Mike Pence

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week I came to the House floor to announce my opposition to the largest new entitlement since 1965, the Medicare prescription drug bill that we will consider this week. As my voice has weakened, strong voices in opposition have emerged, including the venerable Heritage Foundation which has been a beacon of limited government for over three decades. And today, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal in a piece entitled ``Entitlements Are Forever'' makes a powerful case that Congress should reconsider before we create this massive new government entitlement. The Wall Street Journal says the GOP's Medicare bill trades certain spending for speculative reform. The bottom line is that the bill would add a universal drug entitlement to a largely unreformed Medicare program and warns of fiscal disaster. They conclude that Republicans are offering the certainty of trillions in new entitlements in return for a mere promise of future reform and that is too expensive a gamble for principled conservatives to support. With my very last breath, I would say, ``I agree.'' Oppose the Medicare prescription drug entitlement.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, despite the very best efforts of our House Republican leadership, I rise to oppose the prescription drug bill that will be considered before the Congress this week. It would, in fact, represent the largest expansion of Medicare in 35 years. Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Clinton's Medicare administrator, actually called this legislation the biggest expansion of government health benefits since the Great Society. And so it will be. I have consistently said that I would support the creation of a national prescription drug benefit in Medicare only if it is fiscally responsible and includes free market reform measures, which this legislation fails to do on both counts. Only by significantly reforming Medicare along the lines that President Bush initially requested, can we act in a way that is responsible and meet the urgent and real needs of seniors for prescription coverage. Of course there are seniors near the poverty level who need immediate help with the cost of prescription drugs. Nearly 24 percent of seniors have no access to prescription coverage, and about 5 percent have out- of-pocket costs of more than $4,000 per year. For those seniors, our national government should respond with a drug discount card or some form of direct subsidy, and I have supported these efforts. Sadly, the prescription drug plan currently being advanced in the Congress lacks such specificity and focus and actually would create a universal drug benefit that provides a government entitlement for every American over the age of 65, a population of some 37 million today that will grow to some 70 million in the year 2030. While the need for some type of benefit is real, the need for a universal drug benefit is not. At present, 76 percent of seniors have prescription drug coverage, and the average senior spends less than $999 per year in out-of-pocket expenses. And as always happens when Congress creates a massive new bureaucracy, there will likely be unintended consequences as well. Mr. Speaker, chief among them could be that millions of Americans with prescription drug coverage from a former employer could lose it. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this could happen in the tens of thousands. But the most ominous consequence of a universal drug entitlement could be that it will usher in the beginning of socialized medicine in America. This type of system which is built on unrealistic fiscal projections and incorrect assumptions about human behavior would invariably lead to escalating costs for which price controls and outright government control would be seen as a last resort. In an America where abortion is legal and euthanasia is increasingly accepted, the American people would do well to ponder the implications of government-run health care in America. Let us reform Medicare so it will be there for the future without placing an undue burden on our children and grandchildren. But beyond that, let us do no harm to the greatest and most diverse health care system in the history of the world. By agreeing to a prescription drug benefit for all seniors, rather than just those in need, Congress threatens our Nation's fiscal stability, the private prescription plans of millions of seniors, and the very survival of our free market health care system. Mr. Speaker, Despite the very best efforts of House Republican leadership, I rise to oppose the prescription drug bill that will be considered before Congress this week. It would in fact represent the largest expansion of Medicare in 35 years. As Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Clinton's Medicare administrator, said, this would be ``the biggest expansion of government health benefits since the Great Society.'' With an annual federal deficit of more than $400 billion, I will support the creation of a national prescription drug plan only if it's fiscally responsible and includes free market Medicare reform measures. Only by significantly reforming Medicare along the lines the President originally intended can we afford to meet future obligations, including a prescription drug benefit. Of course, there are seniors near the poverty level who need immediate help with the cost of prescription drugs. As I have witnessed in more than 100 town hall meetings across eastern Indiana, the necessity of some prescription assistance for seniors near the poverty level is beyond dispute. Statistics show that nearly 24 percent of seniors have no prescription drug coverage and approximately 5 percent of seniors have out-of-pocket prescription costs of more than $4,000 per year. For these seniors, our national government should respond with a drug discount card or some form of means-tested direct subsidy. I have and will continue to support efforts at the national level to focus prescription assistance on seniors struggling near the poverty level. Sadly, the prescription drug plan currently being advanced in the House and Senate lacks such focus and actually would create a universal drug benefit that provides a government entitlement for every American over the age of 65, a population of some 37 million today that will grow to 70 million by the year 2030. While the need for some type of benefit is real, the need for a universal benefit is not. At present, 76 percent of seniors have some form of prescription drug coverage, and the average senior spends less than $999 per year in out-of-pocket expenses on medications. Not only is the need for a universal public subsidy questionable, adding a universal drug benefit to Medicare may have certain unintended consequences. Namely, seniors with private coverage from a former employer may actually lost their coverage. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that thousands of seniors could lose coverage they currently enjoy from a former employer if Congress creates this new entitlement. The final, and most ominous, consequence of a universal drug benefit could be that it will usher in the beginning of socialized medicine in America. This type of system, which is built on unrealistic fiscal projections and incorrect assumptions about human behavior, will invariably lead to the kinds of escalating costs for which price controls and outright government management will be seen as the last resort. The consequences of such a government expansion are moral as well. In a society that sanctions the abortion of unborn human life and is increasingly open to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, our values and our freedoms would argue against turning the health of the American people over to the federal government. Compassionate conservatism is about focusing solutions at the point of the need. Let's help our seniors near the poverty level with urgent and sufficient prescription coverage. Let's reform Medicare so it will be there for the future without placing an undue burden on our children and grandchildren. And let's otherwise ``do no harm'' to the private sector foundation of the greatest healthcare system in the history of the world. For all these reasons, I oppose a universal drug benefit in Medicare. By agreeing to a prescription benefit for all seniors rather than those in need, Congress threatens our nation's fiscal stability, the private prescription plans millions of seniors and the survival of our free market healthcare system.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I pay tribute today to Joshua Peters of Muncie, Indiana. Joshua is an Army medic currently serving in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq. This soldier's recent unselfishness and courageous acts of aiding to his fellow comrades demonstrated true American heroism. The citizens of Indiana's Sixth Congressional District, joined by all Americans, are proud of Joshua's extraordinary actions displayed toward his fellow Americans. Earlier this month, one of two Chinook helicopters transporting soldiers to Baghdad International Airport for their R&R flights home to the United States was shot down. The second helicopter did an immediate harsh landing to assist the brave men aboard the downed Chinook. As Joshua and his fellow regiment members ran to help the injured, they came under heavy gunfire without any protective gear, weapons, or medical supplies readily available. Joshua was initially the only medic at the scene and attended to the wounded for more than 2 hours. During this time, Joshua's thoughts remained solely with the health and safety of his fellow servicemen. ``God, don't let anything happen to me that would render me unable to help these guys--help me, Lord.'' Mr. Speaker, I am honored today to rise and pay tribute to Joshua Peters, a man who by his actions has demonstrated a promise to help defend America's freedom. Heroes emerge from the significant events happening in Iraq, and I am proud to say that Joshua Peters is among them. Mr. Speaker, it is my great privilege to stand today and honor Joshua Peters of Muncie, Indiana before Congress and the Nation.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong support of the rule and of the conference report with a deep sense of gratitude to the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter), as well as the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), ranking member, for their extraordinary and bipartisan leadership on behalf of that fundamental function of our Nation and this Congress to provide for the common defense and in meeting the urgent needs of soldiers in the field of today, our intelligence community, but also meeting the needs of those who have served in uniform. I believe this conference report goes a long way toward discharging that duty. Mr. Speaker, in the survival of freedom we literally as American citizens owe our veterans everything. But in a world of limited resources, we can only in this Congress do the right thing. I rise specifically today on virtually the eve of Veterans' Day to point out how this Congress, thanks to the bipartisan leadership of the defense authorizing committee, is doing the right thing by veterans in the area of concurrent receipts. Since arriving in Congress, I have heard from one veteran after another, men and women who had worn the uniform of the United States of America, about the injustice of losing disability benefits for which they were eligible as veterans at the time they reached the age of retirement. Thanks to this legislation, in most cases disability benefits incurred in uniform or earned in uniform will not be forfeited simply because a veteran reaches the age of retirement. The Good Book tells us if we owe debts, pay debts; if honor, then honor; if respect, then respect. By meeting the urgent needs of the defense of the Nation today, we pay a debt to those who risk and expend their lives in the advancement of our freedom. But by addressing the injustice of current veterans benefits, Congress today goes a long way toward paying the debt we owe to those we can never repay.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the privilege of sitting just a few feet away as President George W. Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. In both deed and in word, President George W. Bush did much for the cause for life yesterday, ending a period of time in our history when a terrible form of violence directed against children inches from birth was allowed under the law. But in addition to his signature, the President also expressed clear moral leadership, saying, ``America stands for liberty . . . and the unalienable right of life.'' The President went on to say, ``Every person, however frail or vulnerable, has a place and a purpose in this world'' because ``the right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government.'' The President said, ``It comes from the Creator of life.'' The President not only lent his signature to an important legislative initiative, but in the very best example of American leadership, he provided a clear moral vision, leading us away from the nightmare of abortion in America. Righteousness exalts a Nation and did so yesterday.