Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order today.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, for those of us who recognize abortion as violence against children and the exploitation of women, nothing less than a comprehensive prohibition of public funding of elective abortion satisfies the demands of social justice. Regrettably, the language that emerged from the Senate is weak, duplicitous and ineffective, not by accident but by design. It will open up the floodgates of public funding for abortion in a myriad of programs resulting in more dead babies and more wounded mothers. For the first time ever, the Senate-passed bill permits health care insurance plans and policies, funded with tax credits, to pay for abortion, so long as the issuer of the federally subsidized plan collects a new congressionally mandated fee--an abortion surtax--from every enrollee in the plan to pay for other people's abortions. The Senate-passed bill creates a new community health center fund. Hyde amendment protection do not apply. Therefore, either the Obama administration or a court is likely to compel funding there as well. Also, the bill creates a huge, new program administered by OPM that would manage two or more new multistate or regional health plans. The legislation says that only one of those multistate plans not pay for abortion, which begs the question, what about the other multistate plans administered by OPM? Why are those federally administrated plans with federally mandated fees permitted to include abortion--this represents a radical departure from current policy. Abortion isn't health care, Mr. Speaker. It is not preventive health care. We live in an age of ultrasound imaging, the ultimate window to the womb and its occupant. We are in the midst of a fetal healthcare revolution, an explosion of benign, innovative interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure illnesses or diseases any unborn child may be suffering. Let's protect the unborn child and their mother. Obamacare, unfortunately, is the biggest increase in abortion funding ever.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, for those of us who recognize abortion as lethal violence against children and the exploitation of women, nothing less than a comprehensive prohibition on public funding, promotion and facilitation of elective abortion in any federal health program, including the bill under consideration today, satisfies the demands of social justice. The Stupak-Pitts Amendment which passed 240-194-1 ensures that not some, but all the elements of the Hyde amendment applies to the programs that are both authorized and appropriated in this bill. By now, I trust that all members fully understand that because programs in Obamacare are both authorized and appropriated in this legislation, the actual Hyde Amendment has no legal affect. It only affects Labor HHS not this massive expansion of government funded health care. Regrettably the language that emerged from the Senate is weak, duplicitous and ineffective, not by accident, but by design. It will open up the floodgates of public funding for abortion in a myriad of programs resulting in more dead babies and wounded moms than would otherwise have been the case. Because abortion methods dismember, decapitate, crush, poison, starve to death and induce premature labor, pro-life Members of Congress, and according to every reputable poll, significant majorities of Americans want no complicity whatsoever in this evil. Obamacare forces us to be complicit. Abortion hurts women's health and puts future children subsequently born to women who aborted at significant risk. At least 102 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression and elevated suicide risk in women who abort. Recently, the Times of London reported that, ``[S]enior . . . psychiatrists say that new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found, ``that women who have had abortions have twice the level of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant . . .'' In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that 78.6 percent of the 15-18 year olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression as compared to 31 percent of their peers. The study also found that 27 percent of the 21-25 year old women who had abortions had suicidal idealizations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion. At least 28 studies--including three in 2009--show that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30-40 percent or more yet the abortion industry has largely succeeded in suppressing these facts. Abortion isn't safe for subsequent children born to women who have had an abortion. At least 113 studies show a significant association between abortion and subsequent premature births. For example a study by researchers Shah and Zoe showed a 36 percent increased risk for preterm birth after one abortion and a staggering 93 percent increased risk after two. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 35 percent after one and 72 percent after two or more abortions. Another study shows the risk increases 9 times after a woman has had three abortions. What does this mean for her children? Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant mortality in the industrialized world after congenital anomalies. Preterm infants have a greater risk of suffering from chronic lung disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments and behavior problems. Low birth weight is similarly associated with neonatal mortality and morbidity. Unlike both the Hyde Amendment and what would be the effect of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, the Senate passed bill permits health care plans and policies funded with tax credits to pay for abortion, so long as the issuer of the federally subsided plan collects a new, congressionally mandated fee from every enrollee in that plan to pay for other peoples abortions. Requiring the segregation of funds into allocation accounts--a mere bookkeeping exercise touted by some as an improvement to the new pro-abortion funding scheme--does absolutely nothing to protect any victims--baby or mother--from publically funded abortion. The Senate passed bill creates a new Community Health Center fund and appropriates at least $7 billion for Community Health Centers (CHC). Again recognizing that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to this bill and absent enactment of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, it is clear that the 1,250 CHC clinics (among the most effective means of reaching the poor and underserved with basic health care) will likely be compelled either by the Obama Administration or the courts or both to fund abortion on demand at CHC sites. There is no statutory protection against this abuse in the Senate-passed bill. Additionally, under the federal employee health benefits plan, which includes Members of Congress, since 1984, no funds may be used for abortion or the administrative expenses in connection with any health plans that provide any benefit or coverage for abortions or even the administrative expense, except in the case of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) administers the program. The Senate-passed bill on the other hand creates a huge new program administered by OPM that would manage two or more new multi-state or national health plans. The bill stipulates that at least one plan not pay for abortion. Which only begs to question: what about the other new multi-state plans administered by OPM? Why can those federally administered plans include funding abortion on demand? This represents a radical departure from current policy. Additionally, other appropriated funds in the bill have no Hyde/ Stupak-Pitts type protections either including $5 billion for a temporary high risk health insurance fund and $6 billion in grants and loans for health cover co-ops. Pro-life members who vote for this bill will roll the dice on this one. When the bill left the House, it contained the Hyde-Weldon language protecting health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion against discrimination by government entities. The Senate passed bill instead only includes more narrow text that prevents discrimination by a ``qualified health plan'' on the Exchange. This narrow language was included in the House bill, but without the additional protections against discrimination by federal and state governmental entities, pro- life health care providers are not fully protected. Then there's the Mikulski Amendment, Sec. 2713, which empowers the HHS Secretary with broad new authority to compel private health care plans in America to cover ``preventable'' services. When Senator Ben Nelson suggested that abortion not be included in the so-called preventative services mandate, Ms. Mikulski said no--raising a serious red flag that abortion is being postured as ``preventable abortion service in the future''--after all, abortion prevents a live birth. Abortion as preventative health care isn't new. And as far back as 1976, Dr. Willard Cates, Jr. and Dr. David Grimes, then with CDC, presented a paper to a Planned Parenthood meeting, entitled: Abortion as a Treatment for Unintended Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually Transmitted ``Disease''. To call pregnancy sexually transmitted disease; to call abortion a treatment or a means of prevention for this ``disease'' is barbaric. Abortion isn't health care--preventative or otherwise. Mr. Speaker, we live in an age of ultrasound imaging--the ultimate window to the womb and its occupant. We are in the midst of a fetal health care revolution, an explosion of benign innovative interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure disease or illness any unborn child may be suffering. Unborn children are society's youngest and most vulnerable patients. Obamacare should do them no harm. Tragically, it does the worst harm of all. It kills them.