Laci and Conner's Law

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the so-called Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Here we are again to consider a bill which has now, for three Congresses, unnecessarily mired what should be a laudable and uncontroversial effort to punish truly heinous crimes in the emotionally charged and legally suspect back allies of the abortion debate. This is regrettable, Mr. Speaker, because real people are suffering real harm, while this House has played abortion politics instead of acting to punish truly barbaric crimes.

The issue today is straightforward: Is it or is it not necessary to enact a bill making a statement endorsing the controversial and legally revolutionary notion that a fetus is a legal person from the moment of conception in order to punish these criminals with the severity that they justly deserve?

That is the heart of the issue. The proponents of this bill are taking what should be a straightforward issue and unnecessarily turning it into a controversial one.

Why does this matter? Quite simply, because if the law recognizes that a fetus is a legal person from the moment of conception, as this bill would do, when it is a zygote, a blastocyst, an embryo, a simple collection of undifferentiated cells, then the law must recognize and protect the rights of that person on a legal basis with the rights of the adult pregnant woman. If our laws recognize that, then there can be no right to choose, because, logically, terminating a pregnancy even in its earliest stages would be killing a fully legal person.

So when the proponents tell you that this is not about the right to choose, this is not about the right to have an abortion, remember that very simple and clear fact. And, remember that we have an alternative that is just as tough on these criminals: the Lofgren substitute. We do not have to choose between an assault on Roe v. Wade and permitting these heinous criminals to walk free.

That is a false choice, but I do not ask my colleagues to believe me. Take the proponents at their word.

Senator Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a sponsor of this bill in the other body, had this to say, ``They say it undermines abortion rights. It does, but that's irrelevant.'' CNN, May 7 last year.

January 19 last year, Samuel B. Casey, executive director of the Christian Legal Society, told the Los Angeles Times, ``In as many areas as we can, we want to put on the books that the embryo is a person. That sets the stage for a jurist,'' a judge, ``to acknowledge that human beings at any stage of development deserve protection, even protection that would trump a woman's interest in terminating a pregnancy.''

May 19 last year, Dr. Joe Cook, vice president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, ``We have to approach this in a way that's doable, a step at a time. This bill is aimed at establishing that a fetus in utero is a human being and has human rights.''

So please do not insult our intelligence by saying this bill is not about abortion rights.

The proper question is not whether we will recognize a separate or a new crime, but how we will do so. The Lofgren substitute recognizes a special kind of evil embodied in these crimes, but would recognize the assault on the fetus as a second crime against the pregnant woman, a second, separate crime, but against the pregnant woman, not against the fetus. The distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution criticized that point of view as the ``ideology of those who are unwilling to recognize the unborn child in the law.'' Precisely. That is the threat to Roe, and despite the disclaimers in the bill and the disclaimers of the distinguished chairman a few minutes ago, that is what we are talking about today.

If a fetus is recognized as a legal person, then this bill would open the door to barring abortions, to prosecuting women or to restraining them physically for the sake of the fetus. Some courts and State governments have already experimented with this approach. The last time we had occasion to consider this bill, the Supreme Court had just struck down a practice in the then-sponsor's home State of South Carolina in which a hospital would give the result of pregnant women's blood tests to local law enforcement for the purpose of initiating legal action against those women who might take action that might in some way endanger the fetus. Once we recognize even a zygote, two cells, as having the same legal status as the pregnant woman, it would logically follow that her liberty could be restricted to protect its interests. The whole purpose of Roe is to say that her liberty interests trump the interests of the fetus. This bill says exactly the opposite.

For those of us who are prochoice, the right to choose extends not just to a woman's right to have an abortion if she wants, but also to her right to carry a pregnancy to term if she wants and to deliver a healthy baby in safety. That is why we supported the Violence Against Women Act. That is why we support programs to provide proper prenatal care and nutrition to all women. That is why we support proper health and nutrition services after a birth. That is why we support other initiatives like the Family and Medical Leave Act. We do not believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth. We have an obligation to these children and to their parents both prenatally and postnatally.

Let there be no mistake, using physical violence against a woman to prevent her from having a child that she wants is just as much an assault on the right to choose as is the use of violence against women who wish to exercise their constitutional right to choose to end their pregnancy. A woman, and only a woman, has the right to decide when and whether to bring a child into the world; not an abusive partner, not a fanatic, not even Congress.

If we are serious about this problem, and the problem of domestic violence against pregnant women, we have effective remedies at our disposal. If we want to play abortion politics, we have an appropriate vehicle, this bill, before us for that purpose.

Violence against a pregnant woman deserves strong preventive measures and stiff punishment. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, homicides during pregnancy, and in the year following birth, are the leading pregnancy-related death among women in the United States. Among nonpregnant women, it is the fifth leading cause of death.

Mr. Speaker, it is a disgrace that while these preventable crimes continue to occur, Congress fiddles with largely symbolic legislation designed to interfere with the right to choose rather than taking affirmative steps to deal with this real problem. Why does this Republican-controlled Congress and White House continually refuse to fund fully and adequately the Violence Against Women Act? It appears that many of the Members who have signed on to this bill are the same ones who voted to divert funds from protecting women from violence to protecting stock dividends from taxation.

We owe it to these victims to enact strong penalties, ones which are not constitutionally suspect, to end these heinous crimes. I urge that we adopt the Lofgren substitute to make an assault that harms a fetus a second crime with just as severe or more severe penalties as with this bill, but a second crime against the women so as to not to get into the question of rights of the person to full personhood, which is, of course, the purpose of this bill, but would undermine Roe v. Wade, despite the disingenuous disclaimer of some of the other people on the other side. Let us not crowd the issue of fighting domestic violence, of fighting violence against women and pregnant women, by plunging a legitimate law enforcement effort into the murky waters of the abortion debate.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished chairman said a moment ago that in the Innocent Child Protection Act of 2000 we made settled law the personhood of the fetus. It is not correct. In the Innocent Child Protection Act of 2000, we simply said that a pregnant woman could not be executed, and we defined a pregnant woman as someone who had a child in utero, and then defined, as the chairman said, the words ``child in utero.''

It is not what we are talking about here. For the purpose of saying you cannot execute a pregnant woman, we have defined what a pregnant woman means. That is all that bill did.

This bill seeks to establish a fetus as a separate legal person by giving it separate legal rights in order transparently to make it a separate legal person within the meaning of the 14th amendment that says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. That is exactly the opposite of what the Supreme Court said when it said we have never held a fetus to be a person in the full meaning of the term. This bill is an attempt to whittle away at that term.

The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee says we have to acknowledge the particularly heinous nature of the crime, and indeed, we do. The Lofgren substitute acknowledges the assault on the fetus as a separate crime to be separately punished, to be additionally punished, but a separate crime against the woman because her interest in carrying that pregnancy to term and bearing a healthy baby is assaulted.

It does not recognize it as a separate crime against a separate person, which is the object of this bill and what we are debating, and which is why this bill, despite the disclaimers of the proponents, is a direct assault on Roe v. Wade, a direct assault on abortion, and if all they are interested in is to make a separate crime when you assault a

fetus, when you harm a fetus, then the Lofgren substitute is perfectly adequate for that. But their aim is to damage the right to choose, and that is the real purpose of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Iowa just hit the nail on the head. He said the purpose of this bill is to recognize that there are two victims, two people involved in this. That is exactly the point of this bill, and that is exactly why we should not pass this bill without the Lofgren substitute. I am glad the previous speaker and some of the other speakers on the other side stripped away the false rhetoric on this bill. This bill is not about punishing an assault on a fetus separately; the substitute as well as the bill does that. This is not about giving it an additional punishment; the substitute as well as the bill does that.

This is about saying that there are two victims, not one victim; that the fetus or the embryo or the zygote, depending on the status of the pregnancy, is a separate legal person. That is the point of the bill. That is why we must have the substitute, why we cannot agree to the bill, because the whole point of the bill is to establish legally separate fetal personhood, which would undermine the entire rationale of Roe v. Wade and undermine a woman's right to choose, because if a fetus is a separate legal person, how can she choose to terminate the pregnancy?

This is revolutionary notion going way back to Biblical law. If we look at the original Five Books of Moses, it says very plainly if you assault a woman and she dies, you should be put to death. And if you assault a woman and she miscarries, you shall pay her monetary compensation. In other words, by killing the fetus, you have damaged an interest of the woman for which she is due compensation, but you have not committed murder as you have if you kill the born person, the woman.

So we have never in our history recognized a fetus as a separate legal person. The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade specifically says we have never recognized a fetus as a separate person.

If we were to do so, then we would get into the 14th amendment question that you cannot deprive a person of life, or liberty or process, without due process of law; and that is the purpose of this bill. That is the purpose of similar bills in the State legislatures, I suspect, to give underpinning to a future Supreme Court majority to say that we recognize a fetus as a person within the meaning of the 14th amendment and, therefore, abortion is murder and, therefore, Roe v. Wade is overruled and, therefore, States have no right to legalize murder and you would need a constitutional amendment to permit abortions in this country.

That is the real point of this bill. And strip away all the disingenuous rhetoric about everything else, because everything else we agree on. We agree that there ought to be an additional penalty if you harm the fetus when you assault a woman. We agree that it should be a separate additional crime. The only question here between the bill and the substitute is should the separate additional crime for harming the fetus be a crime against the woman as we say, an additional separate crime against a woman deserving an additional separate penalty? Or should it be an additional crime against a second person, the fetus being recognized as a person?

That is the issue in this bill and this substitute. To say that it is not and to quarry the abortion debate is quite simply disingenuous. That is why the bill was introduced. That is why they are pushing it. It is why we are opposing it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida mentions various polling data that large majorities of people who are polled say that someone who attacks the woman and harms the fetus, that there are two separate crimes here. There is no dispute on that point. We agree with that. There are two separate crimes. The substitute as well as the bill in chief make it two separate crimes. That is not at issue. What is at issue is who is the victim. The substitute says it is a separate crime against the woman. Two crimes, two punishments for separate crimes against the same victim. The bill says two victims. That is the distinction here. Are there two crimes? Yes, we say. Yes, they say. Are there two victims? Yes, they say from a legal point of view. No, we say, she is the victim of a second crime because the law does not recognize the fetus as a full person.