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mourn with those who mourn, and grieve with those who grieve, with gratitude for my colleague the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hill) for his swift and decisive leadership in moving this important legislation honoring a great public servant, Frank McCloskey, to the floor of the Congress of the United States. When Frank McCloskey breathed his last this Sunday, Indiana lost a leader, but as we have heard again and again from colleagues who served with him and those who simply admired his work from afar, the world community most certainly lost a champion of justice. Congressman Frank McCloskey was a man of courage, courage he demonstrated very recently in his struggle with cancer, staying positive and optimistic even to the very end in all of his public statements to family and friends and neighbors. But he was also, as we have heard today, a man of genuine courage in public service. In addition to his tenacity in representing the people of southwestern Indiana during six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Frank McCloskey will long be remembered for his courage in challenging the United States to confront the genocidal aims of President Slobodan Milosevic in the Balkans. As a member of the House Committee on International Relations, I had the occasion to speak to former Congressman Frank McCloskey on several occasions about his efforts to confront the evils of ethnic cleansing and what was without exaggeration, Mr. Speaker, his foresight and his vision. Long before the world community and long before the United States, certainly, came to recognize the threat to peace and the deep injustice that was taking place in the Balkans, Indiana's Frank McCloskey came to this floor and spoke with passion. It is accurate to say as we remember him here and we commemorate him in a building in his beloved home State, that also the name of Frank McCloskey will be remembered by generations of Bosnians. In fact, there are thoroughfares in that nascent nation this day that bear his name. Generations of Bosnians will remember the name of Frank McCloskey of Indiana on a short list of leaders who, across the globe, had the vision to confront the evil aims of the Serbian dictator who beset them. It has been said long ago that a man who has done nothing for mankind should fear to die. I speak with confidence and humility when I say I am sure Frank McCloskey did not fear to die given his extraordinary contributions to life and liberty in the Balkans. We mourn his loss with his friends, his colleagues, most especially his wife, his family and his children. We strongly support this resolution and this measure to recognize this true Indiana leader.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my profound disappointment this morning with the news that House and Senate conferees developing the Iraq supplemental bill have apparently removed language which would have made a portion of the reconstruction dollars the American people are sending to Iraq take the form of a loan. I had unsuccessfully offered an amendment in the House which would have made one-half of the reconstruction dollars be repaid to the American taxpayers, and I believe the overwhelming majority of the people of this country believe this oil-rich nation should bear some of the cost of rebuilding its own civil society. I regret Congress has chosen to reject the counsel of the majority of the American people and the world community. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind should cause Congress to reflect on the fact that at this weekend's donor conference in Madrid, two-thirds of the $13 billion made available for reconstruction by foreign countries in Iraq takes the form of loans and credits. In the end, regardless of my disagreement with the means, I will support the Iraq supplemental bill which will go far to ensure the safe return of our troops and the triumph of freedom in this tyranny-weary land.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, last week Army Lieutenant General William Boyken was embroiled in controversy over suggesting that in our struggle against the regime of Saddam Hussein, that God was on our side. One commentator on the Fox News Network said, and I am quoting now, ``That it is `folly' to argue that God takes sides on battlefields.'' It may be wise to ask the question, but as President Lincoln famously said, it is more relevant to ask whether we are on God's side, rather than whether God is on ours.'' But to the General's point, that in our struggle against the tyranny of the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein, I say the General was right. It is written that ``Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.'' And, therefore, in the struggle against tyranny in all of its forms, Mr. Speaker, God is not neutral in this cause in the struggle between freedom and tyranny, between dictatorship and human dignity. Let it be said that in this Congress, God is on our side. And may it ever be so.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to come before the House tonight in a continuous series that this Member of Congress had the privilege of beginning scarcely a month ago, but a series of speeches that I hope will periodically and intermittently be a part of the fabric of my congressional career for howsoever long the Lord permits me to serve here. I simply call it, Mr. Speaker, the case for life, and it is my ambition from time to time to time to come onto this blue and gold carpet of this Capitol and speak to my colleagues, and anyone else who may be listening, on the moral and intellectual and historical arguments for the sanctity of human life; and to perhaps, Mr. Speaker, in some small way enliven the moral sensibility of a Nation and be a part of an ongoing debate in America on this topic. Mr. Speaker, this is a debate that continues at this very hour in the other body of this Congress. At this very moment, I am pleased to say, as a pro-life Member of Congress, that the United States Senate is at this very moment passing a conference report on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. That legislation, as of today, will have three times passed the Congress since 1995 and will be delivered for the first time to the willing desk of President George W. Bush, where, unlike the veto stamp of President Clinton that met the ban of partial-birth abortion not once but twice, President George W. Bush, upon returning from his tour of the Asia-Pacific Rim, will no doubt, in an emotional ceremony, put his pen to this legislation and end a practice that has no place in civilized society. So it is especially poignant for me, just a few steps down the hallway from that Chamber, to rise tonight and continue my discussion of the case for life. And particularly tonight, Mr. Speaker, I feel prompted to speak about abortion and American women. You see, it has always been my belief, since first having my conscience enlivened on this issue, that there is not one victim of abortion, but there are two. There is undoubtedly the nascent human life that is ended abruptly and in darkness, but there is the other life that goes on that pays a price that psychologists are talking about today, but many Americans simply choose to ignore. There are also other voices that I want to reflect on tonight as well, chiefly from our own history. As we think about the great American women who led this Nation in increasing measure towards equal status for women in voting rights and in property and in station in our society, women like Susan B. Anthony, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton come to mind. I just came from a stroll in the rotunda, Mr. Speaker, where I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled the names of a few of those heroic women that actually appear on a statute at the very center of our Capitol. In the rotunda, there is a statute that bears the likeness of the three great heroes of the suffrage movement. Two of them I would like to speak about tonight as we talk about great American women and abortion, but then also talking about what women of America today face in the struggle over the sanctity of human life. One of the faces on that statute is Susan B. Anthony, a name that is almost like mom and apple pie for most Americans. Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family that had long activist traditions. Early in life, she developed a deep sense, historians tell us, of justice and what could only be described as moral zeal. After teaching for 15 years, Susan B. Anthony became active in the temperance movement. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at rallies, and this experience, as well as her acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her to help form what became the Women's Movement in 1852. Soon afterwards, she would dedicate her entire life to winning women not only the right to vote, Mr. Speaker, but Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were about winning women a seat at the civic table; the opportunity not to be viewed, as women were in some aspects of common law, as the property of their husbands, but rather to be seen as coequal heirs of everything that freedom offers. Ignoring opposition and abuse, Susan B. Anthony traveled, lectured, and canvassed across the Nation for the vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, women's rights to their own property and earnings, and even women's labor organizations. In 1900, she achieved a major victory in convincing the University of Rochester to admit women for the first time in their storied history. Susan B. Anthony, who had never married, and was remembered as an aggressive and compassionate person with a keen mind and the ability to inspire, she remained active in the movement that she began until her death in March of 1906. And Susan B. Anthony was pro-life. Let me read, if I may, from her publication, ``The Revolution,'' on this topic, published July 8, 1869. Susan B. Anthony wrote: ``No matter what the motive, love or ease or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed.'' Referring to abortion. She went on to write: ``It will burden her conscience in life; it will burden her soul in death. But, oh,'' she wrote, ``oh thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.'' So wrote Susan B. Anthony, words that we will reflect on before I take my seat tonight. Brokenhearted words of the suffering of the unborn innocent and also of the suffering of the American woman who would burden her conscience in life and burden her soul in death, but of the guilt of the man who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to perform the abortion. Susan B. Anthony, memorialized in marble in the rotunda of the United States Capitol, a woman whose name is synonymous with the voting rights and the equal status that women of 21st century America enjoy, was pro- life and understood the moral consequences of the act on an American woman and the deplorable position of a man that would force the outcome. Elizabeth Cady Stanton also appears on the monument in the rotunda. And she, like Susan B. Anthony, her friend and colleague and colaborer for women's issues in America, was pro-life. Elizabeth Cady, the daughter of Daniel Cady, a lawyer and a politician, was born in Jonestown, New York, 12 November 1815. She studied law under her father, who became a New York Supreme Court judge, and during that period of time she became a very strong advocate for women's rights. In 1840, Elizabeth married the lawyer, Henry B. Stanton. The couple became active in the American antislavery movement, and later that year Stanton and Lucretia Mott traveled to London as delegates to the World Antislavery Convention. Both women, history records, were furious when they, like the British women at the convention, were refused the permission to speak at the meeting to denounce slavery. Stanton later recalled, ``we Resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home and form a society to advocate the rights of women.'' And so she did. But it was not until 1848 that Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. Stanton's resolution, that it was ``The duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise,'' was passed, and this became the focus of the group's campaign for years to come. In 1866, Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone established the American Equal Rights Association. The following year, the association became active in Kansas where Negro suffrage and women's suffrage were to be decided in a popular vote, although both ideas were sadly rejected at the polls. Stanton was a historian, a scholar, and one of the founders of the American Woman Suffrage Association formed in the 1880s and from which the suffragette movement was born that ultimately resulted in the passage and adoption of the 19th amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. This great American woman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is by all definitions a hero of American women. Like Susan B. Anthony, her friend, who also appears on that extraordinary monument in the Rotunda, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was pro-life, and unapologetically so. Think about these two women who appear on a miniature version of Mount Rushmore right here in the Capitol. We have three women who essentially represent a life-size smaller version of Mount Rushmore for women's issues in America; and they were women committed to equal rights, to the right to vote, and they were women committed to the right to life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton classified abortion as a form of infanticide. She wrote in a letter to Julia Ward Howe, which is recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University library on October 16, 1873, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, ``When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.'' Elizabeth Cady Stanton in essence saw a connection, Mr. Speaker, between that vile reality that was part of American life that the woman herself was property and the belief that an unborn child within the woman was property as