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, in a dramatic reversal of current law, ObamaCare, as just passed, authorizes health insurance policies funded with tax credits and cost reduction payments to pay for abortion on demand and forces the issuers of federally subsidized plans to collect a new abortion fee and abortion surtax from every enrollee to pay for other people's abortions. Insurance companies need only segregate the funds--a mere bookkeeping exercise--to subsidize unrestricted, publicly funded abortions. OPM will also administer multi-State insurance plans with abortion, another radical departure from the status quo. What of the Executive order? With all due respect, what a joke. It does absolutely nothing to mitigate or change in any way the huge expansion of public funding of abortion. For example--and I ask Members to read it--section 2 only directs officials, pursuant to provisions of the bill just passed, to establish a model set of segregation guidelines. So, in other words, the abortion expansion is unabated. I ask Members to support Stupak-Pitts and the motion to recommit.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise today to respectfully ask that my colleagues reject Obamacare, which if enacted into law, will seriously undermine, erode, damage--and perhaps even destroy-- health care in America. On substance, the Senate-passed text of over 2,700 pages now pending in the House is egregiously flawed. This is truly a bad bill and is anything but reform. On process, the near total lack of transparency and misuse of majority party power to ram Obamacare through the Congress, makes it the quintessential example of what's so dreadfully wrong with Washington. No wonder growing numbers of Americans are fed up, losing faith and angry at the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House. No wonder millions of people including Tea Party activists are demanding accountability and defeat of Obamacare. This has been--and is--an unseemly process unworthy of a national legislature--any legislature for that matter--especially one with an enviable two-century-old history of lawmaking. If President Obama wins passage of this bill when it comes to a vote, it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. This is not Congress' finest hour. Rest assured that if Obamacare was sound and prudent policy--fiscally and morally--and an efficacious way of facilitating quality heath care coverage, members of both sides of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum would be lining up to support it. If this was a good bill, persuasion, not pressure would convince a large majority of the members to embrace it. Instead, blunt force is being applied like a vice grip to ``convince'' the unconvinced and undecided to cave, conform and capitulate. On cost, Obamacare is riddled with accounting gimmicks--all designed to make the total price tag appear smaller than it really is. In order to avoid sticker shock, Obamacare collects new taxes, fees, and shifts billions from Medicare for a full four years before benefits kick in. This trick results in an estimated, but grossly misleading cost of care of $871 billion over 10 years. Let me underscore that point, the federal government will collect huge amounts of new taxes, fees and will rob Medicare for a full 10 years--before payouts for services begin four years from now. But when 10 years of revenue are matched with 10 years of benefits, the real cost comes in at a staggering $2.3 trillion. I would note parenthetically, that Obamacare will exacerbate Obamadebt. (When you eliminate double-counting of Medicare cuts, Social Security cuts, and the use of CLASS Act premiums, the Democrats claim of deficit reduction disappears into another massive wave of red ink of $466 billion over the first 10 years and $1.4 trillion over the second 10 years.) Even without passage of this bill, under the President's 2011 budget proposal, federal spending will increase to a record $3.8 trillion in 2011 alone. By 2020, the President's own 10-year budget analysis projects a more than doubling of debt to a record $18.6 trillion. Because Obamacare diverts $500 billion from Medicare, there is no doubt whatsoever that senior citizens and disabled persons will lose certain health benefits they now enjoy. Medicare Advantage is protected in Florida--the so-called Gatorade fix--but not in my state of New Jersey or anywhere else. Medicare Advantage is used by over 11 million people nationwide including 15,983 people in my Congressional district alone. The Senate bill slashes nearly $120 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, jeopardizing millions of seniors' existing coverage. So much for the President's promise that if you like your health plan, you can keep it; no you can't! Madam Speaker, for the first time ever, Obamacare forces Americans to acquire an approved health plan or pay a stiff penalty--like they committed a crime. The penalty is huge--the greater of $750 per person per year (up to $2,250 per family) or 2 percent of household income. No person in America should be coerced into buying medical insurance. Under Obamacare, premiums for non-group family insurance will increase by as much as $2,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that by 2016, premiums will increase by 10-13 percent over what would happen under current law. Conversely, CBO had estimated that the Republican plan which I strongly support would decrease some premiums by 5-10 percent. The Republican alternative focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles--without increasing taxes or adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren and without cutting Medicare. Obamacare would also create nearly 160 boards, commissions and programs and would vest sweeping powers on bureaucrats to determine what benefits are covered and not and at what cost. Even though last September, President Obama stood a mere 20 feet away from where I am standing now, and told a joint session of Congress that ``no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,'' his legislation today constitutes the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade itself, and makes a mockery of that pledge. Additionally, Obamacare fails to institute real medical liability reforms to end junk lawsuits and curb the costs of defensive medicine-- these have long been identified as significant forces in driving up health costs. The goal of responsible health care reform should be to provide credible health insurance coverage for everyone, strengthening the health care safety net so that no one is left out, and incentivizing quality and innovation, as well as healthy behaviors and prevention. This means that the current private health insurance market will have to be reformed to put patients first, and to eliminate denials of pre- existing conditions and lifetime caps and promoting portability between jobs and geographic areas, including across state lines. The tax code should be modernized to promote affordability and individual control, provide assistance to low-income and middle-class families. Medicare requires reform to be more efficient and responsive, with sustainable payment rates. Of course, responsible health care reform will respect basic principles of justice: it will put patients and their doctors in charge of medical decisions, not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It will also ensure that the lives and health of all persons are respected regardless of stage of development, age or disability. It's time to go back to the drawing board and address what's broken and fix it. The American public deserves better than what's on the table.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respectfully ask that my colleagues reject ObamaCare which, if enacted into law, will seriously undermine, erode, damage and, I believe, even destroy health care in America. On substance, the Senate-passed text of over 2,700 pages now pending in the House is egregiously flawed. This is truly a bad bill, and it is anything but reform. On process, the near total lack of transparency and the misuse of majority party power to ram ObamaCare through the Congress makes it the quintessential example of what is so dreadfully wrong in Washington. No wonder growing numbers of Americans are fed up, losing faith, and angry at the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House. No wonder millions of people, including TEA Party activists, are demanding accountability and defeat of ObamaCare. This has been, and is, an unseemly process unworthy of a national legislature, any legislature for that matter, especially one with an enviable two-century-old history of lawmaking. If President Obama wins passage of this bill when it comes to a vote, it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. This is not Congress' finest hour. Rest assure that if ObamaCare was sound and prudent policy fiscally and morally and an efficacious way of facilitating quality health care coverage, Members of both sides of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum would be lining up to support it. If this was a good bill, persuasion rather than pressure would convince a large majority of Members to embrace it. Instead, blunt force is being applied like a vice grip to convince the unconvinced and undecided to cave, conform, and capitulate. On cost, ObamaCare is riddled with accounting gimmicks, all designed to make the total price appear smaller than it really is. In order to avoid sticker shock, ObamaCare collects new taxes, fees, and shifts billions of dollars from Medicare for 4 full years before benefits kick in. This trick results in an estimated but grossly misleading cost of care at some $871 billion over 10 years. But when 10 years of revenue are matched with 10 years of benefits, the real cost comes to a staggering $2.3 trillion. I would note parenthetically that ObamaCare will exacerbate ObamaDebt. When you eliminate double counting of Medicare costs, Social Security cuts, and the use of CLASS Act premiums, the Democrats' claims of deficit reduction disappears into another massive wave of red ink of some $460 billion