Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all. Right now the HMOs, and all of the health care providers under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, if they choose, can provide any of those methods that you mentioned, from IUDs to Depo-Provera. What your amendment, or what the thrust of your original amendment was to force them to do it.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me make it very clear there has to be a determination made, and maybe it is about time, with all of the resources at our disposal, we really came to a firm conclusion as to how some of these chemicals and how the IUD actually works, because, again, even Planned Parenthood and others will say on their web page that one of the consequences of the IUD may indeed be preventative of implantation .

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear to my colleagues that birth control pills and diaphragms are not abortifacients. IUDs and post-coital pills have the capability of that. That is where there has been very little conversation, especially with women, as to what might be happening when they think they are preventing fertilization when, indeed, implantation is what is being prevented.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. I hope Members pay close attention in reading the amendment. This amendment does not define the term ``contraceptive.'' Now, one might think that the meaning of the term is self-evident, but this is not so. The term ``contraceptive'' is not defined in Federal law. Moreover, the debates on this very issue on the floor of this very body in recent times demonstrates that there is clearly a sharp disagreement, even among Members of this body and among groups promoting this type of amendment, regarding what the term actually means. For example, the abortion pill RU46 is used to chemically induce abortions between 5 and 7 weeks into pregnancy, yet some groups refer to it as a contraceptive in their literature. The original Lowey amendment contained a definition which, in my view, is flawed, but this version contains no definition at all. Therefore, it imposes a complex and perhaps impossible new duty on the FDA officials, and so we have a situation where it will be in the eyes of the beholder. Let me also point out to my colleagues that this is a mandate. Mr. Chairman, if we read the language of this legislation or of this amendment, an HMO or a provider of services under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program would not even get reimbursed for an antibiotic that they wanted to write as a prescription, penicillin or any other kind of prescription, unless they provided a provision of contraceptive coverage, and again, that is not defined. So I believe this does open up a Pandora's box. It leaves open the possibility of abortifacients, those chemicals that kill and destroy a newly formed human life, and will indeed be mandated if this legislation or this amendment becomes law. So I hope that Members will vote ``no.'' It is certainly ambiguous; it does not define what the word ``contraceptive'' means, and while indeed a way has been found to get this offered today, there is not really a nickel's worth of difference between this and the other, except that it gained muster in terms of parliamentary procedure. I urge Members to vote ``no.'' This mandates right now in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program contraception, however one may define it, is permissible. It is up to the individual HMOs, and many of them provide it, but it is not mandated. If I as an HMO want to provide, or a provider of services, these kinds of things, one can do it, but one is not told that they have to do it, and they do not risk losing everything else in the prescription area as a result of not being willing to provide these methods of birth control, which also will include abortifacients. So I hope Members will vote ``no'' on the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, just to point out that this would mandate, this would require, and as a precondition of receiving funds from the Federal Government, one would have to be provided services. Right now, this is permissible, this would make it mandatory. That certainly imposes a duty.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against section 635 of the bill. It violates clause 2 of rule XXI.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill, and therefore, violates clause 2 of Rule XXI. The rule states, in pertinent part, that ``No amendment to a general appropriations bill shall be in order, if changing existing law.'' Let me make it very clear that this gives affirmative direction, in effect, and very importantly, it does impose additional duties. Whether it be the OMB director or whoever makes the final decision, additional duties will be imposed as a result of this amendment. So I hope the ruling of the Chair, as consistent with the other amendments, will rule this out of order.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. It is not an act of arrogance. I would ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I would ask that he rephrase that. There is absolutely no arrogance. Rather, we are trying to manifest our----

