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[House Report 109-51]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

109th Congress                                             Rept. 109-51
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 1st Session                                                     Part 2

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               CHILD INTERSTATE ABORTION NOTIFICATION ACT

                                _______
                                

                  May 5, 2005.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

 Mr. Sensenbrenner, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the 
                               following

                          SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT

                             together with

                      ADDITIONAL DISSENTING VIEWS

                        [To accompany H.R. 748]

  Pursuant to clause 3(a)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives for the 109th Congress, the Committee 
on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 748) to 
amend title 18, United States Code, to prevent the 
transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws 
relating to abortion, and for other purposes, herein files a 
supplemental report on the bill.
    On April 21, 2005, the Committee on the Judiciary filed 
House Report 109-51, relating to H.R. 748, the ``Child 
Interstate Abortion Notification Act of 2005.''
    This supplemental report amends the headings that described 
Committee amendments offered to H.R. 748 that were subject to 
roll call votes at pages 45 through 49 of House Report 109-51, 
Part 1. The following descriptive headings of amendments 
offered to H.R. 748 have been modified.

                         VOTE OF THE COMMITTEE

    In compliance with clause 3(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of 
the House of Representatives, the Committee notes that the 
following rollcall votes occurred during the Committee's 
consideration of H.R. 748.
    1. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have allowed 
anyone subject to prosecution under the Act to challenge the 
adequacy of a judicial bypass provision provided for under 
State law in federal court. By a rollcall vote of 11 yeas to 16 
nays, the amendment was defeated.
    2. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted 
any grandparent or adult sibling of a minor from the Act. By a 
rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was 
defeated.
    3. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted 
any taxicab driver, bus driver, or those in the business of 
professional transport from the Act. By a rollcall vote of 13 
yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.
    4. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted 
from the Act those who did not commit an offense in the first 
degree. By a rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment 
was defeated.
    5. Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have 
exempted from the Act any clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or 
first cousins, and would require a study by the Government 
Accounting Office. By a rollcall vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays, 
the amendment was defeated.
    This supplemental report includes additional information 
that describes amendments offered at the markup of H.R. 748, 
the ``Child Interstate Notification Abortion Act of 2005.''.