well. She saw them as equal evils, related together; and so they are. On 12 March, 1868, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, ``There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this,'' referring to abortion, ``but where shall it be found, at least where it begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women.'' Elizabeth Cady Stanton looked at abortion that was a reality in America in 1868 and said the antidote to end this evil is to raise women up. She saw abortion as a natural consequence of the subordination of women in our society. It is an astounding historical fact and a dark irony, Mr. Speaker, when one thinks of the extraordinary sacrifices and advancements of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the great American women that won women their equal status in our society, that that same momentum would be used in 1973 to rejustify the practice of abortion, which those same heroic American women loathed to the depths of their being. Think about those words, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the three heroes of the women's movement in America that is memorialized in this Capitol building in stone. In the Rotunda where only Presidents, Alexander Hamilton, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., are memorialized, there are also these three women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw a relationship between reducing women to property and reducing the unborn children growing within them to property. Let me read these words again. She said, ``There must be a remedy for even such a crying evil as this, but where shall it be found, at least where it begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women.'' A powerful thought that the heroes of the suffragette movement would look to future generations and say that the abortions that were taking place in the middle 19th century would some day go away, we would no longer treat unborn children as property if we could achieve the day when women were not viewed as property. Alice Paul is credited as one of the leading figures responsible for the passage of the 19th amendment, which is the women's suffragette amendment extending to women the right to vote in the Constitution of the United States of America. Alice Paul was raised as a Quaker, attended Swarthmore College and worked at the New York College Settlement while attending the New York School of Social Work. She left for England in 1906 to work in a settlement house movement there for 3 years. She was Chair of a major committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association within a year, in her mid-twenties. In England she had taken part in the women's suffragette movement, even participating in hunger strikes to make her point. She brought back this sense, some would say, of militancy, I would say more generously of urgency, to the women's movement in America. It was that urgency that characterized the life of Alice Paul. Her emphasis on a Federal constitutional amendment for suffrage was at times at odds even with some within the women's movement; and after the 1920 victory for the Federal amendment, Alice Paul became involved in the struggle to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, which actually passed this Congress in the year 1970, was sent to the States, and it failed. Paul died in 1977 in New Jersey with the heated battle of the Equal Rights Amendment having brought her international acclaim. Like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton before her, Alice Paul was pro-life. Alice Paul said famously, and remember now, this is Alice Paul, born January 1885, died 1977, essentially the author of the Equal Rights Amendment, seen even as a young woman as one of the principal driving forces behind the constitutional amendment which won women the right to vote; Alice Paul was pro-life. It is an astonishing thing to think about, that the author of the Equal Rights Amendment, which I scarcely doubt I would have supported for a variety of cultural arguments, but someone who undoubtedly would be a hero of feminists to this day, and Alice Paul said, ``Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.'' Let me say again, hoping that somewhere in America those words land with a thud in the conscience of a feminist, that these women who are rightly remembered as heroes of the women's movement in America, a woman in Alice Paul who even in her twenties was seen as a driving force behind the constitutional amendment that won women the right to vote, seen as instrumental in the passage of the 19th amendment, and then would go on, however I might disagree with her, to be the author of the Equal Rights Amendment which passed this Congress in 1970, some 33 years ago. Alice Paul would say, ``Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.'' Like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul knew and spoke the truth. And so it ever was of women who achieved great distinction in the cause of women's rights in America from the 19th century through the 20th century, until 1973 when women's issues became simply another way of speaking about the right to have an abortion. It is an extraordinary irony of history, Mr. Speaker, to think that a women's movement that was born on names like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, that was born on the moral consciousness of women, who said I am not property to be owned by a man, and who understood that that unborn child within them likewise should never be seen as property, that that same women's movement in 1973 would be hijacked by those whose moral view of the sanctity of human life is diametrically opposed to those that founded the women's movement in America. Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women, so said Alice Paul, author of the Equal Rights Amendment, and I agree. It is an exploitation of women for physical and emotional reasons. Let me speak to those tonight as I conclude this portion of the case for life, abortion, and American women. There are many who believe that abortion is safe in America. But truthfully, despite the use of local anesthesia, a full 97 percent of women that have abortions report experiencing pain during the procedure, which more than a third describe as intense, according to medical studies, severe, or very severe. Compared to other pains, researchers have rated the pain from abortion as more painful than a bone fracture, about the same as a cancer pain, although not as painful as amputation, according to medical experts. There are some, including former President Bill Clinton, who used to repeat the mantra that it was his goal that abortion would be safe, legal and rare; but abortion is not safe for women, Mr. Speaker. Complications are common. According to medical experts, bleeding, hemorrhaging, laceration of the cervix, menstrual disturbance, inflammation