Family and Medical Leave Enhancement Act of 2005

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

Mr. President, that time will be taken off my colleague's time.

Mr. President, I have a parliamentary inquiry. I ask that the quorum be suspended so I can make a parliamentary inquiry.

I ask unanimous consent and I would like to make a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada.

There is a lot of interest in this bill. People want to do something for our young people. People want to avoid these horrible situations. My friend cited the case of a young woman who was raped by her father, yet in this bill, the father retains all rights to take her over a State line. Can you imagine, to sign a parental consent form, a father who raped his daughter? So we want to correct these problems.

I yield 5 minutes to Senator Patty Murray and then 2\1/2\ minutes to Senator Lautenberg at the close of the debate.

Mr. President, I was told we have until 5 after, equally divided.

I thank the Chair. It is the first time all day I have been correct.

I yield to Senator Murray 5 minutes and then, at the end of the debate, Senator Lautenberg for 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. President, before we yield the 2\1/2\ minutes, this issue of incest is extraordinary. The bill as written ``protects the predators on our children who have committed incest.'' All you have to do is read it. These parents, these fathers, retain their parental rights in the bill. And even under the Ensign amendment it says they cannot sue a friendly person for helping their daughter. The government under this bill can still go after a grandma, or a clergyman who says to a young child, Let me help you, your father raped you. Those vicious criminals retain all their rights. It is an absolute outrage.

The point is, why I am in favor of the Lautenberg amendment is the Lautenberg amendment says let us take a step back, let us prevent these pregnancies. And if people want to vote against teen pregnancy prevention, I guess they have a right to do that. How they would explain it is beyond me. We are talking 800,000 teenagers who get pregnant, and in about 18 percent it was not intended.

I thank Senator Lautenberg and yield to him the remaining time before the vote.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I want to go back to the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment. It is extraordinary to me; when we try to talk about common ground on the issue of pregnancy prevention, doesn't my colleague believe one area we ought to all come together on, regardless of whether we call ourselves pro-choice or anti-choice, would be preventing pregnancies among teens?

If my friend will further yield, is my friend aware there are 800,000 pregnancies among young women and that we could prevent these unwanted pregnancies and all of the attendant upset among families and that we had an opportunity to do that?

Here we had a chance to do something to prevent these unintended pregnancies. This bill focuses on a small number of cases. It seems to me by two votes we lost that vote. It is an issue, wouldn't my friend say?

Mr. President, I yield myself time off the bill. How many minutes is remaining on our side on the general debate on the bill?

Mr. President, I have not yet had a chance to lay out my objections to this bill. I would like a chance to do that and, of course, those objections have just been elevated given the fact that by just two slim votes, we failed to adopt teen pregnancy prevention legislation, which is, of course, one of the most important issues we face in our society today. We have 800,000 young women whose pregnancies could have been prevented if they had such education.

Here we are dealing with a bill that seems to come back before the Senate every election for reasons that the other side can explain. Instead of tackling the issues of health care for our young people, insurance for our young people, pregnancy prevention for our young people, we are dealing with an issue that impacts just a few people. But so be it.

The good news is, we have had a debate on teen pregnancy prevention. The whole country got to see it, and they got to see where the votes lined up. It is pretty clear.

The other good news is that we had a debate on stem cell research, and we saw a very similar situation where we picked up a few votes on the other side but not enough votes. The President vetoed stem cell research. You want to talk about a health issue, you want to talk about helping the health of our young people who have juvenile diabetes or those who are paralyzed because of an accident; if you want to talk about helping people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. But oh no, the President vetoed that. Another four or five votes in this Chamber could have made the difference between having stem cell research and not. But now we are not going to have it.

Frankly, in my State, we took matters into our own hands, and Republicans and Democrats together voted for stem cell research, and we have a $3 billion program. This isn't a partisan issue in my State. But oh boy, it is a partisan issue here. It just shows how far to the right we have come in the national debate.

So instead of doing something to improve a lot of our people, we are looking at this small issue. We are looking at a bill that, as it is now drafted, protects incest predators. We are working on that, hoping to come to some joint approach that can stop that problem, or part of it anyway.

As drafted, this bill throws grandmothers in jail and violates our Constitution. I would say this bill has a problem.

Again, we tried to make it better, but even our amendments did not go far enough. We did not have an exception for rape. If a young girl gets raped and she runs to the most trusted adult she knows, perhaps her grandma, and her grandma takes her into her loving arms because she is too scared to go to her parents for whatever reason. We have situations and I will share those with you where girls were so fearful, so frightened, and with good reason, that they couldn't go to their parents. So they go to a loving grandmother. And guess what? Under this bill, the parents can sue the grandmother. Unbelievable. That is Big Brother all right. Talk about family values interfering straight in. It is unbelievable.

We tried to fix the thrust of this bill to add on a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act. We couldn't do it.

So this bill, at the end of the day, focuses on a small number of young women crossing State lines with an adult to get an abortion and ignores 800,000 pregnancies which could have been prevented.

We had our chance. We had our chance, but, oh no, it is going to be

about political correctness. It is going to be about rightwing ideology. Oh no, we can't do that.

This bill does nothing to increase communications between parents and teens. It does nothing to stop sexual predators. Most young women who become pregnant already turn to their parents for help.

This is a wonderful country. We have loving families, for the most part, loving open families who say to their kids, as I certainly did to mine, and my husband did: Anything you have on your mind, you just come to us. You feel free to tell us. That is how it should be.

When I was a child, my mother said I could tell her anything, and I did. I told her anything. She loved me unconditionally and helped me through whatever problem I might have had.

With my own children, I tried to emulate my mother. I hope and I think I did that. They are now grown. They take care of me.

But what about young people who don't have that warm feeling in their families? What about the millions of victims of violence and abuse? This bill, as it is drafted, hurts just those victims. It doesn't mean to. That is not the purpose of it. But we have found out in our lives that some bills have unintended consequences, and this one sure does.

As this bill is drafted, a father who commits incest and takes his daughter over a State line--we are trying to fix it, and we hope we can fix it--that father has rights under this bill. It is an outrage.

Nearly half of pregnant teens who have been abused or assaulted are found to be abused and assaulted by a family member. That is the sad truth. Thirty percent of minors who don't tell their parents have experienced violence in the home. In other words, they are too fearful to go to the home where they have suffered violence. They fear violence or they worry that, in a rage, their parents will kick them out if they tell them they have become pregnant.

Don't we want them to be safe and secure? Don't we want them to have help from a caring adult? I would hope so. But under this bill, a clergy member who really cares about the family could be sued by parents who abuse their children. A loving grandma or a loving aunt could be sued. Oh, there are no exceptions allowed.

Senator Feinstein, unfortunately, is suffering from the flu and cannot be here today. She had an amendment--she cannot offer it--that would have exempted caring clergy and caring relatives. She couldn't be here.

This bill is so imperfect that I cannot begin to count the ways.

In my State, as I mentioned previously, parental notification laws have been voted down. In general, we all want to have adult consent. I believe it is important to help guide a young person through such a decision. But when we look at some of the unintended consequences of these bills and the fine print of these bills, we find that they are going to have the opposite effect of what we want. Instead of helping the minor, it puts her at risk.

We know some specific cases: A 12-year-old whose pediatrician discovered she was pregnant. It turned out the rapist was her stepfather and the mother wasn't living with the girl. The doctors recommended that her Aunt Vicki bring her to a specialist in a neighboring State. She was only 12 years old, the aunt said. It is bad enough to go through incest, but then to have a child from that incest. We should all agree that only the father should go to jail, not the caring relative, Aunt Vicki.

I know it is very difficult to talk about this topic, but some very sick people do rape. Fathers do rape, uncles do rape and even impregnate their daughters.

Look at these newspaper stories from around the country.

``An American Tragedy.'' This is from The Oregonian:

A 13-year-old girl in Idaho whose father had impregnated

her. . . . the morning she was supposed to have an abortion,

her father, who admitted his guilt, walked into her room with

a rifle . . . shot her in the head and then he shot himself.

How does this bill prevent that? This bill will frighten a girl, make her more alone because she can't go to a caring adult because a caring adult could be sued by a parent. So she is scared. She gets in a car. She drives over the State line by herself. She is all alone. The father finds out, grabs her. She has no protection. He shoots her, shoots himself.

What are we doing here? Why don't you look at what you are doing. Why don't you look at the practical impact of what you are doing?

Here is another: ``Teen Accuses Father of Rape,'' The Journal News, Westchester County, NY.

. . . man was arrested and charged with first degree rape

of his teenage daughter. The man tried to force his daughter

to take an unknown pill to cause a miscarriage because he

believed she was pregnant.

This happens too often.

``Father Sentenced for Raping Daughters,'' Newark Advocate:

Man convicted of raping his two daughters. . . . the girls

were 13 and 17 at the time of the crimes.