                    AMENDMENTS OFFERED AT COMMITTEE

    Amendments offered at the Committee on the Judiciary markup 
of H.R. 748 would have had the effect of creating blanket 
exclusions from the criminal prohibitions in the legislation 
without any exceptions for those who would commit statutory 
rape or incest. The loopholes those amendments would have 
created could have been exploited by the very sexual 
predators--that is, those who would exploit vulnerable young 
girls and commit statutory rape or incest--whose conduct the 
bill is designed to bring to light. All of the amendments 
offered would have carved out exceptions that could be 
exploited by sexual predators who sought to destroy evidence of 
their crimes by secretly taking a minor, without her parents' 
knowledge, to another State to have an abortion, contrary to 
the purposes of the legislation.
    The amendments offered by the minority would have created 
blanket exclusions for certain large classes of people who are 
not a minor's parents. Those classes of people were ``taxicab 
drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional 
transport,''\1\ ``clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first 
cousins of a minor,''\2\ and ``grandparents or adult 
siblings.''\3\ If any of the people described in the amendments 
offered became involved with a minor in a sexually abusive way, 
they would have been flatly excluded from the criminal 
prohibitions of H.R. 748, one of the primary purposes of which 
is to prevent sexual predators from continuing to abuse minors 
undetected.\4\ The amendments offered at the Judiciary 
Committee markup of April 13, 2005, were directly contrary to a 
primary purpose of the legislation.
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    \1\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 101 (amendment offered by Mr. 
Scott).
    \2\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 112 (amendment offered by Ms. 
Jackson-Lee).
    \3\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 95 (amendment offered by Mr. 
Nadler).
    \4\That purpose is reviewed extensively in the Committee Report in 
an entire section entitled ``CIANA Protects Minor Girls From Sexual 
Assault.'' See H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 35-36.
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    Similarly, if an amendment were offered to a bill that 
would make it a federal crime to commit terrorist acts, and an 
offered amendment would exclude conduct by, for example, 
taxicab drivers, then that amendment would allow a taxicab 
driver to commit terrorist acts without being prosecuted. In 
the very same way, those who happen to drive taxicabs, or who 
work in the business of professional transportation, should not 
be free to commit statutory rape and transport a minor across 
state lines to get an abortion without telling one of the 
girl's parents. And brothers, uncles, or godparents, should not 
be allowed to commit incest and then transport a young girl 
across state lines to get an abortion so evidence of their 
crimes are destroyed without telling one of the girl's parents 
about the abortion. The amendments offered would have done just 
that in just that way.
    The incidence of statutory rape in this country is 
shocking. As a recent presentation given at a U.S. Department 
of Health and Human Services Conference on the Sexual 
Exploitation of Teens showed, of minor girls' first sexual 
experiences, 13% constitute statutory rape.\5\ Further, the 
younger a sexually experienced teen is, the more likely they 
are to experience statutory rape. Of sexually experienced teens 
age 13 or younger, 65% experienced statutory rape. Of those age 
14, 53% experienced statutory rape. Of those age 15, 41% 
experienced statutory rape.\6\ Also, blacks and Hispanics are 
more likely to experience statutory rape.\7\ Creating blanket 
exclusions in the bill for large categories of people would 
create a loophole in the legislation that statutory rapists 
could exploit.
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    \5\Kristin Moore, Ph.D. and Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D., ``A 
Demographic Portrait of Statutory Rape,'' Presentation given at the 
United States Department of Health and Human Services' Conference on 
the Sexual Exploitation of Teens (March 23-24, 2005) (defining 
statutory rape as occurring when teens aged 15 or younger have sex with 
a partner 3 or more years older).
    \6\Id.
    \7\Id. (Hispanic, 17%, black, 16%, white, 11%).
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    Regarding family incest, one recent law review article\8\ 
summarized the research regarding the prevalence of sexual 
contact among siblings as follows: ``Brother-sister sexual 
contact may be five times as common as father-daughter incest. 
A survey of 796 New England College students revealed that 15% 
of females . . . had a sexual experience with a sibling.''\9\ 
Further, among those reporting sexual abuse, the incidence of 
abuse by cousins ranges from 10% to 40% among various 
studies.\10\ And 4.9% of women report an incestuous experience 
with an uncle before the age of 18,\11\ and 16% of rape victims 
are raped by relatives other than their father.\12\ Carving out 
exceptions to the criminal prohibitions of H.R. 748 for adult 
siblings, cousins, and uncles would not protect young girls who 
are made victims of incest by their adult siblings, cousins, or 
uncles.
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    \8\Victor Vieth, ``When the Child Abuser is a Child,'' 25 Hamline 
L. Rev. 47, 51 (2001).
    \9\Vernon R. Wiehe, Sibling Abuse: Hidden Physical, Emotional, and 
Sexual Trauma 50 (1990).
    \10\See A. De Jong, Sexual Interactions Among Siblings and Cousins, 
12(2), 271-279 (1988).
    \11\See Russell, Diana E.H., ``The Incidence and Prevalence of 
Intrafamilial and Extrafamilial Sexual Abuse of Female Children,'' in 
Handbook on Sexual Abuse of Children, edited by Lenore E.A. Walker 
(1988).
    \12\See D.G. Kilpratrick et al., Rape in America: A Report to the 
Nation (National Victim Center 1992).
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    Further, pregnancy as a result of all these crimes is all 
too common. As one Pennsylvania court has pointed out, 
``Twenty-five percent of incest victims become pregnant. The 
ratio is greater among victims of incest than those of rape 
because incestuous conduct is usually long term and progressive 
whereas rape is usually a one time occurrence.''\13\
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    \13\Fischner v. Department of Public Welfare, 482 A.2d 1137, 1143 
(Pa. Commonwealth 1984).
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    Another amendment offered at the Judiciary Committee markup 
of H.R. 748 would have created an additional layer of Federal 
court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape 
conviction under the bill.\14\ That amendment would have 
created an opportunity for a sexual predator to escape 
conviction if they could make a showing to a federal court that 
the judicial bypass provisions of a state law were somehow 
ineffective or somehow violated confidential information 
related to a minor's pregnancy. If a sexual predator made a 
showing to the court on either of those issues--neither of 
which would expose the sexual predator's crimes--then that 
sexual predator could completely evade the requirements of H.R. 
748, which are designed to expose sexual predators and prevent 
future sexual abuse.
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    \14\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 90 (amendment offered by Mr. 
Nadler).
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    The final amendment offered would have exempted from 
prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who 
could be prosecuted under the bill. That amendment would have 
excluded from the bill anyone who did not ``commit[] an offense 
in the first degree.''\15\ The consequences of adopting that 
amendment would have been to allow anyone who aided or abetted 
a criminal who ran afoul of the criminal prohibitions of H.R. 
748 to instead get off scot-free.
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    \15\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 107 (amendment offered by Mr. 
Scott).
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    In sum, the effect of the amendments offered would have 
been to exempt cab drivers, other professional transporters, 
and certain relatives who aren't parents from the criminal 
prohibitions of H.R. 748, and that would have prevented parents 
from knowing when those perpetrators of statutory rape or 
incest were secretly taking their children across state lines 
for an abortion to destroy evidence of their crimes.
    This supplemental report also adds the following additional 
text at the end of the Additional Dissenting Views.