That is what this bill seeks to do. So it is not a question of two separate slaps on the wrist. We ought to punish the crime severely. The substitute punishes the crime as severely, in some cases more severely than does the bill. The question is do you recognize one victim or two victims, because there are legal consequences, there are juridical consequences, there are consequences of undermining Roe v. Wade and the right to choose based on whether you say this fetus is a person for legal purposes or simply that you say the woman is a victim twice and we will punish it appropriately. That is the question, not whether there are two crimes.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished chairman, first of all, I congratulate him for endorsing the right to choose. But second of all, he talked about the woman who has chosen to bear her pregnancy to term, to have a child, and an assault which destroys her fetus or damages her fetus is an assault on her right to choose, and indeed it is. He is entirely right. That is why the substitute makes the assault on her fetus a separate crime with a separate penalty against her because it is indeed an assault on her right to choose to carry that pregnancy to term, and she is the damaged party because she has lost her right to carry the pregnancy to term. She has lost her right to bear a child, and that is why in the substitute we make it an additional crime against her.

The bill, of course, makes it a separate crime against the fetus, and that is the question here.

Also, the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) quoted Exodus 21:22. He said it was 22:22, but it is 21:22. He misquoted what it said. Before I read it, let me be very clear: I did not raise this reference to the Bible because I think we ought to enact Biblical or religious law in this Chamber, far from it, but simply to show it has always been regarded, our civilization generally has regarded back to Biblical times the fetus as not having the status of a separate person.

Exodus 21:22 reads as follows: ``If men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her,'' in other words, she has a miscarriage, they cause the destruction of the fetus, ``and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished and he shall pay as the judges determine,'' monetary compensation. ``And if any mischief follow, then they shall give life for life.''

Now, I am not sure what the Bible means by ``mischief.'' I have an interpretation here from a rabbinical source that says it means if she dies.

But, in any event, if she does not die, if mischief does not follow, if she has a miscarriage, monetary compensation. It is only when mischief follows, when she dies, that he is guilty of a capital crime. That is precisely because at least the Bible did not consider the fetus to be a person for whose killing it is a capital crime, as killing a born person is.

Again, I cite this not because we are bound in enacting civil law to enact Biblical law, we are not, obviously, but simply to show, as I mentioned earlier, this bill, by trying to establish the fetus as a separate person for legal purposes, is a radical departure not only from Anglo-American legal traditions, but from all of Western legal traditions going way back to the Bible.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will read into the Record some letters that we have here. This bill has been represented as a bill on family violence. We have here a letter in opposition to the bill and in support of the Lofgren substitute from the Family Violence Prevention Fund. It says: ``If Congress is serious about stopping domestic violence against pregnant women and helping women and children who are victims, Members will quickly pass the Domestic Violence Screening, Treatment and Prevention Act, H.R. 1267.''

The American Association of University Women is opposed to this bill. The National Women's Law Center is opposed to this bill.

The National Council of Jewish Women is opposed to this bill in which they say that ``this bill defines an unborn child as a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development. For the first time, it gives separate legal protection to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus and mandates penalties for harm to an unborn child equal to those mandated for harm to the woman herself. This legal definition will set a precedent that the anti-choice movement can exploit in its ongoing efforts to equate abortion with murder. And it would establish a foundation on which to build a case that the rights of fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses are apart from and superior to the rights of the women in whose bodies they develop.

``The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is a sham designed to exploit the understandable public sympathy for a woman who loses her pregnancy or her life to violence in order to promote an agenda by which women will in fact lose control of their bodies to the State.'' That is from the National Council of Jewish Women.

The National Abortion Federation, the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice, the American Civil Liberties Union, NARAL, People for the American Way, the National Organization for Women, all of these groups are concerned either about abortion rights, about reproductive rights, about women's rights, about domestic violence; and they are all opposed to this bill.

Juley Fulcher of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which is the group that for the last 25 years has led the fight for antidomestic violence legislation in the States and in the Congress, testified against this bill in our committee, and I commend her testimony to my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I will insert all of these letters into the Record at this time.

Family Violence Prevention Fund,

Washington, DC, January, 27, 2004.

Hon. Jerrold Nadler,

Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Nadler: On behalf of the Family

Violence Prevention Fund, I am writing to express concern

about the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, H.R. 1997, passed

by the House Judiciary Committee on January 21. We are deeply

disappointed that some are promoting this bill as a way to

end domestic violence, when better and more direct measures

to stop family violence languish in Congress year after year.

Members of Congress who want to stop abuse will put their

energy into passing the prevention and intervention measures

that offer great promise to stop violence before it starts.

The murder of Laci Peterson was an unspeakable tragedy, but

many laws designed as quick fixes have caused great harm. For

example, mandatory domestic violence health reporting laws

deter women from seeking the medical help they need. We need

to step back and consider what actually works. Our goal must

be to stop violence against all women, regardless of whether

they are pregnant.

If Congress is serious about stopping domestic violence

against pregnant women and helping women and children who are

victims, Members will quickly pass the Domestic Violence

Screening, Treatment and Prevention Act, H.R. 1267. this

essential bill would train health care providers to routinely

screen female patients for a lifetime history of abuse and

give women access to critical domestic violence services when

abuse is identified. Introduced in the House in March of 2003

by Representative Lois Capps (D-CA) and Steven LaTourette (R-

OH), this bill has the potential to prevent tragedies by

helping victims before violence escalates.

We also urge Congress to fully fund all Violence Against

Women Act programs and support legislation that would

actually prevent domestic violence before it begins. Domestic

violence prevention legislation should include services for

children who are exposed to abuse, programs that support

young families at risk of violence, and efforts to teach

young men and boys how to develop healthy, non-violent

relationships. Such legislation would do much more to stem

the tide of domestic violence than the Unborn Victims of

Violence Act.

Finally, we wish to thank you for your continued leadership

and support on this issue. As an advocate in Congress and as

one of our Founding Fathers, you truly make a difference in

the movement to end violence against women and children. If

we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact

Kiersten Stewart in our Washington, D.C. office at 202-682-

1212.

Sincerely,

Esta Soler,

President,

Family Violence Prevention Fund.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the distinguished gentleman from Illinois for the passion he brings to this discussion, but more than that, for the clarity and honesty he brings to this discussion, for he has swept away much of the rhetoric and much of the underbrush which impedes a clear view of this and defined the real issue.

This is a bill about abortion, as he quite clearly recognizes. Both the bill and the substitute have the same practical impact. They both define two crimes. They both define the same penalties. They both have the same deterrent effect. That is not the issue, as he recognizes.

The bill defines the fetus as a person from the moment of conception. The substitute does not recognize the fetus as a person, for legal purposes, from the moment of conception. That is the difference, and that is the core of the abortion debate, as the distinguished gentleman recognizes.

The people who believe abortion to be murder believe a fetus, a zygote, a blastocyst is a person, a full human person with full and equal and legal rights from the moment of conception. We do not. We do not use the euphemism ``a right to choose'' as a euphemism for abortion. We support a woman's right to choose to have an abortion if she wishes. We support a woman's right to bear a pregnancy to term if she wishes. That is why we say we support the right to choose.

Abortion is clearly troubling emotionally and intellectually to many people. I, for one, and I can only speak personally, would find an abortion of a 9-month pregnant fetus, that is to say, a 9-month-old fetus, a horror, and I believe it is, in fact, illegal, except to save the life of the mother. On the other hand, I do not believe that a two- cell zygote after conception is a human being. I do not believe that. I believe that it has the potential. It obviously has the potential to become a human being, but it is simply two cells, and I have no compunction about an abortion of a group of cells. I do not believe it to be a human being.

That question, whether a small clump of cells or an embryo is a human being or not, is not a question that we are ever going to agree on. The chairman said the abortion debate is going to be with us forever, and I think he may be right, certainly a long time. We are not going to disagree on that question.

The difference is I respect everyone's right to their opinion, whether informed by physiology, by religion, by morality, by their concept of morality, to make that decision for themselves as to how they regard a blastocyst or a zygote. Some religions declare it a human; some religions say no. I do not think it is the job of Congress to dictate to people how to make that very personal, moral decision. I believe that decision is one which must be left to a woman.

If a woman says that, to me, as the woman, the embryo at early stage of development is a human being, and I will not have an abortion even if it risks my life, I will respect that decision. She is entitled to it. I would not support Congress coming in and saying we will save her life despite her will if she is competent because we do not agree with her moral decision. On the other hand, if she says, my moral decision is that I do not believe an early embryo or fetus is a human being and I want to have an abortion, that is her decision. I will not want Congress or the State legislature or the President to say, you are wrong morally, my moral conviction is superior to yours, and therefore, I will use the power of the State, the power of compulsion to put my moral conviction over yours. That is the debate here.

This bill is mostly a sham. The distinguished gentleman from Illinois takes the sham away and says what is really at stake, what is really the issue, and the real issue is are we going to say, which we have never said before, we had that Biblical passage

which I brought, as I said before, I do not think Congress ought to enact Biblical or religious law into civil law, but I brought it to show that in the Biblical times they did not regard a fetus as a person, because if you killed the fetus, you had monetary compensations. If the woman died, there was a capital punishment because the fetus is not regarded as a full person. That brought back, we have not regarded an Anglo-Saxon law, a Roman law up until now, a fetus as a full person.

Now, because of the abortion debate that erupted 30 years or so ago, the last 30 years, people have tried to change the law to say that we should give legal recognition to the assertion that a fetus or an embryo from the moment of conception is a person for legal purposes. We do not agree with that. This bill would do that. Therefore, we are opposed to this bill.

Some people have that opinion. Some people have that conviction. I respect the conviction. Some religions say so. I respect that. Others disagree. We should not use the power of law to impose that opinion, that theological opinion, that physiological opinion, that moral opinion on people who do not share it and wish to have abortions or other acts that may flow from that.

