Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act

CHILD INTERSTATE ABORTION NOTIFICATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - April 27, 2005)

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and first let me begin by noting that the case just alluded to by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), that in the case where a young woman was held coercively, was threatened if she did not go through with an abortion she would not be able to get home, would seem to violate the laws against kidnapping and half a dozen other criminal laws. If those people were not prosecuted, it is the district attorney's fault. We do not need this bill to deal with a situation like that.

Mr. Chairman, we consider today legislation that is at once another flagrant violation of the Constitution and an assault on the health and well-being of young women and their health care providers. Some States have chosen to enact parental notification and consent laws. Some, like mine, have considered this issue and decided such laws are not good for the welfare of young women and have declined to enact them. This bill would use Federal authority to impose the restrictive laws of one State on abortions performed in another State. It would, in effect, make a young girl carry the law of her State on her back wherever she goes.

Mr. Chairman, I know of no law that has attempted to do this kind of thing since the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850s. This bill would make criminals of grandparents, boyfriends, brothers, sisters, and clergymen and women who try to help a young woman, a young woman who had a fear or alienation and thinks she cannot confide in her parents.

It would even apply to a case such as that of a 13-year-old from Idaho, Spring Adams, who was shot to death by her father after he found out that she planned to terminate a pregnancy, a pregnancy he caused by his act of incest. Under this bill, he would have the parental notification or veto right.

This bill is radically different from previous versions. If you voted for this bill in the past, look again. It would now, for the first time, jail doctors. It would now, for the first time, require doctors to know the laws of all 50 States. It would now, for the first time, require a doctor to fly to the young woman's home State and ring her parents' doorbell before treating her. Even if the young girl's State of residence and the doctor's State have both decided not to enact parental notification or consent laws, this bill would impose a new Federal parental notification law that is more Draconian than the laws of most States.

This bill imposes a 24-hour waiting period and does not waive that requirement even if the parents accompany the young woman to the abortion doctor and even if a delay would threaten her health. That is not only unconstitutional; it is immoral. Congress should not be tempted to play doctor. It is always bad medicine for women.

In an ideal world, loving, supportive and understanding families would join together to face these challenges. That is what happens in the majority of cases, law or no law; but we do not live in a perfect world. Some parents are violent; some parents are rapists. Some young people can turn only to their clergy, to a grandparent, a brother, a sister, or some other trusted adult. We should not turn these people into criminals simply because they are trying to help a young woman in a difficult or dire situation.

This bill is the wrong way to deal with a very real problem. It does not provide exceptions to protect the young woman's health. It does not provide exceptions where a parent has raped a young woman. It even allows the rapist to sue the clergyman or the doctor who tries to help the doctor deal with the effects of the rape committed by the rapist. It allows the rapist to sue the doctor and gain from his crime.

I urge my colleagues to reject this legislation on both constitutional and policy grounds. If only for the sake of humanity, I urge Members to join in providing the needed flexibility for the most difficult real-world cases involving the lives of real young women. We owe them at least that much.

We also owe the States the respect to note that some of them have passed such laws, some have not. Why should we impose these laws in States that have not done it? Why should we tell someone in one State because you came from another State, you are subject to the laws of that State wherever you go. We do not do that in this country generally. We are supposed to be a Federal Republic, although increasingly in this House we seem to forget that. I urge rejection of this bill.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we have alluded repeatedly in this debate to the reasons why this bill is oppressive and is wrong, and we have alluded to the fact that it is unconstitutional, but we have not really gone into that.

The fact is that under the rulings of the Supreme Court, it is not permissible to pass a law which has the effect of imposing one State's legal requirements on another State, as this bill does. In essence, the bill imposes on States and physicians the laws of the States that have the most stringent requirements on abortion. Federalism dictates that one has the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when temporarily present in another State, according to the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th amendment.

In the Saenz case in 1999, the Supreme Court held that a State cannot discriminate against a citizen of another State when there is no substantial reason for the discrimination, except for the fact that they are a citizen of another State. The court specifically referred to Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, where it said the State cannot limit access to its medical care facilities for abortions to in-State residents. A State must treat all that are seeking medical care within that State in an equal manner.

This bill would, in effect, say that there are two legal regimes in a State. One is the regime, the system, the set of laws that apply to residents of that State passed by the State legislature of that State. The second law that applies applies to people who came from another State, and it is the laws of that other State that apply, plus the laws of this State. Constitutionally, you cannot do that. You cannot make, you cannot make a young woman carry the law of one State on her back wherever she goes because she originated in that State.

I said before that Congress has made no attempt to use Federal authority to impose the laws of one State on another since the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fugitive Slave Act, if passed today, would clearly be unconstitutional. This bill is clearly unconstitutional, as well as oppressive.