         ADDITIONAL DISSENTING VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVES CONYERS

    I understand that some contend that certain Democratic 
Amendments offered at the markup of H.R. 748 would have 
protected sexual predators.\16\ This is not the purpose, intent 
or effect of the Amendments.
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    \16\The five amendments in question are Nadler Amendment No.11-16 
(allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a 
Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state's parental notice 
laws if this remedy is not available in the state court); Nadler 
Amendment No.12-19 (exempts a grandparent or adult sibling from the 
criminal and civil provisions in the bill); Scott Amendment No. 13-17 
(exempts cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business 
transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill); 
Scott Amendment No.12-18 (would have limited criminal liability to the 
person committing the offense in the first degree); Jackson-Lee 
Amendment No. 13-20 (exempts clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first 
cousins from the penalties in the bill).
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    First, it is important to note that the term ``sexual 
predator'' is not included in the text of any of the Democratic 
Amendments, nor is it included in the text of the legislation 
itself. In addition, the term was only used on a single 
occasion during the substantive consideration of the 
legislation at full committee, very briefly during debate on 
the second Scott amendment.\17\
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    \17\See Mr. Chabot's remarks on page 107 of H.R. Report, No. 109-
51.
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    Second, I believe it is incorrect to assert, for example, 
that the bill creates a loophole for grandparents or taxicab 
drivers under the amendments. In the highly unlikely event that 
a grandparent or a taxicab driver had engaged in sexual 
relations with a young woman, the amendments would not have let 
such individuals off the hook for their acts. That is to say, 
they would be separately and independently culpable for the act 
of rape, statutory rape, or incest, with or without the 
adoption of these amendments.
    Third, the amendments simply reflected good faith efforts 
of Democratic Members to carve out from the provisions of the 
legislation certain categories of individuals who were not 
sexual predators, but were simply acting out of the best 
interests of the young woman involved, For example:
     When Mr. Nadler offered an amendment to allow a 
subject party to challenge the adequacy of judicial bypass 
procedures, he did so because of his knowledge that quite 
frequently judicial bypass procedures do not operate to allow a 
woman who has been raped by a parent to find an objective and 
independent legal forum to obtain a waiver.
     When Mr. Nadler offered an amendment to exempt 
grandparents and adult siblings from the scope of the 
legislation, and Ms. Jackson Lee offered an amendment to exempt 
clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first cousins form the 
legislation, they did so because they understand that quite 
frequently a trusted relative or clergy member is turned to by 
a young woman who is scared of or cannot trust her parents.
     When Mr. Scott offered an amendment to exempt 
taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or those in the business of 
professional transport from the legislation, he did so because 
he did not want these innocent common carriers to be caught up 
in legal danger as the result of the actions of an overzealous 
prosecutor.
     When Mr. Scott offered an amendment to exempt 
individuals who did not commit offenses in the first degree, he 
did so to insure that the legislation focused on those who 
acted with specific intent to violate the law, as is ordinarily 
the case with our criminal laws or to be prevented from simply 
doing their jobs in transporting individuals across state 
lines.
    In each of these cases far from protecting sexual 
predators, the amendments were designed to make it easier for a 
young woman who wants to obtain an abortion from being able to 
do so without being forced to seek the permission of a parent 
who is himself a sexual predator. I believe the amendments were 
straightforward and justified, and would have provided 
important improvements to the underlying legislation without 
opening up any additional loopholes.

                                                  John Conyers, Jr.
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