Calling on the President to take immediate steps to help improve the security situation in Darfur, Sudan, with a specific emphasis on civilian protection.

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

Mr. Speaker, this legislation, which we have already considered in this Congress, poses a real threat to the lives and health of young women. It would require a minor who is pregnant, possibly as a result of parental abuse, incest, to carry the parental notification laws of her home State on her back to another State and hold doctors, grandparents, clergy and anyone else who tries to help her a criminal. The sponsors, not satisfied with extending State laws into other States, now want to enforce those State laws in other countries.

Not since the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 have we used the power of the Federal Government to enforce the laws of one State on the territory of another.

This latest crazy quilt of restrictions obviously has but one purpose, to impede the practice of medicine, to ensure that young women will have as few options as possible, to make criminals of relatives and adults, or minors, for that manner, who try to help them, and to teach those States, such as mine, that do not believe that these laws promote adolescent health, that Congress knows best and our citizens and our States do not.

Often, that adult assisting the minor is a grandparent, a sibling or member of the clergy. In some cases, the young woman may not be able to go to her parents because the parents are a danger to her.

We all agree that, ideally, a young woman faced with a choice of having abortion should go to her parents. But

in some cases she may not be able to. That is what happened to Spring Adams, a 13-year-old from Idaho. She was shot to death by her father after he found out that she planned to terminate a pregnancy, a pregnancy caused by his own act of incest. But, under this bill, anyone who helped her cross the State line to get an abortion without telling her father so she could get shot would be guilty of a crime.

This bill also uses a narrow definition of medical emergency that seems to have been lifted from one of Attorney General Gonzalez's infamous torture memos. The prohibition ``does not apply if the abortion is necessary to save the life of the minor because her life was endangered by a physical disorder, physical injury or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself or because in the reasonable medical judgment of the minor's attending physician the delay in performing the abortion occasioned by fulfilling the prior requirement would cause a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the minor arising from continued pregnancy, not including psychological or emotional condition,'' so long as the physician notifies the parent within 24 hours.

The bill now also excludes ectopic pregnancies and the removal of a dead fetus, for which I suppose civilized people should be grateful.

It is progress, although it still falls far short of the protection for a woman's health required by the Constitution, which the courts have ruled requires an explicit exception to protect the life or health of the woman, not just those few conditions a few extremists find acceptable.

No mental health exception? That is the only justification for helping a young woman who has been raped by her father. There is certainly no physical risk, yet this bill would require a doctor to seek that father's permission.

There are many things far short of death or a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function that can endanger a young woman. She deserves prompt and professional medical care, and no matter how much some people don't like it, the Constitution protects her right to receive that care.

In a perfect world, loving, supportive and understanding families would join together to face these challenges. That is what happens in the majority of cases, with or without a law.

But we do not live in a perfect world. Some parents are violent. Some parents are rapists. Some young people can turn only to their clergy or to a grandparent or a sibling or some other trusted adult. And this bill would turn those people into criminals.

If a 16-year-old girl was accompanied across a State line by her 16- year-old boyfriend for an abortion, this would make the boyfriend a criminal. If a rabbi or priest or minister helped her across the State line, knowing that her father or mother were violent and therefore they couldn't dare ask for parental notification, this would turn them into a criminal. The same thing with a grandfather or a brother or a sister. We should not be turning people who are helping people in distress into criminals. That is wrong.

This bill, although slightly modified, is as wrong and as dangerous today as it was when this House considered this last time.

There is another thing, too. We believe in 50 different States in this country. We believe in State sovereignty within the Federal limits. We call the States laboratories of democracy.

Many States, I think more than half, have chosen to have parental consent notification laws. Other States have chosen not to. We ought to respect the States that have chosen not to, as well as those that have chosen to do so. And to say that because someone comes from a State with a parental notification law, if she goes to a State without a parental notification law, someone who helps her to go there is committing a crime, I think that is unconstitutional and is a violation of the right to interstate commerce, to interstate travel.

But it also, as I said before, is an attempt to say to New York, which does not require parental notification and consent, that the law of some other State which does must prevail in your State as long as the person comes from that State. She can't escape it. She carries it with her on her back.

We have never tried to enforce the laws of one State in another like that since the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850s. It is not a good precedent. This bill deserves to be rejected.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions about this bill that are completely aside from the merits. One is, why are we doing this bill? We passed the bill earlier. We passed essentially this bill earlier this session, the Senate passed a bill, and now we are passing a bill that isn't the same as the Senate bill. Why? So that no law, so nothing becomes law this year.

