Providing for Consideration of H.R> 748, Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 748, CHILD INTERSTATE ABORTION NOTIFICATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - April 27, 2005)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this bill, and I know some people strongly support the bill. This clearly is an emotional issue. We can debate both sides of this. But I rise to express my deep regret over the report from the Committee on the Judiciary that accompanied this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, there is not a civility left in this House, and what little civility is left I want to protect. Listening to my colleagues on the other side talk about, and the way they have mischaracterized and misrepresented and, yes, maligned Democratic Members on this side, and I say maligned because if you use those words that you used to describe their amendments to describe them on this House floor, your words would be taken down.
One of the kinds of traditions or the unwritten rules of this House is when you describe the amendments offered by Republicans or Democrats, it is done so in a nonpartisan way. In the Committee on Rules, we get more amendments than any other committee in this House, and they are all described in a nonpartisan way. We would never describe anybody's amendment in this kind of a political way. If we did, there would be an outcry amongst members on that committee.
I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to kind of take a step back, to correct the report, to demonstrate some civility and some rationality on this issue. Nobody deserves to have their amendments characterized the way these Members did. This is wrong, and I know deep down you know it is wrong.
It is difficult for me to sit by and watch my colleague from Georgia and the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, who I have great respect for, try to rationalize this. We are better than this. I would hope there could be a bipartisan consensus when it comes to descriptions of amendments in reports, we could do this in a nonpartisan way.
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