over 10 years and $1.4 trillion over the second 10 years. Even without passage of this bill, under the President's 2011 budget proposal Federal spending will increase to a record $3.8 trillion in 2011 alone. By 2020, the President's own 10-year budget analysis projects a more than doubling of debt to a record $18.6 trillion. That is absolutely unsustainable. Because ObamaCare diverts $500 billion from Medicare, there is no doubt whatsoever that senior citizens and disabled persons will lose certain health benefits they now enjoy. Medicare Advantage is protected in Florida, the so-called ``Gatorade'' fix, but not in my home State of New Jersey or anywhere else. Medicare Advantage is used by over 11 million people nationwide, including 15,983 people in my congressional district alone. The Senate bill slashes nearly $120 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, jeopardizing millions of seniors' existing coverage. So much for the President's promise that if you like your health plan, you can keep it. No, you can't. Not under this bill. Mr. Speaker, for the first time ever, ObamaCare forces Americans to acquire an approved health care plan or pay a stiff penalty, like they have somehow committed a crime. The penalty is huge: the greater of $750 per person up to $2,250 per family, or 2 percent of household income. No person in America should be coerced into buying medical insurance. Under ObamaCare, premiums for nongroup family insurance will increase by as much as $2,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2016, premiums will increase by 10 to 30 percent over what would have happened under current law. ObamaCare would also create 160 boards, commissions, and programs which would vest sweeping powers on bureaucrats to determine what benefits are covered and not, and at what cost. Last September, Mr. Speaker, President Obama stood a mere 20 feet away from where I am standing now and told a joint session of Congress that, ``no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and Federal conscience laws will remain in place.'' Mr. Speaker, I ask members to vote ``no'' on this bill when it comes to the floor. This legislation today constitutes the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade itself, and makes a mockery of that pledge. That means more dead babies and wounded mothers. Additionally, Obamacare fails to institute real medical liability reforms to end junk lawsuits and curb the costs of defensive medicine-- these have long been identified as significant forces in driving up health costs. The goal of responsible health care reform should be to provide credible health insurance coverage for everyone, strengthening the health care safety net so that no one is left out, and incentivizing quality and innovation, as well as healthy behaviors and prevention. This means that the current private health insurance market will have to be reformed to put patients first, and to eliminate denials of pre- existing conditions and lifetime caps and promoting portability between jobs and geographic areas, including across state lines. The tax code should be modernized to promote affordability and individual control, provide assistance to low-income and middle-class families. Medicare requires reform to be more efficient and responsive, with sustainable payment rates. Of course, responsible health care reform will respect basic principles of justice: it will put patients and their doctors in charge of medical decisions not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It will also ensure that the lives and health of all persons are respected regardless of stage of development, age or disability. It's time to go back to the drawling board and address what's broken and fix it. The American public deserve better than what's on the table.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 605, defending the human rights of Falun Gong practitioners, savagely persecuted by the Chinese government, and thank my good friend Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for introducing this resolution. On the tenth anniversary of the Falun Gong's inspiring silent protest at Zhongnanhai many people still do not understand the savagery of the Mao-style campaign which the Communist Party unleashed in 1999. The story of a typical Falun Gong arrest is horrific: first the government beats them, later it tortures them, molesting and sometimes raping women, sends them to forced labor camps and then brainwashing classes, all the while a high-profile publicity campaign defames and humiliates them. And it has been documented that it has killed at least 3,000 of the Falun Gong. Members of Falun Gong will not pretend to accept Marxism-Leninism, and so the government brands them an ``evil cult.'' They practice non- violence, and the government assaults them with cattle prods. Their hearts are remarkably serene, and so the government engages in psychiatric torture. The Falun Gong are one of a wide array of religious faiths and spiritual groups in China, yet members of Falun Gong are the majority of all reported cases of torture and half of China's labor camp population--well over one hundred thousand of them. Many of the Falun Gong have fled to America, and the government has followed them here, cyber-attacking their American Web sites, installing agents in their midst, and raising crowds to harass and beat them, as happened last year in New York. Mr. Speaker, one of the invaluable things about this resolution is that it officially documents this Chinese-government sponsored violence on American soil, exercised against American citizens. We need to learn more about whether our government is doing everything it can to protect the Falun Gong here in America. I was in China last July, trying to visit human rights activists in the run-up to the Olympics. I remember going into an Internet cafe and trying to look up Falun Gong. You know the story: nothing. Search engines had been doctored. I wonder, if I were not a U.S. Congressman, would that search have gotten me identified, tracked, and tortured? After all, even foreign journalists who ask about Falun Gong have been arrested, and some have been beaten. And would U.S. companies have been involved in identifying me? Sadly, we know it for a well-documented fact, from a six-hour hearing I held in 2006, that some leading U.S. IT companies are involved in censoring the Chinese Internet and turn over personally identifying information to the Chinese Internet police, making it possible to track and imprison dissidents. I mention this because many members of Falun Gong are great heroes of Internet freedom. Several members have come to my office and demonstrated how they help millions of Chinese men and women break the so-called ``Great Firewall of China'' with which the Chinese government tries to cut its citizens off from the global Internet. Mr. Speaker, Falun Gong practitioners have been great witnesses of courage and peace. Again I thank Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for introducing this resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank my good friend and colleague Mr. Pitts for his leadership, and for that of all of those who have spoken. Doc, thank you for your eloquent words. Mr. Fortenberry, Mr. Cao and Jean Schmidt. I do want to welcome His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church of America, here, and his brother bishops. They are most welcome, and I thank them for their incredible stance in favor of the sanctity and sacredness of all human life, from womb to tomb, and that we all need to act as our brothers' and sisters' keepers. Matthew 25, where our Lord said, Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do likewise to me. His Beatitude Jonah lives that, as does his church and as do, God willing, all of us. But they do it in such a superlative way, and I thank them for their example. It is awe inspiring. Mr. Speaker, I have been in the pro-life movement for 38 years, in the greatest human rights struggle on Earth, the right-to-life movement. What I still don't get is this: How can so many seemingly smart, sane, compassionate, and accomplished people, especially in politics, support, promote and--if President Obama has his way in the pending health care legislation--lavishly fund with public dollars the violent death of unborn children and the wounding of their moms by abortion? Is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence against children, a pernicious form of child abuse, falsely and aggressively marketed as choice, a human right or as health care? How long will we permit the pro-choice cover-up and the bogus safety claims to misinform, especially in light of the reams of evidence documenting serious injury to women who abort? Abortion, safe? What unmitigated nonsense. Women have been profoundly ill-served by the all-too-familiar pattern of denial and deception so skillfully employed by the abortion industry. Women deserve better. They, at the very least, deserve the truth. Mr. Speaker, years ago a friend of mine, Dr. Jean Garton, wrote a book which included how her young child unexpectedly walked in the room as she was preparing a lecture on abortion. Her 3-year-old child took one look at the badly bruised and battered body of the aborted baby on the screen and shouted: Mommy, who broke the baby? That young child saw the brutality of abortion with unclouded comprehension. That child was unencumbered and unaffected by the deceptively clever and preposterously misleading propaganda dished out by the multi-billion-dollar pro-choice industry. That child saw, and knew immediately, that babies are smashed and broken to bits by abortion. And with alarm, that 3-year-old boy wanted to know who did it. Last fall, like that young child, Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director in Texas, with 8 years at that facility, watched an ultrasound image of an abortion in progress on a 3-month-old unborn child. Like the victimized baby on the ultrasound monitor being dismembered right before her eyes, Ms. Johnson was