[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14627-14653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILD PROTECTION ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 36, which the 
clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 230, H.R. 36, a bill to 
     amend title 18, United States Code, to protect pain-capable 
     unborn children, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                        Criminal Justice Reform

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to address the topic of 
criminal justice reform. There has been a lot of discussion in Congress 
recently on this subject. Nearly all of the conversation has focused on 
sentencing. Various proposals have been introduced to cut prison 
sentences, augment judges' ability to sentence below statutory minimums 
or allow prisoners to earn early release for good behavior.
  A number of my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been 
meeting behind closed doors for months to try to reach a compromise--a 
compromise that incorporates elements of these various proposals. I 
rise today to address the broader parameters of criminal justice reform 
and to remind my colleagues that sentencing reform is only one piece of 
the broader effort that has been underway for some time now in both 
houses of Congress.
  There are a number of other aspects of criminal justice reform that 
merit our attention, foremost of which is the need to ensure meaningful 
criminal intent requirements in our statutes and regulations. Over the 
past several years, a unique coalition of Members and stakeholder 
groups from across the ideological spectrum have been working together 
to address the problem of overcriminalization.
  There is broad, bipartisan agreement in many quarters that Congress 
has criminalized too much conduct and mandated overly harsh penalties 
for too many crimes. Congress's persistent recourse to criminal law as 
the answer to today's society ills has cost taxpayers millions of 
dollars and branded as criminal conduct that may be unwitting or not 
even blameworthy. It has also resulted in thousands of Americans losing 
their livelihoods or liberty for reasons that, upon closer examination, 
seem not entirely justified.
  The overcriminalization problem manifests itself in a variety of 
ways. First is through the sheer number of Federal crimes. There are 
now nearly 5,000 criminal statutes scattered in the U.S. Code. But 
statutes are only part of the story. In addition, there are an 
estimated 300,000 criminal regulatory offenses buried in the 80,000-
page Code of Federal Regulations--300,000. If the administration 
promulgated one criminal regulation per day--that is, if it created one 
new crime each day--it would take 822 years to create that many 
criminal regulations.
  The entire Code of Hammurabi was only 282 laws. Our current Federal 
criminal code--statutes and regulations together--is over 1,000 times 
that size. I am not saying Hammurabi should be our model in many 
things, but surely 300,000-plus Federal crimes is overkill. If 
Hammurabi could govern ancient Mesopotamia with fewer than 300 laws, 
surely we can make do with less than 300,000.
  It is not just the sheer number of crimes. Overcriminalization also 
manifests itself through the creation of arcane, obscure, and, frankly, 
ridiculous crimes. For example, under Federal law it is a crime 
punishable by up to 6 months in prison to use the 4-H Club logo without 
authorization.
  It is also a Federal crime, again punishable for up to 6 months in 
prison, to walk a dog in a Federal park area on a leash that is longer 
than 6 feet. Why on Earth do either of these actions need to be Federal 
crimes? I do not dispute that really long dog leashes can be annoying. 
I can understand why the 4-H Club would not want pretenders roaming 
around claiming to serve the heads, hearts, hands, and health of youth. 
But these are not the proper subjects for criminal penalties. Whatever 
crises exist with overlong dog leashes or imposter 4-H clubs can be 
dealt with through civil means.
  The problem with such obscure and esoteric crimes--aside from the 
sheer embarrassment they should cause to Congress and the promulgating 
agency--is that they criminalize conduct that no reasonable person 
would know was illegal. Walking a dog on a 7-foot leash is not 
inherently wrongful, nor is putting a 4-H Club logo on a sign. Even if 
common sense might suggest checking with the 4-H Club before using its 
logo, no sane person would think it is a crime to do so.
  The upshot is there are who-knows-how-many crimes on the books that 
the average person has no idea about and that criminalize conduct no 
reasonable person would think is wrong. According to a recent book, the 
average American unwittingly commits three felonies per day. That 
should deeply trouble all of us--and not because it suggests anything 
wrong with the average American.
  We are a nation of laws. We are supposed to be guided by the rule of 
law. Our criminal law--indeed, the very idea that it is proper to brand 
some conduct, and some people, as criminal--is predicated on the notion 
that individuals know the law and are able to choose whether to follow 
it. If, as I have suggested--and as many scholars agree--we live in a 
country where much otherwise benign conduct has been labeled criminal 
and where decent, honorable citizens can become criminals through no 
fault or intent of their own, then we have a problem on our hands. Our 
criminal laws should be aimed at protecting our communities and keeping 
bad influences off our streets, not tripping up honest citizens.
  The third way the problem of overcriminalization manifests itself is 
through the vague, duplicative, and even conflicting terms of many of 
our criminal laws. Put simply, many of our criminal laws are bad laws. 
They are poorly written, they sweep too broadly, and they give too much 
power to overzealous prosecutors.
  Consider the case of John Yates, who was convicted of violating the 
so-called anti-shredding provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This 
extraordinarily broad law, which Congress passed in the wake of the 
Enron scandal, prohibits the destruction of any ``tangible object'' 
with intent to impede, obstruct or influence a Federal investigation.
  Yates was not an Enron executive or any sort of corporate executive, 
he was a fisherman. His crime? Discarding a small number of undersized 
fish from his boat after a State inspector found him carrying fish 
slightly below the minimum legal size. Yates appealed his conviction 
all the way to the Supreme Court on the ground that the statute did not 
apply to his conduct. By a 5-to-4 vote the Court agreed.
  In a remarkable move, the dissenting Justices, who had voted to 
sustain Yates's conviction, heaped scorn on the anti-shredding statute. 
They called it a ``bad law--too broad and undifferentiated, with too-
high maximum penalties.'' Its vague terms and overly harsh penalties 
were ``unfortunately not an outlier, [but rather] an emblem of a deeper 
pathology in the Federal criminal code.''
  These words should be a wake-up call. For too long Congress has 
criminalized too much conduct and enacted overbroad statutes that sweep 
far beyond the evils they are designed to avoid. Surely, of all the 
categories of law we pass in Congress, we should take most care with 
criminal laws. Criminal laws empower the State to deprive citizens of 
liberty and precious, financial resources. They carry serious 
collateral consequences, including the loss of the right to vote, the 
right to

[[Page 14628]]

own a firearm, the ability to hold certain jobs, and they permit the 
State to brand citizens with that most repugnant of all titles--
criminal. There is simply no excuse for sloppily drafted, slapdash 
criminal laws. Too much is at stake.
  Related to the problem of poor draftmanship is the fourth way the 
overcriminalization problem manifests itself, through the absence of 
meaningful mens rea requirements. The need for strong mens rea 
protections, I believe, is of particular concern and will be the rest 
of the focus of my remarks.
  ``Mens rea'' is Latin for guilty mind. The term expresses a time-
honored, fundamental feature of our criminal law that in order for an 
act to be a crime, the actor must have committed the act with malicious 
intent. The requirement of a guilty mind protects individuals who 
unwittingly commit wrongful acts or who act without knowledge that what 
they are doing is wrong.
  The person who mistakenly retrieves the wrong coat from the coatroom 
does not become a thief merely because he took something that wasn't 
his. Only if he takes a coat knowing that it belongs to someone else 
has he committed a criminal act, for only then has he acted with 
criminal intent. Similarly, a person enters land that he believes is 
public property but that in fact belongs to another person does not 
thereby commit criminal trespassing. Only if the person knows she is 
not legally entitled to enter the property is she guilty of a criminal 
offense.
  In an era when our statute books and regulations overflow with 
criminal offenses, mens rea protections are even more important. Many 
modern criminal offenses, such as the dog-walking offense I mentioned 
earlier, involve conduct that is not inherently wrongful. Only a person 
who knows the details of such offenses--and knows they exist--would 
know that conduct in violation of the offenses is criminal.
  This is different from traditional crimes such as assault or theft, 
which even a child knows is wrong. With 300,000-plus Federal crimes on 
the books, you can be sure the vast majority are not traditional crimes 
that everyone knows are wrong but rather obscure provisions known only 
to a select few in the bowels of the Federal bureaucracy. It doesn't 
take 300,000 individual crimes to cover the categories of conduct 
everyone knows is wrong.
  Without adequate mens rea protections--that is, without the 
requirement that a person knows his conduct was wrong or unlawful--
everyday citizens can be held criminally liable for conduct that no 
reasonable person would know was wrong. This is not only unfair, it is 
immoral. No government that purports to safeguard the liberty and 
rights of its people should have the power to lock up individuals for 
conduct they did not know was wrong. Only when a person has acted with 
a guilty mind is it just, is it ethical to brand that person a criminal 
and deprive him of liberty.
  Unfortunately, many of our current criminal laws and regulations 
contain inadequate mens rea requirements or even no mens rea 
requirement at all. Far too often, such laws leave people vulnerable to 
prosecution for conduct they thought was lawful. Consider two examples.
  The first is Wade Martin, an Alaskan fisherman who sold 10 sea otters 
to a buyer he thought was a Native Alaskan but who turned out not to 
be. Authorities charged Wade with violating the Marine Mammal 
Protection Act, which criminalizes the sale of sea otters to non-Native 
Alaskans. The fact that he thought the buyer was a Native Alaskan was 
irrelevant. Prosecutors had to prove only that the buyer was not, in 
fact, a Native Alaskan. The absence of the criminal intent requirement 
meant Wade could be convicted regardless of whether he knew what he was 
doing was wrong. Wade pleaded guilty to a felony charge and was ordered 
to pay a $1,000 fine.
  Second is Lawrence Lewis, a janitor at a retirement home who was 
charged with criminally violating the Clean Water Act when he diverted 
backed-up sewage at the retirement home to a storm drain. Lawrence 
thought the storm drain was connected to the city's sewage system, but 
it turned out it emptied into a creek that ultimately connected to the 
Potomac River, a protected waterway. The Clean Water Act required proof 
only that Lawrence diverted the sewage into the storm drain. It 
required no proof that he knew the drain connected to a creek that 
emptied into the Potomac or that he knew he was violating the law. 
Lawrence pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.
  These and other examples demonstrate the danger of missing or 
incomplete mens rea requirements. Even before we get to the point of 
sentencing, the fact that people can be swept up in the criminal 
justice system and convicted for doing things they thought were lawful 
is deeply troubling. Any sentence they receive for their purported 
crimes is unfair because they should not even have been charged 
criminally in the first place--or at the very least the government 
should have to prove criminal intent in order to convict.
  This is why it is important for my colleagues to keep in mind the 
full scope of our overcriminalization problem. Sentencing is only one 
part of the criminal justice process--an important part to be sure but 
only one part in a very long process.
  That process begins in Washington, where we in Congress decide what 
conduct to criminalize and what the government must prove in order to 
convict. Among the most important choices we make when crafting a 
criminal law is deciding what level of criminal intent the government 
must prove. Must the person know he or she was acting unlawfully? Is it 
enough that the person intended the wrongful act or is it enough merely 
that he or she knew their actions would produce a certain result? The 
answers to these questions determine whether the person even committed 
a crime in the first place, separate and apart from what the felony 
should be if he is convicted.
  As one expert has written, ``While sentencing reform addresses how 
long people should serve once convicted, mens rea reform addresses 
those who never should have been convicted in the first place: people 
who engaged in conduct without any knowledge of or intent to violate 
the law and [conduct] that they could not reasonably have anticipated 
would violate a criminal law.'' Surely we can all agree that a person 
should not be branded a criminal and locked up for doing something they 
did not know was wrong.
  Unsurprisingly then, from the inception of the anti-
overcriminalization movement, ensuring that criminal laws have adequate 
mens rea protections has been a bipartisan priority. During the 
hearings of the House Overcriminalization Task Force, Chairman 
Sensenbrenner declared that ``[t]he lack of an adequate intent 
requirement in the Federal code is one of the most pressing problems 
facing this Task Force. . . .'' Ranking Member Bobby Scott similarly 
warned that without adequate mens rea protections ``honest citizens are 
at risk of being victimized and criminalized by poorly crafted 
legislation and overzealous prosecutors.'' Representative Conyers said 
that ``when good people find themselves confronted with accusations of 
violating regulations that are vague, address seemingly innocent 
behavior, and lack adequate mens rea, fundamental principles of 
fairness and due process are undermined.''
  But in the Senate there has been a notable absence of discussion 
about mens rea and the need for robust mens rea protections. There has 
been a lot of talk about sentencing but little about mens rea. It is 
time to change that.
  For the past several months, I have been working on legislation to 
address the deficiencies in mens rea requirements in existing statutes. 
My bill would set a default mens rea requirement for all statutes that 
lack such a requirement. It would ensure that courts and creative 
prosecutors do not take the absence of an express criminal intent 
standard to mean the government could convict without any proof of a 
guilty mind. My bill would also clarify that when a statute identifies 
a mens rea standard but does not specify which elements of the crime 
that

[[Page 14629]]

standard applies to, the standard identified applies to all elements of 
the crime unless a contrary purpose plainly appears in the text of the 
statute.
  My bill would not mandate a particular mens rea standard for all 
crimes, nor would it override existing standards set forth in statutes. 
All it would do is set a default for when Congress has failed to 
specify the criminal intent required for conviction. Congress would 
remain free, however, whenever it wanted to specify a different mens 
rea standard for a statute, replacing the default with its own chosen 
standard. The default would operate merely in the absence of 
congressional action. It would bring clarity, ensure that Congress does 
not--through oversight--create crimes without any mens rea requirement, 
and protect individuals from being convicted for conduct they did not 
know was wrong.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on this important 
legislation and urge all of them to give it their support. Any deal on 
sentencing and any package of criminal justice reform must include 
provisions to shore up mens rea protections. In fact, I question 
whether a sentencing reform package that does not include mens rea 
reform would be worth it, and I am not alone. Many members of the 
overcriminalization coalition--members who helped lay the key 
intellectual and political groundwork for the negotiations now 
underway--believe strongly that any criminal justice reform bill that 
passes this body must include mens rea reform. I agree. There can be no 
more important work that we do here in Congress than ensuring that 
honest, hardworking Americans are not unjustly imprisoned.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to express my 
strong opposition to the bill we are going to be voting on tomorrow 
morning, and that is a bill to limit women's choice by banning 
abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. I would like to make several 
points today: Why the bill is unconstitutional, the truth about late-
term abortions, the bill's rape certification requirements and the 
absence of a health exception, and, finally, how this debate is much 
more than this one bill.
  Let me be clear, Mr. President. This bill is just one part of a 
sustained assault on a woman's access to health care and her right to 
make decisions for herself and her family.
  First, this bill is unconstitutional. Similar State laws banning 
abortion at 20 weeks have been struck down by the courts. The Supreme 
Court in the controlling opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992, 
stated:

       The woman's right to terminate her pregnancy before 
     viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade. It is 
     a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.

  Viability refers to the point at which a fetus could survive outside 
the womb. The Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart 
summarizes that portion of the Casey decision stating, ``Before 
viability, a State may not prohibit a woman from making the ultimate 
decision to terminate her pregnancy.''
  In 2012, Arizona enacted a law prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks. 
The Ninth Circuit found that statute unconstitutional. Now that is a 
direct case in point from one circuit. The Ninth Circuit said the law 
conflicted with a long line of Supreme Court cases that found bans on 
women's right to abortion prior to viability as unconstitutional.
  In that case, Arizona admitted that a fetus at 20 weeks was not 
viable. A conservative judge on the Ninth Circuit, Andrew Kleinfeld, 
said he was ``compelled'' to strike down the Arizona law based on 
existing precedent. The Supreme Court subsequently denied Arizona's 
petition to hear the case.
  Other State laws banning abortions at 20 weeks or earlier have also 
been struck down on these grounds. For example, Idaho's 20-week ban was 
struck down by the courts. The opinion in that case stated that the 
Idaho law was ``directly contrary to the court's holding in Casey that 
a woman has the right to `choose to have an abortion before viability 
and obtain it without undue interference from the State.'''
  The court's rulings have been informed by medical experts, and 
medical experts have said repeatedly that a fetus is not viable at 20 
weeks. Let me give you a good example. Dr. Hal Lawrence, the chief 
executive officer of the American Congress of Obstetricians and 
Gynecologists, recently addressed this issue, and I would like to read 
a portion of his remarks:

       The 20-week mark is just not notable from a fetal 
     development standpoint. More than 40 years ago, the Supreme 
     Court stipulated that abortion is legal until a fetus is 
     viable. Well, in no way, shape, or form is a 20-week fetus 
     viable.

  Now, this is a medical OB/GYN, who is head of the association 
speaking. Continuing to quote him:

       There is no evidence anywhere of a 20-week fetus surviving, 
     even with intensive medical care. Unfortunately, some 
     advocates of abortion bans are pointing to a new study they 
     claim heralds 22 weeks as being the new point of viability. 
     They suggest that we might someday reach viability at 20 
     weeks. It is essential that we address that now, before this 
     becomes another myth about abortion that is accepted as 
     reality.

  The doctor goes on to say:

       First, this new study was not conducted to add fuel to the 
     fire of abortion rights opponents. It was intended to help 
     give OB-GYNs and neonatologists improved understanding of the 
     challenges and opportunities associated with early premature 
     delivery. Second, even in this study, survival at 22 weeks 
     was only 5 percent overall. This is why the medical community 
     refers to the ``threshold of viability,'' because there is no 
     point at which viability is clearly established. Even among 
     babies that receive intensive medical care, survival only 
     reached 23 percent, and most of those babies had moderate to 
     severe neurological impairment. Importantly, this study only 
     looked at babies without fetal anomalies, which surely would 
     have lowered the survival rates even more.

  Bottom line: A ban on abortion before viability, which is exactly 
what this bill represents, is unconstitutional, and the courts have 
spoken on the issue.
  Next, I would like to set the record straight on the widespread 
misconceptions about late-term abortions. First, they are not usual. 
They are extraordinarily rare. Just 1 percent of abortions occur after 
20 weeks. Secondly, many of the pregnancies terminated after 20 weeks 
occur because something has gone terribly wrong--the fetus has a fatal 
disease or the woman's health is in danger. Let me give an example. 
Christy Zink, a mother of two here in Washington, testified before 
Congress against this bill. In 2009, after trying for years to become 
pregnant, she and her husband were elated to be expecting a boy. 
Unfortunately, when Christy reached the 21st week of her pregnancy, the 
MRI revealed that her baby's brain had not developed correctly. One 
side of it was missing.
  Everything up to that point looked normal. The brain scan wasn't 
capable of detecting the problem any earlier. Christy and her husband 
consulted the best doctors hoping there was some treatment, but nothing 
could be done. They were devastated.
  If Christy's baby had made it to the end of the pregnancy, according 
to her doctors, he would have been in terrible pain and likely died 
soon after birth. Christy said, ``The decision I made to have an 
abortion at almost 22 weeks was made out of love and to spare my son's 
pain and suffering.''
  Christy's incredibly difficult story isn't just an isolated example. 
There are many fatal diseases that can't be detected until later in a 
pregnancy, including one that causes the fetus's organs to develop 
outside of the body. Another, called severe brittle bone disease, 
causes the fetus's bones to break inside the womb.
  Our own colleague, Congresswoman Jackie Speier from California, 
someone I know very well, shared her story on the House floor in 2011. 
She terminated a much-wanted pregnancy at 17 weeks due to a medical 
complication.