``Man Charged with Incest is Arrested in North Carolina'':

Police said a father raped and impregnated his 16-year-old

daughter and raped his step-daughter who is mentally and

physically disabled.

The way this bill has come to us from the committee protects the father. Senator Ensign and I are working hard--and I hope we can reach agreement--to solve the problems of this bill. But the way the bill passed the other body, they didn't pay any attention to this. Wonderful, we pass a bill that protects fathers who rape their daughter. It is basically a bill that, all of that incest aside, really will wind up in a young woman getting into a car on her own, frightened to death to tell her parents, and driving alone.

``Ordeal Ended/Dad's Arrest Ends Years of Rape for Teen,'' Newsday.

For years, a convicted child sex offender used his Bronx

home as a pornographic movie studio for sex videos of himself

and his young daughter. The girl had tried at least once to

alert someone--her mother . . . her mother took no action.

``Her mother took no action.'' As Senator Ensign and I try to reach an agreement on an incest amendment, let me be clear: We are not going to reach that mother. I, if I go along with this, am giving up a lot of my amendment. This is still an imperfect bill, and I will show you in a checklist my amendment versus the Ensign amendment and what we try to do in our amendment.

The Ensign amendment, as was originally proposed--we support it-- stops a father who has raped his daughter from suing the trusted adult who helped his daughter end the resulting pregnancy. We applaud that amendment, and that amendment will hopefully be adopted.

But we don't stop with that because the Ensign amendment doesn't go far enough. We want to stop a father who has raped his daughter from exercising any parental consent rights. We want to stop all criminal prosecution or jail time for a trusted adult who helps a victim of incest.

Imagine under this bill a child goes running to a nextdoor neighbor whom she loves, a kind of an aunt to her, and she says: Please help me, please help me. I am pregnant. My father raped me. I can't go in that house. I can't tell my mother. My mother won't believe me. The nextdoor neighbor helps her. Under this bill the mother and the father can sue. We have to fix that. We are not going to fix it today. We can't reach all of what I am trying to do because I can't get agreement on the other side. It is still going to be an awful problem.

We also stop a father who has raped his daughter, or any other family member who has committed incest against a minor, from transporting her across State lines to obtain an abortion.

We don't want these perpetrators of incest to take their victims across the State line. We are working hard under the parameters of this bill to address the issue of incest.

At the end of the day, if our negotiations go well, we will have taken care of two of the five Boxer provisions. Will I be happy that these three provisions are not taken care of? No. I am not happy. It is outrageous that we can't get it all done. So be it. Let the people judge. But we will do as much as we can to improve this bill.

This bill as written protects the rights of brutal fathers. There are not many out there, but there are some.

There is only one thing that we can do to make matters worse than parental consent: that is giving these sexual predators more power over their children to keep on perpetrating these acts

and then saying they know how to handle it. They can handle it. Just take a child in the car and go.

The bill as written actually forces some young incest victims to get permission from their rapist fathers to get an abortion. Can you imagine? We have to fix that. And it allows the predator fathers to take their daughters across State lines.

We are trying hard to reach an agreement to take care of this problem. I am grateful that we may get two-fifths of the way there on my amendment.

I will work hard if this bill becomes law to fix this bill. I will introduce legislation to fix this bill. I will also prepare legislation that goes further than this and says if someone is a victim of rape and they are fearful of telling their parents, that parent, adult, or grandma can't be sued.

We really have a long way to go. This bill has many problems. It sends a message to young girls: Go it alone. Avoid all of this. Get in your car and go it alone. Don't take anyone with you. If you get in trouble at your moment of need, this bill says go it alone. She can go across the State line on her own. This bill doesn't do anything about it--only if she has a parent with her to help her.

I believe this bill is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has been clear that abortion restrictions must not impose an undue burden on women, and they must include a health exception. There is no health exception in this bill. If a doctor takes a girl across State lines because he worries about her health, and if she doesn't get an abortion right away and faces paralysis or faces infertility, there is no exception in this bill. The doctor can be sued.

What kind of message are we sending to young women? Go it alone. What kind of message are we sending to fathers who commit incest or mothers who turn a blind eye to it? Oh, don't worry. You are protected. Maybe Boxer will get two of her provisions, but we are not going to give you the five. I thought it was one nation under God, indivisible.

I didn't think when we cross over State lines we are going to have the pregnancy police look in our cars. This is unconstitutional. You don't have to carry the laws of your own State on your back. If you go through another State and there is a speed limit that is different than the one you live in, you obey the laws of the State you are in. That is the law you carry on your back, not the State you left. No one could go gambling in Nevada if we said: If you live in Tennessee and no gambling is allowed, you can't go gamble in Nevada because you will be arrested by the police at the border.

There are different criminal acts and different penalties in different States. Some have tough laws. We know that. States have rights.

We find it interesting how someone only supports the States when they agree with them. But if they don't agree with that State's law, then they try to force another State's law onto the State with which they disagree. I don't know of any other law in history, with the exception of the Fugitive Slave Act, that has required citizens to carry the laws of their own State on their backs. That was back in the days of slavery. If you ran away to another State, you were still stolen property until the court said no.

If you look at the constitutionality issue, if you look at the fact that victims of rape are left in deep trouble, as are victims of incest, if you look at the fact that good, kind, loving people like grandmas and grandfathers could go to jail for helping their granddaughter--no matter how you look at this bill, I believe you should come to the conclusion that this bill has major problems.

Parental consent--you know something, Senator Ensign is right. People support the idea that a parent should be contacted by their child and talked to when a child has an unintended pregnancy. We want that so much. I want that so much.

I also want kids to know they could talk to their grandma, they could talk to their grandpa, they could talk to their clergy, they could get help when they need it.

I don't believe the American people support throwing grandma in jail because she embraced her granddaughter and said: My God, I am worried that your parents, your dad might hurt you if you tell the truth. She throws her arms around the granddaughter and protects her and helps her through a crisis.

I believe stopping an abortion is worth preventing a teen from having a lifetime of paralysis, infertility, or worse, and yet there is no health exception in this bill. I think people want us to stop using this issue as a political football.

I know who brought this up. It is brought up by the other side of the aisle every time we have an election.

I hope we can join hands to stop teen pregnancies. We had a chance to do it. But no, we had a vote and we lost that vote. It is unreal. We got a couple of Republicans, but not enough.

I hope the American people are watching this debate. If our goal is to help our young people--and that is the stated goal--there are a lot of ways we could help rather than scaring them to death and making them go it alone in a desperate situation, making criminals of their grandmas and their grandpas and their clergy.

I am sad that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act didn't pass as part of this bill. It would have made this bill better. I am glad that we are going to have some coming together on the incest amendment, although as I said, it is only going to take care of two of the five problems we have relating to the bill. But at least we are making a bit of progress.

The bill, to me, is blatantly unconstitutional. It violates our core principles of federalism. It puts caring adults in jail and endangers the health and lives of our most vulnerable teens. On that basis it ought to be defeated.

I believe this bill will pass. I also believe our incest amendment will pass. I think that is important. We should have two votes on that. I think it is important to have those recorded votes so that the message goes to the House that their bill blatantly helps the predators. I call it the ``Incest Predators Protection Act.'' Thank you very much. I know my time is up. I yield the remainder of my time at this time.

Mr. President, again, for the benefit of our colleagues, we are waiting patiently to have the amendment we agreed on to come before us. Then we are hoping at the right time, Senator Ensign will make a unanimous consent request for a vote on an amendment we have agreed on, and then vote on final passage. So hopefully we will have that done very soon. As soon as it is done, I will yield the floor and allow the Senator, the good Senator from Nevada, to make his unanimous consent request.

The Senator from Nevada wants to protect our daughters. He is a dad of a daughter. I am a mom of a daughter. I want to protect our daughters. So let's not get confused on this point. We all want to protect our daughters. We all adore them. We want them to be safe, and we want them to get the help they need. We want them healthy. We want them well. We do not want them afraid.

But I do fear that this bill, the way it is drafted--and, yes, we are going to make a little bit of a correction on the incest part, but not as much as we should, but some--we are going to make some progress, and I am grateful for that. Basically, the way this bill is drafted, it is going to frighten our daughters because here is the way it works, folks: If you are a young woman in a parental notification State, you will take matters into your own hands because you are too frightened to go to your parents.

Now, we all hope all parents will be open and loving and caring and helpful and will be able to be approached when a young woman becomes pregnant and it is an unintended pregnancy. We would hope and pray that family, that loving family, will sit around and talk about what ought to happen here, what is the best thing for everybody. I am pro-choice. I am for whatever the family decides. If they decide that the best thing is to raise that child in the family, that is their choice. If they decide

it is best if the young woman exercises her right to choose, which is her right in this country--and has been since 1973--she has that right.