crushed by what she saw. Self-described as ``extremely pro-choice,'' but now pro-life, she said she watched an unborn child crumple before her very eyes as the infant was dismembered and vacuumed to death by a hideous suction device 20-30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. She said: I could see the baby try to move away. In a startling moment of truth and clarity, she said, I just thought, What am I doing? Never again. And she walked out the door of that abortion mill. I will never forget, my wife, Marie, and I, right outside the Supreme Court, met a group of women called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. These women were telling their stories, very, very powerful stories about how they had been hurt emotionally and physically by abortion. One woman told the story how as she was actually on the gurney, in the process of getting an abortion, and the doctor, the abortionist said: It is trying to get away. Being only partially sedated, she heard all of that. She shot up quick and she said: Get me out of here. And they said: It is too late; the abortion has already started. But the child instinctively was trying to get away. We also know from people like Dr. Alveda King, one of the founders and leaders of a group called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a courageous woman, who has had two abortions. Dr. King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King and she now says, How can my uncle's dream survive if we murder the children? Dr. Martin Luther King talked about inclusion, the politics of inclusion, not disenfranchising someone by reason of their age or condition of dependency or race or by reason of their sex. She now heads up a group that reaches out to women who have had abortions and have suffered and offers the path through faith, through God, and through friendship to come to a sense of reconciliation and restoration as a result of the trauma of abortion. As Abby Johnson, the abortion clinic director at Planned Parenthood, said as she walked out, ``never again,'' but never again comes too late for the approximately 52 million babies who have been slaughtered in Planned Parenthood clinics and abortion mills throughout America since the infamous holding of the United States Supreme Court in 1973; 52 million babies lost. It is staggering, stunning, and beyond tragic. But it doesn't have to come too late for the millions of other children who face extermination today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, if we awake from our slumber, from our indifference, from our callous attitude and start to truly combat the cruelty and injustice of abortion. The longer I am in the pro-life movement, just like the example of Dr. Alveda King, who is like so many other silent-no-more women, speaking out and doing so courageously, there is even more to the pro- choice cover-up than just dead kids. Abortion hurts women, physically, psychologically, and the data strongly suggests that it even mal-affects children subsequently born to women who abort. Last year the Times of London reported: ``Senior obstetricians and psychiatrists say new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found that women who have had abortions have twice the level, twice the level, of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant. In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that 78.6 percent, almost 79 percent, of the 15- to 18-year-olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression compared to 31 percent of their peers. And it also found that 27 percent of the 21- to 25-year-old women who had abortions had suicidal ideations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion. I say to my colleagues: there are at least 102 studies that comport with those findings of psychological harm to women who abort. Serious questions also remain concerning the link of abortion to breast cancer. Despite the fact that more than 28 studies from around the world, including the United States, have shown that procuring an abortion significantly increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30 to 40 percent, the abortion industry cover-up has largely succeeded in the unconscionable suppression of those facts. Nevertheless, according to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 2009 was a pivotal year in the debate about the abortion-breast cancer link. Three studies were published from Turkey, China and the United States which matter of factly demonstrate the abortion-breast cancer link as one of many breast cancer factors. For example, the recent U.S. study by Jessice Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrated that an abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40 percent. Why isn't that emblazoned across the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post? Forty percent. Study co-authors included Janet Daling and Louise Brinton. Amazingly, Brinton was a chief organizer of a 2003 National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop denying the link. Now a study that she co-authored reiterates the link and reports it as consistent with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor for breast cancer. And now even Time magazine, among many others, has finally reported on another suppressed fact, suppressed by the pro-abortion industry, that abortion adversely affects the health of subsequent children born to women who abort. A total of 113 studies demonstrated an association between abortion and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies. Studies have indicated that the risk of preterm birth goes up 36 percent after just one abortion, and a staggering 93 percent after two or more abortions. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 36 percent after one and 72 percent after two or more abortions. Prematurity and low birth weight, as we all know, are leading causes of disabilities in children. Abortion not only affects the child who is aborted; it affects in a very negative way children born, brothers and sisters born to that same mother in subsequent pregnancies. All of this begs a very serious question, Mr. Speaker: Why then is the Obama administration expanding this vicious assault on women and children often by massively subsidizing pro-abortion nongovernmental organizations around the world and in the United States to do the dirty work, to do that in the U.S., Africa, Latin America, everywhere? You know, I said at the opening, How could so many seemingly sane, smart, compassionate politicians buy into the big lie? Well, maybe some politicians aren't so smart or compassionate after all. Mr. Speaker, I yield to a stalwart in the pro-life movement, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If I could with my friend and colleague, and I thank him for his eloquent statement, you mentioned the statements made by Justice Ginsburg. Not only did you not take them out of context, because they were very troubling to me and I think many people--who are ``those people''?--but it also follows a line of thought that predates her. Margaret Sanger, as you know, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenist. In the twenties and the thirties she wrote extensively against minority populations, against Africans, against Catholics, against people who didn't look just like her. And I have read her books. One of her books is known as The Pivot of Civilization. And in that book, chapter five is called The Cruelty of Charity. The Cruelty of Charity. And she makes a case that is pathetic and sickening that somehow we ought to not provide maternal health care to indigent women, to poor women who happen to be of color or of some other minority status that she deems to be unacceptable. The Cruelty of Charity. That organization, Planned Parenthood, kills 305,000 unborn babies in their clinics every year. And I would hope my colleagues, and I really believe it is time to take a second look at Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse, Incorporated. They like to say that the abortion part is only 3 percent of what they do. Of course killing a baby versus handing out a condom hardly are equivalent in terms of actions. And they count just about everything else to get that number low. Three hundred five thousand abortions. Some people have gone undercover and discovered, to their shock and-- maybe not shock, but certainly to their dismay--that there is a racist attitude in those clinics where these undercover individuals have gone. And it is very disturbing. But it is all reminiscent of its founder, who had such a jaundiced and prejudicial view towards minorities. And that was Margaret Sanger. I would also add that our distinguished Secretary of State got the Margaret Sanger Award last year. I did a floor speech on this and said how can it be that the Secretary of State of the United States of America is in awe of a eugenicist? Because in her speech, and I read it on the State Department Web site, she went on and on about how the work of Margaret Sanger remains undone. Margaret Sanger was a self- proclaimed eugenicist, who felt that certain individuals, and that would include the disabled, their lives are not worth living or protecting. They are throwaway human beings. And I have asked the Secretary of State to give that award back. I yield to my friend from Ohio.