[[Page 14630]]

She said, ``To suggest that somehow this is a procedure that is either 
welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is 
preposterous.''
  Congresswoman Speier is right. Making this personal medical decision 
is one of the most gut-wrenching decisions a woman could make, and 
there is no good option. But these decisions need to be made by women, 
in consultation with their doctors and their families, not by 
politicians. Every situation is different, and we shouldn't pretend to 
stand in a woman's shoes and make these choices for them. We shouldn't 
make a difficult decision even harder.
  Next, I wish to discuss the fact that this bill has no exception for 
the health of the mother. Only when a mother's health deteriorates to 
the point that she could die does it allow an exception. This is 
unconstitutional as well. The Supreme Court's controlling opinion in 
Planned Parenthood v. Casey said that even after viability, the 
government may restrict abortion ``except where it is necessary, in 
appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or 
health of the mother.''
  The Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart reiterated 
this point. The decision quotes Casey and other cases about the need 
for a health exception. It is true the Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. 
Carhart in 2007 upheld a Federal ban on a particular abortion 
procedure, a law many of us opposed, but the Gonzalez decision still 
quotes Casey and other cases about the need for a health exception, and 
it does not suggest that the government can completely ban abortion 
after a particular week of pregnancy without a health exception.
  The bottom line: This bill would endanger women by banning abortion 
even when necessary to protect the mother's health--and that is also 
unconstitutional. This is shocking because in no other circumstance 
would we restrict medical care until the patient is at risk of death. 
In cases where the mother is bleeding severely or has gone into septic 
shock, it could be too late to save her or prevent serious injury.
  Another shocking provision of this bill requires rape victims to 
provide certification from law enforcement that they have been raped, 
as well as proof that they have attended counseling or received medical 
treatment.
  Just a few months ago I spoke on the Senate floor in support of anti-
human trafficking legislation. The bill was stalled because some of us 
wanted to ensure that trafficking victims had access to the medical 
services they needed, including abortion. There seemed to be agreement 
on both sides that a trafficking victim who has been raped repeatedly, 
imprisoned, and abused should be able to get the health care she needs. 
Yet under the bill we are voting on, a 13-year-old sex trafficking 
victim--a rape victim--would not be eligible for an exception unless 
she gets a note from law enforcement or a child welfare agency.
  I just did a sex trafficking meeting in Los Angeles with three 
district attorneys from big cities in California, as well as the 
sheriff of L.A. County and the chief of police. What they told me is 
the average girl, sex-trafficked, is between the ages of 12 to 14. So 
this isn't some outrageously small example. Let's say the victim is 12 
to 14. She has been traumatized, she has been emotionally and 
physically abused. Supposing she was one of those in Oakland, where she 
was handcuffed at night and stripped naked and then worked the streets 
during the day. She may not be ready or even able to go to the police. 
She wouldn't qualify for a rape exception under this bill. That is just 
terrible. My Republican colleagues would force her to endure the 
pregnancy--the result of rape--because she didn't have the right 
paperwork.
  Finally, I wish to talk about why it is important to view this bill 
in the broader context of efforts to dismantle women's access to health 
care and ban abortion outright. Anti-choice groups have been trying to 
make it as hard as possible, bit by bit, piece by piece, for women to 
access safe, legal abortion care.
  Take this latest attack on Planned Parenthood. The individuals who 
made the highly edited videos spent years trying to befriend Planned 
Parenthood officials and obtain the footage--you can read about it on 
the front page of Politico today--and they are under investigation for 
possible criminal activity. They used false identification to represent 
a fake medical company. The videos were presented to the public as 
unedited, but forensics experts at the firm Fusion GPS tell us that is 
not the case. Content is missing and numerous edits have been made to 
even the so-called full footage videos. Many Members of Congress have 
requested the full videos. These requests have gone, as one might 
expect, unanswered.
  The point is, a woman's ability to make her own health care decisions 
is under sustained, unrelenting attacks, most of them by men. 
Historically, it has always been interesting to me to see that some of 
the most vocal, the most sustained voices, are male voices, and all 
women have asked is to be able to control their own reproductive 
system.
  As a result, more than one in three American women lives in a county 
without a single health care provider that offers abortion services. 
Today these services are unavailable for millions of low-income women 
in the country, just the way it was when I was young, when we had to 
pass the plate at Stanford so women could go to Tijuana for an 
abortion, and many of us felt she would kill herself if that didn't 
happen.
  As a result of new restrictions, women are once again turning to 
unsafe methods, much as they did before Roe v. Wade. Women were forced 
into unsafe conditions, often in back alleys. Some were permanently 
injured or died. I am old enough to remember those days. In the early 
1960s, when I set sentences in California, as a member of the 
California Women's Board of Terms and Parole, I set a sentence--which 
the State had determined the sentence law at the time for abortion was 
6 months to 10 years. I remember interviewing the woman when she came 
back. I remember her name. I said to her: Anita, why did you do this 
again? You should know better. She said to me: Because people are so 
compelling, and I felt so sorry for these women. That is what this 
leads to. That is what this leads to.
  In 2013, Bloomberg News reported on the increasing number of women in 
Texas buying pills on the black market to induce abortion. One woman 
interviewed, a mother of four, was on her way to buy these pills at a 
flea market. She said:

       You'd be amazed at how many people, young people, are 
     taking those pills. I probably know 12 to 20 people who have 
     done this. My cousin just went to the flea market a few 
     months ago.

  That is the result of actions like this. When those of us who lived 
through pre-Roe recount the risks of returning to the way things were, 
we truly are not exaggerating. Restricting access to safe, legal 
abortion doesn't reduce abortions; it makes women desperate, it 
increases health risks, and can lead to death.
  At the same time women are facing these attacks on access to health 
care and the ability to make health care decisions, there is also an 
effort underway to cut programs that help new mothers and their 
children. Nearly 15 million children in the United States live in 
poverty--15 million. That is less than $24,000 a year for a family of 
four, and nearly half of these families don't have enough food to eat. 
There are more homeless children in this country--2.5 million, 500,000 
of them in California alone--than ever before. One in five of these 
children actually lives in my State. It is astonishing to me that with 
all the talk about supporting children, Republicans continue to cut the 
very programs that support them. These are programs such as the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Head Start, child care 
subsidies, Medicaid, and housing assistance.
  House and Senate Republican budgets have proposed cutting $5 trillion 
from nondefense spending, which includes programs to help low-income 
families. These attacks on vulnerable families must stop.
  In conclusion, the bill we are considering today is unconstitutional, 
and

[[Page 14631]]

the highest Court of the land has found that so. It would trample on a 
woman's right to make her own medical decisions. It would even force 
women to continue pregnancies in the most tragic of circumstances. But 
this bill is only the start.
  If the groups pushing this bill have their way, only the most 
privileged women in our country will have access to safe, legal 
abortion. That is how it was before Roe v. Wade. I remember it well. 
And the women of this Nation will not stand to return to this time. Not 
on this Senator's watch.
  I strongly urge a ``no'' vote.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, over the last year I have learned a lot 
about the magic of human life--from conception to growth in the 
mother's womb, to childbirth, to newborn development. This wasn't a 
part of my legislative work or my public duties. My newfound knowledge 
didn't come from a course of study reading scientific journals or 
consulting with medical experts; instead, like many parents, I learned 
through experience the blessings of my first child.
  My wife Anna gave birth to our very own little angel Gabriel almost 5 
months ago. Since then, Gabriel has joined me on this very floor, at 
this very desk. Many of you have met our little man and happily agree 
that he appears to take after his mother.
  Gabriel has been a part of our family from the beginning, long before 
he was born. I remember when Anna and I first discovered she was 
pregnant. We were so excited, yet like so many new parents, also 
apprehensive for his health and safety. Then 1 year ago this week, we 
had our first appointment with the OB-GYN in Russellville. We couldn't 
believe it when we heard his little heartbeat on the ultrasound at 
barely 9 weeks. Anna recalls that she almost started crying, though I 
don't recall an ``almost'' for either one of us. Just 4 weeks later, as 
the first trimester concluded, we got one of those perfect ultrasound 
shots. We saw Gabriel in profile lying on his back, hands near his 
face, feet and legs kicked up in the air.
  We now know how much of his personality and habits he had already 
developed by that point because that position is how we usually find 
him when he wakes from his nap. Soon after, he began to flip around, 
kick and hiccup, which he also likes to do to this day. All of these 
things happened before the halfway point in Anna's pregnancy, before 
Gabriel reached 20 weeks. While he is precious and one of a kind for 
us, it is quite normal for a typical baby, as expecting parents can 
tell you and as modern medical science can now document.
  While Anna carried Gabriel to term and he was born happy and healthy, 
many babies aren't as lucky, but thanks to the miracle of medical 
science, babies age just 20 weeks after fertilization can increasingly 
survive if born at that extremely premature age. A remarkable study 
published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine 
concluded that babies age 20 to 22 weeks can survive with skilled and 
proper, though not extraordinary, medical intervention and treatment. 
Likewise, advances in perinatology have made fetal surgery more common 
and successful, sometimes as early as 16 weeks.
  These breakthroughs can help correct or ameliorate certain fetal 
conditions. Not only can 20-week-old babies survive outside of the 
womb, but they can also undergo successful surgery inside the womb. It 
is common practice in these surgeries to administer anesthesia, not 
just to the mother but specifically to the baby in utero to prevent 
both from feeling pain. In other words, medical science increasingly 
confirms the common experience of parents and the religious and ethical 
belief of the ages that an unborn baby is just as much a person as you, 
as I, as each of us, only more innocent, more helpless and therefore 
even more deserving of protection, especially by the halfway point of 
the pregnancy. They feel pain and they seek life. It is particularly 
heartbreaking that such babies are killed in our country.
  By some estimates, 10,000 babies 20 weeks or older are aborted each 
year. By this point most Americans have seen the gruesome videos of 
Planned Parenthood officials callously discussing the dismemberment of 
babies to harvest and sell their organs. They cavalierly talk about 
using ``less crunchy procedures'' to preserve the organs, subjecting 
the baby to excruciating pain and death for profit.
  This is a sad reality in America today. Just 2 miles from where I 
stand, just 5 blocks from the White House is an abortionist who 
advertises on his Web site for abortions without restriction up to 26 
weeks--right up to the third trimester. It is far past the medically 
accepted point of viability. Who knows how many other abortionists do 
the same, just more discreetly.
  It is past time to end this barbaric practice and protect these 
innocent babies. Therefore, I strongly support the Pain-Capable Unborn 
Child Protection Act and urge my fellow Senators to do the same. This 
legislation would stop the abortion of babies 20 weeks or older, with 
certain reasonable and widely supported exceptions.
  I understand that abortion provokes strong feelings on both sides of 
the question. I acknowledge that reasonable people of good will 
disagree about the wisdom and morality of early first-term abortions, 
but I am mystified as to why we cannot come together and agree to 
protect babies who feel pain and who can survive outside of the womb. 
It is not just I and large majorities of the American people who feel 
this way; the civilized world overwhelmingly rejects this kind of late-
term abortion. Only seven countries allow elective abortion after 20 
weeks, including Communist dictatorships like China and North Korea, 
which also inflict enforced abortion and sterilization on their people. 
By contrast, countries to our left, like France and Germany, heavily 
restrict or ban abortion after the first trimester and so does Belgium, 
home of the European Union. Even Russia bans elective abortion after 
the first trimester.
  Our abortion policy is one case where we should be ashamed of our 
international isolation and follow Europe's lead in protecting innocent 
life. In our country, founded as it is on the equal rights of mankind 
and the unalienable right of life, it is deeply disappointing that the 
laws don't protect those most innocent lives among us, particularly 
when medical science now has the ability to do so. These scientific 
advances, like life itself, are miracles. These days it may seem like a 
miracle when a law passes around here. If that is the case, as a 
father, as an American, as a lawmaker, I think a miracle is called for 
now if it ever was.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  



                             The Filibuster

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, during the last several days several 
Republicans have suggested that the Senate should abandon a tradition 
that has existed in this body since Thomas Jefferson wrote the rules of 
the Senate in 1789. It is the tradition of extended debate--a tradition 
that when an issue comes up, under the rules of this body, we continue 
to talk, we continue to debate until every Senator has had his or her 
say, at least enough of a say that 60 Senators then say it is time to 
stop talking and start voting.
  Republicans who want to abolish the filibuster in the Senate are, I 
would suggest, Republicans with very short memories. The Senate's 226-
year tradition of extended debate was created for the purpose of 
protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. For the last 
70 years, most of the time Republicans have been the minority needing 
that protection.
  Since World War II, Democrats have controlled the Presidency and both 
Houses of Congress for 22 years; Republicans have had such complete 
control for 6 years. Let me say that again. Since World War II, 
Democrats have

[[Page 14632]]

controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress for 22 years; 
Republicans have had such complete control for only 6 years.
  During those 22 years when the Democrats had complete control, 
without a Senate filibuster to protect the minority, Democrats could 
have enacted any law they wanted. To see what can happen when Democrats 
have complete control and Republican Senators can't filibuster, one has 
to look back only to 2009 and 2010. Then, because there were 60 
Democratic Senators making a Republican filibuster futile, the country 
got ObamaCare. This is because the so-called filibuster rule says that 
the Senate cannot vote on legislation until 60 of the 100 Senators 
decide it is time to end the debate. When more than 40 Senators want to 
continue debating and object to moving to a vote, that is called a 
filibuster.
  Let's look at the future, to the possibility of a President Hillary 
Clinton, a Democratic majority in both Houses, and no Senate filibuster 
rule. My prediction is that at the top of the Democratic agenda would 
be a Federal law abolishing right-to-work laws in the 25 States that 
have them. This is precisely what President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to 
do in 1965 and 1966. President Johnson was not successful. What stopped 
the President? A threatened filibuster by the Senate Republican leader 
Everett McKinley Dirksen.
  You can make your own list of what else would be on the agenda if 
Democrats had complete control and there were no Senate filibuster. I 
would predict higher taxes, more gun control, fewer abortion 
restrictions, making every city a sanctuary city, card check instead of 
the secret ballot for union elections, and numerous other liberal laws.
  The most important reason to keep the filibuster rule is that the 
country needs one legislative body that takes its time to think through 
an issue and try to develop a consensus. The House of Representatives 
is, quite properly, the Nation's sounding board. If the country is 
boiling, the House of Representatives is boiling. On the other hand--as 
George Washington told Thomas Jefferson--the Senate is the saucer into 
which hot tea is poured to cool. The Senate's tradition of extended 
debate requires continuing debate until 60 Senators decide it is time 
to stop discussing and time to start voting. That allows every Senator 
to have a say. It encourages bipartisan consensus, which is the best 
way to govern a large, complex country such as the United States of 
America.
  When both parties agree on a solution to a controversial issue--such 
as the civil rights laws of the 1960s--the country accepts the laws 
more easily. When the laws are jammed through by a partisan vote--as 
happened with ObamaCare--the losers start the next day trying to repeal 
the law and the country is plunged into confusion.
  There is one more serious problem with the current proposals to use 
the so-called nuclear option to change the Senate rules. Senate rules 
require 67 votes to change the rules. If Republicans use the nuclear 
option, we would be operating in the same lawless fashion that the 
Democrats did in 2013, when they used a mere majority vote to eliminate 
the filibuster for most Presidential nominations.
  The Democrats' action in 2013 made little difference in how the 
Senate actually operates by custom. By custom, nominations have almost 
always been decided by a majority vote, but the 2013 use of the nuclear 
option set a damaging precedent. As one dissenting Democratic Senator 
said, a Senate that can change its rules any time it wants by majority 
vote is a Senate without any rules.
  How then could the country's chief rulemaking body earn respect for 
the rules it makes for 320 million Americans if we don't follow our own 
rules? Unlike nominations, the opportunity for extended debate on 
legislation has existed since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Senate rules 
in 1789.
  Of course, the current proposals to abolish the filibuster wouldn't 
change a thing in the Congress. President Obama could simply veto 
whatever he wanted to. According to the U.S. Constitution, it takes 67 
votes in the Senate to overturn a Presidential veto.
  Now, it is true that Democrats and Republicans have used the 
filibuster too often. There absolutely should be an up-or-down vote in 
this body on the President's Iran agreement and on the 12 
appropriations bills that our committee has completed work on and are 
ready to come to the floor. All of them are being blocked by Democratic 
filibusters.
  To solve this problem, some suggest eliminating the filibuster only 
in ``some cases,'' but who will decide which cases are ``some cases''? 
If the minority decides, nothing will be changed. If the majority 
decides, the minority is crushed. The only way to reduce the number of 
filibusters is by consent and by restraint on the part of both 
political parties.
  In 1995, Republicans were elected majorities in both Houses of 
Congress. A Democratic Senator proposed abolishing the filibuster. Even 
though this temporarily would have seemed to benefit Republicans, every 
single Republican voted no. House Republicans are often frustrated 
because legislation that runs through the House like a freight train 
slows down or even grinds to a halt in the Senate. But that was the 
system of checks and balances that our Founders created, and sometimes 
the shoe is on the other foot.
  This year, the Senate has passed important legislation on a 6-year 
highway bill which is still stalled in the House. Republicans and 
conservatives who are thinking about abolishing the filibuster should 
think some more about how ObamaCare became law. They should think about 
what it would be like to live in the 25 States that now have right-to-
work laws if Democrats gained the Presidency and majorities in Congress 
and abolished those right-to-work laws because there was no Senate 
filibuster. Think about what might happen if Democrats again have 
complete control and Congress dances to the tune of the White House and 
the Republican minority might have no filibuster to protect itself and 
this country from the tyranny of that Democrat majority.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have an editorial from 
this morning's Wall Street Journal printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From the Wall Street Journal,
                            Sept. 21, 2015]

                    Editorial: Republican Filibuster


   Blowing up the Senate's 60-vote rule would gain no policy victory

       In the movie classic ``Animal House,'' the fraternity 
     brother Otter reacts to the Delta House's closure with the 
     line, ``I think that this situation absolutely requires a 
     really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's 
     part.'' To which Bluto replies, ``We're just the guys to do 
     it.'' The film ends by noting that Bluto becomes a Senator, 
     so perhaps this explains the growing frenzy to abolish the 
     filibuster.
       Conservatives are frustrated that Republicans lack the 60 
     votes necessary to end Senate debate and send bills to 
     President Obama that disapprove the Iran nuclear deal and 
     defund Planned Parenthood. Thus they want Majority Leader 
     Mitch McConnell to break Senate rules midterm and exercise 
     the ``nuclear option'' to pass legislation with a simple 
     majority instead of the current three-fifths requirement to 
     end debate and allow a vote.
       Conservatives also want some understandable revenge for 
     then Majority Leader Harry Reid's 2013 decision to kill the 
     filibuster for most executive nominees and appellate judges 
     to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The liberals who 
     used to wail that the filibuster undermines democracy have 
     suddenly gone silent now that Democrats are using the tool to 
     obstruct conservative priorities.
       In a letter last week, 57 House Republicans declared that 
     some bills are ``so consequential that they demand revisions 
     to the Senate's procedures.'' In a press conference, Kevin 
     McCarthy, the House Majority Leader, also endorsed the idea 
     ``to let the people have a voice.''
       Presidential candidate John Kasich said Sunday that he 
     favored ``extreme measures,'' including blowing up the 
     filibuster. ``Forget about the 60-vote rule,'' fellow 
     candidate Scott Walker said at last week's debate. ``Pass it 
     with 51 votes, put it on the desk of the President and go 
     forward and actually make a point. This is why people are 
     upset with Washington.''
       Maybe so, but surely Messrs. Walker and Kasich know that 
     Mr. Obama will veto anything that emerges from Congress on

[[Page 14633]]

     Planned Parenthood or Iran. Senate Republicans still wouldn't 
     have the 67 votes to override a veto. So they'd achieve no 
     policy victory.
       In exchange, they'd end an important check on majoritarian 
     control--an action they may one day come to regret. Over the 
     years the filibuster has helped block numerous progressive 
     priorities such as union card-check, limits on political 
     speech, and cap and trade. The filibuster also allows a 
     minority to help shape legislation, not merely to block it, 
     and on balance the procedure has served the country well by 
     moderating extreme proposals.
       If Republicans do want to convert the Senate into a high-
     end version of the House, where even a near-majority is 
     powerless, then they should at least do so when they can 
     accomplish something significant with a Republican President. 
     The precise wrong time is 14 months ahead of an election that 
     may result in a new Democratic President and Senate majority 
     under leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer.
       Now that Mr. Reid has cashiered the filibuster for 
     nominees, we agree that Republicans should follow that 
     precedent the next time there's a GOP President. A GOP Senate 
     majority should refuse to let Democrats filibuster a 
     conservative Supreme Court nominee. But giving up the 
     filibuster over policy now would be a futile gesture that 
     liberals would exploit to expand government in the future.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I rise today to speak about yet another 
Republican attempt to limit women's health care choices.
  Congress should be focused on funding the government and keeping our 
country open for business. Instead, we are wasting our limited 
legislative days on H.R. 36, a bill that will not pass, and therefore 
is just for show. This bill is yet another example of a relentless 
anti-woman agenda. Rather than doing our jobs to keep important 
government services funded, we are debating a 20-week abortion ban.
  The decision to end a pregnancy is a difficult one that involves many 
factors. Each case is unique, and any decision made is a very private 
one. Ending a pregnancy after 20 weeks is extremely rare. It is often a 
medical necessity.
  This weekend in the Washington Post a woman bravely wrote about her 
need to end her pregnancy after the 20-week mark. When Rebecca and her 
husband went in for a routine checkup, they received the tragic news 
that her pregnancy was no longer viable. After consulting many 
physicians and specialists, Rebecca was left with an untenable 
decision, but she was able to access all of her health care options and 
get care that was right for her.
  This bill would severely limit the ability of women to access vital 
and necessary health care options. H.R. 36 contains few exceptions, and 
these exceptions are so burdensome that they may as well not be there.
  I have met with providers who stand on the frontlines of this choice 
debate. Despite threats lobbied at them every day, they work hard to 
ensure that the United States is a country where women are fully 
empowered to make decisions about their own health care. These 
physicians have seen the heartache and agony women experience making 
this difficult decision. Women should not be subjected to medically 
unnecessary, financially taxing, and just plain cruel treatment at the 
behest of some Republican lawmakers.
  If my colleagues truly wanted to improve women's health care, they 
would fund title X programs, bolster the Maternal and Child Health 
Block Grant, and support the Affordable Care Act.
  We have no business attempting to legislate a private, 
constitutionally protected right using unsubstantiated science and 
hyperbole. In fact, numerous courts have found similar laws by States 
to be unconstitutional. We need to move on from these votes for show 
and get back to the real work of the Senate. I am calling this bill 
what it is: An unnecessary, unwarranted, and likely unconstitutional 
intrusion into women's private health care decisions.
  Meanwhile, time is running out to reach an agreement to keep our 
government open, and we cannot afford another shutdown. We need to pass 
a clean continuing resolution to keep the government going. I ask my 
colleagues to join me in focusing on legislation to improve the lives 
of every single American. We need legislation that increases access to 
education, promotes job growth, strengthens our national security, and 
keeps America vibrant.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in voting no on cloture on H.R. 36.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PERDUE. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business 
for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Appropriations

  Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, I rise today to talk about why I am 
here, and really why all of us are here. We are here to represent the 
people of our great States. We are here to do the people's business and 
to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
  We just finished an ongoing debate about how Congress can direct and 
guide foreign policy in the United States. In doing so, we have seen 
the dangerous consequences of partisan politics right here on the 
Senate floor and how that can affect this process. Just last week, 42 
of my Democratic colleagues supported President Obama's dangerous 
nuclear deal with Iran while still having serious concerns about its 
global ramifications.
  Now we must refocus our attention on solving our fiscal crisis and 
tackling our skyrocketing national debt. State governments across the 
country set both funding levels and clear priorities for their States 
each year based on the needs of their people and their local 
communities. Washington has been distracted from this for far too long. 
Balancing the budget and efficiently allocating resources is what 
Washington has not done well for the last several years. Too many 
people here are preoccupied by politics of the day when getting our 
fiscal house in order should always be the top priority. In other 
words, Washington has stopped listening to the American people. Well, 
I--and a few of us, including the Presiding Officer--am indeed 
listening. The American people told us what they wanted in November of 
last year when the Presiding Officer and I were elected. Georgians tell 
me repeatedly--even now--what they want. They want less government. 
They want less spending. They want us to push back against President 
Obama's out-of-control spending and Executive overreaches that are 
failing the working men and women of America. The bottom line is they 
want us to deal with this debt crisis.
  Earlier this year, the Senate Budget Committee took a great first 
step by passing a balanced budget for the first time since 2001. This 
budget outlined our conservative principles and spending limits. This 
budget spends $7 trillion less than the President's budget over the 
next 10 years. What it doesn't do is reduce the debt today or deal with 
the over $100 trillion of future unfunded liabilities coming at us like 
a freight train. It does balance in 10 years, which is quite an 
achievement given what we had to work with, but more can and must be 
done right now. So I am going to continue my focus on cutting wasteful 
spending and reducing Federal expenditures with the goal of developing 
a long-term plan to pay down this out-of-control massive $18 trillion 
of Federal debt.
  In the last 6 years, we spent $21\1/2\ trillion funding our Federal 
Government. That is so large that it is hard to spend. What I can't 
understand is of that $21\1/2\ trillion, $8 trillion was borrowed. We 
simply cannot continue going down this road. While one side wants tax 
increases, the other side wants spending cuts. In my experience, 
neither alone will solve the equation in its entirety. Growing our 
economy is the only real solution. Again, the budget is just the first 
step. We must put our conservative principles into action and work 
through the regular appropriations process to determine how we 
responsibly allocate Federal funds.

[[Page 14634]]

  The Senate Appropriations Committee has put forward 12 appropriations 
bills that adhere to the Republican budget and that reflect the 
priorities of the American people. Overall, these bills are under the 
Budget Control Act caps that were put in place by Congress in 2011 to 
control spending. More importantly, they better prioritize taxpayer 
dollars to meet the goals of the American people. For example, these 
appropriation bills decrease spending on ObamaCare and increase 
spending for border security. They end the EPA's waters of the United 
States rule and stop the Obama administration's onerous greenhouse gas 
regulations. They also prohibit the NLRB from changing the rules of the 
game, such as the ambush election rule and changing the joint-employer 
relationship, in order to prevent negative impacts to American workers 
and business.
  They subject the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, to 
congressional oversight and eliminate hundreds of duplicative programs 
that have outlived their original mission. The list goes on and on.
  The fiscal year ends on September 30. That is only a few days from 
now. We must move forward and debate these 12 appropriations bills that 
reflect Georgia values and fulfill the promises we all made to 
represent the American people.
  While we have already seen our Democratic colleagues block such 
debate on these important bills, I hope we can immediately restart this 
critical process and return to regular order. Certainly, a full and 
robust debate on all of these bills is necessary to ensure that our 
Federal Government continues to function without overspending.
  Now, I can tell my colleagues there are some things I would like to 
change in these bills, but they ought to be debated. It ought to be 
debated in the open and not blocked by more partisan gridlock that we 
see here every day. I hope the majority leader will continue to bring 
these bills to the floor and I hope the objections of my Democratic 
colleagues will finally end, and let's get to an open and honest 
debate.
  Georgians sent me to the Senate to fight for them, and that is what I 
intend to do. This is just a start. I will not and I cannot stand by 
while Senate Democrats continue to block the Senate from doing the 
people's work as they did every day when they were in charge.
  Madam President, I also wish to speak for just a moment on a bill 
that is going to come up this week focusing on the unborn. I wish to 
say a few words today in support of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act of which I am a proud cosponsor in the Senate. Simply 
put, this legislation protects unborn babies from unimaginable pain.
  Every child is a blessing, and I am incredibly fortunate that God has 
blessed my wife and me with two great boys and three grandsons. I will 
never forget the day we found out we were going to have our first 
child. It was life changing. When the doctor gave us the exciting news, 
we were overjoyed, but, at the same time, we were a bit overwhelmed. We 
were young, like most parents. We were going to become parents. We were 
going to have a baby. There is a difference.
  Like every expectant mother, my wife was glowing. She may not have 
felt great and maybe didn't think she was glowing, but I assure my 
colleagues, she was. I will never forget seeing our baby on the 
ultrasound for the first time, or feeling him kick. And, the day my 
first son was born, holding him for the very first time was one of the 
most incredible moments of my life.
  When the doctor told us we were going to have our second child, I was 
concerned we couldn't possibly love this second child as much as we did 
the first, but, wow, how I was wrong.
  Later in life, my wife and I have been blessed with three grandsons 
who are all great. There is no greater love than that of a parent, 
although it can be rivaled by that of a grandparent. Believe me, my 
three grandchildren know how to tug at my heartstrings.
  My children and grandchildren are why I am here in the Senate, 
fighting for them and others like them to have a better future, for my 
fellow Georgians, for them, and for all Americans.
  We live in the most compassionate country in the world. We send food, 
clothing, and medicine all over the world to help save underprivileged 
children and families who are struggling to find the basic things they 
need to survive. It is extremely troubling, therefore, that our 
country's compassion for life is absent here at home. Only seven 
countries in the world allow parents to abort a baby after 5 months--
only seven. That is not a list America should aspire to be a part of.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, over 10,000 unborn 
babies 20 weeks or older are killed in America every year. Imagine that 
for a moment. Each year, more than 10,000 lives, who feel and react to 
pain, have their lives brutally taken from them.
  In my view, this is a national disgrace. It is absolutely 
unconscionable. I cannot believe protecting life, especially that of 
the unborn, is an actual subject of debate. One would think this would 
be an issue of unity, but debate on this important legislation could 
not have come at a more urgent time.
  Recent gruesome videos describe the harvesting and selling of fetal 
organs and remind our Nation just how barbaric the abortion industry 
has become. As a parent, and now a grandparent, I find it difficult to 
imagine that something so horrific can happen in a country as 
compassionate as America.
  Our Nation must promote a culture that values all life. We must 
protect the innocent and the most vulnerable among us, especially the 
unborn.
  We can protect unborn babies from unimaginable pain. We can protect 
life.
  That is why I support this legislation. That is why I cosponsored it. 
I urge my colleagues to take it very seriously.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold his suggestion?
  Mr. PERDUE. Yes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator 
from Georgia.


                             Climate Change

  I rise today in my series of ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches to bring 
attention to two of God's humblest but most useful creatures.
  Here in the high political majesty of the Senate, it is easy to 
forget Matthew: ``No man can serve two masters. . . . Ye cannot serve 
God and mammon.''
  Who do we serve here? I submit it is mammon, all day long, no doubt 
about it. Mammon surrounds and submerges us. We swim in its currents. 
This Senate of ours, this is ``Mammon Hall.''
  How easy it is from our perch of worldly power here in Mammon Hall to 
overlook the humble, and what could be humbler than God's humblest 
beasts? So, today, I want us to remember two: The bumblebee and the 
pteropod.
  When was the last time any of us thought of the humble bumblebee? Not 
recently, I expect, and not often. We have important things to do. Who 
can be thinking about bumblebees? Yet, by the millions, by God's plan, 
these small creatures spend their days out busily pollinating the 
plants that yield the crops that turn into the food we humans depend on 
to survive.
  The humble bumblebee does much more good in God's natural realm than 
we humans do. On the spectrum between givers and takers of this good 
Earth's blessings, we humans are way over on the taker end of the 
spectrum, and the bumblebee--it is humble--but it is way over on the 
giver end. And the humble pteropod, how many of us even know what it 
is? Not many in this Senate, I would bet. The pteropod is a winged 
snail that populates the ocean in immense numbers. It is sometimes 
called the sea butterfly because, over millenia, God's evolution of 
these creatures has turned their snail foot into an oceanic wing. A 
cousin species is called the sea angel.
  Like the bumblebee, the pteropod performs an unheralded service in

[[Page 14635]]

God's natural realm. The pteropod is an essential link in the oceanic 
food chain, supporting the whole great network of trophic levels and 
species above it.
  In what Pope Francis calls ``the mysterious network of relations 
between things''--in that mysterious network of relations between 
things, the pteropod gives its life to transmit food energy from the 
microscopic plants it eats, that would be no use to us, up to the fish 
that consume the pteropod--fish, which we, in turn, consume--all in 
that great ``mysterious network.''
  Back here in Mammon Hall, many interests can only appreciate nature 
in monetary terms and can only value things to the extent that they can 
be monetized. They are the mercenary sort Pope John Paul II said ``see 
no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for 
immediate use and consumption.'' Or, as Pope Benedict said, think 
``everything is simply our property and we use it for ourselves 
alone.'' They are the interests who, as Pope Francis said, have the 
attitude ``of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set 
limits on their immediate needs.'' According to them, if you can't grab 
it and sell it, it has no value--not here in Mammon Hall.
  So, to them, let me say that the money-making salmon fishery depends 
in large part on the humble pteropod. For them, let me say that our 
enormous agribusiness enterprise depends on pollination by the humble 
bumblebee.
  In Mammon Hall here, we have actually gotten used to this kind of 
behavior. It no longer even seems deviant to us. It has become 
normalized, but in our hearts we have to still know it is not normal. 
It is wrong.
  Pope Francis reminds us in his recent encyclical: ``When nature is 
viewed solely as a source of profit and gain,'' that is ``[c]ompletely 
at odds with . . . the ideals . . . proposed by Jesus.''
  Completely at odds with the ideals proposed by Jesus.
  The Pope was blunt. He said: ``Today, . . . sin is manifest in . . . 
attacks on nature. . . . a sin against ourselves and a sin against 
God.''
  That is what the interests we traffic with do all day long--no doubt 
about it.
  The Pope has said that ``our common home is falling into serious 
disrepair. . . . [T]hings are now reaching a breaking point. . . . 
[H]umanity has disappointed God's expectations.'' The Earth herself, he 
said, ``groans in travail,'' and we are leaving to our children a world 
that, to use his words, ``is beginning to look more and more like an 
immense pile of filth.'' If we don't see that, it is because we see so 
poorly outside our privileged bubble of consumption.
  But if we don't see that, the bumblebee and the pteropod do. Here is 
what is happening to them.
  A study in the peer-reviewed journal Science, published in early 
July, shows that as temperatures warm, bumblebee populations are 
retreating northward from the hottest part of their ranges as they warm 
further and further. But here is the rub: The northern range for the 
bumblebees for some reason is not expanding, which means the changing 
climate is crushing bumblebee populations in a climate vice.
  ``Bumblebee species across Europe and North America are declining at 
continental scales,'' warns study author Dr. Jeremy Kerr of the 
University of Ottawa. ``Our data suggest that climate change plays a 
leading role, or perhaps the leading role, in this trend.''
  Carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels floods the atmosphere and 
causes climate change. But about 25 percent of it actually enters the 
oceans, and there, it acidifies the waters, souring them for creatures 
such as the pteropod.
  Research led by NOAA scientists published last year found that 
acidified water off our west coast is hitting the pteropod especially 
hard. They found ``severe shell damage'' on more than half of the 
pteropods they collected from Central California to the Canadian 
border. That was more than double the expected rate. The pteropods are 
being eaten away by acidic water.
  Oceanographer William Peterson, coauthor of the study, said, ``We did 
not expect to see pteropods being affected to this extent in our 
coastal region for several decades.'' The pace and extent of ocean 
acidification that we are observing now, that we are measuring now, 
that we are driving now with our carbon pollution, are nearly 
unprecedented in the geological record. The closest historical analogs, 
scientists say, are the great extinctions, when marine creatures were 
wiped out en masse and ocean ecosystems took millions of years to 
recover.
  John Kenneth Galbraith knew something about importance, and he said 
this about importance: ``The threat to men of great dignity, privilege, 
and pretense is . . . from accepting their own myth.'' That happens 
when that ``great dignity, privilege, and pretense'' become so great 
that we no longer feel the need to listen--certainly not to something 
as insignificant as a bumblebee, as humble as a pteropod. But remember 
why Jesus was so angry with the Pharisees. What was their sin? Their 
dignity, their privilege, and their pretense blinded them to how out of 
touch they were with the truth.
  So here we are in mammon hall, where powerful special interests court 
us, gigantic corporations lobby us, and billionaires pay us attention, 
and indeed they fund some of us. Presidents must deal with us. Truly, 
we are today's Pharisees. But Jesus taught that truth is among the 
things that are humble.
  We had better start listening to the bumblebee and the pteropod, to 
the coral polyp and the oyster spat, to the New Hampshire moose and the 
Idaho pine, to the Utah snowfall and the California drought, to the 
measured carbon concentration of our only atmosphere and the measured 
pH level of our only oceans. These are gifts, and these gifts are all 
God's creations, and their signals are all God's voice. We ignore them 
in our arrogance, we ignore them in our folly, and we ignore them at 
our peril.
  It has already begun, as we careen into the next great extinction. As 
Pope Francis wrote, ``Because of us, thousands of species will no 
longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their 
message to us. We have no such right,'' he said.
  Indeed, we have no such right. The day the bumblebee and pteropod no 
longer give glory to God by their very existence will be a bleak and 
perilous day for humankind. In the meantime, we had better smarten up 
to the message they convey to us. If their message, if the message of 
God's creatures--if that message of warning is not God's voice, then 
whose voice is it?
  I challenge you. If the voice of God's creatures to us in the way 
they lead their lives and the way they are dying is not God's voice, 
then whose voice is it and what message does it convey?
  As Pope Francis comes to this Congress this week, I hope we will 
listen to the voice of God as expressed through his humblest creatures 
and just for a second turn off the noise from mammon that surrounds us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.
  This Senator wants to take a few moments to talk about the Pain 
Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which I think is a good piece of 
legislation. I support it, and I hope my colleagues will allow it to 
move forward. I think when God speaks, maybe He would speak about that 
issue too.
  However, I really want to talk a little bit more about where we are 
on the funding of Planned Parenthood, the two aspects of it. One is a 
large--hundreds of millions of dollars--appropriations that goes there 
through the Medicaid program, and another is $28 million that was 
directly appropriated last year from the government to this Planned 
Parenthood agency. I call it an agency, but that is not really correct. 
It is a nongovernmental entity, a nongovernmental activist group that 
does some good things and some things I don't think are good.
  I think we ought to recognize that Congress has certain powers. It is 
very clear, I would submit, that a majority of the Members of the 
Senate and a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives do 
not want to fund

[[Page 14636]]

this agency--certainly not as it has been funded in the past. What we 
have, as I understand it now, is at least $28 million of federal money 
that goes to it unless Congress decides not to fund it.
  Colleagues, the power of the purse resides in the United States 
Congress. Not one dollar can be spent by the President, any of his 
Department heads, or the U.S. military, unless Congress has 
appropriated the money. That is an ultimate power of Congress.
  At the end of this fiscal year--September 30--if Congress has not 
appropriated money for the future, then it can't be spent. That is why 
we have a so-called shutdown. If you don't fund the whole government, 
it is blocked in some way and then the government can't expend the 
money that has not been appropriated by the elected representatives of 
the people of the United States.
  Let me just say it this way. I don't believe the American people's 
money that has been extracted from them by the Internal Revenue Service 
and other government extractors--I don't believe that money should be 
spent on any program that is unhealthy or not wise. That is what we are 
all elected to do; is that not right? Fund programs that are good, 
worthwhile, and that create value for the American people, and not fund 
the programs that we don't think are wise and create value, and 
advocate and promote principles we think are healthy for the American 
culture, the American people. We don't have to fund any program 
Congress decides not to fund. The power of the purse resides in the 
Congress of the United States. A majority of the Congress does not 
favor advancing funding for Planned Parenthood and certainly not the 
$28 million that goes through the HHS grant-writing process, so I 
suggest we don't fund it. That is what I think. Let's not fund it. Why 
are we funding it?
  Well, we have to fund it, Sessions. You don't understand.
  What don't I understand?
  If it is not funded, you are shutting down the government.
  So if we do not provide the money for a nongovernmental agency that 
we think is not spending the taxpayers' money wisely, we are shutting 
down the entire government of the United States? I suggest that is a 
ludicrous position, one that goes beyond any rationality, and I am 
prepared to say so.
  How did this happen? How could they say that?
  We are funding the government. We are passing a bill that funds all 
the government agencies. It just doesn't fund this nongovernmental 
agency--the money they would like to have to advance their agenda, 
which isn't my agenda, so I am not for funding it. I got elected.
  How did this happen?
  Well, the President says he will veto the bill, and since Congress 
hasn't passed any of the appropriations bills in series like we should 
be doing, it is going to be cobbled together in one monumental matter, 
one monumental omnibus bill or continuing resolution. The President is 
going to veto the entire Federal funding because he doesn't want us to 
cut $28 million. He wants it to be spent the way he thinks it should be 
spent.
  I think we should tell the President: Mr. President, you have your 
power. You can sign your agreement--not valid beyond your tenure--with 
Iran even though we disagree with it. A substantial majority of both 
Houses opposes it, but apparently, you have the lawful authority to do 
so. But you don't have the lawful authority to spend money on an 
entity--not even a government entity--that Congress chooses not to 
spend money on. This is our business.
  We are in a bad trend here of Congress just capitulating in favor of 
the Executive. By any historical standard, I have never seen a more 
supine Congress.
  So should we fund this program? I say no. Don't put it in there. And 
I think we should send a note to the President:
  Dear Mr. President, we funded the Defense Department, we funded 
Medicare, we funded Medicaid, we funded other programs, hundreds of 
them, at $1 trillion. That would be in this bill, basically, around $1 
trillion. That is a thousand billion dollars. But we have chosen to cut 
$28 million of one of the programs we don't think is good. Congress 
doesn't like it, and Congress chose not to fund it. And somebody told 
us that you declared that if we do that, you are going to veto the 
entire funding for the government of the United States, including the 
Defense Department and all the other programs that aid us, including 
the Environmental Protection Agency. You are going to veto funding for 
those agencies and blame the Congress and go on to say Congress caused 
this. Wow.
  He is going to say that we who funded the government and he who 
blocked the funding for the government have a disagreement over this 
amount of money, and as a result he is going to veto the funding for 
the government and accuse the Republicans, who passed the bill to fund 
the government, of shutting down the government.
  Now, some people are afraid of the President.
  Oh, he always wins. The President always wins, and Congress always 
loses. Sessions, don't you understand?
  But the facts of the case matter. The situation matters. If we follow 
the budget and we appropriate at a level for the Defense Department 
that the President wants and Congress wants and we do all these things, 
but we just choose not to fund this program, I don't believe the 
President has the moral authority, the political clout to tell the 
American people that the Congress shut down the government when he 
vetoes the bill that will fund the government.
  So I just want to say that it is time for this Congress to do its 
duty, and we should fund programs that need funding and not fund 
programs that don't need funding, and we should try wherever possible 
to reach a compromise the way we have done in the Armed Services 
Committee. All the members of the committee argued about this, that, 
and the other, and we created a military bill which we think is a 
healthy bill and which had overwhelming bipartisan support. Almost all 
of the appropriations bills that have come out of the committees have 
had bipartisan support, I think many of them unanimous, Republicans and 
Democrats--every one of them--supporting them. We get along around here 
a lot better than people say. But there are certain things Congress 
should not cede. It should not cede to the Executive the power of the 
purse. That is all I am saying.
  At this point in time, we will be dealing directly with the HHS grant 
programs that are giving money to an entity that I don't think should 
be funded. I am not voting to fund it. I think that is a reasonable 
position. And I think it would be extraordinary if the President were 
to take the view that he will not fund the Department of Defense and 
other programs of the government because of a disagreement over this 
issue.
  Indeed, colleagues, I believe the House has proposed legislation that 
would have generous funding for women's health. The money that would 
have gone to Planned Parenthood would instead go through a general plan 
of community health centers and other quasi-government entities that 
serve women throughout the country.
  So I thank the Presiding Officer for allowing me to say that. It is a 
matter we are going to have to wrestle with as a Congress. In the long 
run, I truly believe Congress needs to fulfill its constitutional role, 
and that congressional role calls on it to evaluate every dollar spent 
by this government, to examine those programs that we think are valid 
and fund them, and if they need more funding, to give them more funding 
considering the debt situation the country is in and to not fund 
programs we do not think should be funded.
  What other role do we have in the Congress greater than that, the 
power of the purse. The President is not authorized to demand Congress 
spend money on every program he desires, a program that sells body 
parts and other things of that nature that I do not think is decent and 
good. So I am not for funding it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