of reproductive organs, bowel and bladder perforation, and serious infection are commonplace in the aftermath of the most routine abortions in America. Even more harmful than the short-term pain, which women describe as severe, are the potential long-term physical complications that we never talk about in America. And when I say ``we,'' I mean those who support the right to an abortion and even those of us in the pro-life movement. I will never forget President Clinton's Surgeon General saying, so thoughtfully, that one particular denomination of Christianity needed to get over their ``love affair with the fetus.'' So said Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. Despite the horrific aspects of her comment, the truth is that even we, in the pro-life movement, have not thought enough about the other victim of abortion as well, for there are, as I said at the opening of this Case for Life, two victims. We grieve the loss of unborn life, but we need to speak more boldly about the impact on American women, physical and emotional, that abortion extracts. Among those long-term physical complications, Mr. Speaker, for example, overzealous curettage, a medical procedure, can damage the lining of the uterus and lead to permanent infertility. Overall, women who have abortions face an increased risk of tubal pregnancy and more than double the risk of future sterility. Perhaps the most important are that all the risks of these sorts of complications, along with the risk of future miscarriage, increases with each subsequent abortion. I am not altogether sure that women that make their way into clinics know that, that with each abortion they risk infertility, sterility or when the time comes that they decide to say yes to life, that they may be greeted with the heartbreak of miscarriage in increasing measure. More controversially, according to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, there is strong evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. A study by the Institute of more than 1,800 women in 1994, which was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that overall women having abortions increased their risk of getting breast cancer before the age of 45 by 50 percent. For women under 18 with no previous pregnancies, having an abortion after the eighth week increased the risk of breast cancer, according to this medical study, by 800 percent. Women with a family history of breast cancer fared even worse. All 12 women participating in the study who had abortions before 18 and had a family history of breast cancer themselves contracted breast cancer before the age of 45. I say this as someone who has consistently supported research with the National Institutes of Health to confront breast cancer. I have had dear friends beset by this scourge and disease and I do not mean to speak in any way insensitively about it or in any way to associate breast cancer with abortion, that one fits the other, but rather simply to cite the research, that we can hear the truth echoing perhaps from this place tonight that according to the medical community and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, there is strong evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer and women should know that. There are also psychological consequences to American women for abortion. It seems to me that this may have been in the mind of Alice Paul, the author of the Equal Rights Amendment, when she said, ``Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.'' Because it seems to me it is altogether convenient for men for a woman to have an abortion. Men have a rather unlimited capacity to compartmentalize and move on, but what the medical community is finding out is what most men have known throughout the eons, that women by and large have better hearts than we do, have a greater moral sensitivity than we do, and it is reflected in the research of what has come to be known as postabortion syndrome, which is rising to epidemic levels in America. Clinical research provides a growing body of scientific evidence that having an abortion can cause psychological harm to some women. Psychologist Wanda Franz, Ph.D., in the March 1989 congressional hearings on the impact of abortion said, quote, women who report negative aftereffects from abortion know exactly what their problem is. They report horrible nightmares of children calling to them. When they are reminded of the abortion, Franz testified the women reexperience it with terrible psychological pain. They feel worthless and victimized because they failed at the most natural of human activities, the role of being a mother. I think in my own heart of conversations with women of my generation who have become active in the pro-life movement but who have found in their faith the grace and the healing to move beyond that choice. And I think of a woman who said in my presence once, some 20 years after having an abortion, that not a day went by that she did not think how old that child would be. They do not tell you that in the lobby at the abortion clinic, Mr. Speaker, but they should. The exploding incidence of postabortion syndrome has even caused major medical associations in this country to recognize it. Women suffering postabortion stress may experience drug and alcohol abuse, personal relationship disorders, sexual dysfunction, communication difficulties and even in some cases attempt suicide. Postabortion syndrome appears to be a type of pattern of denial which may last for 5 to 10 years before emotional difficulties surface. Now that clinicians have established that there is an identifiable pattern to PAS, postabortion syndrome, they face a new challenge. What is still unknown is how widespread psychological problems are among women who have had abortions. The LA Times did a survey in 1989 and found that 56 percent of women who had abortions felt guilty about it. And 26 percent, quote, mostly regretted the abortion, in a poll done by the LA Times. Clinicians' current goal now is to conduct extensive national research studies to obtain data on the size and scope of postabortion syndrome. When one thinks, Mr. Speaker, of 1.5 million women undergoing abortions every year since 1973, it is almost overwhelming to think of the heartache that must grip the quiet moments of millions of women in our land. And because I am not standing in my home church, Mr. Speaker, I will not tonight explain to them that there is a way out under it, that there is grace and there is forgiveness and there is healing, and in a church near to them they can find it. It will always be my prayer as the Case for Life series goes forward in this Chamber that any woman who has experienced this under the sound of my voice would never in any way feel judged by this sinner, but that they would know that there is healing and there is grace in a God of mercy, and they would