Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time. First, let me say that no one is advocating the killing of disabled children. That is offensive to all of us. The fact is that a fetus that is being born with no brain or one with no lungs is one that will not live. I believe even the OB/GYN would admit to that. Let me then go on to say that this decision to terminate a pregnancy in the late term is an agonizing decision. Parents who have carried a child to late term desperately want that child. In many cases, they have already named that child. Listen to the story of Viki Wilson and her family. She told in her own words: ``In the spring of 1994, I was pregnant and expecting Abigail, my third child. My husband, Bill, an emergency room physician, had delivered our other children, and would do it again this time. At 36 weeks of pregnancy, however, all of our dreams and happy expectations came crashing down around us. My doctor ordered an ultrasound that detected what all of my previous prenatal testing had failed to detect, an encephalocoele. Approximately two-thirds of my daughter's brain had formed outside her skull. What I thought were big, healthy, strong baby movements were in fact seizures. ``My doctor sent me to several specialists, including a perinatologist,'' I am sorry, I am so upset about this I can hardly speak, ``a pediatric radiologist and a geneticist, in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her. But everyone agreed, she would not survive outside my body. They also feared that as the pregnancy progressed, before I went into labor, she would probably die from the increased compression in her brain. ``Our doctors explained our options, which included labor and delivery, C-section, or termination of pregnancy. Because of the size of her anomaly, the doctors feared that my uterus might rupture in the birthing process, possibly rendering me sterile. The doctors also recommended against a C-section, because they could not justify the risks to my health when there was not hope of saving Abigail.'' No hope of saving Abigail. ``We agonized over our options. Both Bill and I are medical professionals. I am a registered nurse, and Bill is a physician. So we understood the medical risks inherent in each of our options. After discussing our situation extensively and reflecting on our options, we made the difficult decision to undergo an intact D&E. ``Losing Abigail was the hardest thing that ever happened to us in our lives, but I am grateful,'' I am grateful, ``that Bill and I were able to make this decision ourselves and that we were given all of our medical options. There will be families in the future faced with this tragedy. Please allow us to have access to the medical procedures we need. Do not complicate the tragedies we already face.'' Oppose this bill.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, do I understand the gentlewoman has no more speakers?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a historic day for America, for more, I think, than most people in here realize. For the first time in the history of the Republic, the Congress of the United States is poised to outlaw a medical procedure. A majority that wants the government off everybody's backs, wants to preserve privacy, is inserting itself between a woman and her family and her physician. I wonder what is next. Perhaps they will decide that one cannot have a hysterectomy during child-bearing years, even though one may have some serious disease, or maybe we will outlaw vasectomies. That would be something we could do in here today too. And maybe we would not even like gallbladder operations. Who knows? There may be some reason we would not want to do those. All of them are pretty gruesome to describe. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the beginning of a new fiscal year and only three of the 13 bills appropriating funds for the new year have been signed into law. Millions of Americans are unemployed. Jobs continue steadily to disappear. More families living in poverty for the second year in a row, another historic day for America that has not happened before. Tens of millions of families live without any health insurance. The Federal debt is projected to reach $5 trillion. Thousands of American troops are in Iraq working in dangerous conditions. And instead of addressing these pressing issues, we are once again considering legislation that violates fundamental constitutional rights and threatens women's health. Three years ago, the United States Supreme Court settled this issue, they thought once and for all, when it struck down similar legislation that banned safe and effective abortion procedures. The Court again confirmed the constitutional foundation of women's reproductive rights as recognized in Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed 2 decades later in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. At the end of their last term, in the Lawrence v. Texas decision, the Court relied on the right to privacy that was recognized in Roe. Despite the minor tinkering of the conference committee, S. 3 still suffers from the same constitutional flaws as the Nebraska statute thrown out by the Supreme Court, and this one we hope will meet the same fate. The ban on medical procedures is vague and overbroad and does not contain an exception to perform the procedure when a woman's health is threatened, and it goes so far as to give the father of the fetus the right to sue the woman or the doctor for money damages, even if he is not married to her or if he beats her or rapes her. Obstetricians and gynecologists say that the term ``partial-birth abortion'' is not a medical term, and they are right. It is a political creation. We will not find the definition of the procedure that S. 3 seeks to ban in a medical dictionary or textbook. The nonmedical language in S. 3 could cover at least two different kinds of procedures, one of which is the most commonly used abortion procedure. This vague and overbroad definition would create so much confusion in the medical community that doctors would not know which medical procedure might land them in jail, and we should not make our doctors criminals. S. 3 brazenly seeks to sidestep the Constitution. The Supreme Court has plainly determined that the Constitution requires an exception when the woman's health is endangered. Pages and pages of congressional findings will not change or will not fulfill the constitutional demand to protect a woman's health. The authors of this bill hope that the Federal courts, most especially the Supreme Court, will defer to these congressional findings and waive this constitutional requirement. But the Court has squarely said that ``the power to interpret the Constitution in a case of controversy remains in the judiciary.'' And the Court has said that simply because Congress makes a conclusion does not necessarily make it so. Just because the