[[Page 14637]]


  Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise in strong opposition to 
continued attacks on women's access to health care. Today, the Senate 
majority leader is attempting to advance a bill to ban abortion after 
20 weeks. This is a blatantly unconstitutional proposal that injects 
politics into a private and deeply personal decision, one that should 
remain between a woman and her medical provider and her family.
  This bill is the latest--but not the last, I know--in a series of 
unrelenting attacks on safe and legal abortion in this country. It not 
only represents a cynical affront to well-settled law, it poses a 
serious threat to women's health. Let me tell you why. Nearly 43 years 
ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution protects, as a 
fundamental right, a woman's ability to decide whether and when to 
start a family. This bill is plainly at odds with that holding and 
plainly at odds with the Constitution, which is why Federal and State 
courts have found laws like this one unconstitutional time and time 
again, but our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are now 
pushing forward with this bill and doing it at the expense of women who 
need medical care in the most desperate of circumstances.
  Bills like this one demonstrate a callous disregard for the risks 
women
face during pregnancy--women like Danielle Deaver, from Nebraska, who 
went to the doctor in a desperate attempt to save her pregnancy when 
her water broke at 22 weeks. Tests revealed that Danielle's amniotic 
fluid had ruptured, and her doctors explained that the baby could not 
be expected to survive, but that was not all. The rupture also put 
Danielle at risk, at risk of an infection that could jeopardize her 
fertility and her ability to have children in the future. Together, 
Danielle and her husband made the heartbreaking decision to terminate 
her pregnancy, but because Danielle lived in a State with an abortion 
ban that made no exception for a woman's health and had not been 
challenged in court, her doctor was unable to help. Danielle endured 8 
days of severe pain and infection before delivering a daughter who 
survived for just 15 minutes.
  Christy Zink of Washington, DC, was 21 weeks pregnant when an 
examination revealed that her pregnancy suffered from a severe fetal 
anomaly--meaning, effectively, that the entire hemisphere of the brain 
was missing. Christy and her husband consulted her physician and other 
doctors in an attempt to save her much wanted pregnancy, but after 
hearing of a near inevitability that if delivered, their child would 
not survive, she and her husband ultimately made the very difficult 
personal decision to end her pregnancy.
  The bill we are discussing today has no exception for cases where a 
woman's pregnancy experiences a fetal anomaly. If a ban like this were 
to become law, families like Christy's would have no options. As a 
father of two grown children, with one grandchild and another on the 
way, I know what it feels like to celebrate the news that your wife or 
your daughter or daughter-in-law is pregnant, to accompany them to 
doctor's visits and checkups, to look forward to welcoming a child or 
grandchild into your family, and to look on with hope and worry as the 
pregnancy progresses, but my family has been very fortunate. I can only 
imagine the pain and heartbreak a family experiences when they are 
faced with the kind of tragic news Danielle and Christy received when 
they learned something was wrong, but the idea that Congress should 
insert itself into those moments and act to limit the difficult choices 
available to women and their families confronting unimaginable pain and 
sorrow is unconscionable.
  This bill ignores women like Danielle and Christy. It ignores the 
unique circumstances surrounding every woman's pregnancy. Instead, it 
substitutes the judgment of Congress for that of medical professionals, 
even going so far as to threaten doctors with a 5-year prison sentence 
for providing women with the care they need.
  Make no mistake, this is an extreme proposal. Unfortunately, it 
represents just the latest salvo in an unending campaign to make safe 
and legal abortion virtually impossible to access. Since the 114th 
Congress was gaveled into session, we have seen no fewer than 65 
legislative attacks on the right to choose. Just last month, the Senate 
voted on a measure that would have defunded Planned Parenthood, a 
health care provider that serves millions of Americans, including more 
than 54,000 people in my State of Minnesota. That legislation failed, 
but as the end of the fiscal year approaches, some of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle--both in the House and in the Senate--have 
pledged not to support a spending bill that continues funding for 
Planned Parenthood. They prefer to see the government shut down rather 
than allow a single penny to support the family planning services, the 
cancer screenings, and tests for sexually transmitted diseases that 
Planned Parenthood provides.
  My good friend from Alabama Senator Sessions--and he is a good 
friend--suggested that we instead send that money to community health 
centers. They do not have the staffing, they do not have the capacity 
to provide these needed services for the millions of people Planned 
Parenthood serves. That is why the public does not agree. According to 
a poll released last week, more than 7 in 10 Americans oppose shutting 
down the government to defund Planned Parenthood.
  One of the reasons the public does not buy into these tactics is they 
understand that access to reproductive health services, including 
contraception and abortion, has a powerful effect on the decisions 
women and their families make every day, decisions about whether to 
start a job or how much a family can afford to save for college.
  For the vast majority of Americans, this is not political; this is 
personal. It is not a place for Congress to interfere. I urge my 
colleagues to oppose legislation that would restrict the ability of 
women and families to make their own reproductive choices.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, tomorrow this Chamber will vote on 
something called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, 
legislation I have cosponsored, that would recognize that a woman has a 
legal right to have an abortion up to the point of 5 months' gestation; 
that is, after 5 months' gestation, an unborn child is beginning to 
grow hair on their head, their fingernails are growing.
  By this time in development, mothers are beginning to feel the baby 
kicking and moving for the very first time. In other words, this is the 
point at which the child literally becomes viable, becomes a human 
being, capable of life outside of the mother. Obviously, a typical 
period of pregnancy is 40 weeks. So obviously we hope that in most 
cases a child will remain in the womb until it is fully developed. But 
the fact is, talk to any neonatologist, talk to any physician, they 
will tell you that at a point around 20 weeks, certainly 5 months of 
gestation, you have no longer a child dependent upon their mother for 
life but somebody who can actually live independently.
  Indeed, as many of us have done, go into some of these nurseries, 
where they have literally babies who weigh 1 pound or less, and see 
what medical science is able to do to actually save the lives of these 
premature babies--in a way that will allow them to grow up and be 
healthy and productive. It is nothing less than a medical miracle.
  But at 20 weeks of gestation, which is 5 months, an unborn child is 
without a doubt a life--a life worth defending and worth protecting. 
This is something that is commonly accepted around the world. I don't 
know how many people realize that actually this legislation would bring 
the United States in line with the developed countries around the 
world. As a matter of fact, the United States is just one of seven 
countries worldwide that permit access to an elective abortion after 5 
months of

[[Page 14638]]

gestation, and we are in some pretty tough company. Right now we are in 
company with China, Vietnam, and North Korea. The United States, China, 
Vietnam, and North Korea basically permit an abortion up until the time 
a child is born naturally.
  This bill is also important because it would significantly curtail 
the horrifying practices depicted in the videos we have seen of Planned 
Parenthood's operations over the summer. I am surprised to see in the 
press that only about 49 percent of the American people have actually 
seen these videos because they are so horrific, but I think they are 
also shocking. And perhaps it is that people would just rather turn 
their gaze and look away rather than see the barbaric practices 
depicted in these videos. But indeed these videos show Planned 
Parenthood executives callously discussing the value of an unborn 
child's organs, and it is truly morally reprehensible. I think, 
unfortunately, it reveals a dark side of humanity--one that prizes the 
organs of an unborn child over the potential life that child could 
have. And I have asked myself: How did we get here? How did we become 
so desensitized to this practice? And if there is anything these videos 
have done, hopefully it is to awaken the conscience of the American 
people as well as the Members of Congress to realize exactly what is 
going on and to conduct the investigations that are now underway by 
four committees of this Congress and to do what we can, such as passing 
this Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It would make out of 
bounds the sort of late-term abortions that apparently this sort of 
enterprise depicted in the video depends upon.
  This legislation is a unique and powerful opportunity for us to act 
and defend the lives of unborn children across this country. It is the 
best chance we have to advance a culture of life in this country. I am 
not suggesting that it is going to be easy or that we will have this 
vote and we will be finished. We will not be. I remember the long road 
to passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act over a decade ago, and 
I think the distinguished majority leader, who has set this matter for 
a vote, recognizes that this is the beginning of raising the visibility 
of this horrific practice and asking the American people whether they 
are comfortable with the sort of conduct they see depicted on these 
videos or whether we ought to think again about whether we want to be 
part of a coalition of China, Vietnam, and North Korea when it comes to 
sanctioning these late-term abortions after a baby has literally become 
viable in the womb.
  If this bill becomes the law of the land, it will be the first time 
Congress has significantly and meaningfully advanced the pro-life 
agenda in over a decade. It took a long time for us to get the passage 
of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act over a decade ago. And I don't 
think we should underestimate the difficulty of passing this 
legislation and other pro-life legislation, but we need to start. These 
videos have given us the opportunity because they have awakened 
America's conscience.
  This legislation, if passed, would save the lives of thousands of 
unborn children and make impossible the sort of organ-harvesting 
practice that we have seen on fully developed, unborn babies that we 
have seen depicted in these videos.
  Tomorrow the Senate will have a unique opportunity to stand up for 
the most vulnerable, and if we are not here to stand for those who 
cannot speak for themselves, the most vulnerable in our society, not 
the least of whom are the unborn, what are we here for? I hope my 
Senate colleagues will vote to advance this legislation and in doing so 
vote to invoke a life of culture in this country.
  Moving this bill forward should be seen as a moral imperative by 
every Member of the Chamber. We can unite behind an understanding of 
obvious right and wrong and save thousands of lives by making the Pain-
Capable Unborn Child Protection Act a reality.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.


                              Papal Visit

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I know many Americans are looking 
ahead to the visit of Pope Francis this week with a great deal of 
interest. Thousands will gather on the Capitol grounds for the chance 
to hear him speak. I think I can speak for every colleague when I say 
the Senate welcomes him with open arms. We look forward to his visit.


                           Government Funding

  Madam President, it obviously is going to be a busy week in the 
Senate. That is true of the legislative issues before us as well. One 
is government funding.
  Earlier this year, a new majority took office with a different 
outlook on government funding from that of the previous majority. We 
thought it made sense to actually pass a budget and then to fund it. So 
we passed a budget for the first time in 6 years. Then we passed all 12 
appropriations bills through a committee for the first time in 6 years. 
Democratic colleagues voted for and praised the appropriations bills in 
committee. Had we passed the 12 appropriations bills on the floor, it 
would have funded the government without the dramas of the past. But 
Democrats didn't change their minds and decided to pursue a regrettable 
``filibuster summer'' strategy of blocking all government funding for 
months. Some blocked bills they had just praised, all with the aim of 
pushing Washington into another one of these manufactured crises they 
just cannot seem to shake. It is truly unfortunate, but they have 
succeeded in making this a reality we now face.
  We have to push forward, and we will. I will have much to say on the 
issue as the week progresses. Discussions on the best way forward are 
ongoing. Discussions about the character of our country continue as 
well.
  Madam President, tomorrow we will take up a bill the House of 
Representatives has already passed. It is legislation that would allow 
America to join the ranks of most civilized nations when it comes to 
protecting the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable.
  We--along with countries like North Korea--are one of just seven 
nations to allow late-term abortions after 20 weeks, in other words, 5 
months, when science and medical research tell us unborn children can 
feel pain. As the father of three daughters, I find that both tragic 
and heartbreaking. Many Americans feel the same way. Polls show that 
both men and women support protections for innocent life at 5 months.
  I am asking colleagues to open their hearts and work with us to help 
defend the defenseless. Help us pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act. I will have more to say about this important bill 
before we take a vote on it tomorrow.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today in strong support of the 
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This bill recognizes an 
indisputable fact and it stands for an indispensable principle. The 
fact is that each of us was a living human being before birth. The 
principle is that each human being has inherent dignity and worth.
  The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade degraded the 
Constitution, and the regime of virtually unrestricted abortion that it 
spawned continues to degrade our culture. It degraded the Constitution 
by reducing it to little more than a prop and using it as a cover for 
imposing the opinions of individual Justices. This decision is perhaps 
the best example of what Justice Benjamin Curtis warned about in his 
dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. He wrote that when the 
opinions of individuals control the Constitution's meaning, ``we have a 
government which is merely . . . an exponent of the individual 
political opinions of the members of [the Supreme] Court.'' That is 
exactly what Roe v. Wade is.
  In addition to degrading the Constitution, the abortion regime 
spawned by Roe and maintained by its progeny continues to degrade our 
culture. This effect is inevitable because that regime is built on the 
dark proposition that

[[Page 14639]]

humanity itself has no inherent worth that demands respect and that 
individual members of the human family can be killed for any reason at 
any time before birth.
  It was not always like this. Just 25 years before Roe v. Wade, the 
United States voted for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 
very first statement in the preamble recognizes ``the inherent dignity 
and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human 
family.'' Article 3 states that everyone has the right to a life.
  Just 2 years after the U.S. Supreme Court created an unlimited right 
to abortion in Roe v. Wade, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany 
came to a very different conclusion. Reviewing a law that allowed 
abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, the German court said 
that human life is the supreme value in the constitutional value and 
``the vital basis for humanity and the prerequisite of all other basic 
rights.'' What a contrast.
  The United States has degraded human dignity by striking down a law 
protecting preborn children. Germany promoted human dignity by striking 
down a law endangering preborn children. Our Supreme Court said that a 
preborn child is not a person under the U.S. Constitution and would not 
even address whether that child is a living, human being. The German 
court said that every human individual possessing life is covered by 
the German Constitution, including preborn human beings.
  One of the most successful coverups in legal and social history has 
misled Americans into believing either that abortion is not legal for 
any reason at any time in this country or that this radical abortion 
regime is the norm around the world. Neither is true. Today the United 
States is one of only seven nations in the entire world to allow 
elective abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Other members of that 
club include China and North Korea.
  The bill before us would prohibit the unjustified killing in the womb 
of human beings who can feel pain. The bill recognizes three 
justifications: when abortion is necessary to save the life of the 
mother and when the pregnancy resulted from rape or from incest against 
a minor. This bill would do nothing more than move the United States a 
step away from the most extreme abortion position in the world.
  The Supreme Court may be preventing us from upholding in law the 
inherent dignity of all human beings before birth. That does not mean, 
however, that we should not defend that dignity for as many members of 
the human family as we can. That is why I support the Pain-Capable 
Unborn Child Protection Act before us today.
  This bill is consistent in two different ways with how the Supreme 
Court has set rules for abortion regulations in the past. In Roe v. 
Wade, the Court drew a line at certain points in pregnancy reflecting 
something that the Court found to be medically meaningful. The end of 
the first trimester, the Court said, was related to the relative safety 
of the abortion procedure. The end of the second trimester, the Court 
said, marked the time when a preborn child could potentially live 
outside the womb, at least with artificial aid. The Court said that 
these lines, which identify when certain abortion regulations are 
permissible, should be drawn ``in the light of present medical 
knowledge.''
  That is exactly what this bill does. As its findings state, there is 
substantial medical evidence that a preborn child is capable of 
experiencing pain by 20 weeks after fertilization, if not earlier. I 
might add that this is not a recent discovery. Americans United for 
Life, for example, published a monograph more than 30 years ago 
reviewing the medical evidence. Dr. Vincent Collins, professor of 
anesthesiology at the University of Illinois, wrote that the entire 
sensory nervous system is functioning well before the 20-week point.
  More recently, Dr. Maureen Condic, Associate Professor of 
Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, 
has testified before Congress and written that the scientific evidence 
regarding fetal pain is undisputed. That evidence shows that the 
brain's circuitry responsible for the detection, and its response to 
pain is established well before the 20-week mark.
  This bill is consistent with precedent in another way. The Supreme 
Court has approved actually prohibiting abortion after a point when the 
preborn child takes on an important quality that justifies protection. 
In Roe v. Wade that reality was the viability or the ability to survive 
outside the womb with artificial aid.
  In this bill, that quality is the ability to feel pain, which has 
been universally recognized as compelling. Both medicine and the law, 
for example, impose a duty to relieve or to avoid pain. Just look at 
the Web site of the National Institutes of Health. It includes an 
article by Dr. Eric J. Cassell, Professor of Public Health at the 
Cornell University Medical College. He writes that the obligation of 
physicians to relieve human suffering stretches back into antiquity, 
and he calls relief of suffering ``one of the primary ends of 
medicine.''
  The clinical guidelines for acute pain published by the Federal 
Government stated that ``the ethical obligation to manage pain and 
relieve the patient's suffering is at the core of the health care 
professional's commitment.'' The American Academy of Pain Medicine has 
publicized an Ethics Charter which outlines how physicians must 
implement ``the ethical imperative to provide relief from pain.''
  If medical professionals have a fundamental obligation to relieve 
human suffering, they should be prohibited from imposing human 
suffering before birth. In its most recent abortion decision, the 
Supreme Court acknowledged that certain ethical and moral concerns can 
justify a specific abortion prohibition. The prevention of intentional 
pain and suffering, the very core and one of the primary ends of 
medicine, certainly qualifies and justifies the policy in this bill.
  Turning to the law, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Federal courts across the 
country are considering whether the drugs used in lethal injection 
cause extreme or unnecessary pain and, therefore, violate the Eighth 
Amendment. Some have said that it does.
  If the infliction of pain can make executing the guilty 
unconstitutional, I believe that the infliction of pain should make 
aborting the innocent illegal.
  Or look at the civil side of the law. Juries award multimillion 
dollar verdicts against medical professionals and facilities for 
failing to relieve pain in their patients. One article in the Western 
Journal of Medicine reviewing such cases concluded that ``there is a 
standard of care for pain management, a significant departure from 
which constitutes not merely medical malpractice but gross 
negligence.'' If failing to prevent pain in the sick can make a 
physician liable, physicians should be prohibited from inflicting pain 
on healthy children before birth.
  Madam President, I began by saying that Roe v. Wade and the abortion 
regime it spawned has degraded both the law and our culture. I am 
echoing the thoughtful words of President Ronald Reagan, who in 1983 
published an essay entitled ``Abortion and the Conscience of a 
Nation.'' He wrote that abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by 
the Constitution but was an act of raw judicial power. And he wrote, 
``We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life--the 
unborn--without diminishing the value of all human life.''
  The American people have embraced this view. By more than 2 to 1 
Americans support what this bill would do--prohibiting abortions after 
20 weeks--and the percentage of women supporting a 20-week ban is even 
higher than the national average.
  I think opponents of this legislation owe the American people an 
explanation. Why does a physician's ethical duty to prevent pain begin 
only when someone is born? Why shouldn't that duty begin when someone 
can feel pain? Why do we care so much about preventing even the most 
despicable criminals from feeling pain but turn a blind eye to the pain 
inflicted on innocent preborn children?
  The Supreme Court has said from the beginning that the right to 
abortion

