Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to ask a very serious question: Why is Congress, why are we, subsidizing the abortion industry?

Most Americans, I suspect, probably have no idea whatsoever that our tax dollars have enabled abortionists to establish and to run hundreds and hundreds of abortion mills throughout America. Indeed, America's biggest abortion chain is Planned Parenthood. Each year, approximately 290,000 children are aborted in Planned Parenthood clinics. Each year, Planned Parenthood gets more than $335 million in taxpayer funds, including huge amounts from the Department of Health and Human Services' title X program. Tragically, as their business grows, and they now have some 850 clinics and they have embarked on a building binge, and this chart clearly shows that as the taxpayer funds go up, the number of abortions go up because more venues are then provided to destroy the unborn child.

It may come as a surprise to at least some of my colleagues and the American people that the babies lost and women wounded by abortion are disproportionately African American and Hispanic. A study in 2005 found that 62 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion mills are located in African American communities. And when Hispanics are included, that percentage rises to over 70 percent. Of course, every human life is sacred regardless of race, gender, disability or condition of dependency. Every human life is of infinite value. But the disproportionate number of minorities who are aborted in Planned Parenthood clinics begs the question.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, said here in Washington, ``Defending human life is part of the civil rights struggle.'' She said, ``We are uniting civil rights and moral rights to fulfill the dream of what my uncle called the beloved community.'' She goes on to say that ``America needs to know that black leaders do support life. We start where life begins, with the babies, and we will march until abortion, racism, and all of society's ills bow to the truth that we are all one race.''

Dr. King, who has had two abortions herself, now boldly speaks out for both victims of abortion, the unborn child and his or her mother. She has said, ``The government should not be subsidizing racism, but that is exactly what it's doing through Planned Parenthood.''

Mr. Speaker, it is time, it is long past time, for us to take a serious, and for some a second, look at Planned Parenthood, its origins, and the fact that since 1973, the year the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous Roe v. Wade decision and legalized abortion, that approximately 4.5 million babies, disproportionately African American and Hispanic, have died in Planned Parenthood clinics.

It is time to look past the slogans and the rhetoric and the cheap sophistry, the euphemisms that are used to mask and to cloak this deed that kills a child. Abortion is big business and it is destroying the next generation of Americans, and you and I, Mr. Speaker, are subsidizing it.

Tragically, the seemingly benign Planned Parenthood, which works overtime to market its image and its brand, is in the grisly business of dismembering the fragile bodies of unborn children with chemicals, sharp knives, and hideous suction machines that are 25 to 30 times more powerful than a vacuum cleaner used at home. Planned Parenthood ought to be known as Child Abuse, Incorporated for the large number of children, 4.5 million, that it has already killed and continues to kill all while being subsidized by American taxpayers. This is not a business of healing or nurturing or caring. This is a business of destroying the most vulnerable and weakest members of our society.

For Planned Parenthood, business is good. Violence against children pays handsomely. In 2006, it actually increased the number of abortions it performed by nearly 25,000, while abortions nationwide were in decline, for a total of 289,750, a new pathetic record of kids killed even for Planned Parenthood. For so-called medical abortions, Planned Parenthood quotes prices from $350 to $650. For surgical abortions, they earn $350 to $900 apiece. These fees for so-called ``services rendered'' boosts the bottom line of this big business.

To put the annual number of child deaths in perspective, I ask my colleagues and the American people to picture this: 71,000 fans filled the University of Phoenix stadium to watch the Super Bowl this past February. It was a great game, my team won, the Giants. But the number of unborn babies whose lives were taken from them before they could take their first breath by this one corporation in one year could have filled that enormous stadium more than four times over. Planned Parenthood is now responsible for committing more than one out of every five abortions performed in the United States of America.