That is the distinction here, and this bill is an abortion bill despite not what the gentleman from Illinois said, but some other people said, because, as I said before, the consequences of the defining a second crime, the substitute would do, giving a severe penalty, giving additional penalties, are the same in the bill and the substitute. The difference is the legal underpinning, and the only reason we care about the legal underpinning is because of what it says about the key distinction underneath the legal right to an abortion and the underpinning for Roe v. Wade.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I understand, and I am not an expert in probate or estate law, but I do understand that as the fetus gets older, our law gives it more recognition. In fact, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade said in the first trimester the interest of the woman and her choice completely prevails, you cannot regulate abortion. In the second trimester there is more of an interest, and, therefore, you can regulate; and in the third trimester after viability, you can prohibit abortion. That is in Roe v. Wade because it recognizes that there is more interest that attaches. I do not deny that, and exactly how much attaches and so forth we can debate in a lot of contexts.

What I am saying is that the definition of the fetus or the embryo as a human being, as a person, for purposes of law in all respects, which is what this bill would do, we have never done. We do not do now, we have never done, and in my opinion we should not because it is one conception. It is a defensible proposition, but it is not a proposition that many people and religions agree with, and it is not a proposition that we should impose by Congress pro or con. I urge adoption of the substitute, not the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam President, I come to the floor this morning to begin the debate on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. I would like first to thank our 40 cosponsors for their leadership and support on this issue.

Let me also thank specifically Senator Lindsey Graham, who championed this issue on the House side for a number of years before he joined us here in the U.S. Senate. He has worked tirelessly to see to it that the most vulnerable members of our society are, in fact, protected.

Let me also thank our lead House sponsors, Congresswoman Melissa Hart from Pennsylvania, and my friend and colleague from the State of Ohio, Congressman Steve Chabot. They have both been great champions of this great cause. They worked tirelessly to help get this important bill passed in the House of Representatives.

Our bill is very simple. I will take just a couple of minutes to explain it. It is a bill about simple justice. It is a bill about doing what is right. I was asked yesterday by one of my colleagues, Why do we need this bill? Why is this bill on the floor?

This is what I responded yesterday and this is what I would say to my colleagues here in the Senate this morning. Imagine a pregnant woman in a national park or a pregnant woman on an Air Force base and she is violently assaulted. As a result of that assault, she loses her child; that child dies. Today, there is no Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Today, unless that Federal park or Air Force base is located in a State that has a similar law, a Federal prosecutor would search the Federal statute books in vain to find anything to charge that assailant for the death of that child, for the death of that unborn infant, the fetus. The only thing that Federal prosecutor would be able to charge that defendant with is the assault of the woman. The death of that child would not be able to be charged as what we would think would be a separate offense. Justice would not be done for that, what we would think would be a separate offense.

This bill corrects that. This bill recognizes there are two victims. There is the victim, the mother, who was assaulted; and there is the victim, the unborn child, who was either injured or killed. It is that simple.

This bill recognizes when someone attacks and harms a mother and her unborn child that attack does in fact result in two separate victims: the mother and her child. That is what this bill does.

I will have more to say about this bill later. I will reserve the remainder of my time.

I object.

He can take it now.

Mr. President, I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues from New Jersey and California. My colleague from New Jersey knows I care about what happens after children are born. I care about their health. I believe I have demonstrated that in the Senate. In fact, he and I have worked on these issues together. I have worked with my colleague from California on many issues having to do with children. We just happen to disagree on this issue.

I have a great deal of respect for both of them. We have worked together on a bipartisan basis on a wide range of issues. I would hope that as we debate this bill, we would focus on the legislation. I say that with all due respect. I don't understand--again, with all due respect to my colleagues--what debate about the motives of people has to do with what the facts are.

I am going to try to confine my debate to what I think are the essential facts. I think they are fairly simple. Let me talk for a few moments about what I believe are the essential facts.

I ask my colleagues who are listening to this debate to remember a couple of things about the Feinstein amendment. I am going to keep coming back to these central facts about the Feinstein amendment.

No. 1, the Feinstein amendment does not recognize a second victim. Our bill does. The Feinstein amendment creates a legal fiction. It is contorted, it twists the law in a sense--maybe a better way of saying it is not that it twists the law; it doesn't do that, but it twists the reality of the common sense of people when they look at this. When they see a pregnant woman who is assaulted and her child dies, they intuitively know there is a victim besides the mother. They know the mother is a victim, but they also know there is a second victim.

The vast majority of the American people, if you ask them was there another victim, will say of course there are two victims. Our bill recognizes the second victim. The Feinstein amendment refuses to recognize the second victim. Now we can talk about punishment and all kinds of things, but it refuses to recognize good common sense.

This bill in front of us has nothing to do with abortion. It has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. We have explicitly exempted abortion in this bill. Yet opponents still try to argue this point.

Our statute could be no more clear on this point. Senator Feinstein uses identical language to exempt abortion or any related activity in her amendment. This bill simply doesn't affect abortion rights whatsoever. The language could not be clearer. I invite my colleagues to pick up the bill and look at the section. It exempts any reference to abortion, anything a mother would do to her own child, anything a doctor would do is exempted. It has nothing to do with abortion, not at all. That is not what this is about.

Point No. 1, this bill recognizes a second victim; the Feinstein amendment does not. If you believe there is a second victim, you cannot vote for the Feinstein amendment. It denies there is a second victim.

The second point I want to make will come as a surprise, I think, to the Members of the Senate. It will come as a surprise to you until you pick up the Feinstein amendment and read it carefully. I invite you to do that. Pick up the amendment and read it carefully.

First, the Feinstein amendment does not punish the criminal for harming or injuring the baby. Let me read it. It only punishes the criminal for ``interrupting or terminating a pregnancy.'' That is the language, ``interrupting or terminating a pregnancy.'' But not for injuring. So if a child is injured, not killed, the pregnancy not terminated, the Feinstein amendment will not cover it. That, to me, is a problem. That is a fatal fallacy, fatal problem.

Here is the language:

Any person who engages in conduct that violates any of the

provisions of law listed in subsection (b) and thereby causes

the termination of a pregnancy or the interruption of the

normal course of pregnancy, including termination of the

pregnancy other than by live birth is guilty of a separate

offense under this section.

It does not cover the injury of a fetus. That is a problem.

Let's turn to the penalty section. The penalty section is fatally flawed. The penalty section won't work. The Justice Department has sent a letter and, in their opinion, the penalty section provides no penalty, under the Feinstein amendment, for the killing of the fetus. It is vague; it is unclear at best. It defines additional crimes as the interruption or termination of a pregnancy. When it describes the punishment, it refers to injury or death. Whose injury or death are we talking about here? Is it the unborn child? Whose injury?

The Feinstein amendment doesn't recognize that the interruption and termination of the pregnancy means the injury or death of the fetus because it won't acknowledge the fetus, of course, as a separate being.

The amendment is circular and really without meaning. Put simply, there is no additional punishment because under this amendment there is no additional victim. The Feinstein amendment goes out of its way not to recognize another victim. What is the reference to? Let me read this section and, again, this is a technical reading, but that is how you have to read a criminal section. This is how judges have to do it. The bottom line is--I am going to say it again and again--if you vote for Feinstein, there will be no penalty at all for the killing of a second victim, the child. There clearly is none for the injury of that child. Let me read the penalty section, 2(a), under the Feinstein amendment:

Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the

punishment for that separate offense is the same as the

punishment provided for that conduct under Federal law had

that injury or death occurred to the pregnant woman.

What injury or death are we talking about? To whom?

The language doesn't acknowledge injury or death to the fetus. Who is it referencing in the previous paragraph? It clearly is fatally flawed. It is difficult for me to read this and for people to understand it. But to get the section out, it clearly doesn't work and is fatally flawed. So this does not recognize the death, does not recognize any punishment. It would not provide punishment and it clearly presents a problem.

My friend from California has said the DeWine bill would have no effect on the Laci Peterson case. That is true; it would not. Fortunately, California has a similar law that provides for a second victim, the punishment for the death of that child. While it is true the DeWine bill would have no effect on the Laci Peterson case, the fact is if the Feinstein amendment, or a similar amendment to the Feinstein amendment, had been approved by the California legislature at the time their law was being considered, there would be no punishment for the death of baby Conner Peterson. There would have been in California no recognition for that second victim. There would have been no recognition of the death of that second victim.

If the Feinstein amendment would have passed, or a version of it, in California, if the California legislature would have done what Senator Feinstein is asking us to do today in this Federal legislation, they would not have been able to prosecute for the death of Conner Peterson. They would not have been able to recognize that death as a second victim death. That is the fundamental fact, and that is the fundamental difference between the DeWine bill and the Feinstein amendment.

We have heard a lot of talk about motives and agendas. I think we should stop doing that, and I think we should look to the victims and hear from the victims. There are three victims. The families of the victims were here yesterday. When one talks with the victims, it is clear the victims believe there are two victims. Let me talk about several cases. They are tragic cases and are difficult to listen to, but I think it brings home what we are really talking about.

Let me talk about the example of Airman Gregory Robbins. This is a case about which I have talked many times on the Senate floor, but I think is worth repeating today because it illustrates the injustice that exists today in our Federal law.

In 1996, Airman Robbins and his family were stationed in my home State of Ohio at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. At that time, Mrs. Robbins was more than 8 months pregnant with their daughter they named Jasmine. On September 12, 1996, in a fit of rage, Airman Robbins wrapped his fist in a T-shirt and savagely beat his wife by striking her repeatedly about the head and stomach. Fortunately, Mrs. Robbins survived this violent assault, but tragically, her uterus ruptured during the attack, expelling the baby into her abdominal cavity, causing Jasmine's death.

Does anyone truly think Jasmine was not a victim? I think we know she was. Not only was her mom a victim, but she was as well.

