Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3134, Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015; Provideing for Consideration of H.R. 3504, Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act; and for Other Purposes
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, House Resolution 421 provides closed rules for consideration of H.R. 3134, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, and H.R. 3504, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
Today, Madam Speaker, we provide for consideration of two vital pieces of legislation addressing one of the most important issues of our time.
On many previous occasions, my colleagues and I have spoken on the issue of abortion and the tragedy it is that unborn children are not safe and protected.
We are not here today, though, debating the policy of abortion on-demand. We are debating specific legislative reactions to horrific wrongs that have come to light: the deliberate dismemberment of unborn children to receive compensation for their organs and other body parts and the failure of abortion facilities to care for children born alive during failed abortions. Even some who support elective abortion agree that those practices are barbaric and must be stopped.
The horrific reality of these practices in the abortion industry have become clear over the past few months, as undercover videos have been released of Planned Parenthood's leaders and affiliates discussing painstakingly dismembering unborn children for compensation.
In these days of 3-D ultrasounds and high-definition screens, it is impossible to hide the humanity of these child victims. They have fingers and toes, heartbeats, and organs developed enough that tissue collectors will pay $60 a specimen for them.
In light of the serious questions raised by these videos, the House Committees on Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform have each launched investigations.
While Planned Parenthood does not receive direct Federal funding for abortions, these investigations are warranted, as a recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows that the organization receives an average of $500 million taxpayer dollars each year for other lines of business. Money is fungible, and the Federal funds that Planned Parenthood receives ultimately subsidize their abortion services.
Given the serious allegations that have been raised about Planned Parenthood's abortion practices related to the procurement and sale of tissue and organs from aborted, unborn children, it is appropriate for Congress to pass H.R. 3134, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, placing a 1-year moratorium on all Federal funds while Congress conducts its investigation.
No organization that performs divisive practices like abortion, particularly in such a gruesome, profitable manner, should receive taxpayer dollars, and this legislation advances that principle.
In addition, the examples of Kermit Gosnell's convictions for murdering children born alive at his house of horrors and separate reports of unborn children may have been born alive or ``intact'' prior to being sold to tissue collectors have exposed the need for strengthening the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which became law in 2002, extended critical legal protections to babies who are born alive after a failed abortion attempt. That bill passed the House Judiciary Committee with only two dissenting votes and was passed by the Senate by unanimous consent.
The legislation before us today, H.R. 3504, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, goes one step further to protect these vulnerable lives by requiring healthcare practitioners present at the time of birth to administer professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child.
This small, but important, step ensures the protection and preservation of precious, newborn life by providing for criminal penalties when that life is lost as a result of negligence.
These tiny, precious, vulnerable lives deserve the protection afforded all other persons under the law, and this bill ensures that their lives are protected.
Madam Speaker, I commend this rule and both the underlying bills to my colleagues for their support.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, if my colleagues would like to use parliamentary terms like ``regular order,'' ``self-execute,'' or ``waivers'' to hide from debate over the gruesome practices of abortionists, that is their prerogative.
They ignore what one key Planned Parenthood abortionist said: ``We've been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I'm not gonna crush that part. I'm gonna basically crush below, I'm gonna crush above, and I'm gonna see if I can get it all intact.''
Republicans will continue to bring the truth to Americans and prevent taxpayer dollars from going to organizations that dismember children.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne).
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, there are many more options for women's health care than the discredited abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.
While Planned Parenthood is only approximately 665 clinics, federally qualified health centers, FQHCs, and rural health centers, RHCs, provide over 13,000 publicly supported locations, providing alternatives for women's health care. This means there are 20 federally funded comprehensive care clinics for every one Planned Parenthood.
This bill does not change the availability of funds for women's health. It simply establishes a safeguard so that the Nation's largest abortion chain is not the one providing such services.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
My colleagues have asked for an investigation into The Center for Medical Progress, which released these videos. The Center for Medical Progress does not receive half a billion in taxpayer dollars every year; Planned Parenthood does. It is the role of Congress to exercise oversight on those who receive taxpayer dollars. It is also appropriate for Congress to cease funding a scandal-ridden organization.
It is extremely interesting to hear my colleagues across the aisle talk about investigating the creators of these videos. If only there was such enthusiasm for oversight on other issues, such as ObamaCare implementation, immigration executive orders, and Hillary Clinton's refusal to share her actions on Benghazi.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Last evening when I spoke on this legislation in the Committee on Rules, I mentioned that this is a very emotional issue for those of us who value life so much. One of my colleagues has already spoken to the fundamental issue of life, but I think we always should have time to talk about our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
Particularly as it relates to this issue, it is the Declaration of Independence which says: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.''
Madam Speaker, that is what we are talking about here today. We are talking about what our government should be doing in the light of knowing that the most vulnerable among us are being destroyed, and that without life, there is nothing else.
Our colleagues keep saying there are things that are more important for us to be debating today. Madam Speaker, I would purport that there are few things more important than this debate over the trafficking of hearts and other body parts of unborn children, some of whom may have been born alive.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that this legislation is part of a war on women, but in reality it is designed to stop the war on children that is going on in abortion facilities across this country.
Large majorities of Americans believe their tax dollars should not go to fund abortions. They felt this way even before learning that, during those abortions, children are dismembered and sold piece by piece. It is unfathomable that we have to debate stopping the provision of tax dollars to organizations participating in such activities. It is also unbelievable that we do not immediately pass, by unanimous consent, legislation ensuring that children born alive, breathing and crying, like each of us was on our first day outside the womb, deserve the same medical care that any child born in a hospital would receive.
What is heartening, in the face of this contentious debate, is the principle that the truth always comes out. Abortionists can no longer hide in the dark back rooms of their facilities and sell unborn children piece by piece under an illusion that no one will ever know their crimes.
Our debate today and the videos that have been released have shattered that darkness and exposed the callousness of the abortion industry toward life and the consequences of accepting abortion on demand as acceptable. Both of these bills, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 and the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, contain commonsense provisions addressing the barbaric actions that have come to light in the abortion industry, and I commend the underlying bills in this rule providing for their consideration to all of my colleagues for their support.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 421 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts
At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections:
Sec. 6. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 167) to provide for adjustments to discretionary spending under section 251(b)(2) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 to support wildfire suppression operations, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided among and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget, the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Agriculture, and the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.
Sec. 7. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 167.
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The Vote on the Previous Question: What it Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''
The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution ..... [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule ..... When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''
In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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