[[Page 14640]]

must be balanced with other compelling interests. Why does medical 
knowledge matter when it facilitates abortions but not when it can 
prevent the pain caused by abortion?
  This bill recognizes the indisputable fact that each of us, including 
each individual Member of the Senate, was a living human being before 
we were born. This bill reflects the indispensable principle that each 
individual member of the human family has inherent dignity and worth. 
Prohibiting the killing of innocent human beings who can feel pain is 
only a small step in the right direction, but it is a step we must 
take. I don't think there is a legitimate excuse for not taking that 
step.
  It is horrifying to me that some in the Senate don't understand this 
or, if they do, continue to march down the path of indiscriminate 
abortion on demand. I think they are going to have to pay a price for 
that someday. It is a shame it has come to this type of a standard 
where you cannot protect preborn children who can feel the pain of 
abortion and feel the pain of some of the medical techniques some of 
these abortionists use.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, it is customary when rising in support of 
legislation to speak in gracious terms about the opportunity to vote 
for the legislation in question. This is a good day for the Senate. The 
American people can be proud. This bill represents legislating at its 
very best. That is what we say. I have said it in the past myself many 
times.
  While I will soon join the majority--though maybe not the necessary 
supermajority--of our colleagues voting to take up the Pain-Capable 
Unborn Child Protection Act, it is a tragedy that we should have to. 
That late-term abortions, abortions after children are viable and their 
nervous systems can feel pain, are legal in this country, is itself an 
affront to American democracy and a stain on America's great history.
  It is not the fault of the American people, who, like the rest of the 
civilized world, are appalled by the violent extremism of aborting 
viable unborn infants. Rather, in 1973, it was originally the fault of 
a constitutionally unhinged and scientifically illiterate Supreme Court 
majority.
  Four decades on, the fault is now fully shared by a Democratic Party 
so corrupted by special interest politics that it has forsaken the one 
principle--standing up for the little guy--that once earned them all 
Americans' gratitude and respect. Our friends on the other side of the 
aisle still claim that surrendered high ground, but that claim gets 
harder to take seriously every time they not only abandon but deny the 
very humanity of the littlest guy or girl of all. Let's not forget that 
the Democratic Party today is not just the party of taxpayer-
subsidized, late-term abortion on demand; it is also the party of 
taxpayer subsidized, late-term, sex-selective abortion on demand. Seven 
or eight or nine months along, with eyes and a nose, a full head of 
hair, with a beating heart and a perfect smile and late-night hiccups, 
they think it should be legal for a doctor to take her life, just 
because she is a girl or just because she may have Down Syndrome or a 
cleft palate or any reason really. To the Democratic Party today, there 
is no reason so superficial or bigoted that it shouldn't negate the 
right to life of an unborn child or a born child, for that matter.
  As was confirmed by the recently released video testimony of abortion 
industry insiders, some abortion clinics--clinics funded by the Federal 
Government--kill infants that are born alive. There is a word for that, 
and it isn't ``health care.'' Yet even though Philadelphia abortionist 
and serial infant killer Kermit Gosnell was convicted of first-degree 
murder for doing just that, physician-assisted infanticide is something 
like a stated principle of the Senate Democratic caucus. Remember, it 
was on this very floor a few feet from here that in 1999, one of our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle said that legal protection of 
a child should begin only ``when you bring your baby home.''
  When we get down to it, what difference does a few centimeters make, 
anyway? Why should it be legal to kill a perfectly healthy 8-month-old, 
6-pound little girl right here and illegal to kill her over here? After 
all, abortion is not the first peculiar institution that has 
arbitrarily dehumanized certain Americans based on geography, 
especially with such a high progressive principle at stake.
  As a Supreme Court Justice, of all people, put it in a 2009 interview 
with the New York Times, describing the social, political, and moral 
attitudes that led to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, 
``Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was 
concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations 
that we don't want to have too many of.''
  As chilling as that sounds--and one certainly must wonder which 
populations liberals wanted to cull--to me, the most important part of 
that statement is not the hint toward genetic cleansing at the end; 
rather, it is the word ``frankly'' at the beginning. That was a window 
into the soul of abortion extremism, and we see it again and again and 
again.
  On the rare occasions when we hear abortion advocates speaking 
frankly, it terrifies us, and duly so. The conspirators exposed in the 
Center for Medical Progress videos are only the most recent example. 
Watch the videos, listen to what they say, and pay attention to how 
they say it. In their detached, dehumanizing euphemisms and stomach-
turning humor, they speak not like fairy tale monsters, but the real 
thing--the rational, rationalizing men and women with prestigious 
degrees and cultivated tastes who hide their barbarism in bureaucracy.
  But we can rest assured, there will be no such talk here today. There 
will be no such talk here tomorrow. There will be no frank, candid 
public discussion of late-term abortions because that might eventually 
lead us to the truth--and only one side in this debate is interested in 
that.
  When it comes to the reality of abortion, pro-choice politicians 
choose not to debate; they choose to deceive. They will come down to 
this floor for the next 2 days not to defend what we all know is 
indefensible, rather they will try to cloak their extremism in a fog of 
denial and distraction. Politicians who defend the right to kill born-
alive little girls will, with straight faces, rail about a war on 
women. Politicians who defend lax, unsanitary clinic standards will, 
with straight faces, lecture us all about their commitment to women's 
health. Politicians who resurrect embarrassing, medieval superstitions 
about when life begins will, with straight faces, thunder against the 
scourge of Republican science-deniers--as if none of us has touched a 
pregnant mom's tummy and felt a little kick, as if those grisly Planned 
Parenthood videos didn't exist, as if none of us took high school 
biology.
  But they know the truth. In unguarded moments, as we have heard, they 
speak the truth and one day the truth will set us all free and the 
Democratic Party will stop taking its problems out on the kids. We are 
not there yet, but as the desperate tactics on the other side of the 
question reveal, we are getting closer and closer all the time.
  Truth doesn't wait on partisanship. The truth is, a ban on late-term 
abortions after 5 months should be the law of our land. The truth is 
that unborn children can feel pain after only 2 months of development. 
In the words of University of Utah Professor Maureen Condic, with whom 
I met last week, ``Based on universally accepted scientific findings, 
the human fetus detects and reacts to painful stimuli as early as eight 
weeks following sperm-egg fusion.''
  Now, for our unfrozen cavemen Senators on the other side of the aisle

[[Page 14641]]

whose primitive minds are confused and frightened by modern science, 
sperm-egg fusion is when biology tells us that human life begins, on 
day one, a fact that is neither a mystery nor above the pay grade of a 
curious seventh grader. At 8 weeks, we know a fetus can feel pain. That 
is not just scientific consensus; it is ``universally accepted,'' 
``entirely uncontested'' in Dr. Condic's words.
  Why then does the bill before us allow abortions even up to 20 weeks? 
Because that is where the science is directly observable. That is how 
modest a compromise this bill is. As Dr. Condic puts it, ``Fetuses at 
20 weeks have an increase in stress hormones in response to painful 
experiences that can be eliminated by appropriate anesthesia.'' In 
other words, at 20 weeks, an unborn child can feel pain. We can see 
them feel it. We can observe them as they feel it.
  That is also the age, according to the New England Journal of 
Medicine, at which an unborn child is viable outside the woman. 
Prenatal surgeons can now treat unborn children as young as 16 weeks, 
and with every innovation and advance in perinatology, modern medicine 
stretches its miraculous light further and further into what used to be 
``the valley of the shadow of death.''
  These are the facts: At 20 weeks, a little boy or a little girl has a 
chance to seize the great adventure of life, and they feel pain when 
that chance is violently taken away from them, just like any child 
would, just like our own would, just like we would. We owe it to them 
to give them that chance. The science actually goes much further. This 
bill is only the least we can do right now.
  Our generation doesn't yet know what chapter we are writing in 
America's long struggle to defend the equal dignity of all human life, 
but we all do know--even our friends on the side of the aisle, I 
think--that this story has a happy ending. Like generations past that 
overcame ignorance and bigotry to welcome marginalized Americans into 
our hearts and our society, we, too, shall overcome, because even 
though the unborn don't have a voice, they do have an unflinching ally: 
the truth, not just the philosophical truth expressed in our 
Declaration of Independence but the biological, medical, and scientific 
truth that unborn children are children. There is no us and them, just 
us, and deep down we all know it. We know that children are a gift and 
deserve our protection. We know mothers are heroes and deserve our 
support. The bill before us would provide them a little bit more of 
both.
  Despite its majority support, this bill might not pass this time, and 
America's moms and children waiting for the laws of the United States 
to catch up to the justice and compassion reflected in the laws of 
nature and of nature's God will have to wait a little longer--but not 
too long. For if our national story has taught us anything, it is that 
extremism in defense of violence will not long stand. This bill will 
one day soon be the law of the land. So, too, will those passed last 
week in the House of Representatives and still others yet to come.
  The arc of American history may be long, but the American people have 
a way of bending it toward life, and after decades of violence and lies 
and corruption, help is on the way. Maybe it is a good day for the 
Senate after all.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. DONNELLY. Madam President, here we are again. There is just over 
a week before funding runs out to keep our government open, and some in 
Congress are threatening to shut down the Federal Government again to 
advance their own political agendas.
  I have said before and I will say it again, most Hoosiers think 
Congress can play a role in improving the economy, but at the very 
least we shouldn't make things worse. That is exactly what Congress has 
done with the Export-Import Bank. The Ex-Im Bank helps level the 
playing field for American businesses, it helps protect and create jobs 
here at home, returns money to the Treasury, and over 100 companies in 
Indiana use the Ex-Im Bank.
  In July, some in Congress blocked the bipartisan effort to 
reauthorize the bank just so a few Members could play politics. As a 
result, the Export-Import Bank is unable to provide any new financing 
to American businesses. In fact, we just found out, we have already 
seen some companies moving American jobs overseas because of this. 
Despite the lessons learned just 2 years ago, we are once again 
debating whether Congress can meet its most basic needs and duties: 
keeping the government open.
  Frankly, it is embarrassing that some in Congress are willing to 
bring us to the brink of a government shutdown and would rather play 
games with our recovering economy than solve the problems and 
challenges in front of us.
  The truth is, there is reason to be optimistic in our country. 
Unemployment is dropping, and nowhere in the world are there more 
opportunities to invest and to innovate in a brighter future and 
stronger economy than right here in the United States, but to realize 
our full potential, we have real work to do. We need to create more 
good-paying jobs with which we can support a family and strengthen our 
communities, we need to invest in a 21st century infrastructure, and we 
need to prepare and train a workforce ready to lead the world in both 
innovation and production.
  Over the last several weeks we have heard a lot of rhetoric about 
making America great again. America is already great. It starts with 
the basics, and that is what we need to get back to--by showing up to 
work every day and doing our jobs, just like every Hoosier does.
  I am an optimist. I know we can do great things for our country. 
Let's do the job we were sent here to do in Congress--work together and 
keep the government open. It is the least we should do. I am ready to 
do it. I hope my colleagues will join me.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I note that my colleague from South 
Carolina has arrived on the floor, and I would happily yield to him if 
he wishes to go. Otherwise, I will be very brief.
  Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I want to second the very powerful 
remarks made by my colleague from Indiana. In Connecticut, what I hear 
again and again is the need for this body to address jobs and the 
economy. They are talking about putting people back to work and moving 
our economy forward. That is what I have sought to do from day one in 
the U.S. Senate and what I will continue to fight to do. That is what 
we should be doing through reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, 
creating more jobs in an infrastructure program worthy of the name, and 
repairing and reinvigorating our roads, bridges, ports, airports, and 
our railroads which need to be made more safe and reliable. That is 
what we should be doing in programs for veterans--particularly in 
veterans health care--putting our veterans to work, programs that 
provide for skill training and job opportunities for them.
  There are so many momentous issues facing our Nation today, and that 
is the challenge we should be facing in the U.S. Senate. Yet tomorrow 
we will be voting on a bill that is divisive, dangerous, and doomed to 
failure. Even today, we are spending valuable time debating it.
  The bill before us is both unconscionable and unconstitutional. It is 
a waste of time because tomorrow it will be defeated, in effect. We are 
engaged in a political charade here. The timing may not be accidental, 
but there is no good time for a blatantly and plainly unconstitutional 
proposal. Sadly, it is only

[[Page 14642]]

the latest in a long line of unconstitutional proposals since the U.S. 
Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade which enshrined a woman's 
constitutionally protected right to make her own reproductive 
decisions. There have been incessant and constant attempts by 
politicians to substitute their own judgment for hers, for her 
doctor's, her family's, and for her religious advisers. These decisions 
should be a woman's to make.
  The onslaught on women's health care, unfortunately, has been a fact 
of life in this Nation. The bill before us now will ban abortion care 
after 20 weeks of pregnancy except for so-called exceptions. The 
inadequacy of those exceptions alone doom this bill to unconstitutional 
status. The legislation represents an unconstitutional interference as 
a matter of policy and law with the woman's right to choose the care 
that is best for her and the failure to recognize the many complex 
factors that may be involved in that decision, medical complications 
that often lead to a woman's decision to seek a late-term abortion. The 
bill would place in her way a host of unnecessary, unwise, and 
burdensome requirements.
  In effect, this bill would force women--including all who have been 
through the traumatic experience of rape or incest--to meet a 
combination of a myriad of reporting and recordkeeping requirements. In 
many cases, the bill would require survivors of heinous crimes to make 
multiple appointments with multiple providers before having the right 
to reproductive care and force her to relive her traumatic experiences 
before having the benefit of those services. It would place numerous 
nonmedical requirements on doctors, such as forcing them to determine 
whether survivors of rape or incest have reported their experience to 
appropriate law enforcement entities, essentially forcing doctors to 
choose between criminal penalties and doing what is best for patients' 
health, which is why the American College of Obstetricians and 
Gynecologists oppose this measure. None of these requirements placed on 
women or their doctors are rooted in science, health, or safety. None 
of these requirements are consistent with the constitutionally 
protected right to access reproductive care and abortion.
  Simply put, women's health care decisions should be left to women, 
their families, themselves, their doctors, and themselves. That is the 
essence of the constitutionally protected right of privacy that 
underlies all of these rights. It is the right to be left alone from 
men and women in this Chamber who would intrude and invade that right.
  This measure also implicitly encourages an ongoing and indeed 
intensifying assault on women's health care among the States. Many 
other unconstitutional and unconscionable attacks on women's health 
care are increasing at the State level and making it harder for women 
to access reproductive health care in general. There is an increasing 
drumbeat of regulations and restrictions that attack women's health 
care and make it harder to access as State governments pass more 
regulations. Those regulations number now 230 in the past 5 years. They 
are nothing more than embarrassing attempts to deny women's health care 
in the guise of invasive and unnecessary medical tests, arbitrary 
building regulations, and financially unsustainable procedures. That is 
why Senator Baldwin and I have proposed the Women's Health Protection 
Act, joined by 31 of our colleagues, to make sure that those State laws 
are stopped before they cause the costs, fear, and uncertainty, as they 
are bound to do and as they have done in many States around the 
country. These State laws are beyond wrong. They are dangerous to 
women's health care.
  My hope is that we will be proactive in protecting a woman's right to 
care, not encourage the worst of State practices that are embodied in 
these restrictive State laws.
  Finally, I am dismayed that the House of Representatives actually has 
taken a step toward gutting a measure designed to help veterans. The 
Border Jobs for Veterans Act of 2015--a bipartisan measure that I 
cosponsored with my colleague Senator Flake designed to do just what 
the title says: to utilize the skills and expertise of our veterans to 
help fill vacancies at our borders, to use veterans to stop illegal 
immigration--that bill has been gutted and unfortunately has been made 
a vehicle to deny health care to women. The provisions of this 
transformed legislation are a disservice to our veterans. I thought 
veterans legislation would be out of bounds for this fight. Sadly, 
apparently not.
  I urge my colleagues to find more productive ways to use our time, to 
address the needs, to expand job opportunities, to move our economy 
forward, and to drive economic growth. A bipartisan goal we should all 
share is to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and to make sure we 
serve the best instincts of this Nation and preserve our Constitution 
from these unwarranted attacks.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
for 15 minutes, and ask the Chair to let me know when my time is close 
to being up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am the author of legislation we will be 
voting on tomorrow, so I am very proud of the product. I have worked 
with my colleagues to try to come up with a solution to what I think is 
a problem that needs to be addressed.
  To my good friend from Connecticut, I appreciate where he is coming 
from. He is a fine man. We just disagree on this. He has legislation 
called the Women's Health Protection Act. He has legislation that will 
roll back State limitations on abortion that have been proved by the 
Supreme Court. He disagrees with what the States are doing in light of 
what the Supreme Court would allow a State to do. He has a piece of 
legislation that would at the Federal level change all these State 
laws. I respect his point of view. The point I am trying to make is 
that he wouldn't have introduced the legislation if he didn't think 
this was an important topic.
  To my colleagues on the other side, you have legislation that I would 
gladly allow you to bring to the floor. I want to have a debate on what 
we are trying to accomplish here. You have legislation that--I am sure 
the reason you did it is you would like to change State laws you don't 
agree with. It is a little bit disingenuous to say we shouldn't be 
talking about these topics because you drafted legislation on this 
topic.
  What am I trying to accomplish? We are one of seven nations in the 
entire world that allow abortion on demand at 20 weeks, the fifth month 
of pregnancy. I would like to get us out of that club. Why? Because at 
5 months I really don't believe it makes us a better nation to have 
abortion on demand. There are exceptions in this bill--for the life of 
the mother and in the cases of rape, you have to tell the physician 
this pregnancy was as a result of a rape--but there is no reporting 
requirement to the police or anything else. That is a balance we have 
tried to achieve. But what I would suggest is that most Americans agree 
with me, that most Americans believe that at the fifth month, we should 
not have abortion-on-demand, we should not be in a club of seven 
nations on the entire planet that allow abortion at this stage in the 
birthing process.
  The theory of the case is pretty simple. Medical science has evolved 
to the point now that if you operate on a baby at 20 weeks--which you 
can--to save that baby's life or to help them medically, medical 
science says you have to provide anesthesia because the baby can feel 
excruciating pain. We now know scientifically that at the fifth month 
of the birthing process, at 20 weeks, doctors will not operate on the 
baby without anesthesia. Here is the question: Should we be allowing 
abortion-on-demand at that point in time? Should we be crushing the 
skulls? Should we be destroying the baby's life? Should we be one of 
seven countries that allow this heinous practice