That is what we hope happens, that there will be these conversations. Of course, my friends on the other side of the aisle do not want a choice. They want to force her to have the child. They are against Roe v. Wade, but that is another debate. That is a debate we take to the people, and that is a debate that the pro-choice people win. They do not want Senator Boxer or Senator Ensign involved in that family discussion, saying: But, no, you must have this child. You must not have any rights to choose. They do not want that. People do not feel comfortable with it. They want to deal with this their own way, with their own God, with their own family, with their loving family members. But that is not before us.

What is before us is a very narrow bill that deals with a very narrow circumstance where there is a young woman who does not go to her parents, mostly because she is scared to death to go to them. For whatever reasons, in her mind, she is fearful: Will they--if she is from a violent home--beat her up? Will they hurt her? Will they verbally abuse her? Will they be disappointed? And that weighs on her.

So what we are saying with this bill to that girl in a parental notification State is: You are alone. You can't go to anyone else. You can't go to your grandma who you adore, you can't go to your grandpa, you can't go to your big sister, you can't go to your Aunt Susan, you can't go to your clergy who has taken care of you and looked after you.

So you can't go to your doctor. You can't do this because they could be sued and put in jail. That is what this bill does. Is that America? Rather than go to the people who she knows who adore her, love her, care about her, would counsel her, would help her and, perhaps, by the way, talk her into speaking to her parents or going with her to speak to her parents, this bill says: Go it alone, get in your car, get in an airplane, don't take anyone with you, don't tell anyone else, because that person can be sued and, worse, put in jail.

These are our kids. My God, what a situation. And somehow this is supposed to be a wonderful thing we are doing, a family-values thing we are doing. I don't think you can force families into these situations. We don't know enough to be able to do that. There will be unintended consequences. We will have suicides. We will have very serious problems.

As we wait around here in these last moments of this debate--and I am hopeful we can bring it to a close--let me say again that I thank Senator Ensign for coming my way, not quite halfway, on the issue of incest. Because the bill as written allowed a father who raped his daughter to have all kinds of parental rights: the right to sign an agreement that she could have an abortion, the right to take her over State lines, the right to sue a loving and caring adult who helped her.

I wish to show this chart which I have shown previously. Under this amendment we are hoping is coming to us momentarily, we will stop a father who has raped his daughter from suing the trusted adult who helped his daughter end the resulting pregnancy. So in the case of incest, if the child goes to grandma, the incestuous father cannot sue grandma.

Then, at the end, Senator Ensign was not willing to take these three provisions which I will debate. He did take my last provision.

We now stop a father who has raped his daughter or any other family member who has committed incest against a minor from transporting her across State lines to obtain an abortion. That would be a crime.

The three things that are not done, which is why I think this amendment falls short: we haven't stopped a father who has raped his daughter from exercising parental consent rights; we haven't stopped all criminal prosecution or jail time for a trusted adult who helped a victim of incest; and we haven't stopped all civil suits against a trusted adult who helped a victim of incest. But we have taken care of two issues. For that I am grateful because this bill will become law. It will be sent to the President, who will sign it. Unlike his veto on the stem cell bill, which he should have signed, because that bill would help our families, help our children with juvenile diabetes, help grandmas and grandpas with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, help our youngsters who were paralyzed--he vetoed that. He will sign this one.

This is a political bill. It did come to us in 1998 just before the election. Let's face facts. We know when it came.

My friend from Nevada is right when he says people support parental notification. They do want to believe we could all to go our parents with these problems. But let me tell you what they don't want. They don't want to give incest predators any rights whatsoever. They would want to make an exception in this bill for rape victims so that if you are a victim of rape and you were too scared to tell your parents, you could go to your grandmother, but not under this bill. A victim of rape, you are too scared to tell your parents because of the circumstances--maybe it was date rape, maybe you just can't explain it. Maybe you are frightened to death. You go to your grandma. She could be sued by the parents and she could be put in jail by the Federal Government. Send your grandma to jail. That is what we are doing here today. Why? Because she loved her granddaughter, because she was there for her granddaughter, and because by stepping in, she may have really saved a tragedy from occurring.

I don't believe the American people want us to be this radical. I think they would have wanted us to do more exceptions to this bill. Seventy percent of the American people oppose abortion laws that put people in jail. I don't believe Americans think that stopping an abortion is worth causing a teen a lifetime of paralysis, infertility, or worse. This bill, if it does get signed into law, and I say it will, and unless it is overturned by the courts, which I think it might be, but if it isn't, it basically will put these young women in a situation where they feel the world is closing in on them. That is not right.

I will close my debate and urge a ``yes'' vote on the Boxer-Ensign amendment that will go part way toward solving the predator incest issue. Then I would urge a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill because of all the problems it creates that we have not been able to address.

I thank the staffs on both sides. We have had a long and difficult day, emotional issues for us all. Yet we have handled it in such a way that I am hopeful that momentarily we will have a unanimous consent request to resolve the procedures governing the rest of the evening.

I yield back my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I only need 30 seconds.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

I thank Senator Ensign. I had an amendment to solve this incest predator problem. He came to me almost halfway. We didn't quite get there, but it is a start. Again, for the benefit of my colleagues, two out of five provisions I wanted are in this amendment. This amendment stops a father who has raped his daughter from suing the trusted adult who helped his daughter end the resulting pregnancy, and it stops a father who has raped his daughter or any other family member who has committed incest against a minor from transporting her across State lines. This is an improvement. The reason we want to have a vote on it is because we hope it is a strong statement going into the conference on this bill. Again, we still need to fix many more provisions of this bill.

I believe, at the end of the day, it doesn't make our teenagers any safer. It will make them fearful. It will make them feel alone. I think the bill is unconstitutional. I hope we have some ``no'' votes to send a message that this bill needs a lot more work.

I thank Senator Ensign and his staff and my staff. It has been a tough day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Democratic leader and the Republican leader had a unanimous consent agreement on this bill, and during that time--the way the Senate operates--amendments were exchanged and language was handed to each side. We were prepared to debate amendments based on text we were given, and in a highly unusual move, the Senator from New Jersey has brought forward language that is different than what was provided to us in the unanimous consent agreement. At this time, having to go through the amendment to see what all the consequences of those differences are, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I object.

Mr. President, we all agree that teenage pregnancy is a problem in the United States. And there are various views on the best way to deal with teenage pregnancy and how to prevent it and lower the rate of teenage pregnancies.

The Lautenberg-Menendez amendment is an attempt to do that. I think it is a misguided attempt. Let me point out some of the problems that I think are present in this amendment. Let's talk a little bit about what the amendment does.

First, sex education decisions have long been left to parents and local communities. When communities offer sex education programs in public schools, parents are typically heavily involved in deciding the scope of that education. Parental and local control of this issue is appropriate because the issues involved are uniquely related to parents' cultural, religious and moral values, and attitudes, as well as those of the community. The Menendez-Lautenberg amendment would send $100 million into localities in an effort to override the parents' and local community's decisions about how to raise their children. It is a prescriptive amendment about how these programs are to be set up.

These grants would require recipients to conduct sex education programs and would prohibit the recipients from providing abstinence- only education. All recipients of grant moneys would be required to teach children about all contraceptives, including condoms, the pill, and plan B emergency contraceptives. The amendment also reauthorizes and increases appropriations for a variety of other programs. I will talk about that in a moment.

Under this amendment, none of the authorized moneys would be available for programs focusing on abstinence only or for programs that refuse to discuss controversial contraceptives such as plan B, which many Americans view as an abortion pill.

There is a program out there called Best Friends. Under this program, teenagers are 6\1/2\ times less likely to have sex than their counterparts, about two times less likely to drink alcohol than their peers, eight times less likely to use drugs, more than two times less likely to smoke. Under this amendment, Best Friends would not qualify for grant monies available through this amendment.

While the authors of this amendment have offered it in good faith it is misguided.

Dr. Coburn and I got to know each other very well, when we served in the House together. He has been out there on the front lines, actually delivering babies. He talks to a lot of young girls and boys about their involvement or lack of involvement in sexual activities when they are young.

I yield Senator Coburn 10 minutes to speak on the bill and this amendment.

Mr. President, I would like to make a few very brief remarks in relation to this particular amendment. There is one term used in this amendment that is of particular concern. The proponents say that they want a ``teen-driven'' approach to sex education. This is one of the things they want to encourage. I don't know about what kind of teenagers the rest of my colleagues were when they were teenagers, but when I was a teenager and if such a program was driven by me, that type of sex education program would look a lot different than one that would be driven by me as an adult and as a parent. I think focusing such a program in a manner that is ``teen-driven'' is just asking for problems, as far as what kind of mindset we want our sex education programs to contain. It is a minor example of a problem that is in this particular amendment.