know there is a Nation that urgently needs them to take a stand and to tell the truth to the next generation of women about the cost of an abortion, not just the ending of an innocent human life and every potential that it would ever have but, Mr. Speaker, about the breaking of a heart. Oftentimes, as I stand before groups of young women in the prime of their life, I am asked about my position on abortion. My pro-life views are fairly widely known in Indiana. I always make the point to offer young women in the room a promise, and it is a good place for me to close this installment of the Case for Life tonight as I think about Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony who believed that abortion was the ultimate exploitation of women. I will look at these young women, oftentimes in a high school classroom, sometimes in a small church group, and I will look around the room knowing just statistically speaking that there may be some young women in that room who are faced with an unwanted pregnancy and are faced with a choice between bringing that unborn baby to term or ending its life in the womb. I always look at those young women and I say, I want to make you a promise that the other side can never make. I said, if you are faced with an unwanted pregnancy and you make the decision, however difficult, with your family's assistance or a crisis pregnancy center near you to take that baby to term and even if you turn that baby over to another family for adoption, versus if you choose to end that life in the womb, if you choose life, I will promise you from the moment they hand you that wiggling little baby in the operating room, whether you raise it or you give it up, there will never be a day in your life but that you know that you did the right thing. And the other side cannot make that promise. And if the statistics that we heard tonight, the physical cost and the emotional cost of abortion, are not jarring, perhaps that challenge would be, Mr. Speaker. My prayer is that as we think about the great women of American history, the great women of the suffragette movement that won women the right to vote, that wrestled equal status for women in our society, people like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul and others, when I think about the tender and wonderful women of my family and of America, I have hope for the cause of life, because I cannot help but believe that women who could take American society from a medievalist view of women as property and have the moral courage to win the right to vote and to win equal standing in the public square because of their courage and their conscience, that those same American women and their daughters and their granddaughters will not someday lead us back to the truth that life is sacred, to the truth that echoes through history in those ancient words, ``See, I set before you today life and death, blessings and destruction. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.'' It is my belief that it will be when that day comes, that abortion comes to an end in America, it will be the women of America who lead us home, just as it was the women of America who led us to a more just society and to an equal station in our culture for women. With that, I would conclude my part of this Case for Life series, Mr. Speaker, and yield for whatever approach he would choose to make to this issue to a man who while he has served in Congress for over 20 years, his vibrancy and vitality is intimidating to most of us who serve with him. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) has been an advocate of the cause of life since before Roe v. Wade, and he brings an energy and a commitment to this cause like no other, and I am deeply humbled that he would join me in this series of a case for life, and I yield gratefully to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), for joining me in this case for life.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), who, along with his wife, Maurine, has been a champion for life in and out of the Congress for many years. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), a moral leader in the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his passion, for his generous remarks, and for his dogged determination in this issue. We come to the close of this case for life much as we began, and it is always remarkable to me how sometimes God bookends things in ways that we could never have planned. Because we heard the gentleman from New Jersey begin his remarks by simply using a phrase I heard him use many times on floor, but I know he did not hear me use tonight. He said, ``Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women,'' which was precisely the words of Alice Paul, who in her 20s was a driving force behind winning women the right to vote in America; a woman who was the driving force behind even another great signature item of the feminist movement in America, the Equal Rights Amendment. She said, ``Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.'' And I close with the words of Susan B. Anthony, who now every time I walk through the Rotunda and I look at those heroes of the suffrage movement carved in stone, I will think of it, if the Speaker will forgive me, as much a memorial to their moral courage as to their political accomplishment because these women were simultaneously about the elevation of women to equal political status, but they were also women committed to the sanctity of human life. Susan B. Anthony, and I close, said of abortion: ``No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save the suffering of the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life. It will burden her soul in death. But, oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the deed.'' Susan B. Anthony, without whom American women would have not a fraction of the status and the political power they have today, was a woman committed to the sanctity of human life. And as we go forward and as American women, in particular, listen in on our conversations on this Capitol floor, it is my hope that another generation of courageous and visionary American women of courage and conscience will lead us back to that profound moral truth echoed through the ages to choose life. With that I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), another of my colleagues in this series, a man who brings with him an enormous pedigree in the right-to-life movement.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), one of the most tenacious Members of the Congress.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a veteran of the Persian Gulf War and a senior member of the Indiana delegation of Congress.