So I would like to ask the chairman, the distinguished chairman, why we are not passing the same bill the Senate passed? Because, otherwise, there is no possibility, as I see it, of getting an agreement before we leave.

I will yield.

Then why are we passing a bill again that we already passed earlier this year if the Senate bill is not the same and is not satisfactory?

Reclaiming my time. In other words, we pass the bill, the Senate passed a different bill which the distinguished chairman thinks has

many loopholes, and may have, I haven't read it, and so we are coming back.

Here we are, the last week before we adjourn, we haven't passed any of the appropriations bills into law, not one, and we are spending time on this bill when we have already passed it. And if the Senate has not passed it and they want to, they should negotiate with the Senate, they should have a conference committee. Instead, we are passing it again.

And I have to assume that the real reason we are doing it is just for political reasons, to rev up the troops of the antiabortion people for the election, and there is no real intent to pass a bill.

I have another question. This bill says in the key line: Whoever knowingly transports a minor across a State line with the intent that such minor obtains an abortion, blah, blah shall be fined or imprisoned.

My question, sir, and I will yield to you, is what does ``transport'' mean?

Well, then reclaiming my time, I think that this bill is simply not very well drafted in that case, because in the Mann Act certain things are obvious.

Let's assume that you have a young woman and a young man, her boyfriend, who jointly go across State lines to get her an abortion. She is driving. She is transporting him, not the other way around. Should someone be guilty or not guilty depending on who is driving and who is not driving? That doesn't seem to make sense.

Mr. Speaker, the arguments against this bill are manifold.

Number one, the arguments against parental notification and consent are where you have a violent parent or where you have a parent that the child cannot confide in, you shouldn't require that. Ninety percent of the time there is no problem, it is fine. Sometimes there is, and you risk the life or the health of the child to require that she tell the parent that she is pregnant.

Number two, in such a situation, the child may confide, hopefully, there is someone she can confide in, her brother, her sister, her best friend, her clergyman, her teacher, and we would make them criminals if they help her.

The gentleman from New Jersey talked about the abortionist conspiring to take her across State lines. It is not the abortionist. It is a friend or a colleague or a clergyman or a grandparent. You shouldn't make criminals of them. Nor should we seek to enforce the law of one State in another State.

And. Finally, and after this statement I will yield, this law also says that if someone is asked to perform, if a doctor is asked to perform an abortion on a young woman, on a minor from another State, he must notify the parents in that State whether or not that State requires parental notification. So we are expanding, we are now putting the Federal Government and saying to a State when only two States are involved, neither which have a parental notification law, you must because we say so. There is no justification for that.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Reclaiming my time. I can understand that particular concern if this bill made it a crime to transport a minor across State lines for the purpose of getting an abortion, et cetera, et cetera, for money. If that person transporting that young girl were being paid to do it, then I think that there might be something we would want to do about that. But we are not talking about that. Well, we may be talking about that, but the bill is certainly not limited to that.

The bill applies to the situation where the person, quote, unquote, transporting her may be her boyfriend, her brother or sister, her grandmother, her uncle, her aunt, her best friend or clergyman or a teacher. Anyone who is doing it with the best motives to help her, with whom some of us here may disagree that that is the best motive, but it is not a predatory motive.

So if you want to write a bill against a predatory person, write a bill against the predatory person. Write a bill against someone who does it for a commercial reason, for pay, but not against all these other people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, some States have chosen to enact parental consent and notification laws, others haven't. There is a case against parental notification laws and consent laws because basically there are a certain number of parents, certain families where you can't ask the young girl to confide in her parents because they may subject her to violence. Or she feels she can't.

But you do want a young woman to confide in somebody, not to be alone in this time of great strain for her. You want her to be able to confide in a brother or sister or clergyman or priest or rabbi or uncle or aunt or grandparent or a teacher. And those people want to be able to help her.

Now, as I said before, there may be room for legislation to say that you shouldn't take people across State lines for the purpose of getting an abortion for commercial purposes.

But to make a criminal out of anybody who is trying to help a young girl, as they see helping her, as she sees helping her because she cannot confide in her parents, and especially if that helper may be the grandparent or the brother or the sister or a clergyman is simply wrong.

So this legislation is far too broad. It will place young women who need help in a situation where they cannot get help. It doesn't serve any useful purpose, and it should be defeated.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, again.