Mr. President, because we don't know how much debate we are going to have on the underlying bill, I will talk for a couple minutes about the bill itself. First, I want to respond to something Senator Clinton said when she spoke of the two sisters who were both raped by their father. That is a horrible, unimaginable situation. I applaud Senator Clinton for her efforts in that family situation. The Senator talked about the older sister who wanted to help the younger sister because the older sister, had herself, been impregnated. Senator Clinton had said the older sister would have gotten in trouble if she would have gone across State lines to help her younger sister obtain an abortion.

What Senator Clinton pointed out is the exact purpose of this bill. The older sister had to get the judiciary involved to remove her sister from the abusive situation. Guess what. If the older sister would have taken her sister across State lines for an abortion, the legal authorities never would have been involved to take the child out of the abusive situation, and the younger sister would have been returned to an unsafe home where she would have been subjected to continued sexual abuse.

That is the whole point of this legislation, Mr. President. The judicial bypass for parental consent or notification that is required in most States is the only instances in which this bill actually applies. So the bill, I believe, would be consistent with what I understand that Senator Clinton wanted for this girl: to get her out of an abusive situation.

Mr. President, will the Chair remind me when I have 5 minutes remaining?

Mr. President, incest is a terrible act, a terrible crime. We should not be protecting the people who perpetrate these crimes. But at the same time, if there is incest involved we, as a society, must take steps to protect the young victims. Imagine a young girl who has had this terrible act committed against her and now somebody else with good intentions wants to take her across State lines to get an abortion. There are several problems raised by this scenario. If the judiciary can be involved, at least some of these crimes can be addressed. But if the crime remains secret from the parents and there is no judiciary involved, this girl will be forced to just goes back home, with the abortion hidden, to face continued victimization. The second concern that I have relates to the potential medical consequences that a young girl might face following an abortion. She might encounter a postsurgical infection, or complications if the abortion is performed with inaccurate or an incomplete medical history of the young girl, like administering some kind of medication or anesthesia to which the girl has an allergy. The young girls parents may not know to watch for postsurgical complications. Each of these medical concerns become life threatening when friends or a member of the clergy are involved rather than the young girl's parents or the authorities.

That is why I think some of the amendments coming up are ill- conceived and why this bill is so important to enact. I hope that as this debate goes forward we can bring out more of these points. I know the leaders are trying to work out differences right now.

I yield whatever time is remaining on this amendment to the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote in relation to the Lautenberg amendment No. 4689 be at 4:05 p.m., with the remaining time between now and then equally divided between the proponents and opponents of this bill.

Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the Senator from California said twice today that this bill protects a father who commits incest with his daughter. In other words, he can commit a crime and still take her across State lines to get an abortion.

That argument is illogical. Obviously, a father is a parent. In a State with a parental consent law, he is a parent with rights under State law. If he wants his daughter to have an abortion, to cover up his own crime, he can freely give his consent to allow his daughter to have the abortion in their State of residence. That father doesn't have to take his daughter across State lines. As a result, this bill does not affect such an outcome one way or the other. His abuse of his daughter in that situation is not only morally wrong, it is illegal. This bill doesn't affect that situation one way or another. So to say we are protecting a father's right to go across State lines--it is an argument, frankly, that just doesn't hold water. It just doesn't. This bill doesn't have anything to do with what the Senator was saying.

Let's just talk about what the bill does. This bill says that if a State has

enacted a parental consent or a parental notification law and if a teenage girl in that State gets pregnant and somebody besides her parents wants to take that child across State lines to avoid those parental consent or parental notification laws in direct violation of what the people of that State want, in direct violation of what the parents would want, that act, transporting a child across state lines, is a Federal offense. And that crime is punishable with time in prison.

Look at the consequences of not having this bill. I would point out, in order to put this in its proper context for my colleagues, that over two-thirds of the girls who have been taken across State lines for an abortion have boyfriends who are over 20 years of age. So typically, you would have a teenage girl with a boyfriend who is significantly older than her. And in the context of that relationship, the young girl becomes pregnant. Sometimes that pregnancy is the result of a forcible rape, where the girls does not consent; in most cases, it is at least statutory rape. This legislation will help law enforcement stop adult men from preying upon underage girls and violating the law with respect to the crime of rape--statutory or otherwise. Which is the right thing to do. This bill makes it a further crime if that male takes this young girl across State lines to get an abortion to cover up his tracks, basically to try to eliminate the evidence of his crime. Without this bill, the man who has already taken advantage of a young girl can further endanger her, by forcing her to have an abortion, with potential emotional scarring beyond what she has already gone through and potential physical scarring. In an abortion, some women actually become sterile because of the procedure, because of complications from the procedure.

The parents of most children in the United States are responsible. To take away their ability to be involved in something that is so important, so potentially life-altering with this teenager I believe is just wrong, and I think that is why 80 percent of the American people support this legislation.

In polls I have seen, 60-plus percent of people who call themselves pro-choice support this legislation.

We are in a society that is so deeply divided over moral issues, and none more divided than this issue--the issue of whether you call yourself pro-life, or pro-choice, or anti-choice, or pro-abortion, or whatever names that are tossed around. I believe reasonable people can at least come together on some restrictions on abortion. This is one of those reasonable restrictions. That is why over 80 percent of the American people support this legislation.

It is only constitutional when--and this law only applies when--the States have judicial bypass. For those people who are concerned about whether in the case of incest the girl is going to be subjected to some kind of further abuse, it is reasonable that the judicial bypass is there and the reason the courts have recognized that for the parental consent cases. We are not forcing States to do anything as far as their laws are concerned. We are upholding the intent of the people of each State by saying don't circumvent the laws of our State by taking a minor outside of our State. The people of that State have spoken. I think we should at this point in time try to respect the laws the people of that State have enacted. Most importantly, we protect the parents' rights and the health and the lives of children across the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one last point related to instances where a father has raped his daughter and whether his rights are protected under this bill. We have an amendment that will address the concerns raised with respect to that issue. The Senator from California mentioned that the grandfather could be sued under this bill, could be prosecuted under this bill if he took his granddaughter across State lines to get the abortion. In that circumstance, the grandparent should be calling the local authorities. If it is a clergy, a friend, whoever it is that has knowledge of a crime against a child, that person should be calling the local authorities so that young child can be removed from that awful situation that she is forced to live in. The authorities should be involved, and in those cases where pregnancy results, the young girl, with the help of her grandparent, clergy member or other adult can seek a judicial bypass. I am confident that a judge hearing that case would allow an abortion under judicial bypass. But if the grandparents or the clergy truly care about, or the friend truly cares about that young girl who has been a victim of incest, then that adult should contact the local authorities. That is how an adult would be acting in the best interests of the child. Otherwise, all the adult is doing is taking her across State lines for an abortion, bringing her back to her home state, and returning her into the same very harmful situation that she was in before.

I yield the remainder of time. I call for the vote.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the next 20 minutes, the first 10 minutes be taken by the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, and then the 10 minutes following that would be allotted to Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania.

Mr. President, to answer the Senator from Illinois, we are going to fix that. We realized we needed to fix that problem, and we have an amendment. The Senator addressed this, and that will be one of the amendments that is coming up.

I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from South Dakota.

Mr. President, to update our colleagues on what has been going on, we had three amendments still pending on this bill. Senator Boxer and I, and our staffs, with the leadership on both sides, have been working together. We think we have come up with a compromise amendment. It will be the Boxer-Ensign amendment. We will be making a unanimous consent request in a few moments.

I thank Senator Boxer and her staff for the way they have worked together with us, coming to an agreement. This is a good example of how people who fundamentally disagree--passionately--on an issue can actually find some common ground and work together at least on an amendment. That is what we have done today. I am very pleased with what the staffs have done and the compromise we have reached. It is very satisfying.

Let me spend a few minutes talking on the bill as the final details are being worked out. This is an important piece of legislation, not because of the huge numbers it will affect--I have had that question from reporters: How many girls actually get taken across State lines to get an abortion? Sadly, no one knows the answer to that because it is not reported.

As a matter of fact, right now when it happens, the parents have no rights to the information, so they cannot find out even after the fact. They find out by rumor or maybe their child ends up telling them later where they had it done. We had cases where they tried to get the information, but, frankly, the clinic would not release the information. We have no idea how many victims are out there--the records are not kept anywhere--or how often this happens.

I have tried to put myself in a situation that I would want my Senator representing me. I try to say, okay, I am an average person, how would I want my Senator representing me? I happen to be the father of a little girl. We have three kids. Our middle child is a little girl. She happens to be with me this weekend in Washington. In the coming years, as she matures as a young woman, I think about if some 20-year-old preyed on her when she was in her teenage years and got her pregnant and then somehow, because we had a parental consent law, which I hope we do someday in Nevada, and the 20-year old said: I won't date you anymore unless you get a secret abortion. He thinks: I will convince her somehow, manipulate a very vulnerable young woman. I will convince her that I won't see her anymore if she doesn't get the abortion--or whatever means needed to persuade her to get an abortion. If there is a parental consent law in my State, I will decide to go someplace else where they don't require it. In other words, he gets around the will of the people of the State of Nevada or any state that requires parental involvement.