If the number of abortions performed alone doesn't convince you of Planned Parenthood's agenda, just compare it with other services it provides to pregnant women. Planned Parenthood, they have got the word ``parenthood'' in their slogan, in their name, but they provided a mere 11,000 clients with prenatal care. You walk into what is called a Planned Parenthood clinic, and you would expect to walk out with a baby, but prenatal care is not something they put an emphasis on. That is a ratio of one parent to every 26 women who lose their children to abortion. After it was revealed that Planned Parenthood had referred a meager 1,414 clients to adoption services in 2004, Planned Parenthood stopped reporting this miniscule adoption referral number. So, again, those children who go to abortion clinics with their mothers, in utero that is, don't walk out as potential adoptees.

To me, Mr. Speaker, this record doesn't seem to be that of an organization dedicated to preserving women's choices. I might add that these tiny lives are being extinguished. There are thousands of American families waiting to adopt, and we all know that. There are upwards of 2 million families who would love to adopt, but unfortunately, the babies are aborted.

Finally, if that is not enough, this so-called ``pro-choice'' organization does everything within its power and massive budget to prevent women from knowing all of their options and from being certain that their choices are truly informed.

Let's not forget that Planned Parenthood lobbies this Chamber and the Senate and, certainly, in each legislature throughout the country, and they litigate and litigate and bring court cases

over and over again in all of the States, against virtually every child protection initiative at both the State and Federal levels, including that of parental notification, spousal notification, women's right-to- know laws, informed consent laws--which actually bring down the numbers when women get the booklet and are informed about the growth and about the development of their child as well as about deleterious effects to their health--waiting periods, partial-birth abortion, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, statutory rape reporting laws, and of course, abortion funding bans.

Can we trust Planned Parenthood? They say their vision is to be the Nation's most trusted provider of sexual and reproductive health care. This is from an organization that targets minorities, that performs millions of abortions and barely even attempts to help women carry the babies to term. Reproductive health should include, not exclude, babies.

Mr. Speaker, the truth about Planned Parenthood's long, systematic destruction of vulnerable human life, at long last, must be brought to light. The cover-up must end.

I would like to yield to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) for 5 minutes.

I thank my good friend for his very eloquent statement, and I thank him for his leadership. This is the human rights issue of our time, and it's about time people recognized it as a human rights issue.

I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

I want to thank my friend for his eloquent statement.

I yield to Michelle Bachmann such time as she may consume, and I understand some of the other Members may want to ask you to yield for a colloquy or for some comments.

At this time, I yield to our friend and colleague, Mr. Sali.

I thank my good friend for his very, very powerful statement.

I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

I thank my friend for his statement and for his leadership on this important human rights issue.

I yield to my good friend from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

I thank my friend for his statement and for his leadership.

I yield to Mr. Franks, the gentleman from Arizona.

I thank my friend for his eloquent statement and for his very strong and passionate defense of the unborn and their mothers.

I yield to Dr. Broun, the gentleman from Georgia.

Dr. Broun, thank you so much for those very strong comments and for the insights that you bring as a medical doctor.

I yield 30 seconds to my friend and colleague, Michele Bachmann.

Madam Speaker, let me conclude with just a couple of comments.

First of all, I think most people need to realize who Margaret Sanger really was. And I've read her books; I've read her writings. She wrote in a book called ``The Pivot of Civilization'' that ``we are paying for,'' and I quote her, ``and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.'' In chapter five, she has a chapter called the ``Cruelty of Charity'' and takes to task those who would provide maternal health care and outreach to those women, poor women especially, in her writings. And I will put them in the Record. She says that ``such benevolence is not merely superficial and near- sighted, it conceals a stupid charity.'' To her, these babies and these mothers should have never been born.

Let me conclude, Madam Speaker, abortion mills don't nurture, they don't heal, they don't cure disease. Abortion is violence against children. Some abortion methods dismember and rip apart, the fragile bodies of children. Other methods chemically poison children. Abortion has turned children's bodies into burned corpses, a direct result of the caustic effect of poisoning. Consider a dismemberment abortion, this is called the D&E abortion. It is used later term, at least from the 20th week or so onward. These children, Madam Speaker, feel pain.