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

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3127) to impose sanctions against individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, to support measures for the protection of civilians and humanitarian operations, and to support peace efforts in the Darfur region of Sudan, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in very strong support of H.R. 3127, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, and I want to commend the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) of the International Relations Committee for drafting a bill that has the best chance of becoming law and dealing with the genocidal situation in Sudan. Despite sometimes difficult and complex efforts needed to move this legislation, Mr. Hyde has remained steadfast in moving forward and that is why I have continued to support his efforts throughout this process.

Madam Speaker, no single country in Africa has been subject to greater partisan and bipartisan attention and deliberation by the United States Congress than the Republic of Sudan. Over

the past 3 years, at least nine major bills and resolutions regarding Sudan have been passed by this body, including an historic declaration that genocide was occurring in the Darfur region of western Sudan in September of 2004.

For its own part, the administration of President Bush has led both humanitarian and diplomatic efforts to address the crisis in Darfur. The United States has provided more than $617 million in assistance to help ease the suffering of those most affected by the conflict, and more than $150 million to support the African Union mission in Darfur.

I would say parenthetically, last August Greg Simpkins, our expert on the subcommittee, and I went to Darfur. We spent several days in Khartoum and then made our way up to Mukjar and Kalma camp. Mukjar is a very remote camp, where we saw the beneficiaries of that aid, men and women and children, who have suffered so much, lost so many of their loved ones to this genocide. But it was reassuring and quite gratifying, to be blunt, to see American aid providing them with healthy and nutritious meals as well as the medicines and at least some of the security that they so desperately need.

We also knew, especially with Mukjar, that if you traveled just a kilometer outside camp, the Janjaweed and other killers were waiting to continue their genocidal deeds. It was very sobering to know the risks and the security fright that they face each and every day knowing that they cannot go past the perimeters of the refugee camps.

We also met in Khartoum with not only Salva Kiir, the Vice President, who is doing an extraordinarily good job to try to bring peace to the region, but we also met with President al-Bashir. He and his junta continue to be largely responsible for many of the crimes committed both in Darfur and earlier in the south of Sudan.

Let me finally point out to my colleagues that at the direction of the President, President Bush, the United States Ambassador to NATO has pressed for NATO reinforcement of the African Union mission. We all know they do not have enough people to do the job. The mission was designed and configured in a way that almost doomed it to failure despite herculean efforts on their part. We are now pressing for reinforcement of those AU troops.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, continues to seek authorization to incorporate the African Union Mission into a larger, more robust U.N. peacekeeping mission. As Mr. Lantos knows when we traveled to New York just a week ago and met with Kofi Annan and others, that was one of the key topics we talked about: How do we get this AU mission blue helmeted so they can grow the mission, as well as boots on the ground to try to mitigate this misery.

The United States also continues to play a significant role in facilitating peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, between the Government of Sudan and the rebels of Darfur.

Notwithstanding the multiple legislative initiatives and the best efforts of this administration and many of our friends in Europe, and despite the conclusion of a peace agreement for southern Sudan, the passage of six U.N. Security Council resolutions and the deployment of nearly 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur and the conduct of seven rounds of peace talks, the crisis in Darfur continues with catastrophic consequences. This conflict is real. It is ongoing, it is every day, and it demands our resolute attention.

Madam Speaker, as many as 400,000 people have died and more than 2 million people have been forced from their homes. Entire villages have been looted and destroyed, and countless men, women and children have been abducted, murdered, abused and raped. Weapons continue to flow into the region unabated despite the existence of an arms embargo, and attacks against civilians, humanitarian convoys, and African Union peacekeepers increase almost daily as peace talks in Nigeria flounder.

Despite 14,000 aid workers that make up some 82 NGOs, 13 U.N. agencies and the International Committee for the Red Cross, a lack of security and reliable transportation means that food aid and other humanitarian assistance is becoming increasingly more difficult to deliver. While it is clear that something must be done, it is also clear that we cannot legislate an end to the atrocities and no number of forces from the African Union, NATO, U.N. or even the U.S. can impose a permanent peace without the commitment of the Sudanese themselves to lay down their arms.

Still, as humanitarians we cannot stand by idly as the Sudanese government officials and rebel commanders jockey for power while tragedy continues to unfold in Darfur and threatens to return to the rest of Sudan.

According to a recent International Crisis Group report, Sudan's ruling National Congress Party lacks the will to implement the North- South peace agreement and has frustrated the Darfur peace process by ``facilitating increased chaos on the ground and promoting divisions within the rebels.''