In a case such as that, I would be totally devastated as a parent because I would not be able to help my daughter through this time because I would not even know about it. I would not know if she had a complication from the surgical procedure of abortion. I would not know--if she had a complication in the

middle of the night and she started bleeding--that I should be watching for something that could be going wrong. If she had a fever, I would probably say: Honey, we will get you some Advil or Tylenol. And maybe I would hold her for a little while. And she would be afraid to tell me what was going on and, without me knowing, that could develop into very serious complications overnight. Complications that could even be life threatening.

Well, I try to put myself in those kinds of situations as a Senator and say: How would I want to be represented? And this is how I would want it. I would want somebody to stand up and say: The rights of parents should be respected. That is what we are doing in this bill. But more than that, for the well-being of these teenage girls, the vast majority of them would be better off if the parents were involved.

Now, we realize there are cases where that is not the case, where there is an abusive parent. There are exceptions. That is part of the amendment compromise we are working to reach. I think it is a good compromise. In a situation--that has been brought up here on the floor many times where there has been a girl impregnated who is in her teenage years, we do not want to make unreasonable exceptions that make these laws ineffective.

There was an amendment that would have said: We will make an exception to allow the clergy to take a girl across State lines. They wanted an amendment that said the grandparents should have an exception. Well, let me address those two exceptions because they sound, on their face, reasonable. We have case after case after case of documentation where the clergy was actually the person who was impregnating the teenager. We have all read about the scandals with some of our clergy. Clergy are human beings and, just like any other, they can be flawed human beings. We know that. Just because they have a white collar on does not mean they are perfect human beings.

Some of those imperfections can be seen in cases of sexual abuse by members of the clergy with teenagers. For instance, there have been members of the clergy who have taken minor children across State lines to avoid parental consent laws. And because they are clergy--they are supposed to be this authority figure--the girl does not want to question them and she goes across State lines and has a secret abortion.

The exception that was going to be offered in one of the amendments would have allowed that member of the clergy, which was not defined, to be exempt from prosecution under this bill. I cannot support such an exemption.

Not only that, any one can become a member of the clergy. In fact, last night I asked my staff, because I had heard you could become a member on the internet fairly easily, and within 3 minutes she became an ordained minister. So, anybody could go on the Internet and officially be recognized as an ordained minister, officially by our courts. Leaving it open that a 20-something-year-old who has impregnated a teenager could become a minister and could still fall under the clergy exception.

Let me address the grandparent case. In the case of the grandparents, you have a situation where maybe there was incest in the family, and the grandparent feels they care about the child, and they want to help them. Most grandparents are loving, and they will want to help the child in that case. The Senator from California and others have made the case that they should not be prosecuted under this law because they took the child across State lines to get an abortion because they only thought they were trying to help.

Well, I would make the argument that if those grandparents cared about that child who was in a situation where they were in an abusive home--they were raped by their father--the grandparents should contact the authorities, get the authorities involved to stop the cycle of abuse. You would use the judicial bypass for such case. Judicial bypass would mean that you would not have to go across State lines if that was what the outcome would be, to have an abortion. You would have the judiciary, the authorities involved.

If the authorities were involved, you take that girl out of that abusive situation and protect her. If you allow for the grandparent exception and allow secret abortions, that is not going to happen. In too many cases, it is easier to get the abortion, and hide the problem, saving the family from embarrassment. If you go to the authorities, it may become public. That is why I think we need to not have the grandparent exception and the clergy exception.

So, Mr. President, we are still waiting for the amendment to come down in its final form. As soon as it does, we will be entering into a unanimous consent agreement. But let me wrap up because it has been a very good debate, with strong emotions on each side.

I think this is a bill Americans can come together on and find common ground. I have mentioned before there are good people on both sides of the abortion debate with deeply held beliefs. I believe life begins at conception and that child is a child and has a soul from the time they are conceived. That is why I believe that same child deserves protection throughout their life. I also know that people look at it differently on the other side, and they too have deeply held beliefs.

So Americans have been saying: Can't we at least find some middle ground? Can't we find some ground to at least make some reasonable restrictions on abortion and support parents rights? I believe we have brought forth a bill today that finds that common ground. Eighty percent of the American people support this legislation, and they do that because it is reasonable. From a protection of parents' rights perspective; from a protection of the girl's perspective; from going after some of these, literally, sexual predators, these 20-something- year-olds, who are taking these teenagers across State lines; from a law enforcement perspective; from a lot of different ways this is a reasonable piece of legislation. That is why I introduced it, why I support it so strongly, and why I am happy we are finally having this debate on the Senate floor.

I want to thank my colleagues, especially Senator Boxer, on the other side of the aisle for allowing the debate to happen, for bringing this thing to a final vote, where we can get passage on this bill and then go to a conference with the House and, hopefully, work out the differences between the House and the Senate. My hope and prayer is we can get this bill actually signed into law by the President this year.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Boxer be recognized in order to offer an amendment; provided further that there be 5 minutes for Senator Boxer and----

That we have 1 minute for Senator Boxer, 1 minute for Senator Ensign, and following that time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Boxer amendment. I further ask that following that vote, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the bill with no further intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, to wrap up, I encourage a ``yes'' vote on the Boxer-Ensign amendment.

I thank my staff and Senator Boxer's staff and particularly name Pam Thiessen and Alexis Bayer on my staff for the great work they have done on this bill and Chris Jaarda for some of the number crunching he did on the bill as well.

I hope we get a strong bipartisan vote on final passage. To alert our Members, these will be two votes, and then we will be completely done with this bill.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays on final passage.

Mr. President, I have great deal of respect for the experience of my colleague from Oklahoma. I believe he has served his patients in a conscientious, caring manner for all those 20-plus years he has been practicing medicine as an OB/GYN. He comes to the floor with his own experience. It is entitled to great weight because it is his experience. He has very passionately set forth his strong beliefs. I come from a different perspective. I have been a lawyer for a number of years. I was a law professor running a legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville not far from the Oklahoma border when one day in my office I got a call from one of the local judges telling me he had assigned me to a case. That was pretty common.

I said: Judge, what kind of case is it?

He said: Well, I want you to represent this man who has been accused of raping a 12-year-old girl he is related to.

I said: Judge, I don't really want to do that.

He said: Professor, you are going to do it because I am signing the order right now.

So I did. I got into the details of this sordid crime and how this man who was related to this family had abused this child. And the family, to be charitable, wasn't really all that attentive or caring. They were people of very modest means. They lived a pretty disorganized life, and they didn't watch out for their children. There wasn't what we would call the kind of relationship and dialog and discussion that every one of us wants to have with our own children and would hope to nurture in others.

So I did my duty and I represented this man. But I often wondered about that little 12-year-old girl. About a year later, my phone rings again. This time, it is the prosecuting attorney. He said: Well, Professor, we have another case for you.

I said: I have done my part.

He said: We need you. We want you to represent a father who is accused of impregnating both of his daughters. The older daughter has had her baby and she is about 14. The younger daughter is now pregnant. The older daughter has come to us and said that it was the father, and she is desperate for us to take her younger sister away from this environment.

I said: You know, Mr. Prosecutor, find somebody else to do this.

He said: Well, you did such a good job in that bad case last year, we just need you to do this.

I said: I really don't want to do it.

He said: Well, I am having the judge sign the order.

I got deeply into the family dynamics of this perverse, incestuous family. I met the 14-year-old who already had a baby, and I met the 12- year-old who was now pregnant with her father's baby. And my heart just broke. Who was that child supposed to talk to? Where was that child supposed to go? The sister was trying to help her younger sister. If she had a driver's license, she might have driven her to where she could have gotten medical care.

A couple years later, I was practicing law in Little Rock, and Arkansas had a parental consent law with a judicial bypass. People were called by judges whenever this occurred and were asked to come and represent the young girl who was appearing before the court. I got called one day, as I was on the list as a practicing lawyer. So I went and met my client, a 15-year-old girl. She had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and was pregnant. Her mother could have cared less. Maybe her mother should have cared. Lord knows, I wish she had cared. But she didn't want to disrupt the relationship with the boyfriend. So the girl needed to come to court and get a judge to give her permission because there was no parent. There may have been a biological parent, but there wasn't a parent in any sense of the word other than biology.

By that time, I had my own daughter and I thought, what a tragedy. You know, life isn't always the way we wish it would be. Sometimes tragedies happen and sometimes families are not just negligent but abusive. Sometimes young girls are taken advantage of by members of their family, people in whom they should be able to trust.