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make it very clear to the Members that this is a clear-cut vote on the Hyde amendment for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. It is identical in terms of its wording, in terms of its effect, the rape, incest and the life of the mother exceptions are included. Let me point out that the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) was saying, this is another gift, or not precisely his words, from the Republican majority. Well, I am very glad that my colleagues on the Republican side respect the value and dignity of unborn life and want to protect it in a tangible way, but many of our colleagues on the Democrat side likewise feel the unborn are worthy of respect and that the subsidization of their killing by way of abortion is not something that we can countenance. When we contribute, as we do, in excess of 70 percent, 73 percent of the money for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program comes right from the taxpayers. Less than a quarter of it comes from, or a little over a quarter comes from the premium payer. So we are talking about a tax-payer-funded abortion scheme. The Supreme Court made it very clear in upholding the Hyde amendment that there is a fundamental difference between abortion and all other types of surgeries. Surgeries and health interventions normally are designed to cure and to mitigate disease, to excise a cyst, unless one construes an unborn cyst to be a tumor or a wart to be done away with at will; and, again, the court that actually gave us Roe versus Wade when it upheld the Hyde amendment said there is a fundamental difference between the two. Let me also remind my colleagues that the Federal service labor management relation statute makes it very clear that there is no collective bargaining over health benefits. It is not permitted in this Federal sector, and whether we like that or not, that is the law. We can prescribe or proscribe certain limitations on what is permitted and what is not under the health benefits program. Those of us who believe that the unborn are worthy of respect, that chemical poisoning and dismemberment is an abuse of that child, it is child abuse in the extreme, and it exploits women, those of us who have that view I believe have every right to stand here and say, do not use my taxpayer dollars, or my premium dollars, to pay for the destruction of that unborn child. As I said earlier in the debate, there is not a single method employed by the abortionists that is precluded if the DeLauro amendment were to pass. So even partial birth abortions could be subsidized, as well as the suction and all of the other methods that do grotesque things to unborn children. So I urge Members to realize that, as legislators and lawmakers, I believe we have an affirmative obligation to the weakest and the most vulnerable among us, even when it is inconvenient, even when people stand up and say, oh, you are antiwoman or, you do not care about women's rights. I care about women's rights. I care for women deeply. But I believe that killing unborn baby girls and boys is an act of violence, I say that with all due respect to my friends on the other side, and that birth is an event that happens to all of us. It is not the beginning of life. And that child is deserving of respect and that, at the minimal, we should not be subsidizing the demise of those children.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the DeLauro amendment. The underlying language I would just say to my colleagues that is in this bill that the DeLauro amendment would gut has been in effect every year except two since the early 1980s and can best be described as the Hyde amendment for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The prolife language in the bill ensures that taxpayers and premium payers do not subsidize abortion on demand, and that very simply is the issue that is before us. Today we vote on whether the taxpayers will indeed subsidize. That is what it is all about. As Members probably know, the taxpayers pay more than 73 percent of the total funding of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. My colleagues and I, those of us who are part of that program, pay the remaining 27 percent. So the same rationale holds here as in the Hyde amendment. Americans should not be forced to underwrite the cost of destroying unborn babies. Despite, Mr. Chairman, and I just say this with all due respect to my colleagues on the other side, despite the years of propaganda, despite all of the efforts to sanitize, and the euphemisms, and the masking of abortion, the partial-birth abortion debate has finally stripped the veil off the sordid business of what abortion is all about. Abortion, Mr. Chairman, is violence against children, it is the ultimate human rights abuse, and it tries to purport to be a right, and yet it is violence. Abortion methods are acts of violence that usually kill the victim, although we are seeing in growing numbers of cases, the most recently the doctor in Phoenix that was trying to destroy a child using partial- birth abortion, and, after slashing and lacerating the child's face, realized the kid, the baby, was so old that he could not continue with it. That is what the defenders of partial-birth abortion have to defend because that is what happens each and every day. Normally they just result in killing the baby with their violent methods. Some of those methods, as I have said on this floor, and I think it bears repeating until it hopefully gets across to a growing number of people, include dismemberment of an unborn child. Loop-shaped knives called curettes are used to literally hack off the arms, and the legs, and the head, leaving a torso, and the ribs are ripped apart. That is the ugly reality stripped of all the euphemisms of what abortion is all about. It is done routinely, and then the suction machine that is 20 to 30 times more powerful than the average vacuum cleaner takes that bloody pulp of what used to be a baby and puts that baby into a bottle. I do not know how people can defend that. Chemical abortions, salt abortions, saline salting out, high concentrated salt solutions pumped into the amniotic sac. The baby breaths in that fluid because the organs of respiration are being developed, and it is the amniotic fluid that goes in