We are all aware of the complexity of the situation in Sudan and must respond accordingly to all of its facets and manifestations. This legislation, I believe, attempts a comprehensive effort to deal with the tragedy of that country. The committee amendment before you, which is the result of 8 months of bipartisan collaboration, contains the following measures:

One, while it does not authorize the use of United States Armed Forces in Darfur, it confers upon the President the authority to provide assistance to reinforce the deployment and operations of an expanded AU mission with the mandate, size, strength and capacity to protect civilians and humanitarian operations.

Two, it encourages the imposition of targeted sanctions against the Janjaweed commanders and coordinators.

Three, it calls for the extension of the military embargo established pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1556 and 1591 to include the government of Sudan.

Four, it amends the Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act of 2004 to impose an asset freeze and travel ban against individual perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Next, it asserts that existing restrictions imposed against Sudan shall not be lifted until the President certifies to the Congress that the government of Sudan is acting in good faith to:

One, peacefully resolve the crisis in Darfur;

Two, disarm, demobilize and demilitarize the Janjaweed;

Three, adhere to U.N. Security Council resolutions;

Four, negotiate a peaceful resolution to the crisis in eastern Sudan;

Five, cooperate with efforts to disarm and deny safe havens to the Lord's Resistance Army; and

Six, fully implement the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The legislation also amends the International Malaria Control Act to enable the United States Government to continue providing assistance to southern Sudan and other marginalized areas and lift restrictions on imports and exports for those same areas.

It also adds a section regarding the preemption of State laws that prohibit investment of State pension funds in Sudan.

Madam Speaker, Sudan is a very sensitive and emotional issue for Members of this body. While Sudan may be providing the United States with valuable information relevant to the global war on terror, or so it says, it is still on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. It is a country where the government has unleashed campaigns of terror and genocide against its own citizens.

It is a country where slavery still exists. Back in 1996, I chaired the first hearing ever on the continuing use of chattel slavery in Sudan, something that we thought was abolished in the 1860s.

For many, the National Congress Party-led faction of the Sudanese government represents pure evil. Although we may differ on our views on how best to confront the regime in Khartoum, the need to promote peace and accountability throughout Sudan is not a partisan issue. Members, such as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), have been tenacious on this. Of course the ranking member, Mr. Lantos, and all of us have worked on both sides of the aisle to try

to ensure that this body remains focused on Sudan in a meaningful and constructive way. Their leadership has been inspiring, and I want to thank them all.

That being said, the bill that lies before you today is the result of 8 months of inclusive consultations and intense negotiations, and represents a truly bipartisan compromise on the efforts to address genocide in Darfur while supporting the consolidation of peace in southern Sudan.

And while it represents a compromise, don't be mistaken. This is a strong bill. It is an important bill. It is an urgent bill. The people of Darfur cannot afford to wait while we continue discussions on how best to confront Khartoum. They need our help now.

I would also like to thank our esteemed ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the chairman and ranking member, Mr. Sensenbrenner and Mr. Conyers, for acting so quickly to allow us to get this measure to the floor without further delay.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to my good friend and colleague from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).

(Mrs. SCHMIDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, in closing, how grateful I am to Members on both sides of the aisle for working so steadfastly on this legislation. There were some glitches, there were some areas where there was broad agreement as well as disagreement. We worked out those differences, and I want to thank the Members, but also the staff. Joan Condon has done an incredibly good job in walking us through this legislation and writing many parts of it. Greg Simpkins, our Africa specialist on the subcommittee, who also worked on this legislation, as I said earlier, accompanied me to Darfur last August. We saw firsthand the devastating impact of this horrific genocide on men, women, and children in that beleaguered land. Pearl-Alice Marsh is always a great friend of the Africa Subcommittee, who provides very good insights. I want to thank her, as well as Noelle Lusane, Don Payne's lead staffer who works very well with us, and Ted Dagne. Together we were able to work through these differences.

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

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues that are listening to this debate will probably claim its defining moment as redundancy. It is redundant because this is a bill that has been debated and discussed, and now it is an amendment to S. 403 which creates a lack of opportunity for any legislative initiative to get to the President's desk.

Far be it for any of us who happen to be parents and have young women as daughters in our family to try to allow legislation to drive a barrier between a child and her parents. Nor can we morally allow the creation of chilling factors that prevent a youth from seeking help when they desperately need it. There lies the angst and the confusion and the misrepresentation of this debate.