Let me give another example. In August 1999, Shiwona Pace of Little Rock, AR, was days away from giving birth. She was understandably thrilled about her pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Eric Bullock, however, did not share her joy and enthusiasm. In fact, Eric wanted the baby to die. So he hired three thugs to beat his girlfriend so badly that she lost the unborn baby whom she named Heaven. I might add, she lost that baby 1 day shy of her predicted delivery date. Shiwona testified at a Senate judiciary hearing we held in Washington on February 23, 2000. This is what she said:

I begged and pleaded for the life of my unborn child, but

they showed me no mercy. In fact, one of them told me, ``Your

baby is dying tonight.'' I was choked, hit in the face with a

gun, slapped, punched, and kicked repeatedly in the stomach.

One of them even put a gun in my mouth and threatened to

shoot.

Do we really believe Shiwona was the only victim here? Do we really think

we should adopt an amendment that says she was the only victim? I don't think so. How can we suggest to Shiwona that her child was not murdered? Should we twist the law so we don't recognize that? I don't think we should. And Federal law, quite frankly, must recognize this wrong for what it is. It is a wrong against two separate and distinct victims.

Another example: I can think of no better way to tell the story of Baby Zachariah and his mother Tracy Marciniak than by simply reading from her testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution which occurred on July 8, 2003. Let me read it:

I carried Zachariah in my womb for almost nine full months.

He was killed in my womb, only 5 days from his delivery

date. The first time I ever held him in my arms, he was

already dead.

There is no way that I can really tell you about the pain I

feel when I visit my son's grave site in Milwaukee, and at

other times, thinking of all that we missed together. But

that pain was greater because the man who killed Zachariah

got away with murder.

Zachariah's delivery date was to be February 13, 1992. But

on the night of February 8, my own husband brutally attacked

me at my home in Milwaukee. He held me against a couch by my

hair. He knew that I very much wanted my son. He punched me

very hard twice in the abdomen. Then he refused to call for

help, and prevented me from calling.

After about 15 minutes of my screaming in pain that I

needed help, he finally went to a bar and from there called

for help. Zachariah and I were rushed by ambulance to the

hospital, where Zachariah was delivered by emergency

Caesarean section. My son was dead. The physicians said he

had bled to death inside me because of blunt force trauma.

My own injuries were life-threatening. I nearly died. I

spent 3 weeks in the hospital. During the time I was

struggling to survive, the legal authorities came and they

spoke to my sister. They told her something that she found

incredible. They told her that in the eyes of Wisconsin law,

nobody had died on the night of February 8. Later, this

information was passed on to me. I was told in the eyes of

the law, no murder had occurred. I was devastated.

We surviving family members of unborn victims of violence

are not asking for revenge. We are begging for justice--

justice like we were brought up to believe in and trust in.

Justice means that the penalty must fit the crime, but that

is only part of it--justice also requires that the law must

recognize the true nature of a crime.

The true nature of a crime, Mr. President.

I know that some lawmakers and some groups insist there is

no such thing as an unborn victim, and that crimes like this

only have a single victim--but that is callous and that is

wrong. Please don't tell me that my son was not a real victim

of a real crime. We were both victims, but only I survived.

I will have more to say about this in a few minutes. At this point, I yield the floor.

Madam President, once again, I want to bring this debate back to its essence. I am afraid so much of the debate from the other side has been about motives--by quoting, with all due respect, the L.A. Times about peripheral issues.

Our intent, if you want to go by intent, is very simple. Our intent is to bring about justice for the victims of crime. Our intent is to bring about justice for the mother and for the child--for the unborn child as well as the mother. It is to conform with what the vast majority of the American people believe; that is, when a pregnant woman is assaulted and she either loses that child or that child is injured, there are, in fact, two victims. It is as simple as that.

On the abortion issue, let us be done with this once and for all. This bill has nothing to do with abortion. The language could not be simpler.

Let me read to the Members of the Senate and invite anybody to read it.

Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the

prosecution of any person with conduct relating to abortion

for which consent of the pregnant woman or a person

authorized by law to act on her behalf has been obtained or

for which such consent is implied by law.

Two, of any person for medical treatment of the pregnant

woman or her unborn child, or of any woman with respect to

her unborn child.

It is very clear. My colleague argues that this language is going to somehow roll back abortion rights. That is a debate for another day. It is not a debate for today. That language in this bill is very clear.

If this language was a threat to abortion rights, then the language in 29 other States would have been a threat. We have 29 States that recognize fetal homicide law. The language in 16 of those States is virtually identical to the language in this bill.

If the language in this bill was a problem for abortion rights, then it would have been a problem with these other States.

Also, there are some States that have had this language on the books for 30 years, and it has not been a problem for abortion rights.

That is just a bogus issue. Let us stop talking about it, and let us talk about what the issues are.

Let me get back to the two points that I made before. I want everyone to understand the Feinstein amendment. One is not in debate, and one my colleague and I do debate. One I think is not in debate at all; that is, the Feinstein amendment does not recognize a second victim. It goes against good common sense.

Ask someone back in your home State, if a pregnant woman is assaulted and she loses her child, how many victims are there? There are two. If you ask the average person in your State--whether your State is Ohio, California, wherever it is--the average person on the street is going to say: Senator, there are two victims.

That is all we are saying with this bill. We are trying to close a loophole so that if a pregnant woman who is hiking in a national park or is out walking in a national park or a pregnant woman on an Air Force Base--we are not making these stories up. This happens. Pregnant women are attacked all the time. I saw it as a county prosecutor. You ask any county prosecutor--yes, any police officer, anybody who is a victims rights advocate--how often pregnant women are attacked, a pregnant woman who is in a national park, a pregnant woman who is on Federal property and is attacked. What we are simply saying is that it is wrong if a national park or Federal property is in a State that does not have a similar law to this. It is wrong for that Federal prosecutor searching in vain the Federal statutes to find a law for which he can charge that person with the death of a fetus, a child--whatever word you want to use. It is wrong. That happens today. We are closing that loophole.

When this law passes, that won't happen anymore. A Federal prosecutor will be able to say, when law enforcement people come in and they have that case where a woman has been violently attacked, she has been injured but the

child has been killed, they will be able to charge for death of that child. That is the right thing to do. They will be able to file two charges, recognize two victims, and recognize that reality. That is what this does.

Let me state the second thing about the Feinstein amendment. Look at the amendment.

We have to go to the penalty section. This is the Feinstein amendment.

Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the

punishment for that separate offense is the same as the

punishment provided for that conduct under Federal law had

that injury or death occurred to the pregnant woman.

Remember, this is a criminal law. I go back to my days as a prosecutor: You have to construe a law strictly. When it is a criminal law, you construe it in favor of the defendant. You give every benefit of the doubt to the defendant. If this is vague, there is a problem for the prosecutor. We have a problem with this one. A serious problem.

We have a letter from the Justice Department that says there is no penalty under the Feinstein amendment. Let's look at this carefully and see why: ``Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the punishment for that separate offense is the same as that punishment provided for that conduct under Federal law had that injury or death occurred to the pregnant woman.''

What injury or death? The problem under the Feinstein amendment is it does not recognize the baby or fetus. Who are we talking about? Read this section above. It talks about ``termination of a pregnancy or the interruption of the normal course of pregnancy.'' It does not recognize two assaults, two injuries, two people. There is nothing for it to reference to. With all due respect, it is not drafted right. If we pass the Feinstein amendment, with all due respect, not only are you not recognizing a separate victim--which we all agree on--but, worse than that, there is no penalty for killing the unborn; there is no penalty for injury.

I have already pointed out, and we looked at the language, why there is no penalty at all for injury. That is clear when we look at this: ``causes the termination of a pregnancy or the interruption of the normal course of pregnancy, including termination of the pregnancy other than by live birth,'' et cetera.

Clearly, that is no reference to the injury. What word here has to do with injury? Nothing. Clearly, this has nothing to do with injury. Any child who is injured, not killed, would not be covered. And in the paragraph below, there is no penalty at all.

If we get by that, which we cannot, but even if you get by all of that, you have the problem of the lesser included offense. We cannot get by that. But take one more problem, assuming you could get by that. There is another reason the Feinstein amendment fails to create a separate punishable offense to terminating pregnancy. All it does is recognize attacks on an unborn child under the label of ``interruption or termination of pregnancy,'' then tacks that label on as an element to any one of the 68 Federal crimes specified. The result is a new series of offenses identical to the previous 68, except for the addition of that one element.

For example, now a criminal could face a Federal charge of assault with the result of termination of pregnancy as well as the original charge of assault. This is important. But because he could be charged with both does not mean he could be convicted and punished for both. Instead, he would be protected by a legal principle known to lawyers as lesser included offenses. That principle protects a defendant from being convicted in and punished for a whole series of crimes that are all a subset of a lesser crime.

We know, for example, the crime of manslaughter and murder. We know one defendant cannot be convicted of both charges for the death of only one victim. If someone is guilty of murder, then he or she must have been guilty of all the components of murder, including the components that made him guilty of manslaughter, but that person, of course, is not convicted of both. You cannot be convicted of both manslaughter and murder. If a man is convicted of a felony for stealing $10,000, he is not also found guilty of the misdemeanor of having stolen $500.

Of course, we can convict one criminal of the murder and manslaughter of two separate people because the laws of these crimes differ on one critical point: They have different victims. That is the difference between our bill and Senator Feinstein's amendment. Ours does not have that problem because we recognize two victims. Her amendment does not. Therefore, it is fatally flawed under this principle. Therein lies another problem.

The bottom line is the Feinstein amendment is fatally flawed. It has no penalty section, as well as not recognizing there is a separate and distinct victim.

The Justice Department analyzed and came to the same conclusion. Again, it is a vague amendment. They come at it a little differently, but here is what they say in a letter of March 24:

Additionally, by omitting any reference to the unborn child

but retaining language contained in H.R. 1997 as introduced,

the substitute appears to create an ambiguity that likely

leaves an offense, could one be found, without a

corresponding penalty. The substitute provides that

punishment for an offense prescribed by the legislation is

the same as the punishment provided under Federal law had the

``injury or deaths occurred,'' to the pregnant woman.