[[Page 14643]]

in the fifth month? We do have exceptions--for life of the mother, 
rape, and incest.
  I would suggest that we should be talking about this. I suggest that 
we should have done this a long time ago, that we should have gotten 
out of this club of seven nations that allow a baby to be aborted in 
the fifth month.
  Medical encyclopedias advise and encourage young parents at this 
stage in the pregnancy to interact with the unborn baby and sing and 
speak because the baby can associate sound. We are talking about 5 
months, folks. We are talking about changing the law so that this 
country will not allow abortion-on-demand at this late stage in the 
birthing process. This is something I am proud to be talking about. I 
am honored to lead the fight, and all I ask is that we have a vote.
  The vote is whether or not to have a debate. Our Democratic friends 
are going to deny us a debate as to whether or not this is a good idea. 
We can't even proceed to the bill. I am willing to allow them to bring 
up their legislation as an amendment to mine, the Women's Health 
Protection Act, where they want to repeal State laws that put limits on 
abortions consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions. I am not 
afraid of my idea, and they shouldn't be afraid of theirs.
  This is a debate worthy of a free people. This is a debate worthy of 
democracy. If this is not worth talking about, what is? When do you 
become you? When do you have a soul, if you have one at all? What kind 
of Nation do we want to be in 2015?
  Roe v. Wade says that for the first trimester, abortions are off 
limits, but when medical viability is reached, the State has a 
compelling interest in providing protection to the unborn child. That 
was 1973. Has anything changed since 1973? I would argue a lot has 
changed, and all for the better in terms of medical science. We can do 
things now for patients, including for the unborn, that one could not 
even imagine in 1973. But the theory of the case here is not medical 
viability at 20 weeks, but a new concept that I hope most Americans 
will embrace. Now that we know the baby has developed to the point 
where it would feel excruciating pain if it were operated on to save 
its life, is it appropriate for legislative bodies, such as ours, to 
come to that baby's aid and take abortion-on-demand off the table?
  Here is what I believe: I believe this is constitutionally sound. I 
believe this is a debate worthy of a free people. I believe the time 
has come for America to get out of the club of seven that allows this 
procedure at 20 weeks, the fifth month of the birthing process. I think 
this is something we should talk about, and I think it is worthy of our 
time.
  To my friends on the other side, you have views about this topic too. 
You have introduced legislation regarding abortion that would roll back 
State protections of the unborn. I am not afraid of that debate. I 
disagree with you. Bring your legislation forward.
  What are you afraid of? Why won't you let me debate my bill? Why 
can't we have a discussion as a free people about where we want to be 
in 2015 regarding the unborn child?
  To my friends on the other side, the unborn child is not the enemy. 
The unborn child is something that every American should care about. 
And here is what I think: In the fifth month of pregnancy an 
overwhelming number of Americans--not all, but most--are going to side 
with me and my colleagues who have helped me through this journey and 
say: No, America will not allow this. We are not going to be one of 
seven nations that allows abortion-on-demand in the fifth month. We are 
going to withdraw from that club, and if we do, it will be a good 
thing. We will be a better people if we stop this practice in the fifth 
month, knowing that we have exceptions for the life of the mother in 
cases of rape and incest. This doesn't make us anything other than a 
caring, better people.
  This is why I ran for office, to have debates like this--not just 
this, but like this. I want to talk about creating jobs and growing the 
economy and stopping radical Islam. There is so much we need to do, but 
here is the question: Do we need to do this? I think so. I think with 
all my heart and soul that America needs to get out of this club, that 
America needs to come to the aid of a baby who is 20 weeks into the 
birthing process, and we should stand united and stop this practice. I 
think this makes us a better people.
  I think at the end of the day, this debate is worthy of our time and, 
quite frankly, is long overdue. I am very disappointed that we can't 
even have the debate. But this I promise: As long as I am here--and 
many others on our side, and hopefully some on that side over there--
this debate will continue until we get the right answer.
  We came together in a very large vote--bipartisan in nature--to ban 
abortion in the last trimester, except in rare circumstances. That was 
the right thing to do. Abortions in the seventh, eighth, and ninth 
month do not make us a better people. There was bipartisanship to stop 
that procedure.
  Here is what I believe: I believe over time the American people are 
going to side with me and my colleagues, we are going to rise to the 
occasion, and we are going to say something pretty basic. At 5 months 
we are not going to allow abortion-on-demand because that baby can feel 
excruciating pain, and we are not going to put that baby through the 
process of having their life terminated in such a gruesome fashion.
  These Planned Parenthood videos and this discussion about harvesting 
organs from children late in the birthing process have awakened 
America. I promise this is a debate worthy of this body, worthy of this 
country, and one that we are going to have over and over again until we 
can get a vote. I am not going to stop. You have stopped me if we don't 
get those 60 votes to debate this. If we can't get the bill to the 
floor for a debate, I think that is a bad thing.
  I think life is more than just about money. I think the quality of 
our country is more than our financial situation. I think the quality 
of our Nation, in many ways, is founded not on our finances, but our 
character. And here is what I believe: America needs to get out of this 
club of seven that allows little babies to be aborted at a time when 
doctors cannot operate on them without providing anesthesia because it 
hurts so much.
  Think about what I just said. Medical science will not put the baby 
through an operation to save its life without anesthesia because it 
hurts so much. All I am asking is: Just don't crush that baby's skull 
unless there is a very good reason. Is that too much to ask? I don't 
think so. Is that worthy of our time? I definitely believe so. Are we 
going to keep pushing? You better believe it.
  I thank Senator Portman, Senator Ernst, and others who have helped me 
so much.
  I thank Senator McConnell for reserving some time to have this 
discussion. I hope it turns into a debate. The Senate needs to be on 
record, and this is an opportunity for all of us to be on record as to 
where we think the country should be in 2015.
  Here is what I think: I think in 2015 America needs to withdraw from 
the club of seven nations that will allow a baby at 20 weeks to be 
aborted for any reason at all.
  I look forward to this discussion. I hope we can have a debate. I am 
not afraid of my ideas, and they shouldn't be afraid of their ideas. 
But I promise everybody who cares about this that we will not stop, and 
to me, it has always been about the baby. I think most Americans will 
side with me and my colleagues and say over time with a very strong and 
loud voice: We do not want abortion-on-demand in the fifth month of 
pregnancy unless there is a darn good reason because that doesn't make 
us a better people. Quite frankly, it is the opposite.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for his support. To my colleagues over 
here, and hopefully a few over there, I look forward to this journey 
until one day when we can withdraw from the club of seven and protect 
unborn children in a way that I think most Americans would appreciate.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page 14644]]

  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, a short while ago, I had the opportunity 
to meet with a very special family from Newton, IA. Micha Pickering, an 
adorable, energetic 3-year-old boy was born prematurely at just 22 
weeks gestational age--the equivalent of 20 weeks after fertilization, 
the method of measurement in the bill before us.
  You will notice the picture I have in the Chamber. This is Micah, 
that energetic 3-year-old boy. He was just in the office when this 
picture was in there, and Micah ran up and said: That's me. And then he 
said: That's a baby. This is Micah when he was born. We are talking 
about 5 months. Think about that for a minute.
  Micah's parents and the doctors and nurses at the University of Iowa 
hospitals and clinics were dedicated to his survival. Micah's mother 
Danielle has recounted the first time she got to meet her son in the 
hospital:

       The second I was able to meet Micah changed my life. He was 
     so small. I didn't know what to expect. Would he look 
     `normal'? Could I bond with this baby? Those questions were a 
     mess in my head as I was wheeled into his room two hours 
     after his birth. The sight I saw was a perfectly formed baby.
       We didn't understand at the time that Micah was right on 
     time, but now we do. . . . You can be knowledgeable on every 
     part of prematurity, but that does not change the fact that 
     Micah was just as much full of life at 22.4 weeks as he is 
     now at almost 3 years old.

  I can attest that this little boy pictured behind me is indeed full 
of life.
  The bill before us today--the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection 
Act--would protect up to 10,000 lives like Micah's every year by 
preventing abortions after 20 weeks or about 5 months of development. 
As Micah proves, at 5 months babies can live.
  The United States is currently only one of seven countries in the 
world that allows abortions after 5 months. We are currently in the 
same company as China and North Korea. We must do better.
  Substantial medical evidence indicates that at about 5 months of 
development, unborn babies can feel pain. This means that thousands of 
unborn lives end painfully through abortion in our country every year. 
Is this really whom we want to be as a nation? We are a country that 
stands for life. Just earlier I heard a colleague across the aisle 
talking about how God intends that we should protect bumblebees and 
pteropods but what about human life. In order to rise to meet that 
commitment, we must protect the most vulnerable in our society, 
particularly those who cannot protect themselves.
  The majority of men and women across this great Nation agree. 
According to a Quinnipiac poll from last November, 60 percent of those 
surveyed support a law prohibiting abortion after 5 months of 
pregnancy.
  Although passionate advocates on both sides of this issue of life 
often disagree, there should be no disagreement when it comes to 
protecting the life of an unborn child who has reached the point of 
development at which he or she can feel pain. As we can see from the 
photo behind me, an unborn baby in its fifth month of development is 
not just a clump of cells; he or she can suck his or her thumb, yawn, 
stretch, and make faces. They have 10 fingers and 10 toes. They can 
also feel pain, and as Micah proves, they can survive outside of the 
womb. As a mother and a grandmother, I urge my colleagues not to deny 
these babies the right to life.
  Micah's mom has said it best: ``I bet that if Micah could have gone 
up to everyone who opposes this bill and gave them a big hug, he could 
change all their minds.''
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, in just 10 days, funding for the 
government will expire. So we have just 10 days for the Senate and the 
House to come together and figure out a way to keep the government 
doors open.
  We have been here before. In 2013--and I remember all too well, as I 
am sure all of the Members of this Chamber do--the impact of that 
shutdown. It was devastating. It resulted in economic confidence 
falling to its lowest level in several years. It took $24 billion out 
of our economy and cost us 120,000 private sector jobs. Yet at a time 
when we should be coming to the table to do our jobs to avoid a 
government shutdown, we are back again talking about limiting women's 
access to their own health care choices.
  Once again, those who want to limit women's access to health care and 
take away our constitutionally protected rights are threatening to 
wreak havoc across the entire U.S. economy, just as they did in 2013.
  This attack on women is not just at the Federal level; sadly, we are 
seeing it in New Hampshire as well. The New Hampshire Executive Council 
recently voted not to renew the State's contract with Planned 
Parenthood. That vote was totally out of touch with the needs of women 
across New Hampshire, and it puts women's health care at risk.
  For many in New Hampshire, Planned Parenthood is the most affordable 
and accessible way to get the care they need, including basic 
preventive care such as family planning services--everything from 
breast and cervical cancer screenings and immunizations to HIV testing.
  Last year alone, Planned Parenthood served more than 12,000 women in 
New Hampshire. Planned Parenthood is a trusted health care provider and 
an important part of our health care system. In some areas of New 
Hampshire, Planned Parenthood is the only local provider for women to 
receive affordable care.
  On behalf of the millions of women who are served by Planned 
Parenthood, I will continue to oppose any effort to defund women's 
health care services, but of course, as we know, this week the attack 
on women's access to health care does not end with Planned Parenthood. 
Tomorrow we will vote on a bill that would ban women's access to 
abortion after 20 weeks.
  The choice to terminate a pregnancy is a difficult and very personal 
decision. If that choice needs to be made later in a pregnancy, it is 
often the result of very complex circumstances--the kinds of situations 
where a woman and her doctor need every medical option available. This 
bill would place an added burden on women who are placed in that 
difficult situation. Women who are survivors of rape and incest would 
have that added burden. Furthermore, it threatens doctors, putting them 
at risk for harsh Federal criminal penalties.
  Each woman, in consultation with her own family, her own health care 
providers, and her own conscience, should be able to follow her own 
beliefs when it comes to her own health care. We must protect women's 
reproductive constitutional rights, and I intend to continue to stand 
up for women as others here play politics with their health care.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle know they don't have 
the votes to pass this legislation. They know they don't have the votes 
to pass other legislation related to women's health that would limit 
women's access to comprehensive health services. Yet on the eve of a 
government shutdown, they are using precious floor time to bring these 
bills to a vote. This is shortsighted and, furthermore, I think it is 
irresponsible.
  I remember the 2013 shutdown well. The impact on New Hampshire, on 
this country, was significant. Small- and medium-sized businesses 
across the State suffered from economic disruptions and financial 
losses. Their government contracts were frozen or they were disrupted. 
Their SBA loans were stalled. That shutdown, much like the one that is 
being threatened now, came at the peak of the fall tourism season.

[[Page 14645]]

National parks and forests were closed, including the White Mountain 
National Forest in New Hampshire. The impacts on our tourism and 
outdoor recreational facilities were severe, not just in New Hampshire 
but across the country. FHA and VA loans were put on hold. Thousands of 
Federal employees who live in New Hampshire were furloughed. To shut 
down the Federal Government for any reason is reckless and 
irresponsible, but to do this, to contemplate doing this in order to 
deny women access to health care services, is reprehensible.
  I hope this week or any other week we will not tolerate it, and we 
will move to the business of funding the government and addressing the 
challenges we face and leave the personal decisions about personal 
health care choices to the women and families and health care providers 
who should be making those decisions, not having the government make 
that decision.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for 
the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill that protects 
children from late-term abortions. As cosponsor of this commonsense 
proposal, I am grateful the Senate will be taking a vote on this very 
important piece of legislation. Our constituents should know where we 
stand on this issue.
  The American people support reasonable limits on dangerous late-term 
abortions. A November 2014 Quinnipiac poll shows that 60 percent of 
Americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks. In 
line with this prevailing view, several States have already passed laws 
limiting late-term abortions.
  I note that Nebraska was actually the first State to pass language 
like the Federal Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act. I was a member of 
our legislature at the time, and I was proud to be a cosponsor of that 
piece of legislation that was offered by my good friend, former 
Nebraska speaker Mike Flood. Speaker Flood's proposal passed in our 
unicameral legislature by a bipartisan vote of 44 to 5. We had pro-
choice Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, who supported it. We 
had pro-life Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, who supported 
it. Nearly 90 percent of our legislature came together and supported 
that bill. Why? Well, because it is a piece of reasonable legislation. 
Americans recognize that and also recognize that opposition to this 
legislation is extremism.
  This isn't a new idea. Eleven States already have protections against 
late-term abortions that are similar to this bill. Science clearly 
indicates that at 20 weeks, these babies can feel pain.
  On this issue, party affiliation should not matter. On this issue, 
whether we declare we are pro-life or whether we say we are pro-choice 
should not matter. These designations didn't matter in my State of 
Nebraska. We looked at the facts. We came together from both sides of 
the aisle and passed a sensible, compassionate bill. Let's do the same 
here in the Senate.
  We all agree that we must support women who find themselves with 
unplanned pregnancies. Too many women experience despair, pain, and 
judgment during an unplanned pregnancy. Rather than offering 
condemnation, we should show kindness and understanding. We should 
offer assistance for these women, these expectant mothers who need to 
know we will continue to support them in the challenging years ahead.
  I recognize that abortion remains an emotionally charged issue here 
in this country, but I also recognize that people of good will can 
disagree on the matter. I respect those opinions that are different 
from my own. But this legislation is not controversial, and it 
shouldn't divide us.
  Before us today is a fundamental question of whether it is worth 
protecting human life capable of feeling pain. For anyone who believes 
otherwise, I would challenge them to explain when a life is worth 
protecting if not when she feels pain? Nebraska affirmed this principle 
5 years ago. The rest of the Nation should do so as well.
  Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I will be honest. I am deep-down furious 
at the Republican scheme to defund Planned Parenthood. I didn't think 
the Republican leadership could sink any lower than trying to defund 
women's cancer screenings and access to birth control, but then I saw 
the bill we are voting on tomorrow and I felt sick to my stomach. Here 
we are just days away from another reckless Republican government 
shutdown, and the Republicans think the best use of our time is to vote 
on a bill to give the government the power to intrude on the most 
wrenching, intimate, private medical decisions a woman will ever make.
  The Republicans want a debate over a 20-week abortion ban, so let's 
talk about exactly what that means. Nearly 99 percent of all abortions 
take place within the first 21 weeks of a woman's pregnancy. Let me 
repeat. Nearly 99 percent are in the first 21 weeks. So based on 
statistics alone, this bill won't make a big difference in the number 
of abortions, but for the women who get hit, the consequences can be 
truly horrific.
  Let's start with the research. Who are these women? Who are the 1 
percent who get an abortion after 20 weeks? Who? Women or girls who are 
the victims of rape, incest, or domestic violence and were to 
frightened to ask for help any sooner. Who? Women whose doctors have 
told them that if they don't end their pregnancy--pregnancies they 
really wanted--their kidneys could fail or their hearts could give out 
or they couldn't get the chemotherapy they may need to save their 
lives. Who? Women who go for an ultrasound and get the worst possible 
news--that their fetus has a giant hole in its stomach or organs 
outside its body or a deformed head and the fetus either has no chance 
of survival or has a severe abnormality that would mean a short life 
filled with pain. Research also shows that women who have had later 
abortions are more likely to be young--very young girls, really--and 
didn't understand they were pregnant. They are more likely to live in 
places where getting an abortion means driving 3 hours or more to find 
a doctor who will perform one. They are more likely to be poor and need 
to save up money to pay for the procedure. That is who gets hit by 
this.
  I have taken a close look at the Republican bill to see just how hard 
they get hit. I want to put it right out here in the open for everyone 
to see.
  There are no--I repeat--no exceptions in this bill for the condition 
of the fetus. Even if a woman knows at 20 weeks that her child will die 
immediately after birth, she would still be required to carry that 
pregnancy for months.
  An 18-year-old survivor of rape or incest must wait until she can 
provide written proof that she received counseling from a doctor, and 
then that counseling is loaded with hurdles: The counseling must come 
only from a doctor who refuses to perform abortions and who doesn't 
work in an office with another doctor who does. Think about it. Prolong 
the pain and anxiety, and for anyone who lives in a rural area or 
anyone who is making it barely paycheck to paycheck and cannot miss 
multiple days of work, make it twice as hard to get any help.
  If the victim of rape or incest is a minor, it gets even worse. A 
girl--a girl who is 10, 12, 14 years old--this girl must face the same 
challenges and must provide written proof that she reported the crime 
to the police, even if

[[Page 14646]]

turning in a family member or announcing to the world that she has been 
raped could destroy her life in a million different ways. I cannot 
imagine that the Senate would pass a law to require a frightened 12-
year-old girl to submit written proof that she had called the police to 
report a rape by her mother's boyfriend before she could terminate that 
pregnancy. That kind of cruelty is barbaric, and it has no place in our 
laws.
  But this is not just about the tiny number of people who must seek 
abortions after 20 weeks; this horrifying bill that we will vote on 
tomorrow is just one more piece of a deliberate, methodical, 
orchestrated rightwing plan to attack women's health and reproductive 
rights. A funding cut here, a new restriction here, month after month, 
year after year, and Rowe v. Wade will be chipped away to nothing. That 
is what this is all about. That is what this has always been all about.
  We have lived in an America where women died in back-alley abortions. 
We have lived in an America where high school girls tried poisons and 
coat hangers to try to end pregnancies. We have lived in an America 
where young woman who faced unwanted pregnancies took their own lives. 
We have lived in that America, and we are not going back--not now, not 
ever.
  We stand here on the brink of another reckless Republican government 
shutdown. We all remember what happened the last time the Republicans 
shut the government down: $24 billion was flushed down the drain for a 
political stunt--$24 billion that could have gone to help mothers and 
their babies with prenatal care, better infant nutrition, Head Start 
classes, medical research on birth abnormalities. Instead, the money 
was flushed away by Republicans who want to play political games more 
than they want to help children and families all across this country.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no on this terrible bill. Stand up to 
this rightwing assault on women and families. Instead of trying to do 
the job of physicians and telling women what is best for their own 
medical care, Republicans in the Senate should start doing the job of 
legislators and get to work on this Nation's budget.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, the image I am putting up right now beside 
me is the cover of Time magazine from June 2014, the first issue in 
June, June 2, 2014. According to the corresponding feature story, the 
baby on this cover, Emalyn Aubrey Randolph, was born prematurely at 29 
weeks into the pregnancy. She weighed 2 pounds and 10 ounces. The 
legislation we are actually talking about today, unlike the legislation 
I just heard described--which we may very well talk about later--the 
legislation which we are talking about today and which we will vote on 
tomorrow takes us back only a few weeks before this cover-story baby 
was born at 29 weeks.
  We know of lots of cases after 20 weeks--where we have seen babies 
survive an early birth.
  In 2010, Freida Mangold was born at 21 weeks and 5 days into her 
mother's pregnancy. Both had complications. The baby was born, and 
after intensive care she was able to go home. In Florida in 2006, 
Amillia Taylor was delivered by an emergency C-section when she was 21 
weeks and 6 days into that pregnancy. She received medical care and 
survived.
  In Iowa in 2012, Micah Pickering was born prematurely at 22 weeks and 
1 day. Micah and her family are actually here visiting with the Senate 
tomorrow. Micah just turned 3 this past July. She will be meeting with 
Members of the Senate to talk about and to be the example that her 
parents will be talking about of what happened to a baby who was born 
22 weeks and 1 day into the pregnancy.
  In my State of Missouri, we know of a remarkable story where the 
Cowan family in Kansas City welcomed their twin sons into the world 39 
days apart. Little Carl was so small that his mother Elene could put 
her wedding ring over his wrist when he was born at 24-weeks and 1 day. 
He weighed barely a pound--twins are often small anyway; he was a 
twin--at that point in the pregnancy. Thirty-nine days later, his twin 
brother David came into the world. Carl is busy catching up with David 
in his size as things go on.
  In St. Louis, Andrew Konopka was born at 23 weeks. Andrew weighed a 
pound and a half. He was born at Mercy Hospital there. Today he is 8 
years old and is doing well. His family lives in Webster Groves.
  Also in St. Louis last year, Zeke Miller was born at 27 weeks on 
December 10, 2014. He weighed 2 pounds and 15 ounces. Zeke was in the 
hospital 111 days. He is now 9 months old. Just last week his parents 
were excited to hear that Zeke no longer needs to be on oxygen. He has 
passed another milestone.
  Across the State line in Overland Park, KS, at the Overland Park 
Medical Center, babies born as early as 23 weeks of pregnancy are 
receiving care in the neonatal intensive care unit. Their neonatal unit 
has been featured for its emphasis on what it calls ``kangaroo care'' 
because in ``kangaroo care'' the baby's parents come and have that 
skin-to-skin, parent-to-baby contact so that the baby knows for sure 
there is somebody out there ready to take care of it.
  I recognize there is no national consensus on the issue we are 
talking about or even the issue of the early months of pregnancy. 
However, the overwhelming majority of Americans know that at this 
stage--20 weeks--they are not talking about a clump of cells; they are 
talking about a baby. The baby has 10 fingers and 10 toes. It has 
unique fingerprints that nobody has ever had and nobody will ever have 
again. It has a beating heart. Thanks to advanced ultrasound 
technology, this is about the time when people find out whether they 
are the parents of a little boy or the parents of a little girl.
  The fact that the baby at 20 weeks is a baby is obvious to the larger 
culture. In fact, this cover story in Time magazine--no advocate, as a 
rule, for outlandishly conservative social structure--Time magazine 
tells stories of young babies fighting for their lives and doctors who 
are fighting to save them.
  Let me quote from the article. It says, ``. . . fragile babies being 
looked after by a round the clock SWAT team of nutritionists, 
pharmacologists, gastroenterologists, ophthalmologists, pulmonary 
specialists, surgeons. . . .''
  It concludes: In some ways, the work of the NICU will always seem 
like an exercise in disproportion--an army of people and a mountain of 
infrastructure caring for a pound of life. But it is a disproportion 
that speaks very well of us.
  That is not me saying that is a disproportion that speaks very well 
of us; it is Time magazine. The value that our society places on little 
1- and 2-pound premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit is 
remarkable. It speaks well for us, according to Time.
  So many of us have experienced now or have friends--in fact, my guess 
would be that as Members of the Senate go do hospital visits, nothing 
is more riveting than that moment you sometimes get to spend in the 
neonatal unit with a baby who is so little that you don't know how it 
survived, but it has, and you know with the technology we have today, 
that baby is very likely to go home.
  When everyone in your family is healthy, you have a lot of problems. 
When someone in your family is sick, you have one problem, and the one 
thing that is the focus in the case of these families and these babies 
is what they are about to do right then, which is everything they can 
do to save a life that has all it takes to survive, but it just needs 
some help.
  So while the culture is embracing the value of these lives--these 
little lives who can survive--on the one hand, our laws really don't 
reflect that science has made that almost an indisputable argument. We 
know that babies born 20 weeks after conception can survive. Down the 
road in Maryland, a doctor says he will end a human life at 28 weeks--
that is about 7 months--into a pregnancy. Several States and the 
District of Columbia allow life to be ended