This is not a helpful legislative initiative. This is, in fact, a divisive initiative because we find that more than 61 percent of parents in States without mandatory parental consent or at least 61 percent with notice laws have knowledge of their daughter's pregnancy. The normal relationship of child and parent proceeds along a very helpful manner as long as we do not provide unnecessary intrusion beyond what has been accepted by the individual States.

The State of Texas has provided that kind of barrier. Twenty-three States have, but another 23 have not committed to dividing parent from child.

The greatest downside of this particular legislation is that it doesn't come to this floor with clean hands. If it did, it would have allowed us to have amendments, and this was a closed rule.

I offered just a year ago or so an amendment with Mr. Nadler that expanded the exceptions to the prohibitions in this act of being able to assist a young lady in her time of trouble, to give exemptions to clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, and first cousins, family members and clergy that would be giving comfort to this particular individual who may be a victim of incest or rape and afraid and confused about the utilization or the act of going to their parents. Although I said that 61 percent do have that relationship, there may be others that don't.

And so that would have been a responsible approach so that clergy would not become felons, as well as godparents and aunts or uncles, close family members. This country is used to and welcomes an extended family, families of different configurations. And so this legislation attempts to ignore that.

And, sadly, what it does is it makes a political point just days away from elections, but it doesn't help our young people who may be suffering with the decision that they have to make. It may be because of incest or rape, or maybe they have been brutalized or they may be frightened, and the comfort this particular relative can give them is the kind of nurturing advice that will help them make a right decision.

Maybe we want to subject our young people who may be subjected to decisions by parents who are forcing an abortion. It happens on either side, and it happened in the case of a 19-year-old girl from Maine because she was impregnated by an incarcerated person. So this is not a question of getting an abortion or not getting an abortion. This is a question of imploding family relations, and also altering the health system of America.

It is a health issue. It is a health issue if the individual is injured, a health issue if it is jeopardizing the life of the young lady. And the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, and the American Public Health Association, all oppose mandatory involvement laws because of the dangers they pose to young women and the need for confidential access to physicians.

So we are being redundant because this is around and around and around. This is over and over again. But there is no sincerity in passing this legislation because instead of taking S. 403, we have offered an alternative. That alternative will have to go back to the Senate. There is some tongue-in-cheek comment about we hope the Senate will consider our bill. Well, they are four days before the end of the session before we go off for our work in the district. Then, of course, there is a lame duck because this majority, Republican majority, has not finished its work, as usual. I don't think this is a reality that is going to happen.

My prayer is that we will come together for the young people and for those impacted by this great tragedy and allow families to make decisions as they should. Vote down this bill. It serves no purpose, and it hurts the young people of America and divides families.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the legislation before the House, S. 403, the Child Custody Protection Act. The provisions contained within this proposal are very inflexible and unreasonably punitive.

Given the usual slant of my good colleagues on the other side of the aisle to favor uniformity in legislation, this bill is inconsistent with that purpose. Overall, S. 403 would force physicians to learn and enforce 49 other States' laws with respect to parental-involvement requirements. On its face, one of the policies that this bill seeks to enforce, the mandate that every parent will receive notice and can get involved when their daughter faces a crisis pregnancy, is a good one. However, one of its harmful effects is that it is unnecessarily punitive. In the absence of laws mandating parental involvement, young women come to their parents before or while they consider abortion. A study found that 61 percent of parents in States without mandatory parental consent or notice laws had knowledge of their daughter's pregnancy.

Major health associations such as the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, and the American Public Health Association strongly oppose mandatory parental-involvement laws because of the dangers they pose to young women and the need for confidential access to physicians. This legislation poses such a risk by increasing the risk of harm to adolescents by obstructing their access to healthcare that could save their lives.

In addition, well-respected organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Pro Choice America, and People for the American Way have expressed their opposition to this bill, which effectively isolates young women in need of help, and forces to seek alternative illegal and unsafe venues for terminating their pregnancy. After all, if you cannot trust your parents or your doctor to help you, what are your alternatives?

According to an article by Lawrence B. Finer and Stanley K. Henshaw, only 13 percent of U.S. counties have abortion providers. Therefore, the fact that many young women seek abortions outside of their home state is not solely attributable to an avoidance of home state law.

The last time we saw this bill, I offered an amendment with Mr. Nadler of New York that expanded the exceptions to the prohibitions of this act to include ``conduct by clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first cousins.'' This amendment was a very simple but necessary dampening of the excessive punitive nature of this legislation. This amendment is also demonstrative of the negative consequences this bill would directly and inadvertently cause. A young woman should not lose her right to seek counsel and guidance from a member of the clergy, her godparent, or the family member if she so desires.