In H.R. 1997, the object of the ``injury or death'' was the

unborn child. However, in the substitute the injury or death

provision has no object because the only victim under the

substitute is the woman herself. Because there are currently

no penalties in federal law for the offenses of ``termination

of a pregnancy,'' or ``the interruption of the normal course

of pregnancy,'' there would be no penalty even assuming that

a successful prosecution could be brought.

They have analyzed it a little differently than I did, but they come to the identical conclusion for the same reason. Again, it goes back to this sentence in their letter, ``However, in the substitute, the injury or death provision has no object because the only victim under the substitute is the woman herself.''

That is the problem. That is what we have.

Members who come to the Senate and vote on this Feinstein amendment, which is the key vote, need to understand three things: One, abortion has nothing to do with this debate. We have covered that in the language of the bill. But more important is the precedent in the States has already been set. States have bills like this. They have not interrupted people's rights under the Supreme Court in regard to Roe v. Wade and all the other court decisions. It has not interrupted rights having to do with abortion. It has nothing to do with abortion. That is No. 1.

No. 2, the Feinstein amendment fails to recognize what everybody in this country knows: When a woman is attacked, there are two victims.

And No. 3, the thing to remember is the Feinstein amendment carries no penalty. So we will be saying if the Feinstein amendment is passed, we are turning our backs on these victims. We are turning our backs on the unborn, these kids who are, in fact, injured or killed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT addressed the Chair.

Madam President, I yield to my colleague.

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, the topic that I would like to take a look at this evening is the passing of a very important piece of legislation which is scheduled for this week, and that is the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

But I would like to approach this standing back just a minute from a piece of legislation and try to put what we are trying to accomplish this week into context, in fact, into the American context. So I would challenge those, particularly those who are Americans, to answer a question, a very basic question, and that is let us say that someone from another country, and there were a television camera running, were to ask how would they define in a condensed sentence the uniqueness or the essence of what America is. What is it that has made America unique? What has created a Nation that people have come from all over the world to immigrate here? What has created a Nation where we have to have border guards to try to keep people out whereas other nations put minefields and machine gun nests to try to keep people in?

What is it that made America unique, and how would you say that in one simple sentence?

I suppose one of the rules that people who have been involved in politics for some period of time know is that you are not supposed to ask a question unless you have an answer to the same question. So if I were asked to try to summarize what America is about, I would go to our birthday document, to the document that separated America into an independent and unique Nation, and that is the Declaration of Independence, our birthday document.

In that document you find a long and somewhat complicated sentence, but a very important sentence in terms of defining who we are and what has made us so unique. It is the sentence that 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.''

Now, the sentence does not end with ``pursuit of happiness.'' It goes on to say that governments are instituted among men for the particular purpose of securing those rights, that is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Let us say we take this long sentence, and, as a former engineer myself, we put it into a formula. The formula is pretty straightforward. It has three parts. The first thing is there is a God; the second thing is God grants to mankind, to all people, and in particular our Founders were talking about Americans, certain unalienable rights; and chief among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And so it was based on this document, this simple three-point statement in a sense, that our forefathers declared this a free and independent Nation, and it is by this formula that we believe that all men everywhere are granted with certain unalienable rights, which has to a large degree motivated much of our behavior and defined America. It has also created in America, although it was there for the 170 years before, a culture of respect for life.

Now, how then does the piece of legislation that we are looking at connect to this culture of life in America? I think it is easy when you are discussing legislation to, first of all, talk about that there is some problem, and then you have a bill which is designed to solve the particular problem. So in order to help define the problem that we have in America legislatively, I have a copy here now of a testimony that was given by Tracy Marciniak before a committee, and I would like to read part of her testimony to help define what is going on and the need, the tremendous and important need, that we pass the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

``I carried Zachariah in my womb for almost 9 full months. He was killed in my womb only 5 days from his delivery date. The first time I ever held him in my arms he was already dead.''

The letter goes on. She is pointing to a photograph of her with this child in her arms.

``There is no way that I can really tell you about the pain I feel when I visit my son's gravesite in Milwaukee, and at other times, thinking of all that we missed together. But that pain was greater because the man who killed Zachariah got away with murder. Please don't tell me that my son was not a real victim of a real crime. We were both victims, but only I survived.

``Zachariah's delivery date was to be February 13, 1992, but on the night of February 8, my own husband brutally attacked me at my home in Milwaukee. He held me against a couch by my hair. He knew that I very much wanted my son. He punched me very hard twice in the abdomen. Then he refused to call for help, and prevented me from calling.

``About after 15 minutes of my screaming in pain that I needed help, he finally went to a bar and from there called for help. I and Zachariah were rushed by ambulance to the hospital, where Zachariah was delivered by

emergency cesarean section. My son was dead. The physician said that he had bled to death inside me because of blunt force trauma.

``My own injuries were life-threatening. I nearly died. I spent 3 weeks in the hospital.

``During the time I was struggling to survive, the legal authorities came and they spoke to my sister. They told her something that she found incredible. They told her that in the eyes of Wisconsin law, nobody had died on the night of February 8th. Later, this information was passed on to me. I was told that in the eyes of the law, no murder had occurred. I was devastated.

``My life already seemed destroyed by the loss of my son, but there was so much additional pain because the law was blind to what had really happened. The law which I had been raised to believe was based on justice was telling me that Zachariah had not really been murdered.

``It took over 3 years for this case to go to trial. The State prosecuted my attacker for first degree reckless injury and for false imprisonment, and he was convicted of those counts. They also prosecuted him under a 1955 abortion law, but they failed to win a conviction on the abortion count because that law required that they prove a specific intent to destroy the life of my unborn child. I do not fault the State authorities or the jurors. They simply did not have the legal right or tool for this type of case. The law simply failed to recognize that anybody who looks at the photo should be able to see that Zachariah was robbed of his life.''

That, my friends, is the problem with our laws that we are attempting to fix, that we are attempting to remedy here, with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. What the act does is it recognizes the fact that when there is a crime of this nature, it recognizes both people who were victims to that particular crime.

Now, there is talk that this law is unnecessary. There are some people who say, no, we do not really need to recognize the second person that is involved. But I would suggest that if one were to talk to the people who have lost their child, women who have been violently attacked in this way, and particularly those who have been attacked in this way close to the time when they are about to deliver, that they would suggest otherwise, that there are indeed two victims. When you talk to the grandparents, they would suggest that there are two victims.

I am 56 years old. I recently, just a matter of a month or so ago, received some very exciting news. I have six children. One of them just this last summer got married. In fact, he got married to a young lady who was working in my congressional office. They have gone off, he is in the Marines, and you can imagine what the news was. We heard that she was expecting her first child, which meant that I was expecting to be, for the first time in my life, a grandfather.

I would suggest that if someone were to attack her and to end the life that is inside her, that it would be a very difficult thing to try to convince me that there was not a person involved, that I did not need to be concerned about the fact that, oh, maybe you are a grandfather, or something like that. I think most of us see that in the most common-sense way.

So that is what is involved with this piece of legislation, to be able to recognize that when a crime, a violent crime, is committed against an innocent, pregnant woman, that there are two victims involved.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to one of my colleagues for whom I have a great deal of respect, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his pointed and well-taken comments.

It is now my honor to be able to yield the floor to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), a doctor, and my esteemed colleague and good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments. It is an honor to work with him and serve with him. I appreciate his leadership on this and many other issues.

It is now my honor to yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks), who it is just an honor to serve with and someone who, though he has been here just merely a small number of months, considering how long some Congressmen have been here, one who has immediately been respected for his thoughtfulness and his articulate understanding of some of these questions. So I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his appropriate comments and a challenge to all of us to recognize something that has been woven throughout America's past and her history over the years, a respect in the most basic sense, a respect for human life.

On this question about what does a mother feel when she is attacked and her child is killed, we have a letter from Laci Peterson's mother that I would share with my colleagues now, and it starts:

``I am writing to thank you for your ongoing efforts to pass `Laci and Conner's Law,' the Unborn Victims of Violence Act,'' giving a bill number, ``and to encourage you to redouble those efforts.''

``On May 5, I and the other members of the family of Laci and Conner wrote to urge that this bill be passed as a tribute to Laci and Conner, and to allow true justice to be done in the future when such horrible crimes occur within the jurisdiction of Federal criminal law or military criminal law. I want you to know that I appreciate your efforts, all the more so because of some of the unfair attacks and criticisms to which you have been subjected in recent weeks by those who oppose the bill for misguided ideological reasons.

``I know that you have been working for years for this legislation, but I have only become aware of your efforts because of our recent tragic circumstances. I have been astonished and somewhat offended to see, in the news media, recent statements by some critics who say that those who have been working for years on this legislation are inappropriately `exploiting' the public interest in the murder of Laci and Conner. I assure you that we do not see it that way. On the contrary, we believe that our case does provide a powerful illustration of why this type of law is absolutely necessary, and we urge you to continue to point to that connection. I intend to do the same, for as long as necessary to achieve the needed reform in the law.

``When a criminal attacks a woman who carries a child, he claims two victims. I lost a daughter, but I also lost a grandson. Fortunately, California law allows a double homicide charge in such a case, but if Laci and Conner had been killed in a Federal jurisdiction, or during commission of a Federal crime of violence, Conner's death would not be recognized or charged. Now that so many people are becoming aware of this defect in Federal law, I hope that the Congress will move swiftly to approve the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. I was heartened to read the White House statement of April 25, stating, `The President does believe that when an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of a crime of violence, the law should recognize what most people immediately recognize, and that is that such a crime has two victims.'

``Over the last several weeks I have heard the arguments of opponents of Laci and Conner's law, but they seem to me to miss the point. In the first place, they should stop trying to turn this into the abortion issue. California's unborn victim law has been on the books since 1970, and it does not affect the availability of legal abortion, nor have any of the similar laws in effect in more than half the States. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act explicitly says that it does not apply to abortion, or to any acts of the mother herself.