It is also wrong because the States that have decided not to impose such laws on their own citizens should not be forced to because we say so.

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AMENDMENT NO. 2 OFFERED BY MS. JACKSON-LEE OF TEXAS

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be offering this amendment with my good friend, the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, this is one of the amendments that the committee report lied about. This amendment would prevent terrible and, I assume, unintended injustices. The amendment creates an exception to the provisions that make it a crime to accompany a minor across State lines who is seeking abortion services if the person accompanying the minor is a grandparent or a member of the clergy.

These are responsible adults to whom young people often turn when they are in trouble and cannot go to their parents. In an ideal world, that would never happen; but where that is the case, where they feel they cannot turn to their parents, I think we want our young people to able to turn to a grandparent or their minister, priest, or rabbi.

At the very least, I do not think Members want to put grandmothers and members of the clergy behind bars simply because they did not want to leave a young person alone and unaided during a very difficult moment.

Do we really want to put grandmothers and clergy in jail? Surely the supporters of this bill would not want to put a grandmother or reverend in jail who is only trying to help a minor.

I know they argue that the evil abortion providers are spiriting them away, but we are not talking about if that ever occurred. We are talking about the grandmother of the minor. We are talking about the trusted minister, priest, or rabbi of the minor whom she seeks out and confides in.

The opponents of this amendment have argued that it is the fundamental right of a parent to be involved in any decision concerning the pregnancy of their child. This is certainly true.

But in the real world, there are situations where it is impossible for a minor to tell a parent about a pregnancy, for instance, in cases of incest, where the parents physically abuse their children or in the case that I mentioned while in general debate of the young 13-year-old girl whose father had raped her, found out she was pregnant, and murdered her. In these cases, a minor needs to be able to turn to a responsible adult, such as a grandparent or a clergy member, for assistance. We should not criminalize this assistance. We should not be throwing caring grandmothers, grandparents, or ministers in jail.

Now, it may be that a properly drafted amendment that would say if it was a ring of people doing this for money, maybe that would be reasonable, but not a grandparent or a clergy member who was helping a young person in trouble.

Some have argued that we should defeat this amendment because there are cases, albeit few and isolated, where a grandparent or a member of the clergy may be a sexual predator. Sadly, this is true sometimes. Thankfully, it is rarely true. It is also true that sometimes a parent is a sexual predator, and this bill not only does not protect the minor in those cases. It requires the doctor to ring the sexual predator's doorbell to tell him what is going on, and it gives the sexual predator the ability to sue the doctor. That is what the bill does.

Even with this exception, with the exception in this amendment, any sexual predator will still face the full force of the law. Those crimes can, and should still, be punished. This amendment in no way shields these criminals from the consequences of their acts. It does, however, protect caring grandparents and clergy from going to jail just because they cared enough about a young person to stand with them in a difficult time.

Mr. Chairman, it should be the duty of the government and Congress to provide help to young women in these trying times, not to make life more difficult than it needs to be.

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MOTION TO RECOMMIT OFFERED BY MR. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I offer a motion to recommit.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?

Mr. NADLER. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am most certainly opposed to the bill.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, this bill allows a father to sue the person who accompanied the young woman or, if he did not receive the required notice, to sue the doctor who provided the abortion even if he himself, the father, that is, caused the pregnancy by rape or incest.

If adopted, my motion to recommit would simply ensure that this right to sue does not extend to a parent who caused the pregnancy through rape or incest. The motion to recommit would ensure that this bill would not enable such rapists to profit from their wrongdoing.

I know the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) will say that the bill already prohibits suits by rapists, but the so-called prohibition in the bill applies only to suits against the doctor, not against the person who accompanied her, and even against the doctor only in the unlikely event that the minor declares the rape in a signed written statement to the doctor.

Aside from that exception, the rapist under this bill will profit from the newly established rights to sue the doctor or the unlimited newly established right to sue the person who accompanied her.

I cannot believe that any Member of this House, even those who support parental-consent laws, could really want to enable a criminal, a father who raped his daughter and caused the pregnancy, to be able to profit from his wrongdoing by suing doctors, grandmothers, and clergymen. This motion would correct this obvious mistake; and I think, or at least I hope, that the sponsors of this bill would agree that this amendment should be adopted.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of loose talk over the last few days about sexual predators and the need to protect young women. We may not agree in this House on the best way to protect these young women, but we should all be able to agree that a father who rapes his daughter should not profit from his crime. This bill as presently constituted gives him that power. The motion to recommit would take that ability away from him and would do nothing else at all.

The motion to recommit simply says a father who rapes his daughter or commits incest with her and causes that pregnancy cannot then sue someone who performs an abortion or who accompanies her to an abortion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

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