The mandatory parental-involvement laws already create a draconian framework under which a young woman loses many of her civil rights. My state, Texas, is one of 23 states (AL, AZ, AR, GA, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, ND, PA, RI, SD, TN, UT, TX, VA, WY) that follow old provisions of the ``Child Custody Protection Act'' which make it a Federal crime for an adult to accompany a minor across State lines for abortion services if a woman comes from a State with a strict parental- involvement mandate. There are 10 States (CO, DE, IA, ME, MD, NC, OR, SC, WI, WV) that are ``non-compliant,'' or require some parental notice but other adults may be notified, may give consent, or the requirement may be waived by a health care provider in lieu of the parental consent. Finally, there are 17 States (AK, CA, CT, DC, FL, ID, IL, MT, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OK, OR, VT, WA) that have no law restricting a woman's access to abortion in this case.

Given the disparity in State law requirements for the parental- notification requirement, not giving a young woman the right to seek assistance in deciding from a member of the clergy, a godparent, or family member could increase the health risks that she faces.

Young women as a population group are more likely to seek abortion later in their pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have shown that adolescents obtain 30 percent of all abortions after the first trimester, and younger women are more likely to obtain an abortion at 21 weeks or more gestation. The provisions of S. 403 will exacerbate this dangerous trend.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will add an unnecessary layer of legality, travel time, and mandatory delay to the already difficult job that physicians have in providing quality care to their patients. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have consistently advocated for protection of health care providers by way of tort reform. This legislation flies in the face of that initiative and is totally inconsistent with it.

We cannot let legislation drive a barrier between a child and her parents, nor can we morally allow the creation of chilling factors that prevents a youth from seeking help when it is desperately needed. I ask my colleagues to reject this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos, our distinguished ranking member on the International Relations Committee, also a cochair of the Human Rights Caucus. Thank you for your great leadership on fighting for human rights throughout the world. You have a long history of that. You have personal experience in terms of being the only Member of Congress who escaped the Holocaust, and you have brought that conviction, your ideas, your courage to this fight once again in helping the people of Darfur.

And I want to commend Mr. Chris Smith. He and Frank Wolf have been such leaders on this issue for so very many years, and all of us who are concerned about Sudan, in particular now, Darfur are deeply in your debt.

I join the gentleman in commending Henry Hyde, as well as Mr. Lantos and Donald Payne, our colleague, who have brought this issue to the forefront in the Congress of the United States. I thank you for authorizing this legislation, for your steadfast leadership in calling attention to the crisis in Darfur.

Mr. Speaker, I bring to the floor a picture of the children, a picture of the children of Darfur. All of us on our trip that Mr. Lantos mentioned, who visited Darfur, 11 members of a bipartisan delegation, all of us wanted to take these children home with us, but that wasn't possible. There were so many of them. And it wouldn't be right anyway, because they wanted to go home. They wanted to go home to their homes which no longer existed.

When we were there, we visited with them. And after a day in the refugee camp, our bipartisan delegation traveled to Khartoum to meet with Vice President Taha. He asked us, he said, ``The Sudanese people want to know, why are you so interested in Sudanese domestic affairs? I know the American people are free-thinking people, but maybe your free- thinking does not create a clear understanding of the facts in my country.''

Vice President Taha was denying what we had seen with our very own eyes that day, refugee children struggling in the heat without shade, without adequate clothing and sleeping in make-shift tents that were made, some of them, from USAID food bags stitched together.

The Darfuris are forced to walk miles outside the camps for firewood and water, with the constant fear that they may be attacked.

As Vice President Taha was denying all of this, we could not help recalling the stories of villages torched, women raped, children kidnapped and men tortured and killed. But even in the horror of all of that, we saw hope in the bright and playful eyes of the toddlers. That hope, however, was diminished in the eyes of the older children. They had really seen too much. They had seen too much.

The camps we visited were homes to over 100,000 people. That was just what we saw when we were there. There are many more. That is just a fraction of the staggering toll of the violence in Darfur. But you can see these camps, and you can see that some of them are made out of USAID food bags.

According to the United Nations, 3 million people are in need of assistance. Two million Darfuris have been displaced, pushed out of their homes and their villages, and nearly 200,000 people have been killed thus far, and that is a conservative estimate.

