes ship those back to our lab in its 
entirety.''
  A procurement manager says on a video: ``I literally have had women 
come in and they'll go in the OR''--the operating room--``and they're 
back out in 3 minutes, and I'm going, `What's going on?' `Oh, yeah. The 
fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the 
stirrups. It just fell out.'''
  A former employee of the same company told investigators that she was 
shown the results of one abortion by a

[[Page 14574]]

doctor, and she recalls: ``This is the most gestated fetus and the 
closest thing to a baby I've seen . . . and she''--the doctor--``taps 
the heart and it starts beating . . . The nodes were still firing and I 
don't know if that means it's technically dead or it's alive. It had a 
face. It wasn't completely torn up. Its nose was very pronounced. It 
had eyelids . . . Since the fetus was so intact, she said, `Ok. Well, 
this is a really good fetus and it looks like we can procure a lot from 
it. We're going to procure a brain . . . That means we're going to have 
to cut the head open.' She takes a scissors and she makes a small 
incision right here''--at the chin--``and goes, I would say, maybe a 
little bit through the mouth, and she's like, `Ok. Can you go the rest 
of the way?'. . . And so she gave me the scissors and told me that I 
have to cut down the middle of the face. And I can't even describe what 
that feels like.''
  The House Judiciary Committee, which I chair, is undergoing a 
comprehensive investigation of the issues raised by these videos. But 
as that and other investigations continue, Congress must move 
immediately to protect any children born alive during the course of a 
failed abortion.
  The bill before us today is simple, yet profound, insofar as it might 
be a reflection of the Nation's conscience.
  Its operative provisions provide that, in the case of an abortion 
that results in a child's being born alive, any healthcare practitioner 
present must exercise the same degree of professional care to preserve 
the life of the child as he or she would render to any other child born 
alive at the same gestational age. The bill also provides that the 
child must be immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.
  If a baby born alive is left to die, the penalty can be up to 5 years 
in jail. If the child is cut open for its body parts or some other 
overt act is taken, the punishment is that for first degree murder, 
which can include life in prison or the death penalty.
  Babies are born alive during failed abortions. Just last week, the 
committee heard direct testimony by two grown women who, as babies, 
survived attempted abortions. The mother of one of them, Gianna Jessen, 
was advised by Planned Parenthood to have an abortion.
  But, as Ms. Jessen testified, ``Instead of dying, after 18 hours of 
being burned in my mother's womb, I was delivered alive in an abortion 
clinic in Los Angeles.'' Her medical records state clearly that she was 
``born alive'' during an abortion.
  She continued: ``Thankfully, the abortionist was not at work yet. Had 
he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, 
suffocation, or leaving me there to die. Instead, a nurse called an 
ambulance, and I was rushed to a hospital. Doctors did not expect me to 
live. I did. I was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which was 
caused by a lack of oxygen to my brain while surviving the abortion. I 
was never supposed to hold my head up or walk. I do. And cerebral palsy 
is a great gift to me.''
  Just think of that for a moment. Ms. Jessen says cerebral palsy is a 
gift to her because it came with the gift of life. Ms. Jessen presented 
a picture at the hearing, showing the results of the sort of abortion 
she survived.
  Today, I ask the Nation to see in its collective mind the body of a 
baby, much like this one, on the floor, born alive during a failed 
abortion. I ask that we collectively reach down into our hearts and, 
also, reach down to the floor.
  As we vote today, I ask that we, as a nation, grasp the value of life 
and, also, grasp that baby's back, lift its tiny body off the ground, 
and take it to a hospital--and not leave her with the abortionist.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  Contrary to its misleading title, this bill is not about protecting 
children born alive. Its real intent is to further undermine a woman's 
right to choose, a right that has been constitutionally guaranteed for 
more than 42 years by Roe v. Wade.
  Not only does this bill attempt to politicize women's health and to 
limit women's access to abortion, it would interfere with the sacred 
doctor-patient relationship and substitute a physician's best judgment 
with the judgment of a handful of politicians'.
  We must not forget that this bill has come to the floor at the same 
time as the push to defund Planned Parenthood.
  This attack on a venerable and respected provider of high-quality 
health care would have a devastating impact on women, especially women 
in rural communities, low-income women, and women of color, and it 
would deny women access to preventive care, life-saving cancer 
screenings, and family planning services.
  Approximately one woman in five has relied on Planned Parenthood for 
health care at some point in her lifetime. It is a blatant attack on 
women and families to defund an organization that uses Federal funds to 
prevent abortions and to help families stay healthy and cannot even use 
Federal funding for abortion.
  It would be the saddest of ironies that, by defunding Planned 
Parenthood's critical contraception and other reproductive health 
services in the name of opposing abortion, we would see more unintended 
pregnancies and, therefore, more abortions.
  Among its flaws, H.R. 3504 proposes a standard of care for abortion 
providers that could interfere with the ability of physicians to make 
medical decisions for their patients.
  In doing so, the bill represents an unprecedented level of intrusion 
by the government into medical decisions.
  For instance, the bill requires an abortion provider to immediately 
transport a fetus to a hospital in some cases even if the fetus is not 
viable under existing law and under the standards of care applicable to 
neonatal physicians.
  This requirement is so broad and the penalties so severe--up to 5 
years in prison--that one can only conclude that the real purpose of 
the bill is to intimidate abortion providers out of service.
  The bill also requires doctors and employees of hospitals and clinics 
that provide abortion services to report any violations of the bill's 
standard of care to State or Federal law enforcement authorities.
  Any person who fails to comply with these requirements is threatened 
with fines and up to 5 years in prison. This is not just the doctors 
but the cleaning crew and the receptionists.
  On top of this, the language in this bill completely fails to 
distinguish between a viable and non-viable fetus, which is the 
constitutional line that separates abortions that may be performed 
without restrictions from those that may be regulated or prohibited.
  The bill's vague and broad mandates, combined with severe penalties, 
will effectively intimidate doctors and ultimately drive them away from 
the abortion practice, which appears to be the true intent of this 
troubling bill.
  This is why so many organizations are opposed to this bill, those 
like the National Women's Law Center, the AAUW, the ACLU, and 
Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.
  In fact, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
which represents 58,000 physicians, opposes H.R. 3504 because it 
represents a gross interference in the practice of medicine, inserting 
a politician between a woman and her doctor.
  By intimidating doctors and thereby making abortion unavailable as a 
practical matter, abortion opponents seek to accomplish, in fact, what 
they have not accomplished in the courts or in public opinion. Simply 
put, H.R. 3504 is yet another attack on women's health and rights.
  When the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, or BAIPA, became law 13 
years ago, the bill's sponsors clarified that the law was not intended 
to affect abortion practice or a woman's right to choose.
  We did not want to constrain or chill medical decisions regarding 
patient care. That is why Judiciary Committee Democrats voted to 
support it.
  The bill before us today appears to directly contradict those 
assurances.