``Having said that, I have no difficulty understanding that any legislator or group opposed to abortion logically would also support this bill to protect the lives of unborn children like Conner from violent criminal actions, and I welcome their support.''

But she goes on to say, ``What I find difficult to understand is why groups and legislators who champion the prochoice cause are blind to the fact that these two-victim crimes are the ultimate violation of choice.

``I have looked very carefully at the `substitute' legislation proposed by the opponents of Laci and Conner's law, which they call `The Motherhood Protection Act,' proposed in the House of Representatives,'' and, ``This proposal would provide that if the victim of a Federal crime happens to be a pregnant woman, and the crime somehow disrupts her pregnancy, a harsher sentence would be assessed than otherwise. But the Lofgren proposal would enshrine in law the offensive concept that such crimes have only a single victim, the pregnant woman. This would be a step in the wrong direction.

``I hope that every legislator will clearly understand that adoption of such a single-victim amendment would be a painful blow to those, like me, who are left alive after a two-victim crime, because the Congress would be saying that Conner and other innocent unborn victims like him are not really victims--indeed, that they never really existed at all. But our grandson did live. He had a name, he was loved, and his life was violently taken from him before he ever saw the sun.

``The application of a single-victim law,'' such as this particular amendment, ``would be even more offensive in the many cases that involved mothers who themselves survive criminal attacks, but who lose their babies in those crimes. I don't understand how any legislator can vote to force prosecutors to tell such a grieving mother

that she didn't really lose a baby, when she knows in the depths of her soul that she did. A legislator who votes for the single-victim amendment, however well motivated, votes to add injury to injury.''

I would, Mr. Speaker, now like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), my colleague and respected Member of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. We appreciate his perspective and the challenge to each of us that we need to be about the business that is the fundamental business of our government, and that is to protect. To protect that fundamental right to life, which is so much the heartbeat and the central theme of our country from our very beginning, from our birth day.

I would make reference now just briefly to some polling data which may be of interest to some of my colleagues. Here is a poll that was taken, and I will read it specifically: ``If a violent physical attack on a pregnant woman leads to the death of her unborn child, do you think prosecutors should be able to charge the attacker with killing the fetus?'' The response to this was 79 percent of the American voters who were asked this question, 79 percent said, yes, that we should. The polling data indicates that there is a strong and simple understanding of the fact that such a violent attack as this is really an attack on two individuals.

We have, of course, voted this bill in the House in the past. In the 107th Congress, my first Congress, it was passed by 252 to only 172. It was passed in the previous Congress, the 106th Congress, by 254 to 172. So we have a record of having passed this before. I believe that it is time for us to get on with our business and move ahead with this bill and continue in our tradition of a deep-seated respect for life in America.

Now, when I started my comments not so long ago, I asked if we were to define America in one sentence, if we had to get the essence, the core, of what makes us who we are and we had to try to simplify that and put it into something that would be understood to someone from a foreign country that asked, what is the secret, why is America different, I believe the answer to that question is found in our birthday document, the Declaration of Independence, which is that great sentence, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''

That document goes on to say that it is the job of government to protect those basic rights. And so if we as Members of the Government of the United States fail to protect that basic right to life, that God-given unalienable right to life, if we fail to take this action, then we fail in our most fundamental purpose as a Nation. We, in fact, are almost turning our back on the organizing principle, our birthday document, and everything that Americans have held dear.

Now, this respect for life was not just reflected in one document years ago, but it has been part of our culture for years. Our founders bled and died and fought a great war for our independence to defend this basic principle. We have seen throughout our history challenges in the courts which have threatened the essence of personhood. There was, of course, the Supreme Court decision where the Supreme Court decided to stop looking at the Constitution and just started to get into the legislative business in Dred Scott, resulting in, or is at least partly responsible for, the great scourge of the Civil War, where we said that people really were not going to acknowledge this personhood.

We have seen this culture carried even forward to our own day. I think some of the most vivid imagery that perhaps many of us can recall came on September 11. It was not a matter of people saying words; it was the way that they lived their lives before everybody watching that showed this respect

that America has for life, when we saw the big, strong police and the firefighters taking people that were in wheelchairs that were hurt or helpless, risking their lives to try to protect the lives of fellow Americans. This was not something that was orchestrated. This was something that we just did. It was an outpouring of the very heart of America.

Subsequently, as we started to go after those people who did not have the respect for life that we have in our culture developed through the years, these terrorists who make it their job of killing people, of taking life, how did we proceed? Did we do the very safest and simplest thing for us, which would have been to unleash a whole lot of nuclear devices on countries that were targets? Of course we did not. We took extra pains to make sure that we tried to minimize collateral damage. We tried to be very, very careful that nobody's life was taken except for people who were immediately responsible or culpable for these acts of terrorism. That has been done at a great risk to many of our own airmen and our own soldiers and all who are involved and even now defending us overseas as we discuss these important questions.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I would call my colleagues back to the things that America has always stood for; that our young men and women have sometimes come home underneath a flag defending this very basic concept, a concept that is bigger than America, a concept that is being taken by America to the entire world, the concept that there is a God, and that every single person in this world is an heir to these unalienable rights, particularly this right to life.

So I close with this appeal that we must recognize this right to life in this situation where a little child is beaten to death. They must be recognized by law, and I urge my colleagues to pass the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), my respected colleague and the coauthor of this legislation.

Madam President, I would like to call up amendment 2858.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I agree with virtually everything the Senator from Ohio has said. Although there are many State laws which do take into consideration a fetus, it is true that the Federal laws, which would impact only those on Federal property, are silent. I am in complete concurrence with everything the Senator has said. I have had the privilege of working with him, so it is a delight for me to be able to discuss and debate this issue with him.

The substitute amendment I have called up is on behalf of Senators Bingaman, Boxer, Corzine, Kennedy and Lautenberg. I would like to make clearer a couple of places in that amendment.

I ask unanimous consent to send a modification to the desk.

I hear the objection. I am rather surprised by the objection. It is generally common courtesy to allow a Senator to amend his or her amendment. However, I believe our amendment is clear on its face.

I would like to point out that since 2000, in the Senate, there has been no hearing on this amendment and no opportunity for the Judiciary Committee to make corrections. This amendment is on the floor as a rule

Mr. President, the substitute amendment, which I have offered, has been crafted to avoid these problems.

Our amendment, the Motherhood Protection Act, will accomplish the same goal as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, but will do so in a way that does not involve us in the debate about abortion or when life begins. In my view, there is no reason to vote against this substitute unless the intention is to establish legally that human life, for the purposes of Federal criminal law, begins at the moment of conception because, ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what this bill does.

To emphasize the point, let me again turn to the comments of Samuel Casey, executive director and CEO of the Christian Legal Society, who clearly states the intention behind the bill in this quote:

In as many areas as we can, we want to put on the books

that the embryo is a person. . . .That sets the stage for a

jurist to acknowledge that human beings at any stage of

development deserve protection--even protection that would

trump a woman's interest in terminating a pregnancy.

Let there be no doubt about the intent. Anyone who is pro-choice cannot vote for this bill without the expectation that they are creating the first legal bridge to destroy Roe v. Wade.

Now, there is a time and a place to discuss the morality and philosophy of when life begins. This is not that time. Now is the time to change our Federal law to punish criminals who would inflict grievous injuries or death upon pregnant women on Federal lands. So I urge my colleagues to support the substitute amendment.

Exhibit 1

Stanford Law School,

Stanford, CA, July 10, 2003.

Senator Dianne Feinstein,

U.S. Senate, Senate Hart Office Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Senator Feinstein: I wish to express my concern about

the current formulation of S. 1019, the Unborn Victims of

Violence Act of 2003. Although I fully endorse the Bill's

ultimate aim of protecting pregnant women from the physical

and psychological trauma of an endangered or lost pregnancy,

I believe that the Bill's current formulation will frustrate

rather than forward this goal.

I write both as a former prosecutor and as a law professor

specializing in criminal law and criminal prosecution. At the

outset of my career, I served as an assistant district

attorney in Middlesex County, Mass., and as an assistant

attorney general in the Massachusetts Attorney General's

office. I then went to Boston College Law School, where I

administered and taught in the criminal prosecution clinic. I

have been at Stanford since 1995 and a tenured professor of

law since 1999; during the next academic year, I will serve

as Academic Associate Dean. In 1996 I founded Stanford's

criminal prosecution clinic and have administered and taught

in the clinic ever since. I have also created a course in

prosecutorial ethics, which I taught at Boston College Law

School and, as a visitor, at Harvard Law School.

My background and interest in criminal prosecution prompt

me to raise three objections to this Bill. All of them focus

on the Bill's use of the expressions ``child in utero'' and

``child, who is in utero,'' and on its definition of these

terms as ``a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage

of development, who is carried in the womb.''

First: The Bill's apparent purpose of influencing the

course of abortion politics will discourage prosecutions

under any future Act.

I do not know what motives gave rise to the Bill's use of

the expressions ``child in utero'' and ``child, who is in

utero,'' but I do know that any vaguely savvy reader will

conclude that these terms and the Bill's definition of

them were intended by the Bill's authors to influence the

course of abortion politics. It is a fair prediction that

when a pro-life President is in office, prosecutions under

this Bill will be more frequent than when a pro-choice

President is in office. That is because the public will

interpret this Bill as suggesting that abortion is a

potentially criminal act and will interpret prosecutions

under the Bill as endorsing this sentiment.

If the authors of the Bill truly seek to protect unborn

life from criminal violence, they will better accomplish this

purpose by avoiding such expressions as ``child in utero.''

Better alternatives would refer to injury or death to a fetus

or damage to or termination of a pregnancy.

Second: The Bill's apparent purpose of influencing the

course of abortion politics will motivate prosecutors to

exclude those prospective jurors who otherwise would be most

sympathetic to the prosecution's case.

If I were prosecuting a case under this Bill, I would hope

to have a jury that includes persons deeply sensitive to the

rights and interests of pregnant women. Such jurors would

regard an attack on a pregnant woman as being a twofold

crime, comprising both the injury directly inflicted on the

mother and the stark emotional and physical trauma resulting

from injury to or loss of her pregnancy.