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, as I prepare to introduce our next speaker on the Pence amendment, I would express my deep respect for the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), but to say of the Pence amendment that, with regard to the language of the amendment, it says that the funds appropriated under this heading would simply give priority consideration to the emergency purposes of security electric structure infrastructure. It was very much my intention in drafting this amendment, Mr. Chairman, to defer to the authorities on the ground and to the President of the United States to set the priorities in the disbursement of funds on an as-needed basis. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a courageous voice for taxpayers.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), a great leader of the House on this issue. (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As a point of clarification, I would say to the gentleman from Washington that the Pence amendment does not call for a 50 percent loan of the entire Iraq supplemental; it specifically applies to the section of other bilateral economic assistance, Iraq relief, and reconstruction funds. The debate today on the floor with respect to the gentleman from Washington is about the reconstruction funds in the legislation. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), my colleague and friend.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney), who has been an outspoken advocate of this junior Member's efforts to bring this issue to the floor.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney), who has been from virtually day one an outspoken and unapologetic advocate of a loan partnership between the people of America and the people of Iraq in the reconstruction of their nation.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I come before this Chamber in support of the Pence amendment tonight, but I do so with a great sense of gratitude for the strong leadership that the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), and other members of the Committee on Appropriations have provided in preparing this important legislation in the life of our Nation, and I strongly support the measure in every respect save one. And it is on the question of whether reconstruction costs in Iraq should take the form of a grant or a loan. I have considered the arguments of the administration, the opinions of my constituents with much deliberation and prayer, and on this question I have decided that it is appropriate for me to stand firm in my belief that a portion of the reconstruction costs should be eventually repaid by the Iraqi people to the people of the United States. The gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) before the Committee on Rules yesterday said, memorably, a difficulty with a loan is that ``there is no authority in Iraq to whom we may make a loan,'' and that is a legitimate and significant point as we consider other loan proposals before this Chamber. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), ranking member, also made, in my view, a compelling point in saying that the debate between pure grant and pure loan was not constructive, that what we needed was a rational balance of the short- term and long-term needs of the people of Iraq and the people of the United States of America. And I would humbly offer that the Pence amendment is precisely that middle ground which addresses the lack of a governing authority present in Iraq against the needs of the American people who see this oil-rich nation as needing to bear some of the cost at some point in the future of the creation of their own civil society. As the administration has argued and the chairman noted, it is simply impossible to extend a loan from the United States to a nation not yet formed. In recognition of this reality, the Pence amendment makes the first 50 percent of the funding available immediately as a grant, giving priority consideration to the emergency purposes of security, electricity, oil infrastructure, public works, and the like. And then, Mr. Chairman, once the administration informs Congress that a democratically elected government in Iraq has been established, the balance of the funding would be made available in the form of a loan from the United States Government under terms and conditions to be negotiated by the President of the United States. Having addressed the logistical issues raised by the chairman and by the administration, I believe it is appropriate that Congress defer to the consent of the governed, especially in matters of foreign aid. Many Americans, even in my conservative district, overwhelmingly support some repayment of reconstruction costs. Most Americans know Iraq is an oil-rich nation, possessing by some estimates some $7 trillion, the second largest oil reserve of any nation on the planet. Most Americans know Iraq will eventually be able to bear the burden of repaying some of the costs of rebuilding its infrastructure. In fact, it was Iraq's interim trade minister, Ali Alawa, who said, in Australia just yesterday, that Iraq was announcing plans in the middle of 2004 to increase their oil production from the current 2 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels a day. The American people know this, and they desire earnestly to partner with the people of Iraq when it comes to the bricks and mortar of building their own civil society. At a time of mounting deficits, also making a portion of the reconstruction costs a loan reassures the American people that there is a financial end-game strategy. In my district, very few Americans, it seems, Mr. Chairman, worry about a military quagmire. We have won the war decisively and humanely. But even in my rural district in Indiana, many Americans worry about a financial quagmire. By partnering in a loan for a portion of these reconstruction costs, we allow for an end-game strategy to begin to emerge. Finally, by making a portion of the infrastructure reconstruction a loan, Congress will set an important precedent as we partner with the Iraqi people in establishing a free society. This is especially important since most anticipate this request for reconstruction will likely not be the last. In the end, I am grateful for the opportunity agreed upon by both parties to bring the Pence amendment to the floor with such thorough opportunity for debate. As I have said before, I will support the final version of the Iraq supplemental as the Congress works its will, because I fully support the President and am anxious to continue to support the courageous work of our military-civilian personnel and the members of the committee. Nonetheless, I am offering the Pence amendment humbly today, with the firm belief that the United States should provide for the liberty and security of Iraq, but improvements in the civil society in Iraq should ultimately be borne by the Iraqi people. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick).

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.