[[Page 14575]]

Let's not forget that politicians are not doctors.
  We should be concerned about doing our jobs and fully funding high-
quality women's health care instead of trying to keep doctors from 
doing theirs. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this dangerous 
bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Franks), the chairman of the Constitution and Civil 
Justice Subcommittee and the author of this legislation.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman. I also thank the 
gentleman for his commitment to protecting these little babies.
  Madam Speaker, the United States of America is an exceptional nation, 
whose unique core premise is that declared conviction that we are all 
created equal and that each of us is endowed by our Creator with the 
inalienable right to live.
  Abraham Lincoln called upon all of us in this Chamber to remember 
those words of America's Founding Fathers and ``their enlightened 
belief that nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent 
into the world to be trodden on or degraded and imbruted by its 
fellows.''
  He reminded those he called posterity that ``when in the distant 
future some man, some factions, some interests should set up a doctrine 
that some were not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness that `their posterity'''--that is us, Madam Speaker--``might 
look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to 
renew the battle which their fathers began.''

                              {time}  0930

  Madam Speaker, the sincerest purpose of the Born-Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act is to renew that noble battle to respect and 
protect those little fellow human beings among us who are this moment 
being trodden on and degraded and imbruted by their fellows.
  Not long ago, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, 
authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and found a 
torture chamber for little born-alive babies that defies description 
within the constraints of the English language.
  The grand jury report at that time said, ``Dr. Kermit Gosnell had a 
simple solution for unwanted babies: he killed them. He didn't call it 
that. He called it `ensuring fetal demise.' The way he ensured fetal 
demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's neck and 
cutting the spinal cord. He called it `snipping.' Over the years there 
were hundreds of `snippings'.''
  Ashley Baldwin, one of Dr. Gosnell's employees, said she saw babies 
breathing, and she described one as 2 feet long that no longer had eyes 
or a mouth, but, in her words, was making like this screeching noise 
and it ``sounded like a little alien.''
  And now, in recent days, Madam Speaker, numerous video recordings 
have been released that demonstrate that Kermit Gosnell was just the 
tip of the iceberg of the abortion industry's unspeakable cruelty to 
these little children of God.
  The veil has now been pulled back, and all of us now see the walls 
behind the abortion industry and the horrifying plight of its little 
human victims, who we must not forget, are also the least of these, our 
little brothers and sisters.
  Our response, as a people and a Nation, to these horrors shown in 
these videos is vital to everything those lying out in Arlington 
National Cemetery died to save.
  The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Madam Speaker, 
protects little children who have been born alive. No one in this body 
can obscure the humanity and the personhood of these little born-alive 
babies, nor can they take refuge within the schizophrenic paradox Roe 
v. Wade has subjected this country to, for now, more than 40 years.
  The abortion industry has labored all these decades to convince the 
world that unborn children and born children should be completely 
separated in our minds, that while born children are persons worthy of 
protection, unborn children are not persons and are not worthy of 
protection.
  But, Madam Speaker, those who oppose this bill to protect born-alive 
babies now have the impossible task of trying to join born children and 
unborn children back together again and then trying to convince all of 
us to condemn them both as inhuman and not worthy of protection after 
all.
  To anyone who has not invincibly hardened their heart and soul, Madam 
Speaker, an honest consideration of this absurd inconsistency is 
profoundly enlightening.
  Because, you see, this country has faced such paradox and self-
imposed blindness before. There was a time that our own House rules 
banned any discussion or debate in this Chamber about the effort to end 
human slavery in America.
  But, Madam Speaker, that debate did come and with it came a time when 
the humanity of the victims and the inhumanity of what was being done 
to them became so glaring even to the hardest of hearts that it moved 
an entire nation of people to find the compassion and the courage in 
their own souls to change their position.
  Now, to this generation, Madam Speaker, that time has come again.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), an outstanding and leading member 
of our Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, God bless the United States Supreme Court 
for its Roe v. Wade decision that liberated the women of this country 
to make their own decisions, to exercise their own consciences in the 
most intensely private matter of whether they should carry a pregnancy 
to term.
  Now, I recognize, of course, that there are those who hold the 
religious conviction that a one-celled organism--one cell, two cells--
is a fully formed human being.
  They are entitled to religious conviction. They are not entitled to 
impose that religious conviction on all the women of this country who 
may not share it. That is essentially the abortion debate.
  We are not debating abortion today, although some people would like 
to. We are debating this ridiculous Born-Alive Survivors Protection 
Act.
  Fifteen years ago, I stood on this floor and supported the Born-Alive 
Infants Protection Act. I said it was unnecessary. It simply repeated 
existing law.
  It has always been the law that, if an infant is born, whether that 
birth was intentional or not is irrelevant, that that is a person. If 
you kill that infant, you are guilty of murder or manslaughter, as the 
case may be. You certainly may not do so intentionally.
  The Born-Alive Infant Protection Act did not change that. It just 
added superfluous language to the law. Its only purpose was to try to 
paint people who support the right to choose and supporters of 
infanticide.
  So we said, no, it is silly because it doesn't add anything to the 
law. It simply duplicates the existing law, but we will support it so 
we cannot be slandered that way.
  Now we have this bill, which does essentially two things. One, it 
repeats, in different language, exactly the same provisions from 15 
years ago.
  It doesn't change the law that we enacted 15 years ago, and it 
doesn't change the law that preexisted in every State of the Union. If 
you kill a child, it is murder, period.
  Dr. Gosnell, I would point out, is in jail for life because he 
committed multiple murders. Nobody, but nobody, supports what he does 
and nobody, except in some of their fantasies that Mr. Franks says, 
thinks that Planned Parenthood or anybody else supports such actions.
  This bill, however, cannot be supported because it does one harmful 
thing. This bill says that the born-alive child must be given the same 
standard of care whether he is born alive in an attempted abortion or 
from a regular birth.
  That is already the law. Of course, it is the law. It ought to be the 
law. It must be the law. It always has been the law.