[[Page 14647]]

with an abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy. Can anyone on either 
side of this debate defend that? If they can't, really you should favor 
this fairly easy-to-achieve view of this issue.
  There are only seven countries in the world, including ours, that 
allow this to happen, these lives to be ended after 20 weeks. These 
babies can feel pain, as I just talked about. They have or are very 
quickly going to have the ability to survive with some help.
  By the way, the seven countries include China, North Korea, Vietnam, 
and the United States of America--not a list I think we want to be on.
  Shortly my colleagues and I will be able to cast a vote on the Pain-
Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
  I would like to close by saying a baby is a baby, and science tells 
us they can feel pain. This bill is a commonsense idea. It is broadly 
supported. I hope the Senate will take a step to protect these lives.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in opposition to my 
Republican colleagues who are once again bringing forward a political 
attack on the freedom of American women to make their own personal 
health care decisions. Instead of focusing on improving access to 
health care for women, Republicans are pursuing a divisive policy that 
jeopardizes women's health and puts politicians and the government 
between a woman and her doctor. Instead of spending our time on 
bipartisan budget negotiations, Republicans are wasting what is 
precious time on another failed attempt to strip funding for critical 
women's health programs, denying women the health services they need.
  They have scheduled yet another show vote. They know it is destined 
to fail, and many believe it is just to pander to extreme allies by 
taking away women's constitutionally protected health care choices. I 
have to say I object to this dangerous political game. Women's access 
to quality health care isn't a political game. It is not one for me and 
many of my other colleagues who join me on the floor today, nor is it a 
game for women and their families across the country and in my home 
State of Wisconsin.
  Too many States have enacted what are record numbers of laws--over 
230 of them in the past 4 years--that restrict a women's access to 
reproductive health services and the freedom and right to make her own 
health care decisions.
  The bill before us today would impose a 20-week abortion ban 
nationwide and would have real and grave consequences for American 
families.
  Last year I heard from a woman from Middleton, WI, who at 20 weeks 
was devastated to find out that her baby had a severe fetal anomaly and 
that there would be no chance of surviving delivery. She had to undergo 
an emergency termination, and a clinic in Milwaukee was the only place 
in Wisconsin that would do the procedure. But because at the time our 
Republican Governor was set to sign into law a new measure imposing 
unreasonable requirements on providers, this particular clinic was 
preparing to close its doors and would not schedule her procedure. She 
and her husband were forced to find childcare for their two sons and 
travel to another State to get the medical care she needed.
  Since hearing this mother's story, Wisconsin's Republican lawmakers 
have attempted to enact even more restrictions, including a bill 
recently passed in the Wisconsin State Senate to ban abortions after 20 
weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest. In addition, this bill's 
medical emergency exception is similar to what is included in Senator 
Graham's Federal proposal. It says nothing about the health of the 
mother.
  The threat in Wisconsin and States across the country is clear. When 
Congressmen and politicians play doctor, American families suffer. This 
is why my good friend and colleague from Connecticut Senator Blumenthal 
and I have introduced a serious proposal, the Women's Health Protection 
Act. This proposal would put a stop to these sorts of legislative 
attacks on women's rights and freedoms. Our bill creates Federal 
protections against restrictions such as the proposal before us that 
unduly limit access to reproductive health care and do nothing to 
further women's health or safety and certainly intrude upon personal 
decisionmaking. It is time that we place our trust back in women to 
carefully consider their options and make their own health decisions, 
and I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance this 
important legislation.
  We know that this week's Republican spectacle is not meant to produce 
a serious debate about protecting women's reproductive health; it is 
about the narrow Republican agenda to take our country backward and 
roll back the important health benefits for American families. We have 
seen this with the numerous failed attempts by Republicans to repeal 
the protections in the Affordable Care Act, protections that have 
empowered millions of women with more choices and stronger health care 
coverage. Today women can finally rest assured that they will not be 
charged more for coverage just because they are women, and someone's 
mother can get a lifesaving mammogram without the fear of high medical 
bills.
  Over 75 times, congressional Republicans have tried to roll back this 
measure, which provides health security and economic security for 
millions of American families. It seems that Republicans would gladly 
go back to the days where being a woman was a preexisting condition and 
when insurance companies could drop your coverage just because you got 
sick or older or had a baby.
  We are not going to go back to those days, just as we are not going 
to create a future where politicians in Washington take away from 
freedom and the right of women to make their own personal health 
decisions. I am committing to putting a stop to the relentless and 
ideological attacks on American families and will continue to fight to 
ensure that both men and women have the freedom to access the health 
care they need.
  The American people do not want Congress playing doctor, and they are 
sick and tired of Republicans manufacturing crisis after crisis. Just 2 
years after they shut down the government because of a partisan battle 
with the President over the Affordable Care Act, they are again 
threatening to shut down the government over another partisan attack on 
funding for women's health care. These political games could come at a 
serious cost to America's economic strength and the well-being of 
working families.
  It is time for Republicans to stop playing dangerous games with 
women's health. It is time for Republicans to stop manufacturing crisis 
after crisis. It is time for Republicans to join Democrats and work in 
a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and negotiate a budget 
agreement that ends sequestration and invests in economic growth, 
invests in our middle class, invests in our national security, and 
invests in women's health.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this week Pope Francis will be making a 
historic visit to Washington, DC, to address those of us in Congress 
and millions of Americans across the United States.
  While I am not a Catholic, one of the tenets of the Catholic Church 
that I have long respected is adherence and devotion to the sanctity of 
life. We have an issue before us regarding the very essence of what 
life is and how life is treated in this country. So my colleagues who 
don't agree with the legislation before us and who don't even want us 
to have a debate on this are trying to, through a procedural motion, 
stop us from moving forward to discuss an issue that ought to be 
debated before the American people and certainly before this body.
  It is no secret now that the science has proven that pain can be 
experienced by an unborn child in the womb. And the taking of that 
life--many of us believe that life begins at conception, but even if 
you don't adhere to that, it is now a fact, a pure fact, that it is a 
viable life at the age of 20 weeks and that life can experience pain. 
Surgery

[[Page 14648]]

can be provided for that life. Anesthesia is given to that unborn child 
in the womb to prevent it from experiencing the pain that may result 
from surgery that is trying to correct perhaps an abnormality or some 
condition in the womb and give that child an opportunity to be a 
healthier baby and to live out the privilege of living.
  I have spoken a number of times on this floor about the sanctity of 
life and how we as elected representatives and the American people--
people of conscience and conviction--need to protect the sanctity of 
life. In doing so, it means that we have to discuss the issue of 
abortion. This is not a pleasant or comfortable issue to debate on the 
Senate floor, but we are not elected to come here to just discuss and 
debate pleasant issues; we are here to face difficult and often 
emotional issues, to face it honestly, to face it openly, and to cast 
our votes either for or against.
  There are few, if any, issues that I believe are potentially more 
divisive and emotional than the issue of abortion because it goes to 
the heart of the meaning of life itself. It is about protecting those 
who cannot protect themselves. The story of America is a history of 
inclusion and an impulse to protect and uplift those who have been on 
the margins of society, and no human being is more on the margin of 
society than an unborn child who is seen not as a human life but is 
seen as something that can be dissected, can be torn apart, can be 
harvested, and the organs can be sold for research.
  That is not the issue we will be debating in this vote coming up, but 
it has been debated and it has been raised--I have been on the floor 
listening to a number of these speeches that raised it a number of 
times--that somehow Republicans are denying women health care coverage 
because we are not wanting to fund an organization, Planned Parenthood, 
that uses some of the most brutal and inhumane efforts to harvest from 
unborn children organs to sale for the use of research. We had that 
debate and we had that vote. Unfortunately, we came up short on that 
vote. That, in and of itself, is an issue that we must continue to 
debate and continue to deal with, but the issue before us now is the 
ability to debate, discuss, vote, and hopefully pass legislation that 
is based on science--not on theory, not on ideology but based on 
science.
  We now know that a child growing in the womb of its mother at the age 
of 20 weeks can experience pain, and we also now know that under the 
procedures that are used by Planned Parenthood, those children are 
harvested--they are dissected, harvested, some of their organs are 
carefully preserved and sold. It is almost beyond comprehension that a 
nation that has reached out to be inclusive to the most vulnerable, 
that at this point in life for a child views it as nothing more than 
something to be harvested. The descriptions of how Planned Parenthood 
describes the cold, calculating, numerical profit that might occur from 
the sale of certain organs and the techniques used to go into the womb 
to make sure that certain organs are preserved while others are 
crushed, just goes beyond comprehension.
  Yet to stand on the floor and simply say Republicans are taking away 
women's health--no, we aren't. We are simply saying we don't want the 
taxpayers to fund an organization that practices these methods, that 
takes the lives of children, and that ignores the pain that is incurred 
in doing so. We want to transfer that money to women's health 
organizations--about five times as many in my State as there are 
Planned Parenthood organizations--that will provide for every aspect of 
women's health care except for abortion. The question before us on that 
vote was: Should the taxpayer fund something of this nature? And, 
unfortunately, we came up short because our colleagues simply would not 
support us in the effort to do so.
  This goes to the soul of the Nation. This goes to who we are. This 
goes to a country which has been compassionate and reached out to those 
on the margin but now turns its back on those who are the most 
vulnerable. It is not just a matter of politics. It is not, as has been 
said on the floor, that Republicans want to roll back important health 
care coverage for mothers, deny women's health and access to health 
care. It is not a manufactured crisis, a dangerous game we are playing. 
How can you describe as a dangerous game the provision before us on the 
Senate floor that addresses the issue of the excruciating pain a child 
feels, which we now know is scientifically documented and proved in the 
taking of that life, for the harvesting of that life's organs? How can 
you describe that as a dangerous game?
  If we treat this with such total irrelevance, in terms of what is 
happening here, it says something about our country. I deeply regret 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are even denying us the 
opportunity to go forward. We are on a procedural motion here where 
they can kill the debate. They can prevent us from doing what the 
American people have sent us here to do--to deal with tough issues, 
state our positions, and let our yes be yes and our no be no. Once 
again, we are in a situation now where even that procedure to get to 
that point is being denied. I regret we are here.
  I have noticed the discussions on the floor have been quite somber. 
The statements made are made softly. That doesn't mask the kind of 
emotion and the kind of passion that many of us feel. What it shows is 
grief. What it shows is the grief over a practice conducted in this 
advanced Nation of ours. It is a grief over the fact we are taking 
hundreds of thousands and have taken millions of lives of unborn 
children. It shows a special emotion and a special grief over the fact 
that we know those children are experiencing the pain of 
dismemberment--of arms and legs being ripped apart, of organs being 
harvested for sale.
  So without the shouting, without the accusations, it is a sincere 
belief and grief over what is happening in this country. As has been 
stated by my colleagues, only seven other countries in the world allow 
this kind of practice. It is shameful that one of those countries is 
the United States of America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I am going to make a 
reference to a 20-week sonogram. I will introduce, however, Donelle 
Harden. I am a little bit biased, but I think she is the best 
communication director in the U.S. Senate, and you can see she is 31 
weeks pregnant. At the conclusion of my remarks, I want to demonstrate 
clearly what a 20-week sonogram looks like and what a baby does look 
like.
  By 20 weeks, a woman has reached the halfway point of the pregnancy 
and has the opportunity to learn the gender of her child. By 20 weeks, 
there is conclusive scientific evidence that a baby can feel pain, they 
can hear sounds, and they can react to sounds. They twist, they kick, 
they yawn, and they stretch, and some even open their eyes and suck 
their thumbs. But most importantly, they feel pain.
  The United States is just one of seven countries with populations of 
more than a million that allows abortions past 20 weeks. Other 
countries who join ours in this practice are countries like China and 
North Korea and Vietnam.
  The abortion procedure after 20 weeks is known as late-term 
abortions. We have been talking about this on the floor, and I think 
people are pretty familiar with it--much more so now than they were 
just a short while ago. It is very unpleasant and very shocking. During 
the procedure the baby is rotated and the forceps are used to pull the 
baby's legs, arms, and shoulders through the birth canal. Once this is 
done--because the head is too large--an incision is made at the base of 
the baby's skull to allow a suction catheter to be inserted to remove 
the cerebral material--that is the brains--collapsing the skull and 
allowing the baby to be completely removed.
  Now, I lay this out for you because people need to know what inhumane 
practices are taking place in America. When you start to devalue the 
life of a child just because it hasn't been born yet, you start 
devaluing life in general, situations like what happened in 
Philadelphia are allowed to occur.

[[Page 14649]]

  As I am sure the occupier of the Chair remembers very well, in May of 
2013, Kermit Gosnell was convicted of three first-degree murder charges 
for killing babies who had been born alive at his abortion clinic in 
Philadelphia. Testimony from the trial indicated he and his staff 
snipped the necks of more than 100 infants who survived abortion 
attempts. Viable babies were delivered and then murdered. Furthermore, 
Gosnell endangered the health and lives of the women who came to his 
clinic by reusing disposable medical equipment, performing procedures 
in unsanitary conditions with unsanitary instruments, overdosing them, 
and causing serious injuries to their bodies. On at least two occasions 
women died after visiting his clinic. Talk about a war on women, this 
guy is on the front lines.
  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania turned its back on these women when 
it never once inspected the clinic in 17 years, despite receiving 
complaints against Gosnell and being notified that a woman died in the 
clinic. Pennsylvania Department of State wouldn't investigate the 
complaints they received. These kinds of things can happen when human 
life is considered disposable.
  This year, we have seen 10 videos released by the Center for Medical 
Progress, showing Planned Parenthood executives and employees across 
the country detailing the sale of baby parts and how they manipulated 
and delayed the abortions. What we are saying is they delayed an 
abortion from taking place so the baby could mature and the parts they 
were using as their specimens would be of greater value to the 
customers they were selling the baby parts to. The heartless way they 
talked about these things and the complete disregard for the life of 
the baby that is being dissected are shocking and sickening.
  It is no wonder over the past decade Americans have been waking up to 
the scientific facts and the moral implications regarding abortions. 
There was a Gallup poll in 2010 that called pro-life the ``new normal'' 
for Americans. But 3 years later, in 2013, the Gallup poll showed that 
64 percent of Americans--that is 2 to 1, a majority of Americans by 2 
to 1, which is a very strong majority--supported banning abortions 
after the first trimester. That is just one of many polls showing this 
trend to favor life. In the first trimester you are only talking about 
12 weeks at that point.
  What is really interesting about these polls is that in each of them 
women always support these bans at a higher rate than men. As I have 
learned from my wife and two daughters, only women can really 
understand what is at stake.
  I had the opportunity to experience firsthand and be there at the 
time of the birth of my four children and my 12 grandchildren. Life is 
truly a miracle. It is not just the life of a child but also that of 
the mother. Thanks to the progress of science it is more evident than 
ever that abortion ends life. Medical data is now also showing 
significant risks to women's health and well-being.
  Now, what I am going to show--what Donelle is going to show--is the 
baby she is carrying right now. That sonogram was taken at 20 weeks. At 
20 weeks you can see all the details of the baby, and I would like to 
have Donelle point out the ear of the baby the sonogram shows. It is 
very, very clear--the kidney, the heart, the spine, the teeth, the 
lips, and the brain. Now, that was 20 weeks.
  What we have here in the United States is an opportunity for those in 
favor of abortion to go far longer than just the 20 weeks. They can go 
all the way up to, in America, the time of birth. All they have to do 
is show the health of the mother is at risk and this can be done. The 
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would ban these abortions and 
protect these babies.
  We have 46 Senators signed to the bill. The House has passed its own 
version, and I think we have the opportunity to take a major step 
forward. That is what this is all about. I have hope. I have run into 
so many people who have not had the opportunity to get some of the 
graphic details of what Planned Parenthood has been doing in murdering 
these babies and selling their parts, but I hope this is an 
opportunity.
  We are going to have a vote so that we will have an opportunity to do 
this, and I am very hopeful some of these Senators who have not 
acknowledged this is going on, that they will do so. This is what it is 
all about. This is what the baby is, and this is what we have the 
opportunity to reform in our system.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this week the Senate is considering the 
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This legislation would 
protect unborn children who have reached the age of 20 weeks--that is 5 
months of pregnancy--from being killed by abortion.
  Five months into a pregnancy, babies are sucking their thumbs, they 
are yawning and stretching, they are actively moving around, they 
respond to noises, and they feel and respond to pain.
  The scientific evidence on this point is incontrovertible. Five 
months into a pregnancy, unborn babies feel pain. Their stress hormones 
spike, and they shrink from painful stimuli. In fact, some scientific 
evidence suggests that babies of this age feel pain more keenly than 
adults since some of the neural mechanisms that inhibit pain don't 
fully develop until after birth.
  Babies are regularly born weeks or months early in this country and 
with medical care survive and often thrive.
  A Time magazine article from May 2014 that highlighted the tremendous 
advances that have been made in the treatment of premature babies noted 
that 76 percent of babies born at 25 weeks of pregnancy--or about 6 
months--will go on to leave the hospital.
  A May 2015 article of the New York Times entitled ``Premature Babies 
May Survive at 22 Weeks if Treated, Study Finds'' highlighted a recent 
study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reporting on 
successes in treating extremely early premature births. One baby 
mentioned in the New York Times article, Alexis Hutchinson, was 
delivered at 22 weeks and 1 day. She weighed 1.1 pounds at delivery. 
Today, the Times reports, ``aside from being more vulnerable to 
respiratory viruses, Alexis is a healthy 5-year-old girl.'' Let me 
repeat that. Alexis Hutchinson, who was born at 22 weeks and 1 day--or 
approximately halfway through her mother's pregnancy--is today a 
healthy 5-year-old girl. Yet, under the laws of this country, a baby of 
the very same age can be killed by abortion.
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more 
than 15,000 late-term abortions are performed each year in the United 
States. Many of those babies could have survived if instead of being 
aborted they had been born in a hospital and given medical care.
  Late-term abortion procedures are so brutal, it is difficult to even 
talk about them. Americans would rightly shrink in horror from 
performing one of these procedures on an animal. How, then, are we 
allowing these procedures to be performed on our children?
  Right now only seven countries in the world allow elective abortion 
after 5 months of pregnancy. It is hard to believe the United States is 
one of them. Among those countries are China and North Korea. 
Unfortunately, our country is on that list. I suggest that might not be 
the company we want to keep when it comes to protecting human life.
  A society is measured by how it treats its weakest and most 
vulnerable members, and we have been failing some of ours. But we have 
a chance with this legislation to start fixing that today.
  Ultimately, it is very simple: That unborn baby--the one with the 
fingers