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you very much. And these really are growing numbers of people. The polls certainly reflect it. By over a two-thirds margin the American public have said, in virtually every poll, they don't want abortion in health care, in ObamaCare. They absolutely do not want it in there. It is one of the reasons why ObamaCare is on such thin ice, if you will. I would want to say to my colleagues something else. There is a reappraisal going on in America. I remember when I got elected in 1980, I would go out to the high schools and schools throughout my district, and whenever the issue of abortion came up, it was very hot and it was very often very antagonistic to my pro-life position. I began to see changes in that in the nineties and after the year 2000. There has been a dramatic shift among our young people in favor of life. Every one of the young people that you and I, Jean, and others might see in our schools, one out of every three of those children had been killed by abortions. One out of every three. Next time you are in a classroom count desks, one, two, missing child killed by abortion. And for every child that is killed by abortion there is a wounded mother in great need of reconciliation and embrace and love. And that is the part of the pro-life movement that I have always found so absolutely appealing. It is a nonjudgmental movement. It loves even the abortionists who are killing the children so maliciously each and every day. We have embraced so many former abortionists, former clinic workers, like Abby Johnson, who left Planned Parenthood last year, walking out the door when she finally saw an abortion on a screen. She watched it and said, ``Never again. I can't be a part of this any more.'' Probably the biggest change of heart in the entire pro-life, of the last 40 years, was a man by the name of Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Dr. Nathanson founded NARAL. He, Betty Friedan, and Lawrence Lader founded NARAL, one of the biggest pro-abortion groups. We all hear them in our mail and as they lobby Capitol Hill. He founded it. He was a primary abortionist in New York City, ran the largest abortion clinic in all of New York City. In the 1970s, he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I have presided over 60,000 deaths.'' He quit and then he became a pro-life leader. I have met him many times. He is smart, he is articulate, but he was so terribly misguided, somehow believing he was doing right when he was doing so egregiously wrong. You know what helped bring him to the pro-life side? He began doing microsurgeries. He began working at St. Luke's Hospital in New York. In one room they would be doing everything humanly possible, taking heroic methods and actions to mitigate disease and disability in unborn children, including blood transfusions. And in the other room they were putting in high concentrated salt solutions and other chemicals, poisons, or dismembering the child piece by piece. And he said it is schizophrenic. That child is either a patient, a human being, or he or she is not. And he came down on the side of life. Add to that the enormous deleterious damage being done to women, which I said earlier in my comments has been documented over and over. Mental health consequences, consequences to subsequent children that are profound and lifelong. The problem of breast cancer. And believe me, the abortion lobby will continue to say it is not true. They will pull out some two or three studies that suggest that it is not true against the huge evidence that suggests otherwise. And if you want to believe that, then believe what the Tobacco Institute used to say in the sixties and seventies, that there was no linkage of tobacco to lung cancer. They got away with that for decades. The abortion lobby and the industry that makes billions of dollars is getting away with that right now. And we wonder why the sad fact that some of those women who are now marching, some of the survivors, thank God of breast cancer, thank God, but some of those have been precipitated and caused by that abortion. And again, that is 28 studies and counting that have clearly posited that as a very significant negative outcome. But Dr. Nathanson, he should be the model for politicians. If he can get it, if he who was right there, the one who said, who came up with the idea that women were dying from illegal abortions in America at the rate of 5,000 to 10,000 per year. And you know what he told us in his book when he wrote it? He said, ``I made it up.'' Dr. Nathanson made up that figure, and was shocked and surprised how easily and how gullible the media was and politicians to just take that bogus number and regurgitate it over and over again as if it had a foundation in fact. The real number, according to the Center for Disease Control, in 1972, prior to the legalization of abortion on demand, was under 40 women. Forty too many. But women are dying today from legal abortions. And let's not forget that. Maternal mortality, we want to cut that and help women with difficult and crisis pregnancies here and around the world. But you do it with essential obstetrical services, you do it with good birthing practices, especially in the developing world, where maternal mortality is a problem. You don't do it by killing babies and wounding their mothers. I would like to yield to my friend, Mrs. Schmidt, for any final comments.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 1008, which recognizes and honors the dedication and academic excellence of Catholic schools in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. Catholic schools provide each and every student with a quality education and life skills training through the commitment, professionalism, and faith of their teachers and administrators. I would like to thank Mr. Lipinski for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the Floor and I ask my colleagues to join me supporting its passage. The impact of Catholic education in the United States is tremendous, as over 2 million elementary and secondary students, including more than 100,000 students in my home state of New Jersey, continue to receive a values-added education with an emphasis on academic excellence, advancement beyond high school, fundamental morals and community reinvestment. The graduation rate for Catholic school students is outstanding at 99 percent with 97 percent of these graduates choosing to continue their education through college studies. The week of January 31, 2010 to February 6, 2010, marks the annual national celebration of Catholic Schools Week. An event which began in 1974, this year's theme of ``Catholic Schools--Dividends for Life: Faith, Knowledge, Discipline, Morals,'' exemplifies the broad spectrum of Catholic education. Students are taught to strive for scholastic excellence, the importance of an integrated focus on the transcendent importance of God, the skills of personal and academic discipline, and to recognize and defend moral imperatives. Catholic schools, Mr. Speaker, are an integral part of our nation's commitment to education and serve a cross-section of American students. Catholic schools have a rich history of welcoming, serving and educating new immigrants. With close to 30 percent of Catholic school enrollment from minority backgrounds and approximately 15 percent from non-Catholics; it is evident that this extraordinary institution meets the needs of a highly diverse group of young people. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a few words which sum up the unique and extraordinary vision of Catholic education from a 1972 pastoral message by the National Conference on Catholic Bishops: ``Education is one of the most important ways by which the Church fulfills its'' commitment to the dignity of the person and building of community. Community is central to education ministry, both as a necessary condition and an ardently desired goal. The educational efforts of the Church, therefore, must be directed to forming persons- in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important not only to his solitary destiny, but also the destinies of the many communities in which he lives.'' Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important element of faith-based education which serves alongside America's public and private schools to strengthen and reinforce our education system.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of the FY 10 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. Requesting Member: Representative Christopher H. Smith Bill Number: H.R. 3326 Project name: Re-establishing Ties: The Road from Warrior to the Community Account: OM, ARNG Legal Name of Requesting Entity: New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Address of Requesting Entity: 101 Eggert Crossing Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 Description of Request: This funding would be used to help successfully transition returning soldiers back in civilian life through the NJ National Guard's multi-tiered, reintegration program to address the needs of the returning combat veteran. This program includes: PTSD and TBI Screening; Suicide Prevention Efforts; Small Business Restart Assistance; and Counseling Services, among other benefits.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, Chairman Berman's Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, cosponsored by the ranking member, Ms. Ros- Lehtinen, significantly ratchets up strong bipartisan pressure on Iran to end their nefarious quest for nuclear weapons. Given Ahmadinejad's extreme hostility toward Israel, his outrageous threats to annihilate Israel from the face of the Earth, and his obsessive hatred of Jews worldwide, this bill strengthens penalties on those who not only sell, lease, or provide to Iran any goods, services, technology, information, or support that would allow Iran to maintain or expand its domestic production of refined petroleum resources, it has other sanctions as well. Mr. Speaker, any serious effort to peacefully stop Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, which I believe they will use if they acquire them, requires the strongest political and economic pressure that we can muster. H.R. 2194 is a step, the right step in that direction.