[[Page 14576]]

  What it also does is it says that, as soon as the doctor has given 
that child the proper standard of care, he must rush him to the 
hospital, regardless of whether that might be good or bad for the 
child, regardless of the standard of care, regardless of whether the 
nearby hospital has neonatal intensive care units.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. NADLER. Of course, everybody associated with the doctor, under 
existing law, has the duty of giving the best possible medical care 
under any circumstances. That may be to transport the baby to the 
hospital. It may be that the baby is too frail to transport.
  But along comes this bill that says: We don't care about the real 
situation that doctor faces with that infant. We know how to practice 
medicine in every situation--we, in Congress--so we are going to say it 
must be brought to the hospital even if that might kill the child.
  It is just stupid, and that is why this bill must be opposed, not 
because it changes the standard of law or has anything to do with born-
alive infants, but because it mandates that a child be brought to the 
hospital when medical care might indicate that that child in that 
situation should not be brought to the hospital. It may kill children. 
That is why we must oppose this bill.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).
  Mr. FLEMING. Madam Speaker, as a physician, a father and a 
grandfather, let me first respond and say that, in the process of a 
birth, an abortion, there is no way one can tell whether that child is 
viable until you actually apply health-saving tools and techniques to 
that baby. So that argument that viability and all of that made in 
advance really makes no sense whatsoever.
  Look, committing abortions is not health care for women. The baby 
dies a horrifically painful and ghastly death. Her tiny hands and feet, 
brain, and spinal tissues are dissected and sold to the highest bidder, 
and her mother is agonizing over the loss of a child.
  What happens if a child survives this barbaric and inhumane murder 
attempt? Abortionists have been known to snip babies' spines, throw 
children into plastic bags, or leave the infant to die, away from a 
human touch and healing care.
  Today's bill, however, will put a stop to the double murder attempt 
on a baby's life. It will protect children, infants, who are born 
alive, affording these tiny patients immediate medical attention.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I stand in strong 
opposition to this punitive and intrusive bill. I am both disturbed and 
offended that this latest attempt to restrict women's access to 
reproductive health care is based on a series of videos that have been 
found to be grotesquely deceptive and purposefully misleading.
  This is politics at its most manipulative, and politics should never 
be permitted to come between a patient and her doctor.
  This bill attempts to criminalize legal medical care and punish 
millions of women by rolling back reproductive choices. It wages a kind 
of guerilla warfare against Roe v. Wade by threatening doctors with 
jail time for providing care to their patients.
  The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists calls the 
vague requirements and drastic penalties--unnecessary requirements like 
going to the hospital--scare tactics that are unnecessary and wrong.
  This bill would have the Federal Government threaten doctors who do 
their job taking care of their patients with up to 5 years' 
imprisonment.
  To make it all even more outrageous, this bill is based on a series 
of unsupported allegations and it ignores the fact that there has been 
no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.
  In fact, five States have now conducted their own investigations into 
the charges against Planned Parenthood and have found that no laws have 
been broken.
  Instead, the backers of this bill rely on misleading, badly doctored 
videos released by an extreme antichoice group as the basis for a slew 
of legislation to decrease access to care for women in this country who 
can least afford it. Millions of women rely on Planned Parenthood for 
their basic health care.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman.
  Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. There is no choice in this 
country which has been guaranteed by our Supreme Court without access 
to choice. This bill attempts to stop the access to choice by putting 
doctors in jail by absurd requirements.
  I urge my colleagues to respect the relationship between women and 
their doctors, respect their need for affordable and available health 
care, and vote ``no'' on this punitive and intrusive bill.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Roskam).
  Mr. ROSKAM. Madam Speaker, my heart is heavy with this debate. My 
heart becomes very heavy when I hear the descriptions of this awful 
procedure.
  My heart becomes even heavier, Madam Speaker, when I listen to the 
twisted logic and the distortions of people who find themselves 
implicitly defending this.
  President Obama has said that he will veto this because it is related 
to abortion services. Yet, Mr. Nadler moments ago said this has nothing 
to do with abortion, that everybody agrees that these babies are born 
and deserve the protections of the law. He says, basically, it is a 
sideshow. It is either one or the other, Madam Speaker, and they don't 
get to argue it both ways.
  But I think we ought to be able to agree on this, that we are talking 
about people who are born, who are breathing, whose hearts are pumping, 
whose fingers are twitching, who have full feeling and deserve every 
benefit of the doubt and every protection of the law.

                              {time}  0945

  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz), a leading physician in our 
Congress.
  Mr. RUIZ. Madam Speaker, as an emergency physician I am deeply 
disturbed by the provisions in this legislation. The Born-Alive Infants 
Protection Act was signed into law in 2002. The pro-choice community 
did not oppose it, and it passed the House by a voice vote under 
suspension of the rules. It was consistent with the already high 
medical and ethical standards within the physician community.
  This new bill, however, is unnecessary and dangerous. It criminalizes 
physicians who make serious and compassionate decisions based on their 
deep desire to do what is best for the mother, her health, and life. It 
creates a police state and forces healthcare staffs that do not have 
medical training to inform law enforcement of their nonmedical 
questioning of a physician's sound judgment under the threat of 
prosecution and imprisonment. This also gives anti-choice lawyers the 
ability to bully, threaten, and harm a physician's reputation and 
practice.
  Infanticide is already illegal in this country. This bill is highly 
intrusive to the patient-doctor relationship. Let's be clear. This is 
yet another attempt by anti-choice bully politicians to restrict a 
woman's right to choose and doctors' ability to provide sound, 
compassionate, and safe care for women. It is an aggressive, bullish 
scare tactic that puts the relationship of the woman and her physician 
in jeopardy and forces politicians in the middle of decisions that they 
have no business being involved in.
  I agree with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
and other physician groups in opposing this legislation. I stand with 
the women across this great country that have continued to fight for 
decades to defend their legal right to choose.