My colleagues will remember that last Congress we brought forward a bill called the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act which would at least inform the woman that a child at this age feels excruciating pain. Sadly, the abortion lobby, including Planned Parenthood, lobbied vigorously against informing women that these children feel such excruciating pain, sometimes as much as four times that which would be felt by a newborn or a child later in his or her life.

We need to, again, Madam Speaker, respect all human life. In the life of an unborn child, birth is just part of a process. It's an event in a child's life; it is not the beginning of life. These children deserve their fundamental human rights.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the practices of an industry that are characterized by death, deception and depression--the abortion industry--and that's just what it is, an industry.

Since 1973 and the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, 50 million unborn babies have been lost. Abortion has burgeoned into a thriving industry. At the average cost of hundreds of dollars per abortion, the abortion business is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States. It's even bigger than that internationally, and the American taxpayer subsidizes it. Abortion providers continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds every year. The U.S. Government subsidizes this industry every year in every budget.

Planned Parenthood has emerged at the front of this big business as one of the top abortion providers in the country. Two years ago, this not-for-profit organization posted record-breaking profits. Last year, it reported even higher profits, but at whose expense does this profit come? It's at the expense of helpless unborn children, young girls and women.

While the government continues to provide a slush fund for abortion providers, a mother mourns the loss of her child; siblings grieve their unborn brother or sister, and grandparents lament the grandchild who was taken from them. My own words could never fully capture the pain that has been meted out by the hand of the abortion industry. So, instead of sharing my own thoughts, I'll give voice to the stories of so many who have been silenced by the powerful abortion lobby.

One woman tells the story of how she was routinely raped by her father. When she was 16, he forced her to have an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati where she reported the abuse to the staff. However, the staff chose not to report her case to law enforcement. It was not until the girl told a school counselor that the authorities were notified so that they could intervene and rescue her.

The bottom line is that abortion clinics are habitually covering up abuse by failing to report statutory rape, and we are funding those clinics with title X money. We must stop funding clinics that facilitate abuse and that cover up crimes against children.

Another woman from Nebraska recently filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood after undergoing an abortion that resulted in the perforation of her uterus and in a severe loss of blood. According to reports, the abortion practitioner began the procedure with a shot in the woman's uterus, and she immediately complained of severe pain. She told the practitioner to stop, but he allegedly replied ``We can't stop.'' The woman was then restrained by three Planned Parenthood employees while the practitioner completed the abortion. She experienced severe pain, bleeding and three seizures by the time she arrived at the hospital. A hospital report stated that her uterus was perforated during the abortion and that doctors had to perform an emergency hysterectomy because of the severe damage to her body. The doctors later said that the botched abortion could have killed her.

The abortion industry makes false claims that abortion is harmless and that it is a simple procedure. They often use safety as a talking point for legalization. However, the truth is that abortion, legal or not, is a risky procedure that carries potentially serious side effects for the health of the woman. Unfortunately, the deceit does not end there. The abortion lobby denies the reality that abortion has a very powerful and lasting emotional impact on most women, but real human stories decry this lie. Again, I'll share not my words but the stories of those who've experienced the pain themselves.

A 14-year-old girl writes ``This was something I really never thought I'd go through, something I don't want anyone else to have to go through. I did not feel a thing physically, but emotionally, I'm scarred for life. The day it came, I was so upset: the last time I could sing or talk to my baby again. Not even a day after, I'm already regretting it, just sitting here, wondering what he or she would have become.''

While we continue down the path of deception, women continue to suffer. I hope, during this hour, we might remember the lives of those who could have been. We might remember the lives of unborn children who are lost. We might remember the lives of women and families who carry hurt and pain from an experience that they were told would be harmless.

Organizations like Planned Parenthood claim to work to reduce abortions, but ironically, they remain the top abortion provider in the country. Every Federal dollar to support abortion providers is a dollar to help the abortion industry flourish at the expense of women, of young girls and of unborn children.

As the chairperson of the Feminists for Life, Frederica Mathewes- Green once said, ``An abortion wounds a mother's heart. They will never recover from the grief of an abortion. There are always two victims within an abortion--the baby and the mother--one wounded, one dead.''