So I just have to say that when we talk about experience, we can all bring experience to the floor of the Senate. We can talk about the many instances where things worked out, parents did do the right thing; they gave their children the right values, gave them the appropriate education to know how to take care of themselves, to respect themselves. But I have lived long enough to know that is not everybody. I wish it were. But in the meantime, we are going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives. I think that is unfortunate, to say the least.

We now know, because we have research to prove it, what works. We know that in South Carolina--for example, in a Wall Street Journal article recently was a story about small, impoverished towns that had a high rate of teenage pregnancy, and they decided they wanted to do something and they got help. They had one-on-one coaching sessions for parents who would come and participate. They preached abstinence, but they also taught about contraception and they made it clear what they wanted their children to do, how they expected them to behave to try to prevent irresponsible sexual activity and pregnancy. They tried to make both the young women and the young men accept responsibility for their actions.

I know, too, in my State, we have a lot of grandmothers and aunts who are raising children. The Child Custody Protection Act would put any family member--a sister, aunt, or grandmother--in jail for helping a teenager deal with one of the most difficult decisions that any person has to make. I don't believe that these young women should make those decisions alone. Certainly, we are complicating the lives of everyone instead of doing our duty as parents, as family members, and as leaders, which is to inculcate and pass on values but to recognize that reality is messy. I have championed kinship care, and I know how many grandparents are raising children, and I know from my own personal experience how many older relatives who are faced with very difficult situations would be criminalized if they tried to reach out and help a young girl who asked them for that kind of assistance.

The Child Custody Protection Act, while seeking to criminalize what a teenager does once she is pregnant, fails to address the issue of teen pregnancy in this country, the root of the problem.

To address only how teenagers should behave once they become pregnant without any resources on the front end to prevent a pregnancy is shortsighted, to say the least.

One of the most important initiatives I worked on as First Lady and am proud to continue to champion in the Senate is the prevention of teen pregnancy.

In 1996, we worked with the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy to set a goal to reduce teen pregnancy by one-third within a decade, and I am proud to say that we met that goal.

But we did not do it overnight. We invested over a period of time. We invested in different programs and initiatives, recognizing that this issue could not be solved with a one size fits all approach. And according to the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, between 1991 and 2004, the teen birth rate fell 33 percent to a record low for those aged 15 to 19.

And while we are all pleased that the teen pregnancy rate has dropped since 1991--as I am that in my home State of New York, it's come down a full 10 percent--we also recognize that this is just a drop in bucket if we are truly going to get to the root of the problem and eliminate pregnancy among girls and boys who are far too often too young and unprepared, emotionally and financially, to be mothers and fathers.

Sadly, even with this decrease, the United States continues to have the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births in the Western industrialized world.

Today, 34 percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20, and that results in about 820,000 teen pregnancies a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended.

We also have an overwhelming body of evidence about the repercussions of teen parenting. Children born to teen moms begin life with the odds against them; they are more likely to be born

a low birth weight baby, which is connected to a host of long-term health problems.

They are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade and significantly more likely to be victims of abuse and neglect.

In addition, girls who give birth as teenagers face a long, uphill battle to economic self-sufficiency and self-esteem, with only 32 percent of teenage mothers who begin their families before age 18 ever completing high school.

For all these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment that seeks to increase funding to critical programs that are helping to decrease teen pregnancy in our country.

Last week, CNN highlighted in a story what research has consistently shown: Teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education that includes discussion of contraception are more likely than those who receive abstinence-only messages to delay sexual activity and to use contraceptives when they do become sexually active.

And this past Saturday, a Wall Street Journal article featured how small, impoverished towns in South Carolina are showing the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the country. Both places owe their success to comprehensive sex education. From one-on-one coaching sessions for parents and teens to teaching about contraception, the towns are proactive in making kids more aware of the dangers that are out there if they don't practice safe sex.

This further reinforces the need to implement policies that support and educate young women about all of the facts, so that they do not become pregnant in the first place.

Teenagers need to be educated that abstinence is the best defense against an unwanted pregnancy, and they also need to be educated and encouraged to exercise cautious decisions about sex.

We should not have a cookie cutter approach to preventing teen pregnancy. In instances where young people are sexually active and are likely to remain so, we need to ensure that they are encouraged to use contraception consistently and carefully.

As policymakers, we need to recognize what works and what doesn't work, and to be fair, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs. I don't think this debate should be about ideology. It should be about facts and evidence. We have to deal with the choices young people make, not just the choice we wish they would make. We should use all the resources at our disposal to ensure that teens are getting the information they need to make the right decision and that we remain a part of the solution by supporting programs and policies that deal with all the layers of this issue, not just a one size fits all approach.

Sadly, instead of putting resources into this important fight to prevent teen pregnancy, we are adding more penalties for those who try to help teens during their time of crisis.

The Child Custody Protection Act would put any family member--a sister, aunt, grandmother--in jail for helping a teen cross State lines to obtain an abortion.

I don't believe that any young woman should have to make this decision alone. Research actually shows that in most cases, young women already involve one or both parents when faced with an unintended pregnancy, without being required to do so by law. But, tragically, not every family is perfect. There are some instances in which a young woman simply cannot involve her parents, including rape, violence or incest; and for some in this body to pretend that those instances should not be considered in this debate is unconscionable. The Child Custody Protection Act glosses over these complicated situations, making criminals out of grandparents, clergy and other adults who try to act in good faith.

Instead of criminalizing other caring adults in a teenager's life, we should do more to educate and involve parents about the critical role they can play in encouraging their children to abstain from sexual activity. Teenagers who have strong emotional attachments to their parents are much less likely to become sexually active at an early age.

I am disappointed that this bill does not provide any exemptions for adult relatives or clergy who seek to provide guidance and support to young women seeking abortions.

In the Senate, I have championed the Kinship Care Act which supports the many family members in New York and in America who are raising children who would otherwise be in the foster care system.

The reality is, not every child is fortunate enough to be raised by their biological parents. Nationwide, more than six million children--1 in 12 children--are living in households headed by grandparents. In New York City alone, there are over 245,000 adolescents already living in grandparent households.

It's important to note that for many families, but these families in particular, the legal guardian who has physical custody and who provides a young woman with support and guidance are not one in the same.

This bill fails to acknowledge the importance of close family members such as grandmothers and aunts, who often raise their relatives or play a significant role in their lives.

In doing so, this bill creates a strong incentive for young women to seek risky alternatives she wouldn't have considered if permitted to seek counsel from her family and community. Major medical and public- health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association oppose governmental parental-involvement laws because of the risk to women's health.

While we all hope that young women will involve their parents in these decisions, mandating parental consent has the serious potential to do more harm than good. In fact, during congressional testimony, Dr. Warren Seigel, an expert in adolescent medicine, stated that legislation mandating parental involvement ``represents bad medicine and places politics before the health of our youth.''

The Child Custody Protection Act is a reflection of the misdirected priorities out there when it comes to truly doing something about unintended pregnancy. Rather than criminalizing family members and clergy who are trying to provide guidance to these young women in crisis, we should be working to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy in this country. There are far better ways to prevent pregnancy than putting people in jail. We could start by supporting family planning services and making sure we're providing medically accurate information in sex education classes that includes contraception.

That is why my good friend Harry Reid and I have long championed the Prevention First Act here in the Senate which, among other important measures, ensures that Government-funded sex education programs provide medically accurate information about contraception.

And that is also why I rise today to encourage all of my colleagues to support the Lautenberg-Menendez amendment because we need policies that support and educate our young women about the importance of prevention now more than ever.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign, for his leadership on this issue and for yielding time and for bringing this important matter before the Senate.

My colleague from California mentioned that this is an election year ploy. But I think the last time this was voted on in the Senate was in 1998. That was a cloture vote. I don't know that there has ever been an up-or-down vote in the Senate. It has been voted on in the House.

I think most people see this particular provision as something that is a commonsense approach to this issue. Obviously, there are a lot of labels that are thrown around in this very contentious debate in our country. But when it comes to this particular issue, the courts have laid out some parameters under which States can operate when it comes to statutes that they adopted that impose conditions and restrictions on abortion. The undue burden requirement that came out of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision many years ago created this scenario where if there is not an undue burden, that statutes enacted by States can impose restrictions. And many States have done that.

One that many States have adopted is the issue of parental consent or parental notification. In fact, there are about 37 States to date that have adopted in some fashion that particular legislation. Thirty-seven States have enacted statutes imposing legal obligations on pregnant minors to notify or gain the consent of their parents before getting an abortion. S. 403, which we are debating today, does not supercede or otherwise alter any of those laws, nor does it impose any parental notice or consent requirement on any State. These are States that adopted these laws. The bill would only give effect to a State's parental involvement law if that law is constitutional. Therefore, any State parental consent law given effect under this bill must contain a judicial bypass provision which allows the minor girl to petition a judge to waive the parental notification requirement.