[[Page 14650]]

and toes, who sucks her thumb and responds to her mother's voice--that 
unborn baby is one of us, and as such she deserves to be protected. I 
hope the United States Senate will vote in support of protecting our 
unborn and vote in favor of this legislation when we have that 
opportunity tomorrow.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Pope's visit this week to our 
Nation's Capital reminds us all of how very important it is to show 
compassion and concern for the most innocent and vulnerable among us. 
Unborn children who fall into this category are entitled to the same 
dignity all human beings share. This is true even when their presence 
might be uncomfortable or create difficulties, the Pope reminds us.
  We are now considering moving to a bill known as the Pain-Capable 
Unborn Child Protection Act. This legislation would make no change to 
our abortion policy in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. At 20 weeks of 
fetal age, when the unborn child can detect and respond to painful 
stimuli, the bill would impose some restrictions on elective late-term 
abortions. Such a change to existing law would put us in line with the 
vast majority of other countries around the globe.
  I want to emphasize that the United States is in the small minority 
of countries around the world that allow abortion on demand after the 
fifth month of pregnancy. As some of my colleagues have mentioned 
earlier, we are just one of seven countries that take this unusual 
position. China, North Korea, and Vietnam are among the other seven. 
Are these countries really the ones we in the United States want to 
align ourselves with on this particular human rights issue?
  Many of us in this Chamber actively supported the Americans with 
Disability Act. Could anyone here support an abortion after 5 months 
because the unborn baby had a cleft lip? What about a late-term 
abortion of a baby with hemophilia? Under current law, it is quite 
possible to destroy unborn babies with these or other more serious 
abnormalities in utero. I believe these babies' lives have the same 
value as those of other unborn babies without disabilities.
  There are some who say they cannot support this legislation. I say to 
them, if you do not support restrictions on abortion after the fifth 
month of pregnancy, when some babies born prematurely at this stage now 
are surviving long-term, then what exactly is your limit on abortion?
  Scientists say the unborn child can feel pain perhaps even as early 
as 8 weeks and most certainly by 20 weeks' fetal age. The American 
people overwhelmingly support restrictions on late-term abortions.
  Doctors tell us that about a quarter of the babies born prematurely, 
around 5 months, will survive long term if given proper medical 
assistance.
  Dr. Colleen Malloy, an assistant professor of pediatrics at 
Northwestern's School of Medicine, testified before a congressional 
panel just 3 years ago that infants born at 20 weeks' fetal age now are 
``kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in 
the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.'' She explained that treatment of 
neonatal pain is standard in such cases and added that there is no 
reason to believe an infant born prematurely would feel pain any 
differently from the same infant if still in the womb.
  We also have the statements from Dr. Anthony Levatino, a practicing 
gynecologist with decades of experience. Dr. Levatino estimates that he 
performed over 1,000 abortions in private practice, until his adopted 
daughter died in a car crash. The death of his child was a life-
changing event that ultimately led
him to stop performing abortions. Dr. Levatino testified before the 
House Judiciary Committee--again, 3 years ago--that performing an 
abortion on a 24-week-old child is painful for that
unborn baby. In the words of Dr. Levatino, ``If you refuse to believe 
that this procedure inflicts severe pain on an unborn child, please 
think again.''
  Scientific studies confirm what Dr. Levatino has noted--that the 
unborn can experience pain after the fifth month. In fact, at least one 
medical school professor says it is indisputable that unborn babies can 
react to painful stimuli as early as 8 weeks after conception.
  Dr. Maureen Condic, a neurobiology professor who earned her Ph.D. at 
Berkeley, explains that the unborn child at this stage of development 
reacts to painful stimuli just as other human beings do at later 
stages. In both the case of the unborn child and human beings at later 
stages of development, the response is the same: to actively withdraw 
from the painful stimulus.
  As stated in a paper written by Dr. Condic:

       The scientific evidence that the human fetus can detect and 
     react to painful stimuli as early as 8 weeks . . . is 
     indisputable. The neural circuitry responsible for the most 
     primitive response to pain, the spinal reflex, is in place by 
     eight weeks. . . . Connections between the spinal cord and 
     the thalamus, the region of the brain that is largely 
     responsible for pain perception in both the fetus and the 
     adult, begin to form around 12 weeks, and are completed by 18 
     weeks.

  Babies delivered prematurely also show pain-related behaviors, 
according to Dr. Condic. Also, the earlier infants are delivered, the 
stronger their response to pain is, she reports. It is perhaps for this 
reason that many doctors use anesthesia when operating on late-term 
babies in utero. Research suggests that these babies do better and 
recover faster when anesthesia is used during utero surgery.
  Many expectant mothers today are encouraged to talk to their babies 
in utero or play soft music for the babies' benefit. Unborn babies can 
hear as early as the fifth month and find their mom's voice soothing, 
new research suggests. Babies even learn while in the womb, absorbing 
language earlier than previously suspected, according to another 
report. Regardless of whether you characterize yourself as pro-choice 
or pro-life, common sense tells us that if such techniques work to 
soothe the unformed baby, then the reverse likely is true as well. Late 
in pregnancy, unborn babies aren't impervious to dismemberment with 
steel tools in utero.
  Some say abortion saves and helps women. Remember that 5 years ago a 
woman walked into a Pennsylvania abortion clinic expecting that she 
would have her pregnancy terminated and would walk out of that clinic 
without major side effects. She was 41 years old and 19 weeks pregnant. 
She had three children and was a grandmother. She and her daughter 
entered the clinic, but she never made it out alive. Her name was 
Karnamaya Mongar. She was one of the many victims of Kermit Gosnell. He 
operated a clinic in West Philadelphia for four decades. He made a 
living by performing abortions that no other doctor should ever do. The 
grand jury report that framed the case around Kermit Gosnell stated: 
``Gosnell's approach was simple: keep volume high, expenses low--and 
break the law. That was his competitive edge.''
  According to the grand jury report:

       The bigger the baby, the bigger the charge. Ultrasounds 
     were forged so that the Government would never know how old 
     aborted babies truly were. Babies were born alive, killed 
     after breathing on their own, by sticking scissors into the 
     back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. These 
     were live, breathing, squirming babies.

  This doctor didn't care about the well-being of these aborted babies. 
He didn't care about the health of the women.
  Extremely experienced doctors like Dr. Levatino, whom I mentioned 
earlier, also tell us that abortion is ``seldom if ever a useful 
intervention'' when life-threatening conditions require immediate care 
late in pregnancy. In most of these late second and third trimester 
cases, any attempt to perform an abortion ``would entail undue and 
dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care.'' The 
number of babies whose lives Dr. Levatino had to terminate in such 
cases was zero, he testified.
  The bill we are talking about that we are going to vote on tomorrow 
is a commonsense measure aimed at protecting women and children across 
the country. I urge my colleagues to embrace the sanctity of human life 
and vote to move to this bill so it can at least be considered.

[[Page 14651]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I first want to commend the Senator from 
Iowa. Senator Grassley has done a great job of a detailed report on why 
this bill is so extremely important, and I thank him for his comments.
  My remarks will be somewhat abbreviated. Today I rise to speak about 
this very important legislation, absolutely crucial legislation the 
Senate is considering tomorrow. Like so many Americans, I agree that we 
have a responsibility to protect those who cannot defend themselves. 
That is why I am a cosponsor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act--this critical legislation which simply prohibits 
abortions after an unborn child reaches 20 weeks of development.
  Scientific evidence--Senator Grassley reported about that--has shown 
that after 20 weeks, a child's brain has developed to a point where 
they can experience pain. With modern medical advances, even children 
born at this early stage have a chance to survive. It is appalling that 
the United States is one of only seven countries where elected 
abortions after 20 weeks are legal. How can our country take pride in 
protecting human rights when we continue to allow this practice to 
happen within our own borders?
  A poll conducted by the Quinnipiac University found that a majority 
of Americans now support the banning of this abhorrent practice. 
Representing the values shared by a majority of Americans should be a 
bipartisan effort. We need to work together to protect innocent life.
  So many Americans are troubled by the recent videos of Planned 
Parenthood employees selling fetal tissue for a profit. Those videos 
have helped the American people understand exactly what life at 
conception means. This legislation is a line of defense for protecting 
unborn children from Planned Parenthood's unconscionable practices.
  I commend the States that have stopped this practice in the absence 
of a Federal law. Thirteen States maintain prohibitions of abortion at 
20 weeks. This includes my home State of Kansas. It is now time for the 
Senate to act and ensure that this practice is banned all across the 
Nation. I encourage my colleagues to unite on this issue and support 
this critical legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection 
Act will do exactly that: protect unborn children who can feel pain. 
Studies have shown that babies can feel pain by 20 weeks or 5 months 
into pregnancy, and it is unconscionable to subject a child, at any 
stage in their life, to such pain.
  Anesthesiologists protect these children from the pain of surgery in 
the womb. Today these premature babies have a one in four chance of 
living a full and complete life.
  Do a quick Google search and type in ``20-week baby'' or ``20-week 
baby pictures.'' Take out your smartphone and Google it. The results of 
that search will pull up something like you see here to my right--a 
baby whose facial features are clearly visible. In fact, only seven 
countries in the world allow babies 20 weeks or older to be aborted--
seven countries. The United States is one of them, along with North 
Korea and China, to name a few.
  Overwhelmingly, Americans support this commonsense legislation. 
According to a November 2014 poll, 60 percent of Americans support a 
ban on abortion at 20 weeks, including nearly 60 percent of American 
women. This is a bill that a majority of the American people
are behind, protecting babies after 20 weeks when they can feel pain.
  We must continue to fight for the most vulnerable in our society--the 
elderly, the disabled, and the unborn--for they don't have a voice up 
here on Capitol Hill. Their right to life is protected by our 
Constitution and is part of the framework of the Declaration of 
Independence, and because of that, we speak up.
  During the Gosnell trial, we all learned about the gruesome methods 
of ending the life of just-born children by using a method similar to 
dismemberment, which occurs in several clinics throughout our country. 
Science tells us that this method causes pain to the baby, some of whom 
were a little over 20 weeks old.
  Why do we allow these late-term abortions? If Gosnell aborted these 
children moments before they were removed from the womb, would the loss 
of life have been any less tragic or less appalling?
  We cannot stand idly by and allow such painful terminations of human 
life to continue. We must continue to be a voice for those who don't 
have a voice. The Senate needs to join the House of Representatives and 
get this legislation passed and on the President's desk.
  I yield back my time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak 
tonight. I am rising in strong support of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child 
Protection Act. This is an opportunity for all of us to give voice to 
the unborn.
  The fight to preserve the sanctity of life is something I have 
consistently and proudly supported. I am proud of my record with regard 
to supporting the sanctity of life. I am proud of my 100-percent pro-
life voting record by supporting legislation in the House and now here 
in the Senate.
  Earlier this year I reintroduced the Child Custody Protection Act. It 
prevents the transportation of minors across State lines for the 
purposes of eluding parental notification laws. This is a big deal in 
my State. The legislation simply says that parents have the right to be 
involved in their kids' most important decisions. It is supported, by 
the way, by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Parental 
notification laws are key to reducing the number of abortions in this 
country and should be supported. We should not allow parental 
notification laws to be circumvented.
  I understand that there are raw emotions that are evoked by these 
issues, and I know there are fundamental disagreements on the issue of 
abortion. However, I hope there are steps we can take to promote a 
culture of life, and I think passing the Child Custody Protection Act 
is certainly one of those. I hope the Senate will take up that 
legislation soon so that we can indeed come together as a group and 
promote the sanctity of life. I think another way to do this is to 
support the pain-capable legislation I will talk about in a moment.
  Along with millions of other Americans, I have watched these deeply 
disturbing Planned Parenthood videos that were recently released. The 
videos graphically show how some at Planned Parenthood view the unborn 
as something to be exploited and not as precious life that deserves to 
be protected. Because of the shocking nature of these videos, 
congressional committees of jurisdiction are properly now 
investigating. Beyond that, I call on the Obama administration to begin 
a criminal investigation into this matter to determine if employees of 
a federally funded organization have violated the law. These acts must 
not be tolerated.
  Last month I cosponsored and voted for legislation that would end 
Federal funding for Planned Parenthood while ensuring that taxpayer 
dollars would continue to be offered to community health organizations 
to continue to provide health services to women across my State of Ohio 
and across America. By the way, there are seven times more community 
health organizations in the State of Ohio than there are Planned 
Parenthood clinics. So this is an opportunity for us to shift that 
funding to where women can get the health care support they need. These 
health care issues for women are a national priority and should 
continue to be. We need to strengthen women's

[[Page 14652]]

health initiatives without having to fund Planned Parenthood from the 
paychecks of American workers.
  The pain-capable legislation that is currently being debated here on 
the floor is really about science, and it is about advances in medical 
technology. Scientific evidence now tells us that at the age of 20 
weeks post fertilization, an unborn child can feel pain. It is time to 
recognize this fact and take the necessary steps to protect unborn 
children and welcome them to life. I believe this legislation is a very 
important part of that overall goal.
  I have visited the neonatal units at the great children's hospitals 
in my home State of Ohio. I have seen the amazing work that is done 
there by our doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. It is 
incredible. I encourage all of my colleagues to make visits in their 
own States. I have seen firsthand this amazing work. I have seen as 
they help babies who were born extremely premature come to life. It is 
inspirational to see what they are doing. These newborns represent the 
miracle of life, and it is our duty to make sure they are protected. We 
have seen advances in neonatal care to allow these babies to survive 
and to live to their full potential. Just a few years ago this was not 
necessarily the case, so these medical advances have been really 
exciting, and it is one more reason to pass this legislation.
  As we continue to enhance our medical technologies, more and more 
people are able to see that we are not talking about unviable fetuses, 
but unborn children who could one day grow up and become part of our 
American family. As a result, increasingly, the American people believe 
that ending a child's life should be as rare as possible and that we 
should work together to reduce the number of abortions performed in 
this country. That is progress.
  The debate on this legislation is not just about morals or values or 
religious views. It is about protecting innocent life from a painful 
act that they do not deserve. We have a responsibility to protect 
unborn children and give them the chance to succeed. This legislation 
and this vote before us here tomorrow in the Senate is an opportunity 
to make that happen.
  The United States of America is only one of only seven countries in 
the world to provide and allow for elective abortions after 20 weeks. 
Think about that. On that short list, by the way, are North Korea and 
China. What does that say about our national character if we know these 
unborn children are feeling excruciating pain, yet we choose not to 
act? When our Founders declared our independence, they wrote of certain 
unalienable truths endowed by our Creator, they said, and among them, 
of course, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life is the 
very first one. So let's stand together today and take a unified step 
toward protecting life.
  This is a commonsense bill. It has the support of the American 
people. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help provide 
a voice for those who cannot provide that voice for themselves, to take 
this important step toward holding up the sanctity of life, and to pass 
this important legislation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we as a Nation treat bugs in a very 
unique way. There is a little bug called the American burying beetle. 
They are in many areas of the country. They are all over Oklahoma. In 
southeastern Oklahoma, in a lot of areas where there is commercial 
construction, we have to wait through the early part of the spring 
because, in the springtime, the American burying beetle lays little 
eggs and those eggs multiply in the ground and little bugs start 
crawling up. The folks at the Fish and Wildlife Service tell us not to 
step on those bugs because they could possibly be threatened, and 
construction needs to stop during the springtime so the Earth is not 
disturbed during that time period. We don't want to disturb the Earth 
because those eggs might be damaged, and we will have fewer of the 
American burying beetle.
  I bring that up not because I am so enamored with that bug, but 
because our Nation has a history of protecting life--life wherever it 
may be--whether it is a burying beetle in southeastern Oklahoma or 
whether it is a child.
  For some strange reason, in this room, the conversation tends to go 
more towards the American burying beetle and their eggs and protecting 
that bug than it is about protecting children. So I bring up today 
something that I don't think should be that controversial. What are we 
going to do with children who can feel and experience pain? Will we as 
a Nation guard children? That would be a pretty straightforward thing, 
I would say.
  In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States struggled with how to 
be able to define life. This whole conversation the Supreme Court had 
behind closed doors as they struggled with a decision that we now know 
as Roe v. Wade. In January of 1973, after struggling behind closed 
doors, the Supreme Court came out with a decision that was brand new to 
American law, coming from actually common law, and that was viability. 
What used to be in common law when they would discuss quickening, when 
the child could kick and move, they would now consider this child a 
child worthy of protection. They asked the question: When is it 
possible for a fetus to be alive? In January of 1973, they said they 
would have to leave it up to medical technology as to when that child 
would be viable.
  Fast forward up to today. Let's talk about when a child is considered 
viable. Let's talk about what happens now. We know at 20 weeks that 
child can respond to different stimuli. That child feels pain. That 
child can respond to normal things that are happening around it. I can 
distinctly remember, with both of my daughters, my wife and I went in 
at 20 weeks to be able to look at the sonogram because at 20 weeks, 
that was the first time the doctor could say whether we were going to 
have a boy or a girl, and we could see the health of my two daughters. 
That was a big day for us, to be able to go in and see the sonogram and 
to know it is a girl and to be able to watch them move around in the 
womb, to dream about what her name would be and what they would look 
like. Now one daughter is in college, and one is in high school. But 
the first time I ever laid eyes on them, they were 20 weeks old, when 
we got a peak into the womb with the sonogram.
  This bill asks a simple question, this bill that deals with pain-
capable. This pain-capable bill asks the question: Is the child alive 
at five months, when the baby can kick, suck its thumb, stretch, yawn, 
make faces; when medical science tells us they can experience pain, is 
that child alive?
  Recently The New York Times did a report studying this one issue 
about children that are born extremely early--at this exact time we are 
discussing right now--how many of the children that are born even that 
early make it. The New York Times' latest study said more than 25 
percent of them make it.
  Let me tell my colleagues about one of them. Her name is Violet. She 
is the daughter of a friend of mine. She is a pretty amazing young 
lady. She was born at this exact date we are discussing, and she was 
born at 14 ounces. She would fit into your hand, less than a pound. 
That tiny little girl who had such a tough start is a 1-year-old now. 
She is not 14 ounces, she is 15 pounds and--thanks for asking--she is 
doing great. She is healthy and strong and she is beautiful. You ought 
to see her beautiful face with the bow on the top of her head--a 
sparkling little girl. She was born at 14 ounces.
  I am asking our Nation to think about this again. The discussion in 
1973 about viability needs to catch up to the science of today. At 14 
ounces and at 5 months of gestation, that little girl is doing great. 
Yet in many places in our country--not all but in many places in our 
country--that child can still be executed in the womb and no one would 
bat an eye.
  This is a conversation our Nation needs to have. I can't imagine it 
would

[[Page 14653]]

be controversial to make a simple statement. When a child can feel 
pain, when a child is viable--even the Supreme Court from 1973 would 
look at this time period and say that is viability--at that moment, 
should we as a nation step up and protect children? This shouldn't be 
about whether a child can feel pain. We know that child can feel pain. 
It is not even about viability. We know that child is viable. In fact, 
I know her name. It is about when our laws catch up to our morals and 
to our science.
  Late-term abortions in many areas of our country are already illegal. 
Let's address this. As a people and as a nation, I am asking a simple 
thing. When we know the child can feel pain, when we know they are 
viable, let's treat them as a child. Let's honor that child as alive, 
and let's say we don't do abortions when we know that child is viable. 
It is a straightforward issue that I hope will not be controversial. 
This is not about women's health. This is about the health of little 
boys and little girls who need our Nation to stay with them.
  This bill we can pass. A lot of important things we are dealing 
with--the budget, the Iran nuclear negotiations--but can we not stop 
for a moment and say our Nation will guard our most vulnerable? Can we 
not protect our children? I think we can do both.
  I yield back.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Pain-Capable 
Unborn Child Protection Act, which protects unborn babies who are 
capable of feeling pain from abortions. I am proud to be a cosponsor of 
the Senate version of this bill and applaud our Leader for bringing the 
bill to the floor.
  According to the National Library of Medicine, a baby's major systems 
and structures develop at week 5 of fetal development. Blood cells, 
kidney cells, and nerve cells develop at this time; and the baby's 
brain, spinal cord, and heart begin to develop. During the sixth and 
seventh weeks, a baby's brain forms into five different areas and a 
baby's heart beats at a regular rhythm, with blood pumping through the 
main vessels. Lungs start to form during week 8, and all essential 
organs have begun to grow by week 9.
  The National Library of Medicine reports that a baby's face is well-
formed between weeks 11 and 14. Bones become harder between weeks 15 
and 18, and the baby's liver and pancreas produce secretions. Between 
weeks 19 and 21, a baby can hear and swallow.
  Some of my colleagues are aware that this issue is very personal for 
me. Our daughter Amy was born three months premature. She weighed 2 
pounds and the doctor's advice was to wait and see. We took Amy to 
Wyoming's biggest hospital to get the best kind of care we could find. 
When my wife, Diana, and I would visit her, the nurses often told us it 
wasn't looking good. We were even asked if we had had Amy baptized. 
When we said she was, a relieved nurse said, ``Good. We've never lost a 
baptized preemie.''
  Amy is a fighter, and she lived. Today, she is a teacher in Wyoming, 
and Diana and I were so proud to see her get married last year. What I 
learned from watching Amy is how hard a 6-month old baby struggles to 
live. I want babies like Amy to be protected. I firmly believe that 
every life demands our respect as a special gift from God, and I urge 
my colleagues to support the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act 
as a step in the right direction.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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