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers deserve to know that their hard-earned dollars supposedly destined for family planning services are being used to subsidize the abortion industry. I urge my colleagues to oppose Federal funding for abortion providers and to support the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act.

I thank the great leader in the pro-life movement here in the House, Chris Smith, for leading this hour. Like my hero, William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian who led the abolition movement in Britain because he was against slavery, Chris Smith and other pro-life leaders here tonight are leading the pro-life movement because we're against abortion.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Congressman.

I'll be referring to an article that came out. It's a shocking article that many of us in this Congress read just a few weeks ago, and I commend the American people to pick this up on the Internet or go find it at your local library. June 23, 2008, the Wall Street Journal newspaper, it's on page 1. It's an article by Stephanie Simon called ``Abortion Provider Goes Upscale. Aid For Poor Questioned.'' And here is the bottom line of this article.

It exposes the fact that Planned Parenthood, a 501(c)3 organization, which is a nonprofit organization--in other words, Planned Parenthood pays no taxes. They don't have to pay taxes because they're considered a nonprofit. This nonprofit is big business. It was started back in 1916 by Margaret Sangar, a woman who promoted eugenics, and this organization has now become a big box retailer, big abortion, in other words. It is a big retailer. And it brought in, get this, $1 billion in revenues--$1 billion in revenues.

Not only does this organization not pay taxes like other businesses do, but they receive in that $1 billion, almost one-third of what they receive comes in the form of your tax money, Federal tax money, State tax money. But get this: they receive almost $1 billion, according to this article, in annual revenue, one-third of that coming from Federal and State grants to care for women. The nonprofit ended the year with a surplus of a $115 million.

So they had your money, your money that you're paying in taxes. They had an extra $115 million cash on hand at the year end. A $1 billion budget, and they had that much cash on hand, about 11 percent of its revenue, net assets of $952 million, almost a billion dollars in net assets.

So the article asks, Why are we giving them so much money? That's exactly right. Why are they receiving, as Congressman Mike Pence asked, why are we giving them so much tax money? They have 882 clinics State- wide, and they quietly dropped their statement that said no matter what a person's income, we're going to be helping those people.

Well, let me tell you, they've made a decision, Planned Parenthood, that they are going to go after the affluent. How do I know that? It's happening in my district, and it was detailed in this article. It said three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs and shopping centers and malls, places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up their Starbucks, living their daily lives.

Do we understand what this is? This is to promote women, to promote that woman intentionally take the lives of their unborn children. We are asking God-fearing Americans to subsidize this brutal and bloody procedure on a regular business in upscale shopping malls all across the United States.

Not only are they not paying taxes, but we are giving them over $330 million a year to do this dastardly deed. And when they do this, do you realize they could take this money and they can use it for political functions? I don't know how this works. What a game. Who wouldn't want to get in on this?

And all across the country, we have very poor, struggling life care centers, organizations that are trying to give positive alternatives to women. They don't get these grants. They don't get them. They get local donations to try to help women make a decision about saving lives and choosing life.

I just want to end with the fact that if we can agree on nothing else, it should be that the United States taxpayer shouldn't have to pay taxes to an organization that uses your money to

politicize, yes, in upcoming elections candidates who give them more of your tax money. This is unconscionable.

And I look so forward to hearing what our colleagues are going to have to say to the American people about this gross injustice. You bet we should defund Planned Parenthood. We should take away their tax fund and we should defund.

You absolutely do. That's exactly what the article says. In fact, it goes on to say that it's the Federal tax law that has caused this tragedy.

I'm a former Federal tax litigation attorney, and this is absolutely true. This is what our tax code allows. In fact, Planned Parenthood, who plans to raise the $10 million, as the gentleman from Texas said correctly, they can take that money that we taxpayers are giving them to mobilize voters and advocate on issues such as abortion rights and sex education in schools.

Life care centers don't get that advantage, but people who advocate for the destruction of innocent human life get this money.

As the gentleman knows, there is nothing fun about an abortion. In fact, for many women, they are forced into abortion by a boyfriend who says they'll leave them, by parents who say, What an embarrassment. And women, often against their own desires, are forced into getting an abortion when they don't want to.