findings in the bill assert that there is no medical reason for a health exception does not make that true, and it does not change the demands of the Constitution. Last June, when the House first considered this bill, Ruth Marcus noted in The Washington Post that ``just as Clarence Thomas wrote in a different context that, if Congress `could make a statute constitutional simply by finding that black is white or that freedom is slavery, then judicial review would be an elaborate farce.' '' Despite what politicians may say, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the doctors who perform these procedures, say that the procedure this bill seeks to proscribe ``may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life,'' I want to emphasize that, ``to save the life or preserve the health of a woman,'' and that ``only the physician, in consultation with the patient and based on her circumstances, can make this decision,'' not the Congress of the United States. We are not physicians here. I think we think we are omnipotent; we are not. Medical professionals in every Federal court in the country that has heard this issue, except for one, all have agreed that these are safe procedures and they may, in fact, be the safest procedure in some circumstances. This, as I pointed out before, is the first time in the history of this Republic that Congress is banning a specific medical procedure. Physicians, and not politicians and pundits, should provide women and their families with medical advice. Women and their families, not the government, should make these difficult and private and medical decisions. This bill would deprive doctors of the ability to care for their patients. By outlawing safe and effective medical procedures, Congress would subject women to more dangerous medical procedures, putting their health and their lives in jeopardy. Do we really want to do that? Women deserve the best medical care based on the circumstances of their particular situation. Instead of making abortion more difficult and dangerous, we should pass legislation that helps reduce the need for abortions; but we will not do that, by reducing the number of intended pregnancies. We should increase the funding for title X, and health insurance should cover contraception. It covers Viagra. Why not contraception? Emergency contraception should be more available. And research on other contraceptive methods should be fostered. So why are we here today considering a rule for an unconstitutional bill? Richard Posner, Chief Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 7th Circuit who was appointed by President Reagan, gave us the answer when he wrote that the proponents of similar legislation ``are concerned with making a statement in an ongoing war for public opinion, though an incidental effect may be to discourage late-term abortions. The statement is that fetal life is more valuable than women's health.'' Let me say that last sentence again: ``The statement is that fetal life is more valuable than women's health.'' Judge Posner went on, writing that ``if a statute burdens constitutional rights and all that can be said on its behalf is that it is the vehicle that legislators have chosen for expressing their hostility to the rights, the burden is undue.'' The deliberate actions of the conference committee underscore the real aim of the bill. The majority of the other body passed a version, S. 3, that said, ``The decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right, and such decision should not be overturned.'' Tuesday evening, the conference committee, along party lines, quickly stripped the Roe-supportive language out of the bill. This emphasizes the true purpose of the legislation: targeting a woman's right to privacy, with the hope that a Supreme Court with a new justice or two will weaken or reverse Roe. A Washington Post article said it plainly: ``The political agenda is clear. Ken Connor, president of the conservative Family Research Council, spelled it out in an e-mail after the Senate voted last March. With this bill,'' he wrote, ``we are beginning to dismantle, brick by brick, the deadly edifice created by Roe v. Wade.'' As a mother, grandmother, and a long-time advocate for women's health, I strongly believe that this bill is a threat to women's health, and an attempt to whittle away at a woman's constitutional right to her privacy and control of her body. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and to oppose S. 3. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me the customary half hour, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, this legislation has been described as historic because it is the first bill appropriating funds for the new Department of Homeland Security. But because of an economy that continues to lag and the largest deficit in history, and the mounting costs of rebuilding Iraq, this government is in bad fiscal shape. Nonetheless, we have to do whatever is required to secure the country. Does this bill provide enough money for aviation security, for safety around the perimeter of the Nation's airports, for security at our economically-vital ports, and for the Coast Guard to fulfill its previous and additional duties? This body agreed that all cargo traveling on passenger planes would be fully screened, but that security measure was dropped from the bill; and full screening of cargo on passenger planes will not be required. Are we providing enough money to prepare our first responders, the local police departments and emergency medical agencies? Recently, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a comprehensive report on the status of America's first responders. The council found that its dedicated police officers, firefighters, and emergency personnel are underfunded and underresourced. In fact, it determined that the first responders need an additional $98.4 billion to meet their needs. We know, Mr. Speaker, that regardless of whether or not we train them adequately or provide them with the equipment that they need, when called upon, they will go. But surely they deserve from this government a chance to increase their odds to the greatest extent possible. Are we dedicating enough resources to secure our northern border? I represent the second biggest gateway between the United States and Canada, and I see the need to increase the resources along the over 4,000-mile border between the United States and Canada. For years, we did not need to pay attention to our northern border because our Canadian friends and the United States were such good, compatible friends. In fact, it was the largest unguarded border in the world. But if we are going to maintain the $1.5 million trade between the United States and Canada every single day and still maintain the United States' and Canada's safety and security, we have to provide enough resources to do it. In conference, an additional $1.25 billion for airport and