Just to give you an example of States that have enacted these types of laws,

my State of South Dakota, for example, requires that a minor under the age of 18 have the consent of one parent or judicial bypass to obtain an abortion. States in my region and neighboring States such as North Dakota, require the same thing, only it requires two parents' consent or judicial bypass. Nebraska requires essentially the consent of one parent or judicial bypass. Iowa requires that a minor must have the consent of one parent or grandparent or judicial bypass. Wyoming requires that a minor under the age of a eighteen must have the consent of one parent or judicial bypass. In Minnesota you must have the consent of two parents or judicial bypass. Montana, again, one parent or judicial bypass.

My point very simply is that the States and State legislatures have found, within their purview, ways that are constitutional to address what is a very gripping issue for the country, one that has created a great deal, obviously, of debate for the past 30 some years, and I suspect will continue to be debated not only here in legislative bodies but in front of the courts.

The courts have laid out a framework, a set of parameters. States have acted accordingly. All this simply does is reinforce those State laws and allow parents to be involved in probably what, without argument, has to be one of the most consequential decisions a teenager will ever make. As a parent of two teenage daughters, we talk about everything. We talk about where our children want to go to college. I have a teenager who is starting college this year. We talk about who they hang out with on a regular basis. We talk about what they wear, obviously, their apparel. We talk about who they date. We talk about who they associate with, all the decisions that they make in their lives on a daily basis. We try to stay very involved and engaged in their lives, for obvious reasons, because that is important as a parent.

I have a 16-year-old who will be a junior in high school. Ironically, in 27 States in this country, my 16-year-old can't get a tattoo without the permission of a parent. In 27 States, my 16-year-old cannot get her body pierced without permission of a parent. Yet we would allow what, arguably, would be the most consequential decision that child could ever make to go without consultation with a parent. It seems to me that common sense dictates, and I think most people around this country would agree, whatever side of this issue they find themselves on, this is a very common sense way to proceed. Allowing someone to essentially bypass a parent and take a minor, a teenager, across the State line to have an abortion is something that crosses not only State lines but crosses the lines of what most Americans would concede makes common sense when it comes to the way we raise our children and the kind of culture we want to have in our country.

I have to say I sure as heck as a parent would not want some other person taking one of my daughters somewhere to have this procedure when the emotional, the health, the medical ramifications of that decision could be so consequential in terms of my daughters, or any daughter, any teenager or any minor's future. I cannot imagine that this does not meet the common sense threshold, the test that most Americans would apply--again, irrespective of what side they find themselves on this particular issue.

If you look at this bill, and ultimately what it is designed to do, there are several things that would happen. I believe, if this act passed, it would substantially cut down on the number of minors who obtain abortions. It has been shown that parental involvement laws can decrease abortions among minors by 8 to 9 percent. Furthermore, Senate bill 403 will likely magnify that effect since minors often cross State lines to evade their home State laws. The bill does not infringe on States' rights. It merely gives teeth to existing State laws. In fact, the Federal Government will prosecute individuals in violation of this act. Senate bill 403 does not mandate individual States to enforce laws which they have not passed.

Additionally, this legislation does not criminalize doctors or the young women who obtain abortions. It prosecutes only those who take minors across State lines in an effort to evade parental involvement laws. In States that do not have parental notification laws, nearly 40 percent of minors keep their pregnancies secret. Since abortion is a major surgical operation, I believe parents need to know if their daughters undergo an abortion so they will be able to help them with any potential complications, including both the physical, emotional, and mental complications that can arise from the procedure. In cases where this would be inappropriate because of an abusive relationship, the judicial bypass is still an option.

Senate bill 403 will help parents keep their daughters out of inappropriate and/or predatory relationships. The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Adolescents estimates that almost two-thirds of adolescent mothers have partners over the age of 20. Additionally, in 58 percent of cases where a daughter does not notify her parents of her pregnancy, her boyfriend is the one who accompanies her for the abortion.

Combining those two statistics suggests a substantial number of abortions are obtained in an attempt to avoid statutory rape laws. Underage children cannot obtain an aspirin at school without parental consent, but nothing prevents a minor from being transported from her current State where parental consent is required to another State where she can legally obtain an abortion without any parental consent. That is what this legislation intends to correct. Abortion clinics in States where there are no parental consent laws actually advertise in States requiring parental consent by using ``no parental consent required'' ads.

This legislation is not unreasonable. As I said earlier, 27 States require a minor, a person under the age of 18 today, to obtain parental consent to get a tattoo. Essentially, 27 States also require minors, persons under the age of 18, to get parental consent to get piercings, including ear piercings.

It seems to me, again, as a parent of two teenage daughters, as well as someone who is observing the debate we have in this country over this particular issue, this is a reasonable, commonsense approach, a measure that has been discussed and debated, the constitutionality of it addressed.

My colleague from California, Senator Boxer, said this is unconstitutional. As I said before, the courts have said as long as it does not impose an undue burden, these types of restrictions fit within the parameters of what is constitutional. Furthermore, under the Commerce Clause, the way this particular bill is worded fits within that constitutional framework. I don't think that is a valid argument.

One of the arguments that was made, as well, by my colleague from California had to do with the issue of incest. A judge found Arizona Planned Parenthood negligent for failing to report to Child Protective Services an abortion performed on a 13-year-old girl in foster care. This girl's case dates back to 1998 when she went in for an abortion at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility accompanied by her 23-year-old foster brother with whom she was having a sexual relationship. Planned Parenthood did not notify authorities until the girl returned 6 months later for a second abortion, according to court records.

There are lots of examples that can be used, obviously, to support what this legislation attempts to accomplish. As I said before, this issue has not been debated in the Senate for some time, although I will say it has been acted on by the Congress--not in the Senate but by the House of Representatives. The House earlier this year passed this bill by 270 to 157 or something like that, and had voted in 1998, 1999, and 2002. I was a Member of the House during those years and in every case this legislation passed the House and passed it by very sizable margins.

It would make sense that the House, having acted on it this year, having gotten approximately 270 votes in support, that we have a debate in the Senate and have an up-or-down vote on this legislation which, as I said earlier, I believe is a reasonable, commonsense approach to dealing with what is a very controversial, contentious issue in the country today.

Most Americans would agree that parental notification, parental consent, allowing parents to have involvement,

input, consultation, with a teenager who was pregnant and is considering having an abortion, rather than having that teenager taken across State lines in a way that contradicts the will of the parents, makes a lot of sense. Again, it is an affirmation of parental involvement, parental rights, an affirmation of States rights, for that matter, too, if you look at all the States that have enacted laws. Thirty-seven States have enacted, in some form, this kind of requirement. Whether it is notification of one parent and judicial bypass or two parents and judicial bypass, but, clearly, there is precedent with all the States that have taken steps. This does not circumvent in any way those State laws. It simply affirms those laws in many respects because the States that have acted in a way that would require this kind of a notification, this kind of consent, this kind of involvement on a parental level.

Right now, people who are going around that requirement and going across State lines to have abortion procedures are getting around State laws. This is simply a way of drawing parents into the debate and making sure that, regarding teen abortions in this country, the States have acted accordingly and have adopted statues that require some kind of consent, notification, consultation, that those laws are respected, and, again, that parents' rights are asserted in this process.

I simply add, in closing, my State of South Dakota has this kind of law on the books. This is something a vast majority of South Dakotans would be very supportive of. As someone who is raising teenage daughters, who on a daily basis is conferring and consulting and discussing the decisions they make, the day-to-day decisions they make, I cannot imagine, for the life of me, not having some input, some opportunity to weigh in on an issue of this consequence, that would have the kind of long-term effects--health and emotional effects--on a young girl.

This is about the health of our young girls. It is about the rights of parents. It is about States that have acted in accordance with what the courts have given them authority to do and making sure we are standing behind those States and making sure their laws are enforced.

I hope when we vote on this--and, again, I appreciate the Senator from Nevada for his leadership on this issue--we will get a big vote in the Senate. It is the right vote. It has been a lot of years--8 years. 1998 was the last time we had this debate in the Senate. At that time, we got to a cloture vote, but we did not have an up-or-down vote on the underlying bill.

The substance of this bill needs to be voted on. I hope it will be voted on today, that it will be a big vote coming out of the Senate, and we can put this on the President's desk and have it signed into law, which I believe is what a vast majority, I know a vast majority of South Dakotans would believe, and I believe also a vast majority of Americans.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

(At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4689, which is at the desk, and ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, the amendment I am offering gets to the heart of the issue this bill purportedly means to address; that is, reducing the number of abortions. The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent teen pregnancies in the first place. It is that simple.

The amendment I am offering, along with Senators Menendez, Clinton, Schumer, Kennedy, Kerry, and Feinstein, is aimed at dramatically reducing teen pregnancy rates in the United States. This amendment will assist efforts by nonprofit organizations, schools, and public health agencies to reduce teen pregnancy through awareness, education, and abstinence programs.