[[Page 14577]]


  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Smith), a champion of this cause.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, undercover videos by The 
Center for Medical Progress have again brought into sharp focus that 
some babies actually survive abortion.
  Dr. Ginde, medical director of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, 
says: ``sometimes we get--if somebody delivers before we see them for a 
procedure that they are intact . . .'' That is, Madam Speaker, born 
alive, breathing, crying, gasping for air. One fetal tissue broker 
describes in the video watching a fetus that just ``fell out'' and was 
left to die.
  We have a duty to protect these vulnerable children from violence, 
exploitation, and death. Humanitarian due diligence requires that born-
alive babies be taken to a hospital to obtain care and enhance his or 
her prospects of survival. Abortion clinics, to the contrary, do not 
have neonatal intensive care units. They are not equipped to protect 
those children. They are in the business of killing those children--not 
saving them.
  The grand jury in the abortionist Kermit Gosnell case said: ``Gosnell 
had a simple solution for unwanted babies. He killed them.'' He 
euphemistically called ``snipping'' the born-alive baby's spinal cord 
``ensuring fetal demise.''
  Last week, Gianna Jessen, as Bob Goodlatte noted earlier, an abortion 
survivor, told his Committee on the Judiciary she had survived a 
Planned Parenthood late-term, multihour abortion because ``the 
abortionist had not yet begun the work. Had he been there, he would 
have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there 
to die.''
  The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, authored by pro-
life champion Trent Franks, simply says any child who survives an 
abortion must be given the same care as any other premature baby born 
at the same gestational age. This legislation builds on the landmark 
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, authored by Steve Chabot, by 
adding important enforcement provisions.
  Tragically, President Obama, the abortion President, has vowed to 
veto this pro-child, human rights legislation, a position that is 
extreme, antichild, inhumane, and indefensible.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), the ranking member of our 
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.
  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, these are very important bills--this bill 
and the next bill--to the women of this Nation and to the people in 
America because these are rights that are being under attack. There is 
this Born-Alive bill, which came to the floor through the Committee on 
Rules, and the next bill, which stops funding of Planned Parenthood, 
but they are all part of the same thing. They are the same bill. They 
are the same message. Because what we are doing here in this Congress 
is messaging, and the message is the Republican Party wants to defeat 
Roe v. Wade. They think that that was a bad bill and that it is wrong 
to have legalized, in America, for women to have choice. Most of the 
Democrats don't think that.
  Neither of these bills went through the committee process, which is 
really abhorrent. In fact, yesterday, we passed a bill about new and 
novel ideas, saying that you get sanctions, you would be sanctioned as 
a lawyer, if you brought some case that was frivolous and didn't really 
come through the proper procedures.
  If we had that kind of rule in Congress, these bills wouldn't be 
allowed to be on the floor, because they are supposed to go through 
committee where the public has notice, the public has an opportunity to 
have a witness. The majority side has three witnesses; the minority 
side has one witness. There is a discussion; there are questions; there 
are answers; there are statements; there is thought; there is input; 
there is due process; there is petitioning grievances.
  All of this has been abrogated--no due process, no regular order. 
These come straight to the floor because these are messaging bills for 
the American public. The Republican Party and parts of the Republican 
Party often say: We want our country back. What they want back is a 
country that is pre-1971, before Roe v. Wade. What they want is a 
country that is pre-Brown v. Board of Education. What they want is a 
country that is pre-Voting Rights Act, which has been limited by the 
Supreme Court and which has not been renewed by this Congress, nor has 
it gotten a vote. What they want is a country that is free of many of 
the immigrants who have come to this country and made it great, 
particularly from South America, the Caribbean--and that country is not 
going to come back.
  In my State of Tennessee, the Republicans have filed a bill to 
declare the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage as illegal in 
Tennessee, nullification dripping from their lips, as George Wallace 
would say, in the courthouse door.
  It is the same thing today: Take our country back--no Hispanics, no 
women's choice, no civil rights, no voting rights, Dwight D. 
Eisenhower's 1950 America. And Dwight D. Eisenhower wasn't at fault. He 
tried to bring us forward.
  These bills are part of that same attack on the progress that we have 
made in America. They have not gone through the proper process, and 
they are attempts to change America in a way that would affect American 
women adversely. This bill has a definition of abortion that is new, 
shouldn't be done.
  I oppose both bills and the rule.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, a few years ago, a so-called doctor in 
Philadelphia by the name of Kermit Gosnell was killing babies--
literally. He ran an abortion clinic there, and as can happen in these 
houses of horror, some of these innocent, unborn children were actually 
born alive before they could be exterminated in the womb.
  So there you have a little now-born baby squirming, kicking, 
sometimes crying right there in front of you on the table. So what did 
Gosnell do? He would take a pair of scissors, plunge them into the 
baby, and sever his or her spinal cord. No care whatsoever about the 
pain involved. One of Gosnell's employees who witnessed this barbarism 
described the baby's scream as follows: ``I can't describe it. It 
sounded like a little alien.''
  Well, this wasn't an alien. It was a human being, just like you and 
me, although in an earlier form of development. Gosnell, thank God, is 
in prison. But we have now learned that the largest abortion provider 
in this country, Planned Parenthood, is not only destroying the lives 
of little unborn children, but selling their body parts for profit.
  I might add that Planned Parenthood aborts more babies each year in 
this country than the population of the city of Cincinnati that I 
represent. That is every single year, the population of a city, 
Cincinnati.
  We have got to stop this slaughter. I introduced a bill called the 
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was passed by the House and by 
the Senate and signed into law by President Bush back in 2002. It 
helped. The legislation before us today, introduced by Congressman 
Trent Franks, improves that law and will protect more innocent babies.
  Please, for God's sake, let's pass it today and protect those among 
us who cannot protect themselves.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  I would like to reiterate, this is a bill that has been introduced 
with virtually no process. This was introduced less than 48 hours ago, 
with no hearings and no expert testimony. In fact, those on the other 
side of the aisle are citing, as evidence, videos that have been shown 
to be highly edited, that are misleading and fraudulently obtained. 
There were 47 edits in the video that are shown. Even though Planned 
Parenthood doctors said 10 times that such procedures