seaport security for first responders and for more Customs officials on the northern border was sought. But, unfortunately, the proposal was refused. Mr. Speaker, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was also a historic event. The Department was recently described as the ``government's hobbled giant.'' Will DHS be known for its disorganization? Will the Department be able to use effectively and efficiently this nearly-$30 billion investment in homeland security? Will the Department perform a complete national threat assessment, which has been required for 2 years and we still do not have, but is a necessity to develop and implement a comprehensive homeland security plan? Will the Department develop the criteria for the evaluation of our preparedness so that local and State governments are able to determine the readiness and needs of first responders? And will the Department quickly get the grant money to the local first responders? The testimony that we have had at our hearings recently does not give us much hope. Also, Mr. Speaker, it must be noted that next week is the end of the current fiscal year. And, in fact, fiscal year 2004 begins one week from today. However, Congress has not sent any bills making appropriations for fiscal year 2004 to the President's desk for his signature. If we are lucky, we might have three of the 13 appropriations bills ready to become law by October 1. Mr. Speaker, finishing only 23 percent of our work on time is not acceptable, and we can and should do better for the people of this great and wonderful country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), who is the ranking member on the Select Committee on Homeland Security.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. I am proud to be a member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security; but having attended all the hearings that we have had, I have been struck by the fact that, basically, in 2 years, we have not achieved a great deal. The watch list is one item that particularly concerns me, and I do not think we are paying enough attention to what I would like to call the enemy within. I was struck this week by the two men who were charged with espionage who worked at Guantanamo, one a chaplain, the other working for the United States Government. And as we work to make America safe, if we do all our concentrations and spend all of our money on securing the borders from people coming in and forget and do not put adequate emphasis on the people who are here already, then I think we are missing the chance to do our job adequately, nor should the American people feel any safer. I agree with what the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) said, this could be a better bill. I wish it could be. And certainly I want to reiterate what the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal) said. It has been one of the sorrows of my life watching the inability of Congress to say to corporations who have the gall to incorporate overseas to avoid paying Federal taxes yet are awarded Federal contracts. Surely, surely we can do better than that and finally at least stop that hemorrhage. It has troubled me all the way through to see some of the contractors out here doing the work on the Capitol itself and who are working for corporations that have gone to Bermuda. If they are saying to the United States residents, here, you go ahead and pay for the war yourself, we opt out, but please give us the contracts, we ought to be smart enough, we ought to be intelligent enough to put a stop to that. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the body is considering legislation to increase tax incentives for charitable donations. Charitable organizations across the country are responsible for improving the lives of individuals and entire communities. These dedicated, hard-working groups provide shelter to those without homes, provide food and clothing to families in need, and care for the sick and the dying. They work with our children, providing opportunities for them to develop through art and music programs, teaching them to read, and so much more. In east Buffalo, the tenacity and leadership of Sister Mary Johnice and others created the Response to Love Center. This community outreach center is a family center. The thrift shop clothes the needy. The kitchen feeds the hungry. The food pantry stretches families' thin budgets. The food stamp worker helps those in need to fill out the applications. The visiting nurse takes blood pressures and addresses health care issues with a client. It is right and good that this body seeks to support these great works by increasing the donations of individuals and community-minded companies. I am also gratified that the bill before us today is without provisions allowing religious organizations that receive Federal funds to discriminate. Discrimination is not charitable. Discrimination should neither be allowed nor encouraged, particularly by the Federal Government. The invidious evil of discrimination erodes groups' charitable mission. During these bad economic times, when millions of jobs have been lost and millions of people suffer unemployment, the demand for the charitable work rises. It is my hope that this legislation will provide additional assistance to meet the additional demand. The women and men who lost jobs at local manufacturing plants are not the only ones suffering. The Federal Government's fiscal house is in complete disorder. The enormous tax giveaways to millionaires and the mounting costs of rebuilding Iraq are draining the Federal coffers, and the ailing economy has yet to generate enough revenue. In fact, the budget deficit for this fiscal year is going to be over $400 billion, and the deficit for next year should be around $500 billion, one-half trillion. The predicted $5.6 billion surplus has become an anticipated $2.3 trillion deficit. So how are we going to pay for the $12.7 billion cost of this bill? H.R. 7 does not address this issue, but the Democrat substitute does, fortunately. The substitute amendment would add revenue offsets by closing tax loopholes and curtailing abusive tax shelters. It would even increase funding for community programs that, among other things, prevent child abuse and provide child care to low-income families. This is a fiscally responsible approach for encouraging charitable giving and providing assistance to vulnerable families during these particularly difficult times. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my personal displeasure and sorrow that the Committee on Rules did not make in order the amendment by my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) that would have forgiven the one-time tax on the CDBG grants for the businesses in Lower Manhattan who suffered so much on 9/11. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I did have speakers requesting time but they are not on the floor.