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res 218, expressing Congress's deepest condolences to the families of the 57 victims of the Maguindanao massacre. I thank my good friend from California, Mr. Berman, for authoring the resolution, which I am proud to co-sponsor. Madam Speaker, when a friend is struck by a tragedy, perhaps the death of a family member, we all know what to do. We call them up, we visit them, we reach out to them. That is what they need at that moment--to know they are not alone, that they are accompanied by friends. I am confident this is happening in the Philippines right now. The Filipino people have strong families, and a gift for friendship. I think it is like that with nations too. What happened in Maguindanao was such a terrible tragedy that other nations have to reach out and remind the Filipino people that they are part of a great human family, and that other nations grieve with them. Madam Speaker, lest anyone doubt the importance of this gesture, let me remind them of the outpouring of support, which came from every corner of the globe, after the September 11 attacks in 2001. That meant so much to us. But, Madam Speaker, the Filipino people also need justice. When a crime is committed on such a scale and in such a manner as the Maguindanao massacre, fundamental issues of justice and human rights are raised. The ambush of 57 people travelling in broad daylight to file a candidate's nomination papers, their forced march to a prepared killing field, their grisly shooting, mutilation, including the sexual mutilation and reportedly rape of women, and attempted burial by government-owned equipment--something is deeply wrong. And let's remember that the murder of 30 journalists is a full-scale attack on freedom of expression--the Committee to Protect Journalists says this massacre was the deadliest attack on journalists since it began monitoring in 1992. My good friend's resolution addresses these issues. It condemns the ``culture of impunity'' that precedes and enables such a crime, and calls for a ``transparent and independent investigation and prosecution'' of those responsible, and the proceedings to be conducted with the highest possible level of ``impartiality and regard for witness protection.'' And this is the issue: whether in our own country or elsewhere, whenever a government is unwilling to administer justice, it prepares the ground for human rights violations. This resolution also calls for an end to extrajudicial killings and political violence, and for press freedom and safety. Finally, it urges our government to offer technical assistance to the investigation. Madam Speaker, let us ask God to comfort all those who have lost family members and friends in this terrible crime. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today the House has an opportunity to significantly limit public funding of abortion in a manner that replicates the Hyde amendment and applies it to the two new massive government health care programs created in the pending bill: the public option and affordability credit program. The Stupak-Pitts amendment ensures that pro-life Americans will not be forced to fund, enable, or facilitate the killing of unborn children and the wounding of their mothers. Supermajorities, more than 67 percent, oppose public funding of abortion. Protecting vulnerable unborn children and women from the insidious violence of abortion is the human rights cause of our time. So please let's not gloss over or trivialize the fact that abortion dismembers, decapitates, starves to death, or chemically poisons innocent babies, and that the abortion act itself, euphemistically called ``choice,'' can in no way be construed to be compassionate, benign, nurturing, or health care. Abortion is violence against women and children. It is neither health care nor reform. Support the Stupak-Pitts amendment

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, like most Americans, I believe we urgently need health care reform to provide every American access to high-quality medical care. During the long and painful illnesses of both my parents, I had to fight with their health management organization to get them the care they deserved. Their HMO put my family through months of frustration and anguish. I know I'm not alone--tens of millions of Americans have gone through this as well. It's not right, and it's time to change that. Americans need more protection, power, and say in their health care programs, and they need us to reform the system to make it more affordable for everyone. Regrettably, H.R. 3962, the bill before the House tonight, not only falls short, but it will make most people's health care worse, and it will certainly disempower all of us. For this reason I strongly oppose the bill--H.R. 3962. After carefully studying H.R. 3962, I am concerned that the bill is actually a step backwards--many patients will have less, not more, access to and say over their health care if H.R. 3692 is enacted. I firmly believe we can and must reform our health care system and provide better solutions for those currently uninsured or underinsured. But we must do so without jeopardizing the quality of health care for these currently insured people and families, many of whom will see their own health care access and quality seriously eroded under the bill. H.R. 3962 will: Limit patient access by establishing federal bureaucracies with new authority to determine what medical treatments and services will be covered at, what costs patients will pay--Americans will be so disadvantaged that this bill makes those who don't purchase ``acceptable'' coverage (as defined by the federal government) subject to criminal fines and imprisonment up to 5 years. Cause most Americans to lose access to their current health insurance coverage and force them into a nationally uniform public plan. It will do this by subsidizing a government-run ``public plan'' that will ultimately drive private health plans out of business. Most Americans don't want to lose their current insurance, and they trust the public plan even less than they trust private insurance, which at least has to compete for customers, and permits them to choose their doctors. This would hit my constituents especially hard--according to the Urban Institute, approximately 90% of the people in my district currently have health coverage; Slash payments to health-care providers, threatening the continued existence of many hospitals, home health and skilled nursing facilities serving New Jersey residents. Madam Speaker, throughout my career in Congress, I have been a steadfast supporter of Medicare for our senior citizens and the disabled. I have voted several times to preserve and protect Medicare even when I stood alone in my own party rejecting a proposal to cut $270 billion from Medicare in 1995. That is why I find it absolutely unacceptable that H.R. 3962 cuts Medicare by a whopping $500 billion. Proponents argue that some funding will be returned through other avenues. But even if that were true, Medicare will still be drastically cut by a net of $219.4 billion, in their ``best case scenario.'' The bill also guts Medicare Advantage plans, which offer additional coverage to over 11 million seniors--15,983 in my district alone--who choose Medicare Advantage plans as the coverage that best meets their needs. I will not vote for massive cuts in Medicare. These cuts will wreak havoc on our nation's health care system and everyone it serves, particularly the seniors and disabled. We need reform legislation that respects all human life, the most vulnerable among us which includes the frail and the disabled of all ages. Finally, this bill will hinder economic recovery and job creation during a major recession. Just yesterday the nation's unemployment rate rose above 10 percent for the first time since 1983, and if you include those who have stopped looking for jobs and those who can only find part-time work, the rate is 17.5 percent. The bill does additional harm by: Raising taxes on individuals and small businesses by $729.5 billion; Failing to reform our costly and unfair system of medical liability lawsuits, which inflates health care costs by billions of dollars each year, exceeding 10% of all health care expenditures; Mandating a $34 billion expansion of state Medicaid payments--in order to cover this massive increase, financially strapped states like New Jersey will have to cut other services; and Costing the taxpayer, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), $1.3 trillion over ten years and using budget gimmicks and tax increases to cover that cost. I must mention two other serious problems with the bill: It does not adequately protect the freedom of conscience of health care providers opposed to abortion, and sets up mechanisms that ration care by creating government ``waiting lists'' if there are insufficient funds to pay expenses; and It does not require patients to verify their identity, which, according to the CBO, means that millions undocumented immigrants will receive free health care, unfairly subsidized by taxpaying citizens. It is truly unfortunate that the Democratic leadership did not work to put forth a health care reform bill that addressed these concerns. We need a proposal that advances solutions rather than creates new problems. Let me be clear, I take a back seat to no one when it comes to working to ensure that the federal government accepts its role and is doing its part in helping people and providing a health care safety net for those in desperate need of health care support. I am proud of my record, voting to defeat cuts to and expand existing federal health care programs, while working to protect patient rights and the delivery of quality medical care. These efforts include: Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP. I support providing our senior citizens a high level of benefits under the Medicare program. On one occasion, I voted against a $270 billion reduction in Medicare spending. One reason I cannot support the current health care legislation is because it makes over $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. To expand health insurance to more uninsured low-income children, I voted in 1997 for legislation creating the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and voted last year to expand the program. SCHIP and Medicaid together cover more than 30 million low-income children, as well as 16 million adults, 6 million seniors, and 10 million persons with disabilities. That is why I have been so