[[Page 14578]]

were not done for profit, that was all edited out.
  This is legislation based on sound bites and anti-choice rhetoric and 
not on facts.
  I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).
  Mr. HUELSKAMP. Madam Speaker, earlier this year, many of my 
colleagues and I stood on this floor condemning abortionist Kermit 
Gosnell for his barbaric murder of babies born alive during attempted 
abortions. Instead of providing compassionate care for these precious 
little babies, Gosnell muffled their cries by snipping the back of 
their necks with scissors, and we have people on the floor today 
defending that.
  No child should be treated with such violence, and no man or woman 
should be free to perform such heinous acts of murder.
  As an adoptive parent of four incredible children, I cannot help but 
think of the countless couples across America who would have given 
anything to care for these babies.
  This bill rightly affirms the humanity of all babies born alive, 
rightly affords them the full protection of the law, and punishes any 
abortionist who denies these infants their dignity and right to life.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is 
remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia has 12\1/2\ 
minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from California has 12\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).
  Mr. STUTZMAN. Madam Speaker, what does it say about this Congress 
that today we are here on the House floor debating the killing and 
harvesting of aborted babies? How can there possibly be two sides to 
this? I don't understand. How can we not take a step back and look at 
this objectively?
  The gentlewoman from California mentioned that these videos were 
highly edited. I don't know if they have watched the videos, but if you 
watch the videos, how can you say that the doctor who is pulling salad 
from a salad bowl and mentions that she can take the babies and crush 
the top and the bottom parts of the babies and harvest the body parts 
in between is highly edited? This is not. These are not. This 
information on these videos shows the barbaric activity.
  These bills before us today deal with this problem. Madam Speaker, I 
implore that this Chamber take a step back and look at what is on these 
videos and the information that we have on these videos and realize 
that we must move forward on these two bills and stop this barbaric 
action.

                              {time}  1000

  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer).
  Mr. PALMER. Madam Speaker, this is a fundamental American value. For 
our Founders, life was the first right. They understood that there is 
an order to things that even nature teaches us. They understood and 
fully embraced that the first and foremost right is life because, 
without life, there is no liberty; without life, there is no pursuit of 
happiness; without life, there is no discussion of a right to privacy 
or a right to choose; because, without life, there is nothing to 
choose.
  Life presupposes and precedes all other rights. Our Founders 
understood this, but somewhere along the way to where we are now, we 
have gone from protecting the right that is the basis of all rights to 
deciding that unborn children and even children born alive can have 
their lives taken because their organs and tissues are more valuable 
than they are.
  It is inconceivable that a nation founded on the idea that life is 
the indispensable right, the indisputable right, could be at this place 
in our history when living children in their mother's womb--and even 
some who have been born alive--can be killed with the callousness and 
cold-bloodedness that none of our forefathers would have dreamed could 
exist in America.
  This decision whether to continue funding this barbaric practice is 
really about exposing the charade of the Federal Government supporting 
women's health care, when in fact it is really about subsidizing the 
killing and mutilation of babies with taxpayers' money. This has to 
stop.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Bera), an outstanding doctor.
  Mr. BERA. Madam Speaker, as a doctor, I find these bills troubling. 
The oath I took is to do what is best for my patients.
  One of these bills that is coming up today criminalizes the practice 
of medicine and questions doctors' judgments. It attempts to intimidate 
doctors from providing safe, evidence-based medicine and from doing our 
job, which is to sit with our patients, answer their questions, and 
give them the best medical advice and let them make the decisions that 
affect their lives.
  This is unprecedented. It sets a precedent where those without any 
medical training can dictate medical practice and make choices for 
patients. This definitely oversteps any legal bounds. These are choices 
that should be made between doctors and patients.
  Congressional interference into how we practice is overreach. It is a 
dramatic overreach, and it is dangerous because it sets a dangerous 
legislative precedent.
  What makes the healthcare delivery system in America so great is that 
it is accessible to folks and that we understand and protect the 
doctor-patient privilege. That is at the very foundation of the oath we 
take when we enter the profession of medicine.
  Now, the other bill that we are voting on today also dramatically 
restricts access. If you think about the number of women in America who 
get their care from Planned Parenthood, the preventive health services 
that Planned Parenthood provides is remarkable.
  One in five women in this country have used a Planned Parenthood 
facility. It is a remarkably effective way for women to get their 
health care--and it is not just women; many men also use Planned 
Parenthood.
  We should be having the exact opposite debate. We should be talking 
about how we can improve access to care, how we can make sure every 
American has access to all of their reproductive options. We should 
want to be talking about how we strengthen the doctor-patient 
relationship, how we take the government out of the exam room, how we 
leave some of the most intimate choices to the doctor and the patient.
  Again, the oath that I took when I entered the profession was to sit 
with my patients, answer their questions, but then empower them to make 
the choices that fit their life circumstances. That is what we should 
be fighting for. Those are our principles. That is who we are as 
Americans with those freedoms.
  Madam Speaker, let's talk about how we improve access to care. Let's 
talk about how we strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. This is 
about protecting people.
  

