Date: 2014-01-28
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. our leader is right. Our message today should be to be able to help the chronically and unemployed individuals who have worked and are now in need of an extension of the unemployment benefits. Instead. today. as we pass H.R. 7. we will be making a blatant attack on equal protection of the law. and that disappoints me because I know my good friends believe in the Constitution on the other side of the aisle. And the Hyde amendment. and I had the privilege of serving with Chairman Hyde for a number of years on the Judiciary Committee. clearly is the law. But what this bill has done is gone even further. It has disenfranchised. from their civil liberties. the people of the District of Columbia. and completely abolished home rule. to the extent of womens health. And if it was a State. the question would be whether or not it was appropriate under the 10th Amendment. Then it has disincentivized small businesses. for you have disqualified them from getting a tax incentive or a tax credit because they are not allowed to provide for their employees. This bill should be put to the side. and we should pass legislation to ensure that the unemployed have unemployment insurance. That is what is right about America. and we should do the right thing. Madam Speaker. I rise in strong opposition to the rule for H.R. 7. the socalled "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." and the underlying bill. I oppose this bill because it is unnecessary. puts the lives of women at risk. interferes with womens constitutionally guaranteed right of privacy. and diverts our attention from the real problems facing the American people. Instead of resuming their War on Women. our colleagues across the aisle should be working with Democrats to extend unemployment insurance to the 1.9 million Americans whose benefits have been terminated and to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour so that people who work hard and play by the rules do not have to raise their families in poverty. A far better use of our time would be to provide help to longterm unemployed jobhunters by bringing to the floor and passing H.R. 3888. the "New Chance for a New Start in Life Act." a bill I introduced that would provide compensated skills training for the jobs of tomorrow to the longterm unemployed. Last year I opposed this irresponsible and reckless legislation when it was brought to the floor. I opposed this bill when it was considered in the Judiciary Committee earlier this month. I opposed this bill yesterday when it was being considered by the Rules Committee. Madam Speaker. the version of H.R. 7 before us is only a little less bad than the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee. Dropped are the tax provisions that would prevent an individual from deducting any abortion expenses as a taxeligible medical expense or using pretax flex health or health savings accounts for abortion expenses. But the other draconian provisions of this terrible bill remain intact: 1. Prohibits federal funds from being used for any health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion. (Thus making permanent existing federal policies.) 2. Prohibits the inclusion of abortion in any health care service furnished by a federal or District of Columbia health care facility or by any physician or other individual employed by the federal government or the District. 3. Applies such prohibitions to District of Columbia funds. 4. Prohibits individuals from receiving a refundable federal tax credit. or any costsharing reductions. for purchasing a qualified health plan that includes coverage for abortions. 5. Prohibits small employers from receiving the smallemployer health insurance credit provided by the health care law if the health plans or benefits that are purchased provide abortion coverage. Taken together. these provisions have the effect. and possibly the intent. of arbitrarily infringing womens reproductive freedoms and poses a nationwide threat to the health and wellbeing of American women and a direct challenge to the Supreme Courts ruling in Roe v. Wade. Madam Speaker. one of the most detestable aspects of this bill is that it would curb access to care for women in the most desperate of circumstances. Women like Danielle Deaver. who was 22 weeks pregnant when her water broke. Tests showed that Danielle had suffered anhydramnios. a premature rupture of the membranes before the fetus has achieved viability. This condition meant that the fetus likely would be born with a shortening of muscle tissue that results in the inability to move limbs. In addition. Danielles fetus likely would suffer deformities to the face and head. and the lungs were unlikely to develop beyond the 22week point. There was less than a 10% chance that. if born. Danielles baby would be able to breathe on its own and only a 2% chance the baby would be able to eat on its own. H.R. 7 hurts women like Vikki Stella. a diabetic. who discovered months into her pregnancy that the fetus she was carrying suffered from several major anomalies and had no chance of survival. Because of Vikkis diabetes. her doctor determined that induced labor and Caesarian section were both riskier procedures for Vikki than an abortion. Every pregnancy is different. No politician knows. or has the right to assume he knows. what is best for a woman and her family. These are decisions that properly must be left to women to make. in consultation with their partners. doctors. and their God. H.R. 7 lacks the necessary exceptions to protect the health and life of the mother. H.R. 7 is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to privacy. as interpreted by the Supreme Court in a long line of cases going back to Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and Roe v. Wade decided in 1973. In Roe v. Wade. the Court held that a State could prohibit a woman from exercising her right to terminate a pregnancy in order to protect her health prior to viability. While many factors go into determining fetal viability. the consensus of the medical community is that viability is acknowledged as not occurring prior to 24 weeks gestation. Supreme Court precedents make it clear that neither Congress nor a state legislature can declare any one element-"be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factoras the determinant" of viability. Colautti v. Franklin. 439 U.S. 379. 38889 (1979). The constitutionally protected right to privacy encompasses the right of women to choose to terminate a pregnancy before viability. and even later where continuing to term poses a threat to her health and safety. This right of privacy was hard won and must be preserved inviolate. The bill before us threatens this hard won right for women and must be defeated.