Furthermore, the full human toll is yet to be exacted. Concentrated in camps with deplorable conditions, when the rainy season comes, Darfuris are now vulnerable to further death from disease. Sicknesses like cholera and dysentery could take tens of thousands more lives.

We have seen variations on this ``problem from hell,'' most recently in Rwanda. And at that time, that short time ago, we promised never again. We have heard never again over and over again.

The humanitarian disaster in Darfur challenges the conscience of the world. It is the systemic destruction of a people. It is genocide.

While we were in the Sudan, back home President Bush reaffirmed that this is, indeed, genocide. When some of us, Mr. Payne, Mr. Joe Wilson and Mr. Clyburn and I met with the President at the White House to thank him for his leadership and report on our trip, we also asked him to appoint a special envoy, special U.S. envoy for the Sudan. This envoy would signal that bringing peace and stability to the Sudan is a priority of the United States, and it is a part of this legislation that is on the floor today. This envoy, U.S. special envoy, is necessary because it will help stop the violence, bring the parties to the negotiating table, and get humanitarian relief to the people who need it.

Essential to stopping the violence is stopping the Janjaweed. I heard Congressman Smith talking about the Janjaweed in his remarks, and after persistent questioning in our meeting with Vice President Taha, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, in a very diplomatic but persistent way, questioned him about the Sudanese government's support of the Janjaweed, which he first denied but later admitted that they had supported the Janjaweed in the past. This was the first admission that we had seen.

Before we went into Darfur, the U.S. military briefed us that the Janjaweed is an extension of the Sudanese military, and they are engaged in state sponsored violence. This must end.

The African Union is to be commended for its efforts to protect Darfur. We saw the AU's camps there where people were getting at least something to eat and perhaps some medical attention for the first time. But so much more needs to be done.

So that is why this legislation on the floor today is so important, because I don't even know if these children are even alive 1 month after we came home, these beautiful children.

Many people in our country have been actively involved in the effort to get more support and humanitarian assistance on the ground. The United Nations dollars for Darfur were running out in March.

Humanitarian workers in Sudan are harassed, their convoys diverted and attacked, and some of these workers have been kidnapped. Humanitarian workers bring no political agenda or no destabilizing intentions to the Sudan. They carry with them hope and sometimes health. They must be protected. Their supplies must not be diverted, and their volunteers must not be detained.

So that is why I am very pleased that we were able to pass, in the supplemental, the President's request for $439 million, and that Mr. Capuano's initiative to add $50 million for assistance was accepted by the House. We hope it will be considered in the Senate.

So this legislation, as was spelled out by Mr. Lantos and Mr. Smith, so I won't go into it again, contains very, very important initiatives to help make matters better. Stop the violence, bring the parties to the table, get the humanitarian assistance to the people.

This brings us back to Vice President Taha's question, why is the United

States so interested in Sudan? The answer is that genocide is not the domestic affair of any nation. It concerns the world. And as our colleague, Joe Wilson, said to him, Americans care about people. Our care is reflected in the working done for the people of Darfur here in this Congress, in State legislatures, in corporate board rooms, on college campuses, even on high school campuses and yes, indeed, even in the White House.

This care was spurred by our religious communities which have taken the lead in our efforts. I salute many of the religious leaders who have taken the lead on this. And on April 30, many people will converge, thousands will converge on Washington, and there will be events around the country put together by the Save Darfur Coalition.

Each day that the genocide continues, and each day that we wait, the hope we saw in the eyes of the youngest children can disintegrate into disease, despair and death.

Again, on April 30, Americans of conscience will come to Washington to echo the call, never again. These citizens will demonstrate on behalf of the children of Darfur and demonstrate that, not only is America great, but America is good. And this legislation on the floor today is a reflection of that goodness. I support it, and salute the bipartisan cooperation that wrote it and brought it to floor.

Again, I thank Mr. Lantos for his exceptional leadership on human rights throughout the world and in the Sudan, and Mr. Smith, Mr. Payne and Mr. Frank Wolf for their exceptional leadership as well.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1039, I call up the Senate bill (S. 403) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit taking minors across State lines in circumvention of laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the Senate bill, S. 403, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 403, the Child Custody Protection Act. As amended by the rule, the legislation before us contains provisions substantially similar to H.R. 748, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House in April of 2005 by a vote of 270-157.

Laws that require parental notification of a minor's abortion are overwhelmingly supported by the American people. A 2005 poll by Pew Research Center found that large majorities believe that girls under 18 should receive parental consent before an abortion. According to the poll, half of self-described liberal Democrats favor requiring young women to get the consent of at least one parent before getting an abortion, and nearly three-quarters of moderate or conservative Democrats favor requiring parental consent.

Across the country, parental consent is required before performing routine medical services, such as providing aspirin, before permitting children to go on field trips or participate in contact sports, or before a minor can get a tattoo or body piercing. Yet people other than parents can secretly take children across State lines for abortion without their parents' knowledge.

The legislation we consider on the floor today addresses this absurd dichotomy by establishing clear rules to protect the health and physical safety of young girls, while safeguarding fundamental parental rights.

The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, or CIANA, for short, contains two central provisions. The first makes it a Federal crime to transport a minor across State lines to obtain an abortion in another State or foreign country in order to avoid a State law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision. Twenty-six States currently have such parental involvement laws. This provision will prevent abusive boyfriends and older men who may have committed rape from pressuring young girls into receiving secret out-of-State abortions to keep the abuser's sexual crimes hidden from authorities.

It is crucial to emphasize that the first section of CIANA does not apply to the minors themselves, nor to their parents, nor does it apply in life-threatening emergencies that may require an immediate abortion.

The second section of CIANA contains a parental notification rule that applies in cases in which a minor is a resident of one State and presents herself for an abortion in another State that does not have a parental involvement law. In these circumstances, CIANA makes it a Federal crime for the abortion provider to fail to give one of the minor's parents or legal guardian 24 hours' notice of the minor's abortion decision before the abortion is performed. This section protects fundamental parental rights by giving parents a chance to help their young daughters in difficult circumstances. This includes giving a health care provider the daughter's medical history to ensure that she receives safe medical care.

The second section of CIANA would not apply if an applicable parental law in the State where the abortion is being performed is complied with. In addition, Section 2 would not apply if the physician is presented with documentation that a court in the minor's home State has authorized an abortion.

Further exceptions to this section include if the minor states that she has been the victim of abuse by a parent and the abortion provider informs the State authorities of such abuse, or if a life-threatening or other medical emergency requires that the abortion be performed immediately.

As previously noted, the amendment in the nature of a substitute to S. 403 is substantially similar to H.R. 748 but also includes clarifying provisions adopted in the other body and other technical changes which further improve the legislation.

The amendment would prevent a parent who has committed incest from being able to obtain money damages under the bill's provisions, and it makes it a Federal crime for someone who has committed incest to transport a minor across a State line to obtain an abortion.

In addition, the substitute contains an exception to the notification requirement if a parent is physically present when the minor obtains the abortion. The amendment also makes clear that the parental notification need not be provided by the abortion provider personally but by an agent of the abortion provider.

The amendment also contains a technical change to the definition of abortion that excludes treatment for potentially dangerous pregnancies and creates a new medical emergency exception to ensure that the legislation will withstand any constitutional challenge.

Finally, it makes clear that the bill's provisions apply when State lines are crossed to enter any foreign nation or Tribal lands.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this crucial legislation to protect the health and safety of America's minor daughters.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the author of the bill, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

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

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The Senate bill has loopholes wide enough to drive a 18-wheeler through. If we are doing something, we might as well do something that means a bit rather than simply passing a piece of paper.

If the gentleman will further yield, this is in the hopes that the Senate will look at this modified bill in prayerful reflection and send it on to the President.

If the gentleman will yield, it means the same thing as the transportation of someone across the State line in violation of the Mann Act.

Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting for a while to yield a minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill is fairly simple and straightforward. It says that if a minor woman who is a resident of a State that requires some type of parental involvement is taken to another State that does not have a parental involvement law, it is a crime to do that. And it is as simple as that.

Now the only reason why a woman would be taken from a State with a parental involvement law to one that doesn't is to prevent the parents from knowing that the woman is having an

abortion. Now we are talking about minors here, girls under the age of 18. A parent is responsible for providing for the health, safety, and welfare of minor children that are either their own children or that they have been named as guardians of by a competent court; and to avoid the parents' responsibility of providing medical care by hiding the fact that the woman is going across a State line to have an abortion is wrong.

Now I think a lot of people don't like parental involvement laws. The polling shows exactly the opposite. In my opening remarks, I pointed out that half the people who call themselves liberal Democrats believe that the parents ought to be involved in this decision; and three- quarters of those who call themselves moderate or conservative Democrats feel the same way.

I think that this House ought to empower parents to at least know about these decisions, particularly if their minor daughters are taken across a State line; and the way to deal with that issue is to pass the bill.

I urge an ``aye'' vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.