But such jurors also will be more likely than others to

believe that pregnant women have the right to exercise

autonomy over their bodies and to choose whether to abort a

pregnancy. I predict that many or most judges will bar

prosecutors and defense counsel from questioning prospective

jurors about their views on abortion or about related matters

such as their religion, religious practices, or political

affiliations. Forced to act largely on instinct, prosecutors

may be inclined to exercise peremptory challenges against

those prospective jurors who appear to be most sympathetic to

the rights of pregnant women. This result clearly would

frustrate the Bill's stated purpose of protecting unborn life

from criminal violence.

Third: The Bill's apparent purpose of influencing the

course of abortion politics offends the integrity of the

criminal law.

To anyone who cares deeply about the integrity of the

criminal law, this Bill's apparent attempt to insert an

abortion broadside into the criminal code is greatly

offensive. The power to inflict criminal penalties is, second

only to the power to wage war, the highest trust invested in

our institutions of government. Because the power to make and

enforce criminal laws inherently carries enormous potential

for abuse, those who exercise that power must always do so

with a spirit free of any ulterior political motive. The

American Bar Association's Standards Relating to the

Administration of Criminal Justice provide that ``[i]n making

the decision to prosecute, the prosecutor should give no

weight to the personal or political advantages or

disadvantages which might be involved . . . .'' (Standard

3-3.9(d).) Not all prosecutors conduct themselves with

fidelity to this principle, but we may readily condemn

those who do not. We may likewise condemn other public

actors who abuse the sacred public trust of the criminal

sanction for political ends.

For these reasons, I object to the current formulation of

the Unborn Victims of Violence Bill. As I am confident that

an alternative version of the Bill can fully accomplish its

stated purpose of protecting unborn life from criminal

violence while avoiding each of the difficulties I have

outlined above, I strongly encourage the Senate to modify the

Bill in the ways I have suggested above or in some other

manner that avoids the freighted and frankly politicized

terms, ``child in utero'' and ``child, who is in utero.''

My thanks to you for your consideration of my views.

Sincerely,

George Fisher,

Professor of Law.

Mr. President, how much time have I consumed?

I have 89 minutes remaining?

I thank the Chair.

I know the Senator from New Jersey is on the floor wishing time.

Good. May I ask the Senator how much time he would like?

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, may I briefly suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I wish to respond to some of the concerns and complaints of the distinguished Senator from Ohio about our substitute amendment. Let me take on his allegation that this substitute does not provide a punishment for harming a child. In fact, it does. It clearly states that the interruption of the normal course of the pregnancy relates to injury to the fetus. So there is a penalty for harm.

Secondly, he stated my amendment would not provide any penalty for ending a pregnancy; that it was a legal fiction in that sense.

I think this is clearly a misunderstanding of the plain text of our amendment. We explicitly create a separate offense for interrupting or ending a pregnancy, and we explicitly state the penalty for that offense is the same as if the crime had resulted in the injury or death of a mother. That is explicit.

So the intent is clear. I think quibbling about whether the language is perfect, the amendment does exactly what the underlying bill does. I could have cleared that up with a modification, but the Senator would not let me send a modification to the desk, which in terms of just sheer congeniality is rather surprising because that could have been made crystal clear to everyone.

So I firmly believe our amendment does exactly the same thing as the DeWine amendment, but it does not do something his amendment does, and that is create life at the point of conception. His use of the words ``child in utero'' as opposed to the California statute's use of the words ``or fetus'' make a huge difference in the law legally. Once again, I think that is clear.

The bottom line is we believe the intent and the crafting of this bill is very clear. We do not create a child in utero. We try to avoid getting to the point where life is defined.

We say that if the pregnancy is intentionally terminated and specific damages are done to the fetus, it is punished either through manslaughter in a second charge or murder in a second charge. I think the language is very clear. I think it is nitpicking to say it is not.

I can change it, but I am not allowed to change it. We have the modification, but we are not allowed to send the modification to the desk. I believe Members can vote on this amendment and know clearly they are assessing the same penalties for the same crimes as the underlying bill does. The only difference is we do not decide in our bill when life begins.

Let me read a couple of editorials and statements that have come out in recent days. There is one editorial this morning in the Los Angeles Times. I would like just quickly to read one paragraph:

The Senate is likely to vote today on a bill intended

largely to score points in the endless, wearying abortion

debate. The proposed Unborn Victims of Violence Act defines a

child in utero as a member of the species homo sapiens, at

any stage of development, who is carried in the womb. In

other words, the child exists at the moment of conception.

The House passed similar legislation last month. As with

nearly every aspect of the abortion debate, Americans are

deeply divided over when human life begins. However courts in

most States generally accord more rights to a fetus

considered viable outside the womb. DeWine's bill, S. 1019,

offers a sweeping declaration that ignores prevailing

scientific views and the national legal consensus. True, his

bill specifically bars prosecution for abortion, but its

effect, as DeWine intends, would be to give one side a new

legal bullet in the broader abortion wars.

That is clear. I will go on. The Los Angeles Times is not the only editorial page that believes that. I indicated earlier this is true of an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

It is so easy to see how a federal unborn victims law,

coupled with unborn victims' laws in 29 States, will form the

basis of a new legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, a landmark

case that gives women the right to terminate certain

pregnancies. If a fetus who dies during a crime is a murder

victim, why, then, isn't abortion murder?

From the Buffalo News:

Passage by House Republicans of a bill that treats an

attack on a pregnant woman as separate crimes against her and

her unborn child is at heart an attempt to erode abortion

rights. It's a disingenuous and misguided bill and the Senate

should make sure it goes no further.

That is the Buffalo News.

The New York Times, April 25. This is 2001.

Packaged as a crime fighting measure unrelated to abortion,

the bill is actually aimed at fulfilling a long-time goal of

the right-to-life movement. The goal is to enshrine in law

the concept of fetal rights equal to but separate and

distinct from the rights of pregnant women.

Another editorial of the New York Times:

The bill would add to the Federal Criminal Code a separate

new offense to punish individuals who injure or cause

death to a child who is in utero.

The Washington Post, October 2, 1999,

What makes this bill a bad idea is the very aspect of it

that makes it attractive to its supporters, that it treats

the fetus as a person separate from the mother though that

same mother has a constitutional right to terminate her

pregnancy. This is useful rhetorically for the pro-life

world, but it is analytically incoherent.

The Blethen, ME, newspaper:

First considered in 1999, the bill purports to create new

Federal crimes for the intentional harm or death of a fetus

or unborn child. But, no matter how much supporters deny it,

the bill's real intent is to undermine women's reproductive

choices. If the bill is passed and signed into law, it would

weaken

the prudent and pragmatic decision handed down in Roe v.

Wade.

In my remarks, I have tried to show that this is a concerted effort. It need not be so. You can attach the same penalties for the same crimes, as our substitute does, without getting into the debate of where life begins. This bill chooses to get into the debate of where life begins and it defines life beginning at conception. It does so in a Federal criminal statute. It is one step in the building blocks of statutes that will constitute the ability to demolish Roe v. Wade.

I think every Member of this body who is pro-choice should vote against the underlying bill and for this amendment because in this amendment, without creating the separate person at conception, we establish the penalties for interruption or termination of a pregnancy. Those penalties are the same--same for murder, same for manslaughter, same for attempted murder, same for attempted manslaughter.

Again, I point out that in California what the State did 34 years ago was essentially amend the murder statute. By amending the definition in the Penal Code section 187, they provided a new definition of murder which said:

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus

with malice aforethought.

That is the bill under which the Laci Peterson case will be brought to court. It is a different idea because it clearly says that it is a fetus.

Additionally, there is information from those who wish to continue this pursuit to make a fetus a human life, to make an embryo a human life, that this is a concerted strategy aimed at weakening Roe v. Wade.

What we have tried to do is mimic the House bill with respect to the penalties but connect it to the termination of a pregnancy and thereby avoid the distinction of exactly when life begins for the purposes of statute law, in this case criminal statute law, and therefore avoid the problem.

I have indicated, from legal scholars, where they believe this will undermine prosecutions in this situation because they will encourage peremptory challenges of individuals who may have strong beliefs in choice and, therefore, not one likely to recognize that an embryo, or a day pregnancy, or a week pregnancy, or a month pregnancy is, in fact, a living being subject to criminal sanctions if their rights are violated.

It is a complicated issue. But it is a significant issue. It is an important issue.

The more I look at it and see the strategy of the anti-choice movement, the more I see that if you can establish a beachhead of rights in Federal criminal law here, and another statute there, and in a third statute somewhere else, you then begin the march to the Supreme Court in an attack on Roe. Roe sets up a trimester system giving the woman total rights in the first trimester, and then the State the right in the second and third trimester to intervene in certain cases, which has been the case in many State laws that have been passed. You now give the Supreme Court the ability to begin to say: ``It is in law that the embryo has certain rights'' and, therefore, forms the bulwark of the attack on Roe.

You also do something else insidious. I think you very much intervene in stem cell research. Stem cell research, and a good deal of the most auspicious of that research, deals with embryonic stem cells. If you have a law that says an embryo or a zygote is, in fact, a human life, then it is murder if you use that embryo for stem cell research, just as it becomes murder if that embryo is harmed or rejected in the course of an attack on a woman. We avoid all of that.

We simply say termination of a pregnancy, and termination of a pregnancy in the course of a criminal attack creates a second charge, and that second charge carries with it the same penalty as the original charge against the woman herself would carry.

That is the clear intent.

I regret that the Senator would not allow me to modify my amendment. I can never in 12 years remember any Senator being refused the right to modify an amendment, but perhaps we are playing by new rules these days. I know what goes around comes around in this body. I regret that.