adamant about protecting those programs. Community Health Centers. Federally designated community health centers are another effective means to get affordable health care to underserved communities. The health centers program includes community, migrant, homeless, and public housing health centers and provides primary and preventive care to more than 18 million individuals at over 3,700 sites located in every state and U.S. territory. I have been a consistent supporter of increased funding for the community health centers program. A significant factor in the success of community health centers is that they are managed at the community level with a concern for serving their clients in their local neighborhoods. Veterans Health Care. As former Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I fought successfully (and sometimes nearly alone) to provide increased medical services and funding for veterans health care programs. I wrote several laws to boost and expand veterans health care, including the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Programs Enhancement Act (PL 107-135), which expanded and enhanced veterans' healthcare services and reduced out-of-pocket costs for low income veterans by 80 percent and continues to help disabled veterans obtain the tools they need to live fuller lives. I also wrote the law, the Veterans Health Programs Improvement Act of 2004 (PL 108-422), that created 5 poly-trauma centers within the VA, and an additional 17 networked sites, that specialize in treating complex multi-trauma injuries--including severe brain injury--associated with combat injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan. Health Care Caucuses. Working with my colleagues across the aisle, I have cofounded and currently co-chair important bipartisan health care working groups, i.e. caucuses, which aim to educate Members of Congress and increase federal resources and research on treatments and cures for specific diseases, some which effect New Jersey residents disproportionately. For instance, I serve as co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Alzheimer's Task Force; the Coalition for Autism Research and Education; the Spina Bifida Caucus; and the Lyme Disease Caucus. Each caucus has served as an effective forum to advance legislation that helps families combating health care challenges; Patients Rights. As far back as 2001, I cosponsored and voted for the Patient Protection Act which contained critical patient protections to help put doctors and patients back in control of their health care decisions, rather than bureaucrats at managed care companies. Unfortunately, while separate bills passed the House and the Senate, they were never signed into law. Insurance Reform. I voted for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA), which provided insurability protections for individuals moving between insurance plans in the individual or group markets and reduced or eliminated preexisting medical condition exclusion periods for such individuals. I have also been a strong advocate for allowing small businesses, associations, and non-profit organizations to band together to purchase health insurance. In acquiring health insurance, small businesses do not enjoy the benefits of economies of scale of large businesses, which allows those large businesses to spread administrative costs over a large base and provide significant leverage in negotiating lower premiums. Over 50 percent of the nation's uninsured are employed in a small business or are a dependent of such a worker. Medical Malpractice Reform. The House of Representatives has voted to pass medical liability reform legislation with my support eight times in the past 15 years. These bills--which sought to place a cap on non- economic damages, limit punitive damages, and restrict attorneys' fees--were modeled after a California law that many credited for relatively low malpractice premiums in the state. While we have had some significant successes in these critical areas expanding--frequently after much toil--it is indisputable that more comprehensive changes are needed, including major reforms of the private health insurance market. The goal of responsible health care reform should be to provide credible health insurance coverage for everyone, strengthening the health care safety net so that no one is left out, and incentivizing quality and innovation, as well as healthy behaviors and prevention. This means that the current private health insurance market will have to be reformed to put patients first, and to eliminate denials for pre- existing conditions and lifetime caps and promoting portability between jobs and geographic areas, including across state lines. The tax code should be modernized to promote affordability and individual control, provide assistance to low-income and middle-class families. Medicare requires reform to be more efficient and responsive, with sustainable payment rates. Of course responsible health care reform will respect basic principles of justice: it will put patients and their doctors in charge of medical decisions, not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It will also ensure that the lives and health of all persons are respected regardless of stage of development, age or disability. The Republican alternative amendment does these things. It focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles--without increasing taxes or adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren and without cutting Medicare. It also establishes a real conscience protection for health care providers and it requires verification of citizenship and identity. I oppose H.R. 3962 because in many ways it jeopardizes coverage for those who already have it, especially seniors and the disabled. At the same time it exercises far too much top-down government control, forcing everyone toward a government plan, controlling exactly what sort of care will be offered. For this reason I support the Republican alternative amendment. It moves significantly in the right direction while applying the wisdom of Hippocrates' first principle of medicine: doing no harm. Amendment Offered by Mr. Stupak

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. This week, another Planned Parenthood clinic director resigned after watching an ultrasound of an actual abortion in progress. Self-described as extremely pro-choice but now pro-life, Abby Johnson said she watched an unborn child ``crumple'' before her very eyes as the infant was vacuumed and dismembered by a suction device 20 to 30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. Ms. Johnson said and told ABC News, ``I could see the baby try to move away. I just thought, `What am I doing?' ``Never again.'' Mr. Speaker, abortion not only kills children; it harms women physically and psychologically, and it risks significant harm to subsequent children. Recently, the Times of London reported, ``Women who have had abortions have twice the level of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or never been pregnant.'' The Times said ``senior obstetrians and psychiatrists say new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness. . . .'' Numerous studies show that the risk of preterm birth to children born to women who have had abortions increases. It skyrockets. One abortion preterm births goes up by 35 percent, two abortions a staggering 93 percent. One of the the leading causes of mental and motor retardation is prematurity. We have and are going to have more disabling, because of abortion. If we truly don't want to see more abortions and if we want to reduce them, don't fund it. The Guttmacher Institute has said, formerly the research arm of Planned Parenthood, that prohibiting Federal funds for abortion reduces abortion by 25 percent. Millions of people are alive today because of the Hyde amendment, because funding was not there to effectuate their demise. Vote for the Stupak-Pitts amendment. It will save lives.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, even though reputable polls consistently show that public funding of abortion is opposed by a supermajority of Americans, some 67 percent, the multibillion-dollar abortion industry, its lobbyists and friends in Congress are today demanding that the two massive new government programs created by the Democratic leadership's so-called ``health care reform'' bill force Americans to facilitate and fund the killing of unborn children by abortion. Anyone who tells you otherwise--and I appreciate the gentleman from Texas pointing out the text. It clearly states it. Anyone who tells you otherwise that public funding for abortion on demand is not in the pending legislation is either seriously misinformed or simply not telling the truth. Americans do want to know up front what's in this bill. No games. No brinksmanship. Americans want and the public deserves total transparency and truth in legislating. Madam Speaker, despite the fact that in 2009 we know more and understand more about the magnificent world of unborn children than ever before--the fact that these babies move inside the womb and stretch and do somersaults and kick, they wake and sleep, believe it or not--and it is true, they have a waking and sleeping cycle. The fact that beneficial prenatal health care interventions, including microsurgery, can be performed in utero, inside the womb, blood transfusions inside the womb, the fact that these children can feel excruciating physical pain before birth, including the pain deliberately inflicted by abortionists--I would note, parenthetically, that I authored the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which got 250 votes in a bipartisan vote a couple of years ago. And we know for a fact that at least at 20 weeks gestation, unborn children feel excruciating pain up to four times what everyone else after birth feels because the pain receptors are very close to the skin. And we do believe that these children feel pain even earlier than the 20th week. Despite all of this, President Obama and the Democratic leadership