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Madam Speaker, last week, the Judiciary Committee heard 
testimony from people who had survived abortions. They spoke as part of 
the House's ongoing investigation into the practices depicted in the 
horrific videos that we have all seen.
  One of these people who spoke was Gianna Jessen. She told the 
committee that, when her biological mother was 7\1/2\ months pregnant, 
she went to Planned Parenthood, where they advised her mother to have 
an abortion. That is what her mother did.
  By a miracle--and despite the best efforts to end her life--Gianna 
was born

[[Page 14579]]

alive; and because she was born before the abortionist had gotten into 
work, a nurse called an ambulance. Gianna was rushed to the hospital--
and she lived--though she suffers from cerebral palsy because of the 
attempted abortion.
  There are so many others who aren't as lucky as Gianna. The Born-
Alive Survivors Protection Act--that is what we are voting on today--
will help save the lives of those children. It would impose criminal 
penalties on any medical professional who fails to give the same 
medical attention to children born after an abortion as they would to 
any other premature newborn baby.
  The simple fact is that, when a baby is born alive, it doesn't matter 
how he or she was born. They are living human beings who deserve our 
care.
  We are also here today, Madam Speaker, to talk in particular about 
Planned Parenthood, the organization that tried to take Gianna's life. 
I think, for the purpose of this debate, it is very important to 
understand what this organization is.
  Many on the other side say that they are just devoted to women's 
health. The facts say something different. In the last year on record, 
they performed 327,653 abortions. That was in 1 year. Anyone who tells 
you that they are not in the abortion business doesn't know that 
number.
  Some defend them because they provide women's health services, but 
they don't have a monopoly on women's health. There are tens of 
thousands of alternatives all across the country for women, from 
community health centers to pregnancy health centers to maternity 
homes, medical clinics, and more. Community health clinics actually 
outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics by the thousands, and they offer 
the same health services to women, if not more.
  If we know that this organization performs hundreds of thousands of 
abortions per year and we know that women have access to other sources 
for care, the question is: Should we force taxpayers to fund a business 
that spends its money aborting 372,653 children per year? Should we 
force taxpayers to fund an organization whose barbaric practices, as 
vividly shown in those videos, disregard and devalue the sanctity of 
the most innocent human lives?
  The gruesome videos that we have seen opened the eyes of America. As 
we struggle to understand how something so barbaric could happen in 
this country, we need to get all the facts. Are patients giving 
sufficient informed consent? Were the body parts of babies sold for 
profit?
  These--and more--are the questions we need to answer. While we find 
those answers, we have a moral responsibility to put a moratorium on 
the funding. There is no reason the American people should be forced to 
give their money to such an organization. There is no reason--
absolutely no reason--that we must choose between funding women's 
health and compelling taxpayers to support abortion.
  As we approach this vote, I want every Member to ask themselves a 
simple question: In the face of these videos and with all the 
alternatives women have for health, why would you want to force your 
constituents to pay for something so evil?
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).
  Mr. ROTHFUS. Madam Speaker, to reflect on what the gentleman from 
California was saying, recalling the testimony last week of survivors 
of abortion, their stories are remarkable. They show the deep 
appreciation that they have for their lives, and they are so grateful 
to have survived the attacks on their life. So many others who did not 
survive will never have the chance to express such gratitude.
  We also know that ultrasound technology allows us to see how unborn 
children grow and develop; their humanity is abundantly clear and so 
should be their right to life.
  Our Declaration of Independence recognizes that the right to life is 
inalienable. It is given by our Creator. Indeed, President Kennedy, 54 
years ago, pushed back against those who would undermine this 
fundamental precept of our Nation when he recognized that ``the same 
revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue 
around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the 
generosity of the state but from the hand of God.''
  Giving abortion survivors the same care and legal protection that any 
other child born at the same level of gestation would receive at birth 
is humane and essential. It also complies with the equal protection 
bedrock of our country.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Messer), the chairman of the House Republican Policy 
Committee.
  Mr. MESSER. Madam Speaker, Proverbs 31:8 calls us all to speak for 
those who can't speak for themselves. That is why I am here today.
  I refuse to say nothing while Planned Parenthood executives are 
revealed casually putting a price tag on human life and haggling over 
the dollar value of an aborted child's lungs, kidneys, and heart. These 
actions are unthinkable.
  This legislation is actually a modest proposal that would place an 
immediate 1-year moratorium on all Federal funding of Planned 
Parenthood. It also funds women's health by taking the half-billion 
dollars that taxpayers send to Planned Parenthood every year and 
putting it instead in the hands of community organizations and health 
clinics that focus on saving lives, not ending them.
  Madam Speaker, no matter where you fall on the abortion debate, we 
can all agree that no unborn child should be dismembered and sold part 
by part. Where that is happening, let's stop it and join together to 
speak for those who can't speak for themselves.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Deutch).
  Mr. DEUTCH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
reject these bills and to get to work. The U.S. Federal Government is 
set to shut down in a matter of days. Shouldn't we be working together 
to stop a preventable crisis that will hurt our economy and tarnish our 
Nation's image? It is our job. That is what we are here to do.
  Instead, we are debating a bill that is based on a false premise. I 
am not talking about some debunked and discredited viral videos on the 
Internet, nor am I talking about the lie that defunding Planned 
Parenthood will prevent Federal dollars from funding abortion.