I just wanted to end, Madam Speaker, by saying Steve Trombly is a top executive director of Planned Parenthood in Illinois, and he said, ``I would like to think of Planned Parenthood as the Lens Crafters of family planning.'' If you've got 882 clinics, you have $1 billion a year in annual revenue and $330 million of that comes from taxpayer funding, I think that shows pretty clearly they are big business. They are the Wal-Mart of big abortion. They're the big box retailer.

It is time to end their tax exempt status. It's a fraud. And it's time to stop the public financing of Planned Parenthood. It's the right thing to do.

I yield back to my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey, the stalwart of prolife, Representative Chris Smith.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I'm pro-life. I don't apologize for it. I believe that the sanctity of life is a central axiom of Western civilization.

Let me say, as we gather this evening under the leadership of the chairman of the Pro-Life Caucus here in the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker, we are not really gathered this evening to debate the sanctity of life. We're really gathered tonight to shed light on a fact about Federal funding that, I think, escapes most Americans, and that is this simple fact:

That the largest abortion provider in America is the largest recipient of Federal funding under title X.

You know, when I'm walking down the street in Anderson, Indiana or in Muncie, Indiana, people know about my work on this particular issue. With the legislation I authored last summer during the appropriations process that received 189 votes to defund Planned Parenthood, one person after another will grab me by the elbow and will say,

``Mike, I did not know. I did not know that we gave a penny to the largest abortion provider in America, let alone the fact that the largest abortion provider in America, namely Planned Parenthood, is the largest recipient of Federal funding under title X.''

I mean the truth is that there has been much debate since 1973 and the decision of Roe v. Wade about the sanctity of life and the fault lines of the law and life, but where there has been national consensus since the very early days of this debate when a Congressman from Illinois named Henry Hyde conceived of the Hyde Amendment, there has been a national consensus behind the notion that, whatever your view of abortion, it is simply morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of Americans who believe abortion is morally wrong and use it to pay for or to subsidize the performance of or the promotion of abortion.

The Hyde Amendment gave birth to what has been the dominant philosophy in our foreign aid funding. It's called the Mexico City Policy. It essentially says that no U.S. foreign aid can go to any organization that performs or that promotes abortion as a means of birth control.

You know, Madam Speaker, I really think many Americans think that that's the law here at home, too, that because the overwhelming majority of Americans think that pro-life Americans should not be forced to pay for abortions or to subsidize organizations that promote abortion, they think it doesn't happen here, when, in fact, let me say again that the largest abortion provider in America is the largest recipient of Federal funding under title X.

Now, abortion-rights advocates and, most especially, Planned Parenthood would be the first to step forward to say that they don't use title X family planning money to perform abortions. In fact, there are very strict Federal regulations that are in place that require a separation between Planned Parenthood abortion service clinics and Planned Parenthood title X clinics for the poor. I suppose, while there have been instances of alleged misfeasance and of the commingling of funds, I'll leave that completely out of this conversation and will allow for the fact that there is this separation, but I've got to tell you, Madam Speaker, that anybody knows that the money that Planned Parenthood receives for its non abortion activities frees up resources to go into its abortion activities.

The American people also deserve to know that this nonprofit organization received over $336 million in government grants and contracts, I think, in 2006. It had an excess of revenue over expenses of $56 million in 2005, and it had $112 million in 2006, which has given rise to the building spree that was reported on page 1 of the Wall Street Journal. Well, now Planned Parenthood is planning to go suburban with all new up-scale abortion mills around the country. So I commend the gentleman from New Jersey for bringing this conversation to the floor.

I authored a bill last year in the Labor-HHS legislation that would have denied any Federal funding in title X from flowing to Planned Parenthood of America, and it received 189 votes, including 20 Members of the majority voting for it. If Congress ever got around to considering the Labor-HHS appropriations bill this year, I sincerely believe that that number would grow as public awareness has grown about the simple fact that the largest abortion provider in America, Planned Parenthood, is the largest recipient of Federal funding, and that ought not to be.