The root problem we are talking about today is not abortion, it is teen pregnancy. If we do nothing about teen pregnancy, yet pass this punitive bill, then it proves that this exercise is only a political charade and not a serious effort to combat the problem.

The U.S. teen pregnancy rate is the highest by far among developed countries, and here is some of the evidence we use to prove this.

In Germany, the teen pregnancy rate is 16 per 1,000. The U.S. rate is 84 per 1,000. I ask my colleagues to look at this chart which shows several countries teen pregnancy rates compared with the U.S. This is teen pregnancy rate for ages 15 to 19, among developed countries per 1,000 persons. In Sweden, it is 25 young women per 1,000; in France, it is 20 young women per 1,000; in Canada, 46; in Great Britain, 47; and here we are. Are we the winners in this contest? I hardly think so. We have 84 unintended teenage pregnancies per 1,000 persons.

I mentioned before that Germany has a teen pregnancy rate of 16 per 1,000, and again, I mention the rate in the United States is 84 per 1,000. So it tells us that there is something terribly wrong about the way we do things here.

I look further at Belgium, which has a teen pregnancy rate of 14 per 1,000; the Netherlands, 12 per 1,000; and ours is 84 per 1,000. We cannot continue to ignore facts such as these. We can pass all the abortion restrictions we can think of, but unless there are fewer teen pregnancies, the results will be tragic for thousands of young women.

In many cases, teen pregnancies result in abortion, but that is not the extent of the problem. We know that children of teenage mothers typically have lower birth weight deliveries, are more likely to perform poorly in school, and are at greater risk of abuse and neglect than other children. The sons of teen mothers are 13 percent more likely to end up in prison, while teen daughters are 22 percent more likely to become teen mothers themselves.

Each year in the United States, approximately 860,000 young women become pregnant before they reach the age of 20. Eighty percent of these pregnancies--80 percent of 860,000. That is over 600,000 young women are unintended, and 81 percent of these young women are unmarried.

So what are we doing differently in the United States that is separating us from the rest of the developed world? The answer is simple: the other countries promote full, comprehensive sex education programs, and in the United States--would you believe it--we don't allow funding for comprehensive sex education. I repeat that because some people may think they misheard me. The Federal Government will not fund comprehensive sex education programs despite the fact that 90 percent of parents polled say that in addition to abstinence, sex education should cover contraception and other forms of birth control. But the Federal Government currently will not fund any programs that even mention contraception and restricts all of its funding to abstinence-only programs.

I want to be clear, I am not against abstinence programs. In fact, our amendment will also fund abstinence programs. I think they can be effective at times. But the Federal Government's current policy of restricting funding to abstinence-only programs is producing the wrong result. Just look at how poorly our teenage pregnancy rates compare with other nations.

We need to dedicate our scarce Federal resources toward medically accurate, age-appropriate education that includes information about contraception as well as abstinence. In many cases, particular types of contraception can help avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Isn't that a good objective as well? We have to be realistic about the hope that each and every teenager is going to abstain from premarital sex. Saying ``Don't do it'' may work at times but not all the time.

Look at another problem--youth smoking, for instance. Kids are bombarded with warnings not to smoke. These messages have cut teen smoking rates dramatically, but 1,500 kids a day still start smoking. So it needs intensity of education, comprehensive education.

We remember First Lady Nancy Reagan's ``Just Say No to Drugs'' campaign. It worked for some kids but obviously not for others. For those teenagers who already are sexually active or who do become sexually active, we fail them if we don't teach them about contraception. If we are serious about reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, almost half of which tragically end in abortion--we have to implement programs that work so that our teenagers have the knowledge they need to bring about a positive future for themselves with the opportunity to pursue their dreams. We create a huge number of abortions as a result of the ignorance of what the facts are, about sex and young people.

This year, the Federal Government will direct $176 million of taxpayers' money to abstinence-only programs. Some of these programs can be effective but often don't get the job done because many teenagers need to understand something about contraception and other aspects of a comprehensive sex education program. Research has shown that the most effective programs are the ones that encourage teenagers to delay sexual activity but also provide information on how they can protect themselves. What is more, research shows that teenagers who receive sex education which includes discussion of contraception are more likely to delay sexual activity than those who receive abstinence- only messages.

There was an interesting article in this Saturday's Wall Street Journal about a sex education program in Bamberg County, SC. The article said:

More than a quarter of the families--

In this county--

live below the poverty line. Nearly half have only one parent

living at home . . .

If ever there was a place to expect a wave of teen mothers,

it would be . . . among the flat farmlands of South

Carolina's Allendale and Bamberg Counties. Yet while teen

pregnancies are numerous on the Allendale side--

That is the other side of the county line--

adolescent girls on the Bamberg side have one of the lowest

pregnancy rates in the State. The county's rate has fallen

faster than the rate in most of the U.S.

It is a startling revelation because, again, this is a county where so many people are below the poverty line, where typically teenage pregnancies occur, and in the neighboring county, which is better off, they have a far greater number than does Bamberg County.

Why does that happen? This is an area which has had historically high teen pregnancy rates, but they decided to take bold action to improve their teen pregnancy prevention efforts. Bamberg County initiated a comprehensive sex education program in 1982. Since that time, the county's teen pregnancy rate has fallen by nearly two-thirds. If our objective here is to reduce abortions, then this is one exceptionally effective way to do it.

Adjacent to Bamberg County, as I said, is Allendale County which has similar demographics, but Allendale County has not taken a comprehensive approach. Allendale restricts its programs to abstinence only. What is the result? Allendale County's teen pregnancy rate is more than twice as high as Bamberg's. In 2004, there were 24 pregnancies per 1,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 in Bamberg County. In Allendale County, there were 54 pregnancies per 1,000--more than twice the rate.

Abortion is a divisive issue, a tough issue, but we should all be able to agree that the best way or an effective way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, especially among unwed teenage girls. And the proven way to reduce the number of teen pregnancies is to provide youth with comprehensive sex education.

When it comes to our children, we should do everything within our power to protect them. We can and we must help America's young people to do better, to make better choices and have brighter futures.

So what we come down today is that this argument is not exclusively about abortion because if that were the case, then we would be giving comprehensive sex education wherever we have a young audience across the country and not saying as a Government: OK, we will give you the money, but you can't talk about an effective way to stop a pregnancy; we will not fund anything that tells you about contraception, about birth control, about thinking about how you plan your family.

We are looking at raw politics here, Mr. President. What we are looking at is a way to compel young people to go through with unwanted pregnancies, and I think the way to stop that is to prevent these pregnancies in the first place.

The way to prevent them is through knowledge.

I urge my colleagues to think this thing through thoroughly so we can effectively control the number of abortions that are done every year in this society and not only think of the punishment we render by jailing people who assist in helping young women get abortions, about penalizing families, about forcing young women who might have been victims of incest to carry on and find subversive, secret ways to end their pregnancies. That is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to present young people with knowledge about how they do not get themselves in a position where they want to consider an abortion.

I hope my colleagues will think this problem through thoroughly as we debate this issue and recognize that the alternative is strictly a punitive one and should not be dictated. I hope they will support this amendment.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for getting through the process. It is not unusual for Senators to be permitted to modify their amendments. However, at this point I yield up to 15 minutes to my colleague from New Jersey.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. President, I yield 8 minutes to my colleague from New York State.

Mr. President, just a quick response to our colleague and friend from Oklahoma. The fact is, there are certainly different views than this well-trained physician offered on the floor of the Senate. Parents all across the country--some 90 percent of the parents of high school students--insist that they would prefer to have comprehensive sex education available for their children.

The fact that this country of ours doesn't permit anything except abstinence only until marriage to be taught is outrageous. Where is the fairness? Where is the equity?

In New Jersey, we have a different view about people's choice than they do in Oklahoma. That doesn't mean that Oklahoma is totally wrong or that New Jersey is totally right. But the fact is, it is not sinful conduct and we ought to encourage people to give the young women a full understanding about sex education so they know there are alternatives to exposing themselves to an unwanted pregnancy.

It is outrageous that we want to close down the minds and opportunities for people to make a choice about what they do with their health and with their families.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how incomprehensible it is that we have a position on the one hand that refuses to acknowledge in this body there are other ways to control teenage pregnancies than abstinence. We are not against abstinence. There are funds provided in the President's budget for 2007 for abstinence--$204 million. This amendment asks for additional funding to supply comprehensive education. We heard from the Senator from South Carolina saying that he describes our values as shared values. But we are not sharing values with the people in South Carolina from Bamberg County who had the lowest rate of teenage pregnancies after they started a program for comprehensive education in South Carolina. The Senator from South Carolina said we had to have shared values on these things. But these are shared values.

I hope our colleagues will look at this fairly, and think about the women who are hurting because they are prevented from getting an education and vote ``no'' on this bill and ``yes'' on my amendment.

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