                              {time}  1015

  As many of my colleagues have already pointed out, our laws have long 
prohibited Federal dollars from being used to pay for abortion.
  What I am talking about, Madam Speaker, is the 28 men who wrote 
Speaker Boehner this summer demanding--demanding--that we either defund 
Planned Parenthood or stop funding the Federal Government: 28 men who, 
I guarantee you, have never relied on just one health provider in their 
community to get a Pap smear; 28 men who, I guarantee you, have never 
had to end a sentence about their educational goals or their financial 
or career aspirations with the phrase, ``unless I get pregnant''; 28 
men who hatched this plan to deny basic health care to millions of 
women--millions of women, I might add, that have been marginalized by 
this Congress. Their voices are not being heard today nor are they 
being represented, not in these bills.
  Why?
  Because Speaker Boehner would rather let 28 men set the agenda for 
this entire House than seek out bipartisan support needed to fund 
education programs, health care, veterans programs, and services for 
our seniors. That is what we should be doing.
  Madam Speaker, these bills defund access to health care that has 
nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with abortion unless, Madam Speaker, 
I

[[Page 14580]]

should say that we are talking about the more than 350,000 abortions 
that Planned Parenthood prevents every year by providing contraception 
and health care and education.
  I understand that my colleagues don't recognize the reproductive 
rights of women. I understand that is their view. I, Madam Speaker, 
recognize that women have those rights, and I urge my colleagues to 
reject these bills.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Babin).
  Mr. BABIN. Madam Speaker, we must pass this bill today, the Born-
Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
  We have seen the gruesome videos. They are not doctored.
  I dare say, none of these folks that we are hearing from the other 
side of the aisle have watched them all. How can they make a 
recommendation or an appraisal?
  They show senior Planned Parenthood officials, former employees, and 
a tissue procurement company discussing the sale of ``intact'' unborn 
baby parts. This is disgusting. It is inhumane.
  A society and culture that refuses to stand up and say this will not 
be tolerated is a society that is in grave danger.
  A child born alive during an abortion procedure is the most 
vulnerable living human being on Earth, and they should be granted full 
legal protections. Medical practitioners who fail to provide necessary 
care for that baby must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, 
and this bill does just that.
  While it is so sad that an act of Congress is required to ensure such 
compassionate care, we must do all we can to provide for the safety of 
babies that are born alive as a result of failed abortion procedures. 
It is absolutely necessary that we end this inhumane practice today.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wittman).
  Mr. WITTMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support today of the Born-Alive 
Abortion Survivors Protection Act. I would like to thank the chairman 
and Mr. Franks for their leadership on this issue.
  This issue is very personal to me. My mother chose life, and I was 
adopted as a newborn.
  When a baby is born alive after an abortion, healthcare professionals 
only have seconds to react. These children deserve the same level of 
commitment and care as a child facing any other medical emergency.
  This bill holds healthcare professionals accountable for making the 
health and well-being of a baby who survives an abortion their first 
priority and for making every effort to provide the resources needed to 
keep that child alive.
  This bill should not divide us. It is about saving lives. We all talk 
about giving voice to the most vulnerable children in our communities 
and to the elderly with disabilities. Who is more vulnerable than a 
child whose life begins just as someone tries to end it?
  My mother gave me the gift of life, and I believe every child should 
receive that same gift.
  This is not about the ``Wizard of Oz'' strategy the other side wants 
to portray and that doesn't pay any attention to the man behind the 
curtain. This is about the true sense of protecting life.
  I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is 
remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). The gentleman from Virginia has 
5\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from California has 7 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Brady).
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Madam Speaker, my wife and I are adoptive 
parents. We have a family only because two women in very difficult 
situations chose life. So this issue of protecting the unborn is dear 
to me and my family, which is why, whether you are pro-choice or 
strongly pro-life, as I am, I think Americans can agree, we should 
never use taxpayer dollars to fund these abortions, and we should never 
use taxpayer dollars to reward organizations that harvest the unborn 
lives or tissues for profit or compensation. These are gruesome 
practices.
  It is time to defund any organization, Planned Parenthood or others, 
and to begin to seek criminal penalties against those who profited from 
the sale of body parts of unborn children. This is the true human 
rights issue of our time, and those who defend this funding or these 
gruesome practices are on the wrong side of history.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I do thank the distinguished 
gentleman for yielding and, again, I want to thank Chairman Bob 
Goodlatte for doing such an extraordinarily effective job as chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee, a true human rights champion and a man who 
really understands these issues.
  Last week's hearing with Gianna Jessen and another abortion survivor 
underscores the fact that there are abortion survivors. I remember, 
years ago, there was a Philadelphia Inquirer article, called, ``The 
Dreaded Complication,'' and it was all about all of the children who 
survived later-term abortions.
  And do you know what the response of the abortion lobby was? We need 
a better death ensuring method of abortion, a more effective and 
efficacious method, to destroy those babies. That was part of the 
genesis of the hideous partial-birth abortion method--a method that 
actually suctions out the brain tissue of a child before birth, thus 
ensuring there won't be a child born-alive.
  Let me also say, people on the other side were talking earlier about 
the relationship between doctor and patient. What about the new 
patient, that unborn child who is now a newly born child? Where is the 
doctor-patient relationship to help that child?
  Abortion clinics are in the business of exterminating children 
through dismemberment and chemical poisoning. That is what abortionists 
do. Getting this child to a hospital ensures that lifesaving care will 
be provided. Healers have a mindset that says we need to save these 
children, the means to do so, including intensive care capability. 
Abortionists believe abortion means dead baby--born or newly born.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Roe).
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart. Having spent over 30 
years as a practicing OB/GYN physician, delivering almost 5,000 babies 
and trying to save every life of every mother and every baby, I don't 
see why this is not something that brings us all together.
  Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, if a baby survives an 
abortion, we should do everything we can to save that baby's life and 
to give it the same chance that everybody else has.
  I am getting emotional here because it is an emotional issue for me. 
I cannot imagine, as a physician, standing beside a baby that has been 
delivered--no one in this room can; I don't believe there is another 
person in this room that has done what I have--and not try to save that 
baby's life.
  I strongly support this bill. It should pass overwhelmingly, and it 
should be the law of the land.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the 
balance of my time.
  

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I have just one speaker remaining, and 
I believe I have the right to close.

[[Page 14581]]


  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I have one speaker 
remaining, and then I will be prepared to close.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois 
(Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
  Madam Speaker, I just want to say that there is the implication in 
the testimony and in the speeches that are made here that the other 
side of the aisle is somehow more concerned about the life of a child 
born alive, that somehow Democrats just don't care about that, and I 
just want to tell you I resent that so very, very much.
  We unanimously voted to protect that life. And if, in fact, a baby is 
born into this world and can survive and is alive, it is considered 
homicide to kill that baby. There are laws. There are laws that would 
protect the life of an infant, a real child that is born that can 
sustain life.
  I just want to tell you that somehow making this division about 
people who really care about a living person that is born is just 
false. And I think I am speaking for all people, for all Democrats and, 
clearly, for all Republicans, that we need to make sure that we protect 
that life. But I believe that we have every law in place.
  What this bill does is go further and create fear among physicians, 
healers, people who are educated and committed to health and life, and 
put fear into them that if they don't provide for the exact procedures 
that you are talking about, that they could spend 5 years in jail for 
providing the healthcare services that a woman needs. That is, I 
believe, part of this ongoing effort to say that we should end the full 
range of health services that are available to women. This is a further 
attack on women's health.
  We all agree on what the outcome should be, and let's not get into 
this ongoing fight against women's health.

                              {time}  1030

  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, this bill politicizes women's health and limits 
women's access to abortion. It interferes with the sacred doctor-
patient relationship and substitutes a physician's best judgment with 
the judgment of a handful of politicians--and, in fact, male 
politicians. I would note that not a single woman on the other side of 
the aisle has spoken on this bill.
  Let me note, it is already illegal to fail to provide care to an 
infant born alive. There was a bill passed 13 years ago, the Born-Alive 
Infants Protection Act, and that bill was not intended to affect 
abortion practices or a woman's right to choose. In fact, that is why 
Judiciary Committee Democrats voted to support it.
  But what this bill does is to vilify abortion providers. This bill is 
so broad and the penalties are so severe--up to 5 years in prison--that 
one can only conclude that the real purpose of this bill is to 
intimidate abortion providers out of practice.
  This bill requires doctors and employees of hospitals and clinics 
that provide abortion services to report any violation of the bill's 
standard of care to State or Federal law enforcement authorities, and 
any person--remember, we are talking doctors, cleaning crew, 
receptionists--that fails to comply with these requirements is 
threatened with fines and up to 5 years in prison.
  That is why the 58,000 physicians of the American Congress of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose this bill and says: ``This 
legislation represents gross interference in the practice of medicine, 
inserting a politician between a woman and her trusted doctor.''
  Let us not forget, politicians are not doctors. We should be 
concerned about doing our jobs and fully fund high-quality women's 
health care instead of trying to keep doctors from doing theirs.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this dangerous bill.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the House majority whip for 
the purpose of closing our debate.
  Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Born-Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act offered by my friend and colleague from 
Arizona, Trent Franks.
  Madam Speaker, this bill is about standing up for the sanctity of 
life. Specifically, this bill deals with babies that are born alive.
  Whether it was the result of an abortion or a normal birth, all 
people in this country deserve that same protection. Madam Speaker, why 
should a baby that is born alive be denied that same right?
  Our Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, made it 
crystal clear: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness.''
  Madam Speaker, the first unalienable right mentioned by our 
Founders--and these were not rights given to us by our Founders; they 
were given to us by our Creator--that first right is life.
  If a baby is born alive, they ought to have that protection. That is 
what this bill is about. It is about giving that protection that is 
enumerated in the Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence 
itself to say they ought to have that protection in law, that if they 
are born alive, that they ought to have that same medical protection.
  So, Madam Speaker, when you saw the President come out yesterday and 
say that he would veto this bill, how extreme can somebody be to say 
they would not stand up for a baby that is born alive to have the same 
protection that the Declaration of Independence enumerates as an 
``unalienable right''?
  This should be a place where we can all come together, a place where 
we can all agree that we, as a House, can come together and stand up 
and give that protection in law to those babies that are born alive.
  I would hope that all of my colleagues would join in, that we could 
send this bill over to the Senate, that they can have the same debate 
and agree to pass that on, and that, ultimately, the President would 
recognize that this is a bill that ought to become law.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3504, 
the ``Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.''
  Contrary to its misleading title, H.R. 3504 is not about protecting 
children born alive. Its real intent is to further undermine a woman's 
right to choose, a right that has been constitutionally guaranteed for 
more than 42 years by Roe v. Wade.
  H.R. 3504 constitutes an unprecedented level of intrusion by the 
government into medical decision making.
  It also completely fails to distinguish between a viable and a non-
viable fetus, which is the constitutional line that separates abortions 
that may be performed without restriction from those that may be 
regulated or prohibited.
  These restrictions, in conjunction with the bill's draconian criminal 
penalties, will effectively intimidate doctors, thereby making abortion 
services unavailable as a practical matter.
  Further yet, there is absolutely no need for this legislation. No 
evidence has been uncovered that necessitates congressional 
interference in the doctor-patient relationship.
  Even if wrongdoing were to occur, many federal and state laws already 
protect babies ``born alive.''
  In truth, abortion practice is safe, legal, and humane and any 
evidence of wrongdoing can and should be handled under existing law. 
For example, the criminal Kermit Gosnell, who ran an illegal abortion 
front in Philadelphia, was prosecuted under existing law and is 
rightfully in prison serving multiple life sentences.
  In sum, the bill's vague and broad mandates, combined with its severe 
penalties, will undermine the ability of women to access safe 
affordable abortion services, which unfortunately appears to be the 
underlying intent of this flawed legislation.
  As the Administration, in its Statement of Administration Policy, 
warns ``H.R. 3504 would impose new legal requirements related to the 
provision of abortion services in certain circumstances, which would 
likely have a chilling effect, reducing access to care.''
  In addition, this legislation is opposed by Planned Parenthood, which 
states that H.R. 3504 would ``add new criminal penalties

[[Page 14582]]

against doctors and clinicians as a scare tactic that serves the sole 
purpose of scaring women away from seeking safe, legal, abortion.''
  Further, NARAL Pro-Choice America correctly observes that H.R. 3504 
is ``part of an unprecedented assault on reproductive rights.''
  And, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
explains that this ``legislation represents gross interference in the 
practice of medicine, inserting a politician in between a woman and her 
trusted doctor.''
  Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 3504, 
an anti-choice, anti-woman, and thoroughly unnecessary measure.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 421, the previous question is ordered on 
the bill.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas 
and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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