Whatever a person's view of abortion is, it is my hope--and frankly, it is my prayer--that this Congress will come together in a bipartisan way and will implement a domestic Mexico City Policy and will say to the millions of Americans, to the hundreds of millions of Americans, perhaps, who have moral objections to abortion, we will not take your tax dollars and use it to subsidize the largest abortion provider in the United States of America. That's all we're here to talk about today.

I urge my colleagues to reflect deeply on the fundamental fairness of this issue and to support the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act that would bring a change to the law. In the appropriations cycle, if we ever get around to it in this Congress, let's take decisive action to defund Planned Parenthood, not cut a dime out of title X and its family planning programs, but let's say no more Federal tax dollars to the largest abortion provider in America.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, Mother Teresa once said: ``Any country that accepts abortion is the poorest of the poor.'' On that basis, I fear that our own great country is in serious trouble.

While current law forbids family planning agencies from using Federal funds for abortion, those same organizations are able to receive those title X funds for their other family planning services, even if the organizations also provide and even promote abortion.

Today, as long as the bookkeeping of the two divisions is kept separate, these organizations can reallocate their resources and free up money for providing abortions. In other words, it appears that an accounting gimmick masks the way Planned Parenthood uses Federal dollars to fund its abortion services.

As many know, Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortion in the country, performing more than 264,000 abortions in 2005 alone. However, Planned Parenthood receives more than $336 million from the Federal Government each year. Planned Parenthood affiliates enjoy special access to discount drugs, grants through the title X program, and a 90 percent Federal Medicaid match for family planning activities. In effect, Congress is playing favorites by subsidizing the largest business in the abortion industry.

Now, lest there be any confusion, abortion is an ``industry'' in every sense of the word. Abortion providers rake in over $400 million a year from women and girls who believe that they are receiving a simple health service. However, to the tune of $372 per abortion on average, abortion-providing businesses are turning a major profit. For instance, while Planned Parenthood reports that it is a ``not-for-profit'' organization, it had an ``excess of revenue over expenses'' of almost $56 million in 2005 and $112 million in 2006. Remember, this is the same organization that receives over $336 million in government grants and contracts each year.

I find it outrageous that taxpayer dollars are subsidizing abortion in the United States. The absurdity of this abuse is illustrated by the long-standing Mexico City policy. Instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, this policy prohibits foreign aid from going to nongovernmental organizations which provide or promote services related to abortion. If we recognize the importance of prohibiting foreign abortion providers from receiving our taxpayer dollars, how can our domestic policy be any different?

I also adamantly oppose funding for an organization like Planned Parenthood that is alleged to have committed substantial fraud. The former vice president of finance and administration of the Los Angeles Planned Parenthood affiliate estimates that affiliates in California overcharged State and Federal Governments by $180 million, despite internal and external warnings that its billing practices were improper. If Planned Parenthood is able to abuse its government support by as much as $180 million in California alone, imagine the possible magnitude of its fraud nationwide.

The Federal Government clearly has a significant interest in identifying and recovering those excess payments. However, I believe that any funds that support abortion are ``excess payments.''

We in the Federal Government have no business providing money to help end a human life. As the Declaration of Independence makes clear, our Nation was founded on the idea that our Creator has endowed every person with ``certain unalienable Rights,'' the first of which is life. Now, 232 years after our predecessors signed that document in that First Continental Congress, now we have to ask, how is it possible that we in Congress are allowing the money of unsuspecting ordinary Americans to support businesses that specialize in terminating human life, when our Declaration of Independence recognizes that those are unalienable rights, the right to life?

We in Congress are charged by our Nation with the responsibility to ensure oversight of Federal funds, and it is abundantly clear that providing ``excess'' funds to abortion providers is not the proper use of taxpayer dollars. I call on my colleagues here in the House to end taxpayer subsidies of abortion by ending Federal support for Planned Parenthood. Let us thereby begin to restore the richness of spirit that Mother Teresa spoke about so eloquently.