and out until the actual birth occurs, and swallows and digests, if my colleagues will, through, or absorbs through the lungs that high-concentrated salt; kills the baby usually in about 2 hours, and when the baby emerges after delivery, a very chemically-burned, often very red child emerges, and this is commonplace. This is called the right to choose. And, of course, as we all know, again very soon when we debate the partial-birth abortion ban, which would be covered if the DeLauro amendment passes, there is nothing whatsoever that would preclude payment under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program for the partial-birth abortions. And we all remember the big lie that was used to minimize and trivialize the number of those later-term abortions that are done in this country. When that was unmasked, in my own State of New Jersey one clinic was found to be doing 1,500 of those grisly child killings per year, all of a sudden the 500 figure, which Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute and ZPG and all the other groups were bandying about in letters to my colleagues and to I and to everyone else, and I have copies of the letters, they said that is what the number was. Well, 500 would be a massacre as well, but it is many, many thousands more than that. That could be subsidized and paid for if the DeLauro amendment were to prevail. The amendment that we have crafted, and I first offered it, John Ashcroft offered it, did not prevail in the early 1980s. I offered it back, I believe it was in 1983. It has been in effect except for 2 years, and it has said very simply we do not want to be part of subsidizing either through the 70 to 73 percent of our taxpayer portion or as premium payers, those of us who buy our insurance, HMOs, whatever, we do not want to be subsidizing abortion. That is what this is simply all about. Let me remind Members that in virtually every poll, and I have a whole list of them here, when people are asked do they want to subsidize or have the government pay for abortions, the answer is clearly and unambiguously no. So I ask Members, and let me remind them there are three exceptions in this amendment: rape, incest and life of the mother. That has been the law for the last couple of years, so I do hope that Members will support the Hyde amendment of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Defeat the DeLauro amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. This will have to be determined. There is a body of evidence suggesting that IUDs, for example, may have the impact, and many women are unaware of this, may have the impact of preventing implantation. What my amendment says, that is still permissible under Federal Employees Health Benefit Program but not mandated.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, I inquire of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), is this a straight-strike amendment?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend from New York for yielding. Is the gentleman aware that under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, contraception is provided? It is just is not mandated. It is totally permissible. An HMO, a Kaiser Permanente, you name it, if they want to provide contraception, they can.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I want to remind Members that this is the rape, incest, life of the mother exception that the distinguished gentleman is striking with the point of order.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, due to the lateness of the hour, I do not intend on taking the full 5 minutes. Let me make it very clear that part of the problem with the Lowey amendment was that it did not define contraception. Many of us have been concerned that the pro-abortion lobby and the pro-abortion organizations over the years have tried to fudge the line of demarcation between fertilization post- and pre-fertilization. Many of the chemicals, many of the devices that are now employed that are permitted under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program do indeed result in many abortions, newly created human lives that are not permitted to implant in their mother's womb. In a nutshell, my amendment is designed to clarify that if we are indeed going to force all of the Federal providers of medical care, the HMOs and all the providers as a condition of receiving reimbursement for all of their prescriptions, whether it be for penicillin or any other drug, that they have, to provide ``a provision for contraceptive coverage'', let us at least make it clear that the gentlelady's language excludes abortion-inducing chemicals. That is what my amendment very simply seeks to do. Earlier in the day we pointed out during the debate, that while RU- 486 isn't legal and, hopefully, never will be there are officials of Planned Parenthood who are already talking about it as a morning after pill. RU486 is baby pesticide and destroys life, the newly created life, somewhere along the line up to the 7th week. This is a Federal funding of early abortion but many Members of Congress remain uninformed of that fact. I say with regret, that safe abortifacients like IUDs can be provided by the health care providers under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The question is should they be forced to. This says no one is going to be forced to do it. It is a conscience type amendment. Still the plain language of Mrs. Lowey's amendment only stipulates ``a provision for contraceptive coverage''--a much, much, weaker version than the amendment she offered in her Appropriations Committee. Clearly, under her amendment, if a plan merely provided condoms or birth control pills, that would satisfy the obligation created by the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.