are on a fast track to compel, force, mandate, and coerce public funding for abortions. Madam Speaker, pro-life Americans want no role or complicity in this assault on the weakest and the most vulnerable. Frankly, Madam Speaker, it is time to face an inconvenient truth--abortion is violence against children, and it exploits and harms women. There has been study after study that shows that women who procure abortions experience immediate relief followed by very serious psychological and deleterious consequences to them. And the younger they are, it appears, based on the empirical data, the more egregious the pain and suffering and the agony endured by these young women. New Zealand did a study in 2006, a very comprehensive study, and found that 78.6 percent of the 15- to 18-year-old girls who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression compared to 31 percent of their peers. Twenty-seven percent of the 21- to 25-year-old women who had abortions had suicidal idealization compared to 8 percent of those who did not have abortions. Abortion hurts women. I would remind my colleagues that organizations like the Silent No More Campaign, run so admirably and courageously by people like Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, a woman who had two abortions and had profound, profound psychological problems from that but now knows reconciliation and hope again, Silent No More is made up exclusively of women who have had abortions. Dr. King has said that her uncle's dream, how does it survive if we murder the children? And then she went on to say the other victim is and always will be the woman. Time magazine, and others, has finally reported on another little known fact--abortion adversely affects subsequent children born to women who abort. Recent studies have indicated that the risks of preterm birth goes up 36 percent after one abortion, and a staggering 93 percent after two or more abortions. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 36 percent after one abortion and 72 percent after two or more. The health consequences to subsequent children born to women who abort is deeply troubling and largely unrecognized and underreported upon. Thus, abortion not only kills babies and wounds women, it directly injures subsequent children. And as we all know, prematurity is one of the leading causes of disabilities in children. As you know better than I, Madam Speaker, Congress will vote as early as Saturday on the health care restructuring bill, H.R. 3962, and it includes highly deceptive policy language that will massively increase the number of children killed and mothers wounded by abortion. Let's be clear and unambiguous, both the public option and the program establishing affordability credits authorize public funding and facilitation of abortion on demand, which means, of course, that the number of children who will be forced to suffer unspeakable agony of abortion methods including dismemberment, decapitation, starvation--people say, How does RU46 work? First it starves the baby to death, and then the other chemical in RU46 just simply causes that dead baby to be expelled from the uterus. Then there are also chemicals that are providing for or forcing early expulsion from the womb and other types of chemical poisoning. All of this will skyrocket. The empirical evidence that public funding of abortions means more abortions is both logical and compelling. Even the Goodmacher Institute, formerly the research arm of Planned Parenthood, says that prohibiting Federal funds under the Hyde Amendment prevents abortions that otherwise would have been procured by a stunning 25 percent. That means that since enactment of the funding ban in the late seventies and early eighties, millions of children who would have otherwise been brutally killed by abortionists if public funding had facilitated their demise today, live and go to school, play sports, perhaps watched the World Series last night. Some of those spared are today raising their own kids, perhaps even serving as staff or Members of Congress. So whether we publicly fund abortion or not literally means life or death for countless individuals, going forward. The Democratic health bill, Madam Speaker, discriminates against the most vulnerable minority in America today, unborn babies, and is the quintessential example of the politics of exclusion--in this case because of the child's age, condition of dependency, and vulnerability. There is nothing whatsoever benign, compassionate, or nurturing about abortion. Abortion is a serious lethal violation of human rights. And now we are on the verge of being compelled to massively subsidize this violence against children. Madam Speaker, no one is really fooled by the multiple attempts to craft language that funds abortions but uses surface appeal text to suggest otherwise. I'm afraid the rule will likely contain self- enacting text that further misleads and obfuscates. Thus, the only policy language that honestly and transparently precludes public funding for abortion is the Stupak-Pitts amendment. The Capps amendment that is already in the bill, as I said, explicitly authorizes Federal funding for abortion in the public option. And again, I urge Members to just read it. With abortion covered under the public option, we will see more abortions. It also allows the government subsidies, the other program, to pay for insurance plans that cover abortion. As a matter of fact, every region will have to have a plan that provides for abortion. One of the great successes of the Right to Life movement is increasingly calling out to those so-called providers, abortionists, and inviting them to leave that grizzly business. And most of the hospitals in the country and most of the counties in the country no longer have abortionists. This legislation provides economic incentives and the force of law to ensure that every one of these localities has abortionists and abortions provided in a plan. Madam Speaker, I urge Members to vote for the Bart Stupak-Joe Pitts amendment if it is given an opportunity to be voted on. And if not, this whole bill--because you know what Hippocrates said, ``Do no harm.'' What did the great leaders and nurturers and health care leaders say in the past? Never do harm to an innocent. This is not health care. Abortion is not health care. It is the deliberate and willful killing of an unborn child, the wounding of their mothers, and the hurting, the serious destruction in terms of disabilities and the like to subsequent children. I would like to yield Congresswoman Schmidt such time as she might consume. And I want to thank her for her leadership on behalf of the unborn through these many years in service to Congress and before that.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I yield to Mr. Cao, the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana. I thank him for his leadership, the first Vietnamese American Member of Congress and a staunch fighter for human rights. I've known him in the refugee battles, especially for the boat people, and in so many other human rights' issues. So I yield to my friend.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank my friend and colleague for his eloquent and very passionate statement. Knowing of his work on behalf of human rights and of his standing as a human rights advocate globally, thank you so very much, And, for that very powerful statement. I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), and want to, again, thank him for his leadership for so many years in the defense of life.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank Mr. Gohmert for his, again, very eloquent statement and for his logic, which is so important and sometimes lacking in this august body. Let me also point out that we have a man who is going to speak next, Mark Souder. Truth in legislating is not a forgotten art, and when people say, as you pointed out, Mr. Gohmert, that the abortion funding in both the public option and in the program that establishes affordability credits couldn't be more clear, there's no ambiguity about it. There is some language that is very, very deceiving that leads people to think it's not in there. And then people say it. The President of the United States suggested that funding for abortion is not in his plan. And, frankly, assuming he was misled by perhaps staff, nothing could be further from the truth. I would like to yield to a man who offered airtight pro-life language in the committee on which he serves, Education and Labor Committee, to speak, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you, Mr. Souder. And I do want to thank you again for offering that amendment and for that very illuminating and incisive hearing on RU-486. Again, we know that the trials that led to approval by the FDA, when Kessler was the head of the FDA under President Clinton, he on bended knee asked the company that manufactures RU-486 to bring it here. Sham trials were conducted where women who were seriously hurt were not reported. And we know for a fact, women are actually dying from RU-486. Probably because they had the best reporting of any other State, those women have surfaced in California from those deaths attributable to RU- 486. And it's baby pesticide that has serious consequences for women, including death. Again, no pharmaceutical company in America would take up RU-486, the abortion drug, simply because it was so dangerous. So they found the Population Council Company. Try suing them when you have egregious harm done to a woman or a death, a fatality. It's an organization. It's not like Merck or some other because all of them took a pass because it is so dangerous. And you held the only hearing, as you so well pointed out, and I commend the gentleman for them. I would like to yield to Mr. Fortenberry, a good friend and great champion of human rights as well.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague Dr. Roe, an OB/GYN who knows so much about this and has been a leader in this Congress on all life-related issues as well as other things.