But I believe on its face our substitute amendment is clear, it is definitive, it will stand the test of time, and it will prevent what we hope to prevent, which is the first major law which decides when life begins.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 529, I call up the bill (H.R. 1997) to amend title 18, United States Code, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice to protect unborn children from assault and murder, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 1997 currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, on January 7, 18-year-old Ashley Lyons and her unborn son, Landon, were murdered in Scott County, Kentucky. Current Kentucky law regards this crime as having only a single victim. But Carol Lyons, Ashley's mother and Landon's grandmother, said, ``Nobody can tell me that there were not two victims. I placed Landon in his mother's arms, wrapped in a baby blanket that I had sewn for him, just before I kissed my daughter good-bye for the last time and closed the casket.'' We are here today to tell Carol Lyons she is right. There were two victims that day.

The Kentucky legislature has recently acted to recognize Landon as a victim under Kentucky law, and Kentucky's Governor is going to sign that legislation. But today, Congress has yet to pass legislation recognizing unborn victims of violence under Federal law. The House has done so twice by large margins, but the Senate has failed to act.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act provides that if an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of crimes of violence already defined under Federal law, prosecutors can bring two charges, one on behalf of the mother and the second on behalf of the unborn victim. Indeed, the House of Representatives in the 106th Congress, by a unanimous 417 to nothing vote, passed the Innocent Child Protection Act, a bill only two sentences long, that banned the Federal execution of a woman while she carries a ``child in utero.'' ``Child in utero'' is defined in that bill exactly, to the word, as it is in this bill, namely, as ``a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.''

Now, opponents of H.R. 1997 will argue that harm to an unborn victim should simply be considered an additional harm to the mother, not an independent harm to another human being. Yet, a vote for the Innocent Child Protection Act two Congresses ago cannot be defended on the grounds that executing a pregnant woman would cause her to suffer additional harm because there can be no additional harm exceeding the ultimate and final punishment of death. Since the only logical rationale for the support of the Innocent Child Protection Act was to prevent the killing of an innocent unborn child, H.R. 1997, which also recognizes unborn victims, should have similarly overwhelming bipartisan support. We shall see.

The legislation before us now requires us to reflect on the goals and purposes of the criminal law. Ultimately, the criminal law is not a schedule of punishments. It is an expression of society's values. It is an expression of society's values. Anything less than the legislation before us today simply does not resonate with society's sense of justice. The tragic murders of Laci and Conner Peterson in California have drawn national attention to unborn victims and the American people have overwhelmingly responded with more than 80 percent support for bringing two separate charges against their murderer.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act protects the right of a mother to choose to bring her wanted and loved child to term, safe from the violent hands of criminals who would brutally deny her that right. This bill, however, has nothing to do with abortion. Let me repeat that. The bill has nothing to do with abortion. That fact could not be expressed more clearly in the legislation which explicitly excludes abortion- related conduct. Further, the Supreme Court, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, has already refused to strike down Missouri's unborn victims of violence law, stating that it ``does not by its terms regulate abortion.'' Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1997, just like the Missouri law that the Supreme Court refused to strike down, does not by its terms regulate abortion and, indeed, H.R. 1997 includes provisions that specifically exclude abortion-related conduct.

Both before and since the Webster decision, every single unborn victims law passed by State legislatures that has been challenged in court has been upheld. Anyone who claims this bill has anything to do with abortion and opposes it on those grounds is inviting this body to focus not on unborn child victims, but on red herrings.

Tracy Marciniak, whose unborn child was murdered by her husband, has told Congress, ``Please don't tell me that my son was not a murder victim.'' The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, I hope, will pass this body overwhelmingly today if only each Member opens their eyes to the photo of the dead body of Tracy Marciniak's murdered child and opens their hearts to the mothers who have implored Congress to give their unborn babies the status they deserve under the criminal law. I urge my colleagues to do so by supporting this legislation before the House today.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I will include for the Record two letters that the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, and I have exchanged regarding the two committees' jurisdictional claims on this legislation.

Committee on Armed Services,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, February 9, 2004.

Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.,

Chairman, House Judiciary Committee, Rayburn HOB, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to make 3 points.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New York seems to imply that this bill has to do with tax cuts and appropriation levels. It does not. It has to do with the criminal law, and as an aside, the criminal law is an expression of the sense of values of the legislative body that puts the criminal law on the books.

Secondly, the gentleman from New York seems to think that we are plowing new ground in making a definition of what a child in utero is and giving the child in utero the protections that are contained in this bill. That is a settled issue, and on July 25, 2000, with the gentleman from New York's support, we passed the Protection of Innocent Children Act which defined a child in utero as meaning a member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage in development who is carried in the womb, and that means a two-cell zygote.

Thirdly, the gentleman from New York seems to want to interject the abortion debate in this bill. That is not the case at all, and I would refer him to page 7 of the bill as reported that says nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law.

So what we are dealing with here is wanted children, children that the mother has every intention of bringing to term to have, to give birth and to give that child a nurturing and loving household and a nurturing and loving upbringing. These are the children that we wish to provide protection for under this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), the principal author of the bill.

(Ms. HART asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, let us get back to the Innocent Child Protection Act, which passed the House unanimously on July 25, 2000. The purpose of that bill, which is law today, was to prevent the killing of a child in utero because of the mother's crimes causing the death penalty to be imposed. There the legislation, again which was signed into law, defined the child in utero as a human being at any stage of development who is carried in the womb. So that we decided and we made law 3\1/2\ years ago when the Innocent Child Protection Act was passed.

I would note that the three Members on the other side of the aisle who have spoken against the current bill all voted in favor of the Innocent Child Protection Act and the definition that I have just repeated for, I believe, the third time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), a member of the committee.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the women who are the victims of the violence that has caused death or harm to their babies have already made their choice, and their choice was to carry their babies to term and to give birth and to raise those children in hopefully a nurturing and loving household. To say that this legislation takes away the choice of a woman is just flat-out wrong. Maybe some people disagree with the choice that that woman made, but that is a personal choice; and we ought to recognize that this legislation respects that personal choice.

And then to hear that this legislation is an assault on the Constitution is completely missing the point. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld fetal homicide laws, two-victim crime laws. The Webster case, I think, was the most emphatic upholding of that, and that is a Supreme Court that has also consistently refused to modify Roe v. Wade or to overrule it. So the Court has been able to make a distinction which apparently some of the Members on the other side of this argument have not been able to make, that fetal homicide laws are constitutional, two-victim crime laws are legal as well.

Now, I hope that more Members would have been able to hear the arguments that were advanced by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey),

who was an obstetrician by profession before he was elected to Congress. He has said that in some instances a minor bruise on the abdomen of a pregnant woman can result in the death of the child. If all that someone can be prosecuted for is that minor bruise, then the full force of the law against someone who has caused the death of another would not be able to be imposed against that defendant without a two-victim bill. And that is why two victims is so important. It is important, it is constitutional; but, most of all, it respects the right of the women who have decided that they do not want an abortion, that they want to give birth, and they want to raise the child with all the love that a newborn child deserves.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

(Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), who will close the general debate on this side.

(Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the substitute amendment should be soundly defeated as it would throw salt into the wounds of those parents who have implored this Congress to recognize under Federal law the loss of their loved, unborn child.

These mothers are not seeking recognition of the violence they have suffered alone. They are seeking recognition of the violence their unborn children have suffered as well. They are seeking recognition of the loss of their unborn child.

H.R. 1997 recognizes that loss; the substitute does not. This House has defeated this substitute amendment each time it has been brought up, with increasing margins during the 106th and 107th Congresses. We should increase that margin today.

A recent Fox News poll asked, ``If Scott Peterson is convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, do you think he should be charged with one count of homicide for murdering his wife, or two counts of homicide for murdering both his wife and his unborn son?'' An overwhelming 84 percent of the American people responded that two counts, not one, should be brought.

These results are confirmed by two other recent polls that show support for two separate charges for violent criminals who harm mothers and their unborn children. Support for a separate charge for an unborn victim is 84 percent, according to a Newsweek poll, and 79 percent, including 69 percent of those who describe themselves as prochoice, according to another Fox News poll conducted in July. Each poll found that less than 1 in 10 Americans disagree.

I would ask my colleagues to join with the overwhelming majority of Americans who have responded to these polls, including those who describe themselves as being prochoice, to reject this amendment and not join with the very small minority, less than 1 in 10 of those who are polled, who would support the one-victim approach.

This substitute amendment embodies the extreme ideology of those who are unwilling to recognize an unborn child in the law in any context whatsoever. The term ``unborn child'' as used in H.R. 1997 has been widely used and accepted by judges, including the Supreme Court, and Justice Blackmun, the author of the Roe v. Wade decision itself. The term ``unborn child'' has been widely tested in court and has sustained all constitutional challenges in terms of a fetal homicide law. Removing that term and replacing it with the vague and untested language of the substitute would accomplish nothing, while risking grave confusion and jeopardizing the conviction of violent Federal criminals. The abstract language in the substitute, which points to injuries to a ``pregnancy,'' ignores the fact that violent criminals can and do inflict injuries on a real human being in his or her mother's womb. If an assault is committed on a Member of Congress and her unborn child subsequently suffers from a disability because of the assault, that injury cannot accurately be described as an abstract injury to a pregnancy. It is an injury to an unborn child. The bill recognizes that. The substitute does not.

Also, unlike the language of H.R. 1997, the substitute contains no exceptions for abortion-related conduct, for conduct of the mother, or for medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child. This omission leaves

the substitute amendment bare to the charge that it would permit the prosecution of mothers who have abortions who inflict harm upon themselves and their unborn children or doctors who incidentally kill or injure unborn children during the provision of medical treatment. For that reason, the substitute amendment will certainly be subject to a successful constitutional challenge. The underlying bill has been tested and proven constitutional.

Today's debate is not about penalties. It is about victims. H.R. 1997 recognizes unborn victims of violence. The substitute does not. In the name of unborn victims, including Conner Peterson, Heaven Lashay Pace, Zachariah Marciniak, Landon Lyons and the others who are not named today but are known and loved and missed by their surviving family, the substitute should be soundly defeated and the bill passed.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the distinguished subcommittee chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. Speaker, I have one more speaker to close on this side. Does the gentlewoman from California have any further speakers?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader.