Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to call on the President to give Israel the unequivocal, robust, and vigorous support it deserves.

Since the May 31 Gaza flotilla incident, Israel has been under media attack, and even in the past few days many articles and international newspapers take a grossly anti-Israel slant. Make no mistake about it, the purpose of the flotilla was to provoke an incident, thereby to set up an international media campaign against Israel. The flotilla was an aggressive and hypocritical attempt to manipulate world public opinion and to isolate Israel. Thankfully, it has not worked in the United States, where Rasmussen polling shows that despite the anti-Israel bias of so much media coverage, less than 20 percent of Americans think that the Israeli Government is to blame for the deaths that resulted from the incident.

Madam Speaker, the facts of the incident were clear within 48 hours, and it's high time our government sent a much more powerful and unambiguous message, that the United States fully supports Israel's action to intercept the flotilla. The administration should emphasize that Israel's action was legal, that it was right, and that the U.S. stands with Israel without any ifs, ands, or buts, or so long as, or any other qualifiers.

It's a matter of record that on May 25 the Israeli Government offered to offload at its port of Ashdod the humanitarian aid the flotilla carried and to have the U.N. personnel deliver it to Gaza. On that same day, the Israeli Government also stated it would not permit the flotilla to break its blockade of Gaza, which is not only legal under international law; but I believe it's also just, given the rampant maritime arms smuggling, the 7,000 rocket attacks Hamas has launched on Israel from Gaza since 2005, and the unlimited aid that can flow to Gaza through proper checkpoints.

Madam Speaker, the Turkish group that organized the flotilla has documented ties to Hamas, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of State

as a foreign terrorist organization. Radicals with ties to other terrorist groups were aboard the ships. The flotilla launch was marked by violent, anti-Semitic rallies. Flotilla participants spoke to al Jazeera of martyrdom and sang intifada songs. All this shows the grotesque hypocrisy of those who would portray the flotilla participants as somehow being harmless peace activists. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Madam Speaker, the response of the Israeli Government was extraordinarily restrained and responsible. Israeli troops boarded the ships in the flotilla carrying paint ball guns, but when the crew beat them with iron rods, stabbed and lynched them and threw one of them off the deck, they got the order to defend themselves with their side arms. This, too, was right. Every government permits its troops to defend themselves when they are attacked.

I call on President Obama to give Israel our government's full support and to make unmistakably clear our government's position that Israel, in its response to the Gaza flotilla, was fully in the right. Whether or not the Israeli Government decides to adjust the blockade, our government must make it perfectly clear to all that we will never permit an anti-Israel media campaign to isolate America's most faithful and trusted friend in the Middle East.

Mr. Speaker, award-winning journalist Bill Handleman, 62, of the Asbury Park Press, tragically passed away yesterday after a long bout with cancer.

A family man and a humanitarian with a great big heart and incisive wit, Bill is survived by his dear wife Judy, his three children, his mom, extended family, and a boatload of friends.

And allow me to extend our deepest condolences to the family and to let them know that our prayers are with them during this very, very difficult time.

Mr. Speaker, to know Bill Handleman in person or through his prolific pen is to respect and admire his innate goodness, his generosity, and good humor. For years, Bill's news beat was sports, and he especially liked the ponies. He was a four-time sportswriter of the year, in 1992, 2002, 2003, and 2005.

Asbury Park Press staff writer Shannon Mullen writes in today's edition, however, that ``Bill soon discovered that he much preferred writing about everyday struggles of ordinary people rather than the coddled multimillionaire athletes he dealt with on the sports beat.''

Bill had an extraordinary penchant for a compelling subject matter and consistently turned the seemingly mundane, especially those who were left out and left behind, into compelling human interest stories.

The Press's Shannon Mullen again summed it up well: ``Bill Handleman was a gifted storyteller. His writing style was direct, witty, and spare. A lifelong student of Hemingway, he used periods like an Impressionist painter uses a brush, preferring short, incisive sentences that packed a punch. And as a columnist, Handleman relished championing the underdog.'' Mr. Speaker, thank God he did.

Even as he battled cancer, Bill turned out one great story after another with intriguing titles like, ``A Man With a Hole in His Heart: A Coach's Story''; ``No Longer Homeless: A Former Mogul Envisions the Future''; ``A Different Midlife Crisis: A Man Learns that He Is Adopted''; ``During the Depression, the Poor Scramble for Work and Cash''; ``A Father Leaves Behind a Secret''--it was a World War II veteran story.

His stories made us laugh and touched our hearts, and they moved us to action, like the case of David Goldman. To a large extent, David Goldman ceased being invisible in his heroic battle to reclaim his son, Sean, from a child abductor in Brazil because Bill Handleman made it his passion to effectively inform, inspire, and challenge the community, including and especially lawmakers, to join David's struggle for justice.

``For 4 years, no one could hear him. He was shouting in the dark,'' David's father, Barry, told Mr. Handleman in one column. In the 16 months since Mr. Handleman began telling this story, David's seemingly intractable plight went from near total obscurity to huge prominence. Public officials at every level responded to the call.

Each of Bill Handleman's approximately 24 columns not only conveyed to readers timely and critically important information about the Goldman case, but Mr. Handleman went deep behind the scenes to flesh out details of uncommon courage, sacrifice and compassion. Bill Handleman gave the community rare insights into the raw emotion and the fleeting successes, followed by frustrating setbacks, the agony and ultimately the ecstasy of David and Sean's permanent reunion.

In a candor and depth of reporting found nowhere else in the print media, we got to know David in his own words as he was thinking it. Readers of the column were there with David on countless trips to Rio, to Brasilia, to Washington, and at home with him in Monmouth County. For more than a year, Bill Handleman allowed us to see it all as David did and to walk, to some extent, in left-behind-parents' shoes. Through Bill Handleman's incisive pen, we also got to know much of David Goldman's family and close friends.

We will miss Bill Handleman. I, along with tens and thousands of others, read each and every column, often with tears and empathy and resolve to do more about David Goldman's case. David Goldman was, indeed, lucky that the columnist who embraced his quest turned out to be a consummate storyteller and the Handleman column a true game- changer. Bill Handleman did an exceptional job. We will miss him dearly.

Again, our prayers and our condolences go out to Judy and to the family.

I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the condemnation of the Lord's Resistance Army expressed in S. 1067 and the bill's goal of supporting civilian protection and development in northern Uganda. Four years ago, I chaired a hearing of the Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations Subcommittee on: The Endangered Children of Northern Uganda. A courageous young woman named Grace Akallo testified about her abduction at the age of 15, together with 138 classmates at a boarding school, by the LRA. They and approximately 30,000 other children have endured horrifying atrocities as

child soldiers and sex slaves. Ms. Akallo eventually escaped, and her remarkable story was recounted in a book entitled, ``Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children,'' that she coauthored with human rights activist Faith McDonnell. I highly recommend the book to my colleagues and anyone who wants to learn more about these incredible human rights violations and how we can all work together to address and to stop them.

Ms. Akallo stated back in 2006 that, unfortunately, her story was not uncommon. And I sadly add that, unfortunately, it is still not uncommon. Joseph Kony continues to lead the LRA in the commission of outrageous abuses and atrocities, including the abduction, rape, and killing of innocent civilians, not only in northern Uganda, but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan. Although Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for these and other crimes against humanity, he and his cohorts have yet to be brought to justice.

Mr. Speaker, we must do everything possible to stop the widespread suffering that he is inflicting and to help those who have survived these atrocities to recover. In her testimony, Ms. Akallo specifically asked for more resources to help people suffering because of this conflict, emphasizing that ``it will be important for the Government of Uganda and the international community to provide returnees with adequate resettlement assistance and support in restoring and developing community infrastructure so that people can begin to rebuild their lives.'' She went on to say, ``I ask for your help and the help of others to take action to end this war so that my sisters and brothers and all children of northern Uganda can sleep in peace.'' Mr. Speaker, I ask that all of my colleagues respond to Ms. Akallo's heartfelt request, and I do hope that this bill will pass.

Finally, I would like to engage my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) in a very short colloquy.

I would like a clarification that neither the term ``reproductive health'' as it appears in the Peace Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda, referenced in sections 6(b) and 8(b) of S. 1067, nor the term ``sexual reproductive health and rights'' in the Uganda Ministry of Health's Sector Strategic Plan II referenced in the Peace Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda, nor any other references in this Act, include access to abortion for purposes of S. 1067.

I yield to my friend.

I appreciate that.

I thank my good friend, Mr. Pitts, for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 1033, a resolution designating April 2010 as National Autism Awareness Month.

I thank my friends and colleagues Messrs. Reichert, Gerlach, and Bachus. I especially want to thank my good friend and colleague, the cochair of the House caucus, who is Mike Doyle, and Mr. Pitts for their leadership on this very important resolution and, most importantly, on this very important issue.

This resolution serves an important function of increasing awareness of the 1.5 million individuals who are living with autism spectrum disorder and of the extreme dedication and efforts of their families in providing the best possible care and environments for their children, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters.

I want to especially note that the parents and the grandparents of children with autism have earned our enormous respect. I know many families with autism. It can be a very harrowing ordeal. Yet they do it with such class and with such love and dedication to their children. The concerns of the parents are validated in the community, and have since been found to be true nationwide in terms of the numbers.

I will point out to my colleagues that I've been involved in autism since 1981,

since my first term. I'll never forget visiting Eden Institute in Princeton, which does tremendous breakthrough research and work with autism children and young adults. Frankly, for me, it wasn't until 1998 when two parents, Bobbie and Billy Gallagher from Brick Township, New Jersey, came to me after hours and said, Congressman, we'd like you to sit down and look over some of the evidence and data we've accumulated because it is our belief that there is a prevalent spike in autism in Brick.

We brought in all of the good players. We brought in the CDC; we brought in the NIH folks, and we brought in public health experts. We put together a study to find out what was or is the trigger that was seemingly causing this huge spike in autistic children in one particular town in the State of New Jersey. To our shock and dismay, as this was going on, we discovered that there was a prevalence spike for sure, but it was most likely throughout the rest of New Jersey and probably, as it was highly suggestive, throughout the entire country of the United States.

So we put together a piece of legislation to establish what we called the Centers of Excellence to look at, especially, and to apply the best principles and prevalence techniques to determine what was causing this and to determine how many children were being malaffected by autism. To our shock and dismay, again we discovered that the United States didn't have a one in 10,000 prevalence, which is what the expectation was when I was elected in 1981, but that it was much higher. At that point, it was put at about one out of every 150 children.

So the Centers of Excellence were funded. The legislation was passed. I'll never forget that Congressman Mike Bilirakis was kind enough to accept our legislation as Title I of the Children's Health Act, which was a very comprehensive law designed to help children. Title I not only put more money into the CDC but also into the National Institutes of Health, which then was very much underfunding this effort to try to help autistic children.

Just for the record, we were spending $287,000 per year on autism at CDC. As my colleagues know, that falls off the table at some of our bureaucracies. That number has now gone up significantly to about $15 million, and now we have a critical mass of money working very synergistically with local health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as on these prevalence efforts to find out what the parameters are of this developmental disability, because you can't combat something unless you know the who, what, when, where, and why of it, and that is what we are trying to do.

In the early 2000s, Mr. Doyle and I launched the Autism Caucus. We have tried throughout these years to be very supportive of every legislative effort, including the cure autism efforts of these past several years. The key has been more money for research, more money for early childhood interventions and trying to deal with the issue of what happens after a child reaches adulthood. It seems to me that every dollar we spend early-on means that we can have a higher functioning autistic child, now young adult, who can get a job, who can become gainfully employed, and who can become as independent as humanly possible. So every dollar we spend on autism is a dollar well spent.

Mr. Doyle and I have already entered into a compact with friends in Northern Ireland, in Wales, and in Scotland where they have an autism problem. This is a global phenomenon, as my friends and colleagues know, and we need to do more.

I have introduced a bill which would provide small grant money to fledgling nongovernmental organizations throughout the world.

In my travels to places like Nigeria, I met up with a small nongovernmental organization which was like David versus Goliath. I was trying to get the government there to realize that they have an autistic problem that is estimated to affect about 1 million children in Nigeria alone. Nobody knows how accurate that is, but the best and most well-intentioned people in Nigeria have come to that number.

So we do have a serious spike. What is the trigger? Is it too many vaccines given at one time, you know, where the megadosing that occurs today in that little child can't metabolize and where the body can't deal with it in a way that leads to the child's being safe from those other diseases? Is it thimerosal? For our children and for our young adults who have autism, we need to continue to leave no stone unturned in finding what the trigger is or what the multiple triggers are.

Finally, again, I want to thank Bobbie and Billy Gallagher, who are the two parents in Brick Township who came forward with a stack of papers and who said, Please, will you take this up?

I took it up, and I've enjoyed working closely with friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle so that we can cure autism now. The sooner the better.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 1033, a resolution designating April 2010 as ``Nation Autism Awareness Month.'' I thank my friends and colleagues, Representatives Reichert,

Gerlach and Bachus for introducing this resolution--and my friend and co-chair of the House Autism Caucus, Mike Doyle.

This resolution services an important function of increasing awareness of the 1.5 million individuals living with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the extreme dedication and efforts of their families in providing the best possible care and environment for their children, grandchildren and brothers and sisters. Especially the parents and grandparents of individuals with autism deserve our enormous respect and support. Also deserving recognition are the many ASD advocacy groups who have been working hard for so long and the many providers of care and services for individuals with autism.

From my first session in Congress in 1981, I have been a consistent advocate for individuals with developmental disorders, including autism. In 1998, I became much more deeply involved after learning and listening to parents in a local community in my district--Brick Township--about their concerns that the frequency of autism was much higher than was being reported by officials at the time. The concerns of those parents were validated for their community and have since been found to be true nationwide. As stated in the resolution before us, autism is now known to affect every 1 in 110 children--my own state of NJ has among the highest rates in the nation at 1 in 94.

Autism generally is a life-long disability that can overwhelm families, as their lives become consumed with the considerable challenges of identifying appropriate biomedical and psychosocial treatments, schooling and other needed support systems for their autistic child--and eventually for an autistic adult.

Our nation is in the midst of an autism crisis that becomes more severe each passing month, a crisis that costs our nation tens of billions of dollars annually in medical care, behavioral therapy, special child care, and a range of child and adult services needed to care for these individuals. The resolution before us provides the staggering financial costs of autism--$80,000 per year to provide specialized treatment in a medical center, $30,000 per child per year for special education services, and a nationwide costs of over $90 billion per year.

The resolution appropriately recognizes the critical importance of early diagnosis and early treatment for children with autism in order to have the greatest positive impact on their lives, and it recognizes the extremely important need to provide worker training for young adults and adults with autism so that they can active members of the workforce.

Thankfully, Madam Speaker, in December 2006, this Congress passed and then President Bush signed the Combating Autism Act, which added significant provisions to broaden and strengthen activities related to autism. Among its provisions, that law requires the National Institutes of Health to expand ASD-related research--including investigating possible environmental causes of autism, authorizes grant programs to improve the epidemiology of autism, and also includes a very robust section ``Autism Education, Early Detection, and Intervention,'' to improve the early screening, diagnosis, interventions, and treatments for ASDs.

While we all were gratified with passage of the Combating Autism Act, we also recognized that there is a tremendous unmet need to improve services for both children and adults with autism. That is why I am extremely gratified to have joined my friend Mike Doyle, along with Rep. Eliot Engel, in introducing, the Autism Treatment Acceleration Act (H.R. 2413), to provide for enhanced support, services and treatment, as well as research for individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their families.

To mention only two provisions of the bill--it would establish an Adult Services Demonstration Project to provide an array of services to adults with autism spectrum disorders including: post secondary education, vocational and self advocacy skills, employment; residential services, supports and housing; nutrition, health and wellness; recreational and social activities; and transportation and personal safety. And it would establish a ``National Network for Autism Spectrum Disorders Research and Services'' to strengthen linkages between research and service initiatives at the federal, regional, state and local levels, and facilitate the translation of research on autism into services and treatments.

I know that all of us here share the commitment to dramatically improve the lives for the well over a million American children and adults who have an autism spectrum disorder and improve the outlook for their families and other loved ones. I thank my friends Representatives Reichert, Gerlach and Bachus for introducing this resolution. And I thank my friend Mike Doyle for his leadership in establishing new programs to help individuals with autism.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution congratulating Father Coughlin on 10 years of service as House chaplain and want to thank my very good friend, Mr. Lipinski, for authoring it.

Since 2000 Father Coughlin has been a blessing to us, a presence of prayer, and a reminder of the grace we have to ask God for--beg God for--as we exercise our responsibilities in this House.

He has also been a personal friend to me and I want to thank him for that.

Mr. Speaker, I particularly appreciate Father Coughlin's moving prayers and his Web site where he puts up a ``Thought for the Day'' and keeps the House informed of spiritual events on Capitol Hill for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and members of other faiths. I frequently read theses prayers and thoughts, and am grateful for his inspiration to me and my fellow members.

Today he has posted, as ``Thought for the Day,'' a quote from Pope Benedict XVI, from his April 18 address to young people in Malta:

God loves every one of us with a depth and intensity that

we can hardly begin to imagine. And he knows us intimately,

he knows all our strengths and all our faults. Because he

loves us so much, he wants to purify us of our faults and

build up our virtues so that we can have life in abundance.

When he challenges us because something in our lives is

displeasing to him, he is not rejecting us, but he is asking

us to change and become more perfect. That is what he asked

of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. God rejects no one.

And the Church rejects no one. Yet in his great love, God

challenges all of us to change and to become more perfect.

Thank you, Father Coughlin, for reminding us of this--we do our work differently, and better, when we carry with us an awareness of God's love.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Lipinski's resolution also draws attention to Father Coughlin's 50 years of service to God, and His flock, as an ordained priest--Father Coughlin's fiftieth anniversary will be on May 3rd, and I want to congratulate and thank him for that as well.

Father Coughlin has also, as this resolution points out, served God with the Missionaries of Charity, in India, and in Rome, as a scholar- in-residence at the North American College. I am sure that his experience in both places enriched his service to the House.

Finally, I note from the resolution, that, while the House chaplaincy was instituted in 1789, in 2000 Father Coughlin became the first Catholic priest to hold the office of Chaplain of the House. He follows many others who have been a blessing on the House--and I have known several of them--and has certainly filled their shoes well.

Thank you, Father Coughlin.

I urge members to support this excellent resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in mourning the passing of Congressman Bob Franks and to celebrate a life well lived.

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Leonard Lance, for as much time as he may consume.

I thank my friend for his very powerful testimonial to our late colleague.

Mr. Speaker, for Bob's surviving wife, Fran and their three daughters, Kelly, Sara, and Abigail, his mother, June; and sister, Judy; and the rest of the family, this is a tragic season of excruciating loss and bereavement. While Bob Franks was a politician's politician in the best sense of that concept, he was husband, father, son, and brother first. Nothing compared to his love for and devotion to his family.

For everyone who has ever had the privilege of knowing him and calling him ``friend,'' Bob epitomized noble public service. He was honest, hardworking, extraordinarily effective, and absolutely determined to make a positive difference for his constituents, the State, and the Nation. An indomitable optimist, Bob was ever gracious and stubbornly kind to all, even with those with whom he disagreed. He treated all with respect, civility, and empathy.

I know my colleagues on the floor today will attest to the fact that Bob Franks was enthusiastic almost to a fault and always greeted you with a great big smile, firm handshake, and warm greeting--a reflection of his great big heart. You usually left any conversation with Bob, well, smiling.

Bob Franks devoted 21 years of his life to elected public service--13 years in the New Jersey Assembly, 8 years as a Member of Congress, and he served 4 years as State GOP chairman. In both Trenton and Washington, Bob was a consistent, powerful voice for a limited government and reduced taxes.

In the assembly, he was elected twice by his peers to serve as conference leader. Among his notable achievements, he wrote the State law creating the transportation trust fund.

In Congress, he served with distinction as chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings, Hazardous Materials, and Pipeline Transportation Subcommittee.

A master strategist, Bob pushed hard to expand the economy, create jobs in the private sector, pass tax cuts, enact welfare reform, and ensure that our military was second to none.

As cochair of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus, Bob helped win passage of legislation to protect our children from Internet predators and impose life imprisonment for persons convicted of killing a child. A true friend of law enforcement, Bob took the lead in 1998 and won passage of a congressional resolution demanding the Clinton administration undertake the extradition of cop killer Joanne Chesimard, a fugitive who fled to Cuba after being convicted of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in May of 1973.

Bob helped create the bipartisan Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition to maximize both regions' political clout in Congress and played the leading role in promoting fair electrical power policy in New Jersey.

As my colleague, Leonard, noted a moment ago, he ran for the United States Senate. He lost. He ran for Governor, and he lost that, too. But you would never know that from talking to Bob. He was always upbeat and very positive.

After leaving the Hill, Bob served as the president of the Health Care Institute of New Jersey, a trade association for the research- based pharmaceutical and medical technology industry in the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, Governor Chris Christie was joined in moving remembrance by several former Governors, including Governor Jon Corzine, Christie Todd Whitman, and Tom Kean, as well as the three godfathers to Bob and Fran's kids, Roger Bodman, Alfred Fasola, and Congressman John Kasich.

Governor Chris Christie spoke eloquently at the memorial service and told those assembled, ``Bob Franks' life was grand and glorious. As Fran and his daughters know better than anyone, what Bob cared first and foremost about, despite all of the passions in his life, was family . . . no matter whether we were talking about politics or business, because it was something he knew full well: the demands of a public life, the demands of a private life, and the rewards of paying attention to both.''

Governor Christie went on to say, ``Bob Franks was enthusiastic in everything I saw him do. Whether it was

rooting for the Indianapolis Colts--something that I still do not fully understand from a guy from New Jersey--whether it was some of the deepest and most significant policy issues that have faced our country for over the last 25 years, or whether it was counseling and encouraging even the smallest of potential leaders for our State.'' Always that enthusiastic Bob Franks.

The Governor went on to say, ``The loss that each of us feel from Bob's death is significant in the life of our State, significant in the life of our country, because he served so ably and so well . . . In the end, I think, that's what we all hope for out of our public officials: that they care deeply, that they think deeply, that they act passionately with the ability to inspire. He checked all the boxes.''

Governor Corzine said, in brief part, that this was a ``celebration of a great life, a good man, a very good man, someone that all of us, as you have heard, believed in, learned from, and grew from.

``A man of credible character, conviction, courage, but probably the most defining thing that any of us can say about Bob is he was a man who loved. He loved politics, loved all of his friends, the folks who are here, but most of all, most notably he loved his family.''

Governor Tom Kean said, ``Politics for Bob was an honorable profession which meant responsibility and opportunity for achievement and very much an exciting adventure. After all, what is the use of living,'' Governor Kean went on to say, ``if not to strive for great causes and perhaps make this muddled world of ours a little better place. Bob did that. He cared about that.''

``We are all better people for having known Bob,'' he went on. ``I think of him smiling. I think of his cheerfulness. I think of his enthusiasm, and today,'' Governor Kean concluded, ``I envy the angels.''

Governor Christie Todd Whitman said, ``You know a lot of people who are involved in the rough-and-tumble of politics get characterized as either being really good at the political side of it, the background, the fierce fighting, or they're the policy wonks, that's what they care about. Bob was both. He was a fierce, fierce partisan. He was a Republican. He never made it personal, because he always knew it was about policy, about doing right by the people of the State. And that's what made him such a special person.''

Our former Budget Committee chairman here in the House, John Kasich, who was godfather to one of Bob and Fran's children, summed it up well when he said, ``Our friendship was forged in the battles of trying to improve America. That's what it's all about. It was never about politics. It was always about what we could do to make the world a better place for our children and their children . . . I don't think I've ever met a more insightful man than Bob Franks. He could look at something that everybody else saw and he would see it differently. He could see twists in it. He could take advantage of it and move the ball forward.

``How about his cutting-edge humor? Always a little cutting-edge humor no matter where you were. Sometimes Bob was even good at gallows humor. You know, when there was not even a speck of light shining in the room, Bob could make us all laugh. He'd remove the pressure. He'd have a little quip, and we'd all get the belly laugh going. It would happen when there was no humor in sight.''

And on loyalty, John said, ``You know what the kids today say, 'You got my back.' Well, Bob Franks had your back. He didn't care if you were a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative. It didn't mean anything. When you were his friend, he had your back.''

John Kasich concluded, ``I would like to call him a foxhole guy. And I measure people, `Are they a foxhole guy.' In other words, can I get into a foxhole with this guy in the middle of the worst battle you can imagine and know not only would he not jump out of that foxhole to run and preserve himself, but he would jump outta that foxhole and fight to help you. Oh, he was a great foxhole guy,'' he said.

John said, ``In all of the years that I've known him, I've never heard him say a bad thing about anybody,'' and I know Mr. Frelinghuysen and others in our delegation can back that up a hundred percent. And finally Kasich said, ``There is no question he left the world a better place.''

So, Mr. Speaker, there is no question Bob Franks left New Jersey, he left the Nation and the world a better place, and we will deeply miss him.

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Frelinghuysen.

I thank my good friend for his very eloquent statement, and we will all miss Bobby Franks.

Remarks from current and present elected officials who

spoke at the April 17, 2010 memorial service for former U.S.

Congressman and former N.J. Assemblyman Bob Franks, who died

April 9, 2010. The service took place at the Cathedral

Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark NJ.:

new jersey gov. chris christie

Bob Franks' life was grand and glorious as Fran and his

daughters know better than anyone, what Bob cared first and

foremost about despite all of the passions in his life was

family.

This summer as I had many discussion with Bob about lots of

different topics he would always end each of those

conversations we had whether it was in person or over the

telephone, by asking me, in fact imploring me, `You're

spending time with Mary

Pat, right?' have you gone to some of the kids baseball

games?' It was the way he ended each and everyone of those

conversations, no matter whether we were talking about

politics or business because it was something he knew full

well: the demands of a public life, the demands of a private

life, and the rewards of paying attention to both.

Bob Franks' smile is the thing I will remember most, about

him. When he saw you his face immediately lit up, and in turn

he lit up the room. His enthusiasm was mentioned just before.

And he was enthusiastic in everything I saw him do. Whether

it was rooting for the Indianapolis Colts--something that

still do not fully understand, from a guy from NJ--whether it

was some of the deepest and most significant policy issues

that have faced our country over the last 25 years, or

whether it was counseling and encouraging even the smallest

of potential leaders for our state, I speak about that last

part from personal experience. I met Bob Franks in July of

1995 I was a first-term Freeholder who had just run for the

General Assembly, and had come in sixth out of six. And in

the aftermath of that primary, I received a call from

Congressman Franks' office. And the person on the staff said,

`The Congressman would like to know if you'd like to come by

his district office Friday for lunch. He'd like to speak to

you.'

And I immediately said yes, of course. I thought to myself

`It must be losers' week at Bob Franks' office. And I went

there that day to have lunch with Bob Franks. I had no idea

what the agenda was and I had no idea why I was going there.

For an hour and 45 minutes Bob Franks sat with me to dissect

why I had lost the race, why I had done so poorly, what I

wanted to do with my future and how he thought was the best

way to get there. I want to emphasis with you: I had never

met him. He saw something in me in that campaign that

obviously no one who voted did. And he implored me at the end

of the meeting to not give up, not give up on a public life.

He encouraged me to continue to fight. It will be the

enduring gift that Bob Franks gave to me. And if you look

around this cathedral today, there are literally hundreds of

people who can say exactly the same thing. It's just a

different date and a different time and a different challenge

that was before them in that stage of their life. And it was

Bob Franks who patted them on the back. It was Bob Franks who

got in their face and told them not to quit. It was Bob

Franks who by his example showed them that in fact anything

was possible if you were willing to work hard enough, listen

enough, and care deeply enough about making your community a

better place.

The loss that each of us will feel from Bob's death is

significant--significant in the life of our state,

significant in the life of our country, because he served so

ably and so well because of that enthusiasm, that fire and

that ability to inspire others. In the end, I think, that's

what we all hope for out of our public officials: that they

care deeply, that they think deeply, that they act

passionately with the ability to inspire. He checked all the

boxes. And the loss we feel is miniscule compared to the loss

that his family feels. Because for all that he did for us, he

was much, much more for them. This summer, the last time I

met with Bob before I became governor, he said to me as I was

leaving the meeting, `Don't worry about what happens--whether

you win or you lose. Winning would be great, but even if you

lose, I can tell you from personal experience. Life will get

better.' He told me `I have felt that the last couple of

years out of public life, because it has allowed me to get

even closer to Fran and to the girls. And so Bob provided

hope from either end of the spectrum for whatever was going

to happen to you and your life. I know that the legacy he

leaves is sitting here in this cathedral this morning and the

circles that go out from here, because Bob Franks did what

every leader aspires to do: and this is to inspire others.

He has certainly inspired me. God bless you, Fran and the

girls. And God Bless Bob for a life well spent.

former gov. jon corzine

I feel like a little loner up here. I'm not just sure how I

identify, but I am thrilled to be here.

Fran, I could not be more privileged or honored, to stand

and say some words in celebration of a great life, of a good

man, a very good man, someone that all of us, as you have

heard, believed in, learned from, grew from.

A man of credible character, conviction, courage, but

probably the most defining thing that I think any of us can

say about Bob is that he is a man who loved. He loved

politics, loved all of his friends, the folks who are here,

but most of all, most notably he loved his family. Fran,

Sara, Abby and Kelly--a remarkable, remarkable testimony to

his humanity and care. There was no pure, nor more poignant

view of love than to have a conversation with Bob about his

wife and his daughters.

Others have spoken about that smile, but the thought and

site of those girls, all those girls brought a joy and a

light that I don't think I've seen in the passions that I've

seen in other people anytime in life. You know, I'm probably

like a lot of you. I have more pictures of Bob Franks' girls

than I have of my own grandkids, because you couldn't have a

meeting, a breakfast, a beer or anything else with Bob where

he didn't share a picture and a posting on how the girls were

doing. It meant so much to him. A special part of when you

had that posting was that smile that was there as he talked

about it. It was always, always there. Everybody else has

said it. It was the most winning smile anyone could imagine.

And almost never saw him not smile, except for a couple of

occasions. Anytime the Giants were playing the Colts he had

his game face on. I'm like Gov. Christie; I don't know where

in the heck he got that view from, but that's the way it is.

And then there were the days when we were running against

each other for the United States Senate.

It wasn't always smiles. Neither of us were smiling while

the ads were running. In fact, I remember sitting on stage

one night down at Rider College, I think it was, before a

debate, we were getting mic-ed up. And he did smile, and we

laughed, and we teased each other about the theater and maybe

even a little bit about the B.S. that comes as you go through

that process. And then he proceeded over the next 90 minutes

to absolutely take me apart on healthcare, early childhood

education and anything else, and the only time I saw him

smile was when he dubbed me `Mr. Universal' in that night.

Some of you remember that. It stuck, and I definitely

remember him smiling at me that night. I actually was

frowning.

Anyone who followed Bob's career knew that once he found a

winning argument, he knew how to stick with it. I must have

heard that phrase, `Mr. Universal' a million times over the

next six weeks. Message, message, message. When it came to

politics, Bob knew it as well or better than anyone. And he

demonstrated a remarkable talent in that campaign, because he

took $6 million and made it something that was worth a lot

more. And he showed what a pro could do.

There was also something about that campaign that he and I

actually grew to respect each other. You heard Congressman

Kasich say that mutual respect is an important ingredient in

our public life. Bob really believed that two people could be

of principles--sometimes of different views but principled--

but they didn't have to be disagreeable, as we often hear.

And after that campaign and over the years, we grew into an

easy friendship based on that perspective, developed over

time. We are occasional parishioners at Chuck's church, we

were commiseraters over breakfast or over a beer. I did a lot

with him as we supported the NJ National Guard. He did so

much to support our troops that were in Iraq. And he fought

for the things he believed in in political life in a lot of

ways, but most of all even for a Democrat he became one of

those people who offered guidance, offered perspective,

offered counsel. He was true to the words that he would be a

friend. Of course we had to sneak him in and out of

Drumthwacket, and then we had to meet in the wine cellar for

breakfast in Summit, Grand Summit Hotel. I was never sure

whose reputation we were defending, his or mine.

And then there were those moments at Christ's Church when

we both showed up at the same time. Bob and his family on the

right side. Of course, I was on the left side. We both fell

into a pattern of rolling our eyes when Chuck would tell some

miserable jokes about politics, which was all too frequent.

It was almost a paradox because Bob was such a wonderful

human being. You always wonder sometimes why he was in

politics. People always trump politics in his life. He was a

happy warrior. He had a passion for service and a strong

sense of responsibility for community. But most importantly,

as you heard others say, he loved his family. I know this is

an unspeakable time for the Franks family, for Fran and the

girls. There is nothing fair or right about losing Bob.

I was reminded of a Winston Churchill phrase upon hearing

of the death of Harry Hopkins. He said ``a strong, bright

fierce flame has burned out of a frail body.'' Churchill was

making clear we should never confuse the body and the soul.

The strong, bright, fierce flame of Bob's soul lives in those

three beautiful, beautiful girls, Abby, Sara and Kelly. His

generosity and spirit, his love of people and life, his sense

of purpose, justice, and oh, that smile, always that smile,

will be with his girls, always. And with all of us as well.

God bless Bob, his family and thank you for the life he has

lived.

gov. christie todd whitman

Fran, Kelly, Sara, Abby, I hope you get a chance at some

point to stand up and just absorb this room.

Everyone here is a friend, or an admirer, a support of

someone Bob mentored. They are here out of love. They are

here out of love for Bob and what he stood for, and here for

you, for the family. You know a lot of people who are

involved in the rough-and-tumble of politics get

characterized as either being really good at the political

side of it, the background, the fierce fighting, or they're

the policy wonks, that's what they care about. Bob was both.

He was a fierce, fierce partisan. He was a Republican. He

never made it personal, because he always knew it was about

policy, about doing right by the people of the state. And

that's what made him such a special person.

He was a true gentleman, in every sense of the word. He

honored the profession. He loved it. He had that smile. He

lit up a room. But because he really cared. There was nothing

fake about it. He wasn't putting it on. He loved and cared

about everything. Of course we know he loved and cared most

about his family. I can remember, Kelly, how many

times did we get together at events. Your father and I would

be talking about strategy or something and then all of the

sudden your mom and you would walk into the room and then

that was it. Forget the rest of it. It was his girls, the

people he cared about the most. It was always first and

foremost. But it was because he cared about all of it, all of

us, what he was doing.

His legacy, the people he mentored, all of that is

important. We are remembering it here today and people care

about it. But his real legacy is his family. And while each

of you might not be able to turn around and see him sitting

next to you with that sparkle in his eyes, he's there. He's

in your hearts, he's the angels on your shoulder. He will

always be there with you and for you. And he set an example,

that is unmatched, and you are very very lucky to have had

him. We are all very lucky to have had him, but though for

all too short a period. It just reminds us all to take those

special people and special moments and bring them close to

our heart and never let that flame die. You know, Bob's flame

is going to live on forever.

Thank you for letting me be part of today.

Governor tom kean

This has been quite a week. I have not been to an event all

week long, of any kind, where Bob hasn't been mentioned.

Where there hasn't been some remarks, where there hasn't been

some longing, been some discussion, public and private. And

now to culminate in this.

I think I counted seven former governors here today. I see

our two United States Senators, I see the Congressional

delegation. I see the legislature out there members of county

government, and all of you who Bob touched in some way or

another. But Fran, for you and your girls, June, for that

remarkable young man that you brought up, we are here today.

We come to pound on your heart with love.

I remember that first time that I met Bob. There were two

of us running, myself, a fellow called Phil Cottonbacker, and

we're both in our early thirties. And in some ways we really

didn't know what we were doing, but we were doing our best,

knocking on doors, trying to meet people. And then one day,

Bob came, out of Summit High School. And I remember because

that's the first time I saw that smile we're all talking

about. That's when I saw the cheerfulness. That's when I saw

the optimism. He already knew as much about politics as I

did, maybe more. I learned something else about Bob. Bob was

a pied piper, because first Bob came to volunteer, then he

brought a friend, then he brought two friends, then three and

four friends. Soon we had 10 people from Bob's class,

knocking on doors, going to supermarkets, passing out

literature, pressing envelopes, whatever we needed, because

Bob made it fun. Bob made it fun for other people. Bob was

sometimes, I think, you know, meeting Bob was like opening a

bottle of fine champagne. Everything, everything was good at

that point.

Well, we won that election and Bob and I stayed in touch.

And it came a number of years later--I'm going to talk about

three basic incidents in my life Bob touched. I was trying to

decide whether to run for governor. I'd lost once already in

a primary. My family was not terribly enthusiastic about the

prospect. I knew there were other strong candidates in the

field. I knew that one of them had much more money then we

would ever be able to spend. I knew that another one had much

more party support than I would ever get. And so the serious

question was whether to take this one on. Well it wasn't a

serious question to Bob. Not at all. Bob was on the phone.

Bob was there in person. Bob was running around the state.

Bob was doing whatever it took, and he would never let me for

a minute even consider the possibility, that I wasn't going

to run. He basically beat on my door until I finally

declared. And once I declared, the campaign was basically run

out of Bob's car for a while. I mean he became my first

campaign manager. People would call me from different parts

of the state who I'd never heard of, saying `You know, I'd

like to support you for governor.' I'd say `That's wonderful.

You like my ideas?' They'd say `No, I like Bob Franks.'

And, of course, Bob brought a number of assets, because not

only did he bring that wonderful enthusiasm and excitement

and all of that, he brought Al Fasola and Roger Bodman. And

once you had Al Fasola, and Roger Bodman and Bob Franks, it

didn't matter who had the money, it didn't matter who had the

political support--I think we ended up with four county

chairmen out of 21. It didn't matter. You were going to win,

because you had the best. And Bob was such an important part

of that and our whole campaign with that enthusiasm. He got

people in the legislature to defy their own county

organizations and their own county parties and come out and

endorse me, and those of you in politics know how tough that

is for anybody to do. He was a remarkable. And I'll say it

here: I don't know if I would have run or not, but I

certainly would not have been elected if it were not for the

efforts of Bob Franks.

When I got there, there were a lot of problems. We were in

a debt point, in a recession as we are now. We had a billion

dollar deficit, had a legislature of the other party, both

houses, and it was difficult. It was very, very difficult.

But there in my office, would be Bob. And Bob would come it,

with that smile, that cheerfulness and that optimism, showing

me how we could do it, how we could get something done. He

would bring in not only Republicans but Democrats. He would

tell me `Have you talked to this assemblyman, or that

senator? You know he's the other party, but he's really a

good person, and you can talk to them about issues.' And we

did that.

We put together some of those coalitions. But always,

always in the background was Bob, who cared so much, who

wanted to see it done right, who did it himself, always the

right way. You know he was always positive. He was never

down. He loved his colleagues in both his parties. He could

be partisan, but never negative, never nasty in any way at

all. He cared so much. The bottom line I think, that not only

did he love politics, but he cared so much about people. He

loved them: individuals, peoples who touched his life and he

came back and touched theirs in a very, very important way.

Politics for Bob was an honorable profession which meant

responsibility and opportunity for achievement and very much

an exciting adventure. After all, what is the use of living,

if not to strive for great causes and perhaps make this

muddled world of ours a little better place. Bob did that. He

cared about that.

The Reverend mentioned St. Paul, when he was in that

prison. He wrote something else. He wrote to his best friend,

he wrote a note. He wrote to Timothy. He wrote these letters,

these words, I think most of you know, to Timothy. He said:

`I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I

have kept the faith.'

Bob could have spoken those words. Fran, you and the girls

ought to be so proud, June you ought to be so very proud. We

are all better people for having known Bob. I think of him

smiling, I think of his cheerfulness, I think of his

enthusiasm, and today, I envy the angels.

Former Congressman John Kasich

Look around. It's amazing today, isn't it? You know, on the

wall of Bob's house is a poster of Bobby Kennedy who would be

surprised? He was a man of great passion, just like Bob. I

remember as a young man, one young girl holding a sign as

Bobby Kennedy passed by, and the sign said: ``Bring Us

Together.'' Bob Franks has brought us together, hasn't he?

And not just the people at the top. He's brought so many of

his young proteges here today who have grown from young into

almost middle-aged men. Bob was a truly remarkable man and

our friendship was forged in the battles of trying to improve

America. That's what it was all about. It was never about the

politics. It was always about what we could do to make the

world a little better place for our children and their

children.

Last week I sat down with some of the people who were on

this team. We went through thick and thin, through government

shutdowns, and criticisms and blowups and yelling and all

wonderful debate that sometimes accompanies politics when it

isn't personal. It's part of life, it's part of what makes

this republic special. And we listed a couple of things that

we wanted to think about Bob, and I wanted to tell you about

Bob.

First of all, insightful. I don't think I ever met a more

insightful man than Bob Franks. He could look at something

that everybody else saw and he would always see it

differently. He could see the twist in it. He could take

advantage of it to move the ball downfield. How about his

cutting-edge humor? Always a little cutting-edge humor no

matter where you were. Sometimes Bob was even good at gallows

humor. You know when there was not even a speck of light

shining in the room, Bob could make us all laugh. He'd remove

the pressure. He'd have the little quip, and we'd all get the

belly laugh going. It would happen when there was no humor in

sight.

Loyalty. You know kids today say `You got my back?' Bob

Franks had your back. He didn't care if you were a Republican

or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative. It didn't mean

anything. When You were his friend, he had your back. And he

exemplified exactly what we mean by that term.

Friendly. Well he's known for that smile. Some said

earlier, he walked into a room and lit it up. And that was

exactly right, because he had that 100 megawatt smile that

sort of transmitted a sense of strength. He had a sense that

things are going to be OK, things are going to be good.

Things can be really great.

Bob never attacked anybody else. In all the years I knew

him I never heard him say a bad thing about anybody. He was

smart. And what made him so smart is that he understood that

the key to life was not the divisions that exist between

people, but the friendships that potentially could be

developed. And he was a smart of a guy as I ever met and he

transferred on to these three angels down here [gestures to

Franks' daughters] because they're as smart as can be.

Great strategist? Didn't want to be up against him, did

you? Nobody wanted to be up against Bob when he got into

strategy, and frankly, think about what a great general he

would have been in the military. He could have sat in that

tent and figured how to take advantage of every opportunity.

And that's exactly what he did working with me to do

something that hadn't been done in about 40 years.

Oh, he loved his family. Gov. Christie's right. My

conversations were always `Mr. Chairman, how's the family.

How's the girls'. I'd said `Chairman, how's your family?' It

always started that way. Kinda always ended that way.

God, did he love his friends. Roger Bodman, Al Fasola. Oh,

and Laura. Ah, he just loved you to pieces. And of course he

so loved his family, and so loved Fran and those sweet girls.

Saw Kelly yesterday, that she gave me a big hug. And through

the gate, they were in the back yard, I got a chance to see

Sara and Abbey really for the first time. Little angels, and

a tribute to Fran and to Bob.

Of course he loved his Colts. Governor, I could never

figure it our either. I mean that Colt thing was just

unbelievable.

He could give you bad news, couldn't he governor? He could

give you bad news but in such a way that you could accept it.

He gave more bad news more of the time than I can even

believe! But I heard it, and I accepted it because he had

that special something. When he gave you a little bad news,

you knew that he had your back. You knew that he was right

with you.

You could never be mad at Bob Franks. That was impossible.

No matter what he did to you, you loved him. You never go

upset with him. I guess it was always because you knew he had

your back.

What a listener Bob was. You know, it was one of the things

that many of us have to do better. Bob could reply and

understand because he listened. He listened intently to

anything you had to say.

I liked to call him a foxhole guy. And I measure people

`Are they a foxhole guy.' In other words can I get into a

foxhole with this guy in the middle of the worst battle you

can imagine and know not only would he not jump out of that

foxhole to run and preserve himself, but he would jump out of

that foxhole and fight to help you. Oh, he was a great

foxhole guy.

Friendship. Today in the age of a media culture, fleeting,

situational, conditional, tattered--not with Bob. His

friendship had nothing to do with situations and conditions,

he would be friend to you through thick and thin. And frankly

when we think about it we can learn so much about what

character and principle and tenacity is when we study the

life of Bob Franks.

There is no question he left the world a better place.

Earlier today in the private ceremony, I wish you all could

have heard the testimonies to Bob. And under all of them was

a deep and abiding love and a sense that he made everybody

better because he believed in them. He made this world a much

better place. He inspires us. And I was inspired this morning

listening to the testimony of his dearest friends and family

and the young people that he raised. They're going to leave

their mark on the world and they're leaving it right now as

one of the top aides to the governor of the State of New

Jersey. Yeah, I'm going to miss Bob. I'm going to miss those

calls. But you know I'm going to remember this day, the

testimonies this morning, and this crowd, which is all about

how great his life was and about how many lives he impacted

and affected in a real way.

You know, Reverend, the Lord gives us a big promise. I've

never known the Lord, as I've studied it, to break his

promises. Fran, he promises in the next life, no more tears,

no more heartache, no more broken relationships, no more war,

no more death, and only happiness and fulfillment to be put

under the wings of the Lord.

I believe it. That's where Bob's today. God, Bless you Bob.

We love you, we miss you. We'll see you soon.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order today.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 34 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, April 22, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, for those of us who recognize abortion as violence against children and the exploitation of women, nothing less than a comprehensive prohibition of public funding of elective abortion satisfies the demands of social justice.

Regrettably, the language that emerged from the Senate is weak, duplicitous and ineffective, not by accident but by design. It will open up the floodgates of public funding for abortion in a myriad of programs resulting in more dead babies and more wounded mothers.

For the first time ever, the Senate-passed bill permits health care insurance plans and policies, funded with tax credits, to pay for abortion, so long as the issuer of the federally subsidized plan collects a new congressionally mandated fee--an abortion surtax--from every enrollee in the plan to pay for other people's abortions.

The Senate-passed bill creates a new community health center fund. Hyde amendment protection do not apply. Therefore, either the Obama administration or a court is likely to compel

funding there as well. Also, the bill creates a huge, new program administered by OPM that would manage two or more new multistate or regional health plans.

The legislation says that only one of those multistate plans not pay for abortion, which begs the question, what about the other multistate plans administered by OPM? Why are those federally administrated plans with federally mandated fees permitted to include abortion--this represents a radical departure from current policy.

Abortion isn't health care, Mr. Speaker. It is not preventive health care.

We live in an age of ultrasound imaging, the ultimate window to the womb and its occupant. We are in the midst of a fetal healthcare revolution, an explosion of benign, innovative interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure illnesses or diseases any unborn child may be suffering.

Let's protect the unborn child and their mother. Obamacare, unfortunately, is the biggest increase in abortion funding ever.

Mr. Speaker, for those of us who recognize abortion as lethal violence against children and the exploitation of women, nothing less than a comprehensive prohibition on public funding, promotion and facilitation of elective abortion in any federal health program, including the bill under consideration today, satisfies the demands of social justice.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment which passed 240-194-1 ensures that not some, but all the elements of the Hyde amendment applies to the programs that are both authorized and appropriated in this bill.

By now, I trust that all members fully understand that because programs in Obamacare are both authorized and appropriated in this legislation, the actual Hyde Amendment has no legal affect. It only affects Labor HHS not this massive expansion of government funded health care.

Regrettably the language that emerged from the Senate is weak, duplicitous and ineffective, not by accident, but by design. It will open up the floodgates of public funding for abortion in a myriad of programs resulting in more dead babies and wounded moms than would otherwise have been the case.

Because abortion methods dismember, decapitate, crush, poison, starve to death and induce premature labor, pro-life Members of Congress, and according to every reputable poll, significant majorities of Americans want no complicity whatsoever in this evil. Obamacare forces us to be complicit.

Abortion hurts women's health and puts future children subsequently born to women who aborted at significant risk. At least 102 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression and elevated suicide risk in women who abort.

Recently, the Times of London reported that, ``[S]enior . . . psychiatrists say that new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found, ``that women who have had abortions have twice the level of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant . . .''

In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that 78.6 percent of the 15-18 year olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression as compared to 31 percent of their peers. The study also found that 27 percent of the 21-25 year old women who had abortions had suicidal idealizations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion.

At least 28 studies--including three in 2009--show that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30-40 percent or more yet the abortion industry has largely succeeded in suppressing these facts. Abortion isn't safe for subsequent children born to women who have had an abortion. At least 113 studies show a significant association between abortion and subsequent premature births. For example a study by researchers Shah and Zoe showed a 36 percent increased risk for preterm birth after one abortion and a staggering 93 percent increased risk after two.

Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 35 percent after one and 72 percent after two or more abortions. Another study shows the risk increases 9 times after a woman has had three abortions.

What does this mean for her children? Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant mortality in the industrialized world after congenital anomalies. Preterm infants have a greater risk of suffering from chronic lung disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments and behavior problems. Low birth weight is similarly associated with neonatal mortality and morbidity.

Unlike both the Hyde Amendment and what would be the effect of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, the Senate passed bill permits health care plans and policies funded with tax credits to pay for abortion, so long as the issuer of the federally subsided plan collects a new, congressionally mandated fee from every enrollee in that plan to pay for other peoples abortions. Requiring the segregation of funds into allocation accounts--a mere bookkeeping exercise touted by some as an improvement to the new pro-abortion funding scheme--does absolutely nothing to protect any victims--baby or mother--from publically funded abortion.

The Senate passed bill creates a new Community Health Center fund and appropriates at least $7 billion for Community Health Centers (CHC). Again recognizing that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to this bill and absent enactment of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, it is clear that the 1,250 CHC clinics (among the most effective means of reaching the poor and underserved with basic health care) will likely be compelled either by the Obama Administration or the courts or both to fund abortion on demand at CHC sites. There is no statutory protection against this abuse in the Senate-passed bill.

Additionally, under the federal employee health benefits plan, which includes Members of Congress, since 1984, no funds may be used for abortion or the administrative expenses in connection with any health plans that provide any benefit or coverage for abortions or even the administrative expense, except in the case of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) administers the program.

The Senate-passed bill on the other hand creates a huge new program administered by OPM that would manage two or more new multi-state or national health plans. The bill stipulates that at least one plan not pay for abortion. Which only begs to question: what about the other new multi-state plans administered by OPM? Why can those federally administered plans include funding abortion on demand? This represents a radical departure from current policy.

Additionally, other appropriated funds in the bill have no Hyde/ Stupak-Pitts type protections either including $5 billion for a temporary high risk health insurance fund and $6 billion in grants and loans for health cover co-ops. Pro-life members who vote for this bill will roll the dice on this one.

When the bill left the House, it contained the Hyde-Weldon language protecting health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion against discrimination by government entities. The Senate passed bill instead only includes more narrow text that prevents discrimination by a ``qualified health plan'' on the Exchange. This narrow language was included in the House bill, but without the additional protections against discrimination by federal and state governmental entities, pro- life health care providers are not fully protected.

Then there's the Mikulski Amendment, Sec. 2713, which empowers the HHS Secretary with broad new authority to compel private health care plans in America to cover ``preventable'' services. When Senator Ben Nelson suggested that abortion not be included in the so-called preventative services mandate, Ms. Mikulski said no--raising a serious red flag that abortion is being postured as ``preventable abortion service in the future''--after all, abortion prevents a live birth.

Abortion as preventative health care isn't new.

And as far back as 1976, Dr. Willard Cates, Jr. and Dr. David Grimes, then with CDC, presented a paper to a Planned Parenthood meeting, entitled: Abortion as a Treatment for Unintended Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually Transmitted ``Disease''. To call pregnancy sexually transmitted disease; to call abortion a treatment or a means of prevention for this ``disease'' is barbaric.

Abortion isn't health care--preventative or otherwise.

Mr. Speaker, we live in an age of ultrasound imaging--the ultimate window to the womb and its occupant. We are in the midst of a fetal health care revolution, an explosion of benign innovative interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure disease or illness any unborn child may be suffering.

Unborn children are society's youngest and most vulnerable patients. Obamacare should do them no harm. Tragically, it does the worst harm of all. It kills them.

Mr. Speaker, in a dramatic reversal of current law, ObamaCare, as just passed, authorizes health insurance policies funded with tax credits and cost reduction payments to pay for abortion on demand and forces the issuers of federally subsidized plans to collect a new abortion fee and abortion surtax from every enrollee to pay for other people's abortions. Insurance companies need only segregate the funds--a mere bookkeeping exercise--to subsidize unrestricted, publicly funded abortions.

OPM will also administer multi-State insurance plans with abortion, another radical departure from the status quo. What of the Executive order? With all due respect, what a joke. It does absolutely nothing to mitigate or change in any way the huge expansion of public funding of abortion.

For example--and I ask Members to read it--section 2 only directs officials, pursuant to provisions of the bill just passed, to establish a model set of segregation guidelines. So, in other words, the abortion expansion is unabated.

I ask Members to support Stupak-Pitts and the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to respectfully ask that my colleagues reject Obamacare, which if enacted into law, will seriously undermine, erode, damage--and perhaps even destroy-- health care in America.

On substance, the Senate-passed text of over 2,700 pages now pending in the House is egregiously flawed. This is truly a bad bill and is anything but reform.

On process, the near total lack of transparency and misuse of majority party power to ram Obamacare through the Congress, makes it the quintessential example of what's so dreadfully wrong with Washington.

No wonder growing numbers of Americans are fed up, losing faith and angry at the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House.

No wonder millions of people including Tea Party activists are demanding accountability and defeat of Obamacare.

This has been--and is--an unseemly process unworthy of a national legislature--any legislature for that matter--especially one with an enviable two-century-old history of lawmaking.

If President Obama wins passage of this bill when it comes to a vote, it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best.

This is not Congress' finest hour.

Rest assured that if Obamacare was sound and prudent policy--fiscally and morally--and an efficacious way of facilitating quality heath care coverage, members of both sides of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum would be lining up to support it.

If this was a good bill, persuasion, not pressure would convince a large majority of the members to embrace it.

Instead, blunt force is being applied like a vice grip to ``convince'' the unconvinced and undecided to cave, conform and capitulate.

On cost, Obamacare is riddled with accounting gimmicks--all designed to make the total price tag appear smaller than it really is.

In order to avoid sticker shock, Obamacare collects new taxes, fees, and shifts billions from Medicare for a full four years before benefits kick in. This trick results in an estimated, but grossly misleading cost of care of $871 billion over 10 years.

Let me underscore that point, the federal government will collect huge amounts of new taxes, fees and will rob Medicare for a full 10 years--before payouts for services begin four years from now.

But when 10 years of revenue are matched with 10 years of benefits, the real cost comes in at a staggering $2.3 trillion.

I would note parenthetically, that Obamacare will exacerbate Obamadebt. (When you eliminate double-counting of Medicare cuts, Social Security cuts, and the use of CLASS Act premiums, the Democrats claim of deficit reduction disappears into another massive wave of red ink of $466 billion over the first 10 years and $1.4 trillion over the second 10 years.) Even without passage of this bill, under the President's 2011 budget proposal, federal spending will increase to a record $3.8 trillion in 2011 alone. By 2020, the President's own 10-year budget analysis projects a more than doubling of debt to a record $18.6 trillion.

Because Obamacare diverts $500 billion from Medicare, there is no doubt whatsoever that senior citizens and disabled persons will lose certain health benefits they now enjoy. Medicare Advantage is protected in Florida--the so-called Gatorade fix--but not in my state of New Jersey or anywhere else. Medicare Advantage is used by over 11 million people nationwide including 15,983 people in my Congressional district alone. The Senate bill slashes nearly $120 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, jeopardizing millions of seniors' existing coverage. So much for the President's promise that if you like your health plan, you can keep it; no you can't!

Madam Speaker, for the first time ever, Obamacare forces Americans to acquire an approved health plan or pay a stiff penalty--like they committed a crime.

The penalty is huge--the greater of $750 per person per year (up to $2,250 per family) or 2 percent of household income. No person in America should be coerced into buying medical insurance.

Under Obamacare, premiums for non-group family insurance will increase by as much as $2,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that by 2016, premiums will increase by 10-13 percent over what would happen under current law. Conversely, CBO had estimated that the Republican plan which I strongly support would decrease some premiums by 5-10 percent.

The Republican alternative focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles--without increasing taxes or adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren and without cutting Medicare.

Obamacare would also create nearly 160 boards, commissions and programs and would vest sweeping powers on bureaucrats to determine what benefits are covered and not and at what cost.

Even though last September, President Obama stood a mere 20 feet away from where I am standing now, and told a joint session of Congress that ``no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,'' his legislation today constitutes the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade itself, and makes a mockery of that pledge.

Additionally, Obamacare fails to institute real medical liability reforms to end junk lawsuits and curb the costs of defensive medicine-- these have long been identified as significant forces in driving up health costs.

The goal of responsible health care reform should be to provide credible health insurance coverage for everyone, strengthening the health care safety net so that no one is left out, and incentivizing quality and innovation, as well as healthy behaviors and prevention. This means that the current private health insurance market will have to be reformed to put patients first, and to eliminate denials of pre- existing conditions and lifetime caps and promoting portability between jobs and geographic areas, including across state lines. The tax code should be modernized to promote affordability and individual control, provide assistance to low-income and middle-class families. Medicare requires reform to be more efficient and responsive, with sustainable payment rates.

Of course, responsible health care reform will respect basic principles of justice: it will put patients and their doctors in charge of medical decisions, not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It will also ensure that the lives and health of all persons are respected regardless of stage of development, age or disability.

It's time to go back to the drawing board and address what's broken and fix it.

The American public deserves better than what's on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respectfully ask that my colleagues reject ObamaCare which, if enacted into law, will seriously undermine, erode, damage and, I believe, even destroy health care in America.

On substance, the Senate-passed text of over 2,700 pages now pending in the House is egregiously flawed. This is truly a bad bill, and it is anything but reform.

On process, the near total lack of transparency and the misuse of majority party power to ram ObamaCare through the Congress makes it the quintessential example of what is so dreadfully wrong in Washington.

No wonder growing numbers of Americans are fed up, losing faith, and angry at the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House. No wonder millions of people, including TEA Party activists, are demanding accountability and defeat of ObamaCare.

This has been, and is, an unseemly process unworthy of a national legislature, any legislature for that matter, especially one with an enviable two-century-old history of lawmaking.

If President Obama wins passage of this bill when it comes to a vote, it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. This is not Congress' finest hour.

Rest assure that if ObamaCare was sound and prudent policy fiscally and morally and an efficacious way of facilitating quality health care coverage, Members of both sides of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum would be lining up to support it. If this was a good bill, persuasion rather than pressure would convince a large majority of Members to embrace it.

Instead, blunt force is being applied like a vice grip to convince the unconvinced and undecided to cave, conform, and capitulate.

On cost, ObamaCare is riddled with accounting gimmicks, all designed to make the total price appear smaller than it really is.

In order to avoid sticker shock, ObamaCare collects new taxes, fees, and shifts billions of dollars from Medicare for 4 full years before benefits kick in. This trick results in an estimated but grossly misleading cost of care at some $871 billion over 10 years. But when 10 years of revenue are matched with 10 years of benefits, the real cost comes to a staggering $2.3 trillion.

I would note parenthetically that ObamaCare will exacerbate ObamaDebt. When you eliminate double counting of Medicare costs, Social Security cuts, and the use of CLASS Act premiums, the Democrats' claims of deficit reduction disappears into another massive wave of red ink of some $460 billion over 10 years and $1.4 trillion over the second 10 years.

Even without passage of this bill, under the President's 2011 budget proposal Federal spending will increase to a record $3.8 trillion in 2011 alone. By 2020, the President's own 10-year budget analysis projects a more than doubling of debt to a record $18.6 trillion. That is absolutely unsustainable.

Because ObamaCare diverts $500 billion from Medicare, there is no doubt whatsoever that senior citizens and disabled persons will lose certain health benefits they now enjoy.

Medicare Advantage is protected in Florida, the so-called ``Gatorade'' fix, but not in my home State of New Jersey or anywhere else. Medicare Advantage is used by over 11 million people nationwide, including 15,983 people in my congressional district alone.

The Senate bill slashes nearly $120 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, jeopardizing millions of seniors' existing coverage. So much for the President's promise that if you like your health plan, you can keep it. No, you can't. Not under this bill.

Mr. Speaker, for the first time ever, ObamaCare forces Americans to acquire an approved health care plan or pay a stiff penalty, like they have somehow committed a crime. The penalty is huge: the greater of $750 per person up to $2,250 per family, or 2 percent of household income. No person in America should be coerced into buying medical insurance.

Under ObamaCare, premiums for nongroup family insurance will increase by as much as $2,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2016, premiums will increase by 10 to 30 percent over what would have happened under current law.

ObamaCare would also create 160 boards, commissions, and programs which would vest sweeping powers on bureaucrats to determine what benefits are covered and not, and at what cost.

Last September, Mr. Speaker, President Obama stood a mere 20 feet away from where I am standing now and told a joint session of Congress that, ``no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and Federal conscience laws will remain in place.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask members to vote ``no'' on this bill when it comes to the floor.

This legislation today constitutes the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade itself, and makes a mockery of that pledge. That means more dead babies and wounded mothers.

Additionally, Obamacare fails to institute real medical liability reforms to end junk lawsuits and curb the costs of defensive medicine-- these have long been identified as significant forces in driving up health costs.

The goal of responsible health care reform should be to provide credible health insurance coverage for everyone, strengthening the health care safety net so that no one is left out, and incentivizing quality and innovation, as well as healthy behaviors and prevention. This means that the current private health insurance market will have to be reformed to put patients first, and to eliminate denials of pre- existing conditions and lifetime caps and promoting portability between jobs and geographic areas, including across state lines. The tax code should be modernized to promote affordability and individual control, provide assistance to low-income and middle-class families. Medicare requires reform to be more efficient and responsive, with sustainable payment rates.

Of course, responsible health care reform will respect basic principles of justice: it will put patients and their doctors in charge of medical decisions not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It will also ensure that the lives and health of all persons are respected regardless of stage of development, age or disability.

It's time to go back to the drawling board and address what's broken and fix it.

The American public deserve better than what's on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 605, defending the human rights of Falun Gong practitioners, savagely persecuted by the Chinese government, and thank my good friend Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for introducing this resolution.

On the tenth anniversary of the Falun Gong's inspiring silent protest at Zhongnanhai many people still do not understand the savagery of the Mao-style campaign which the Communist Party unleashed in 1999.

The story of a typical Falun Gong arrest is horrific: first the government beats them, later it tortures them, molesting and sometimes raping women, sends them to forced labor camps and then brainwashing classes, all the while a high-profile publicity campaign defames and humiliates them. And it has been documented that it has killed at least 3,000 of the Falun Gong.

Members of Falun Gong will not pretend to accept Marxism-Leninism, and so the government brands them an ``evil cult.'' They practice non- violence, and the government assaults them with cattle prods. Their hearts are remarkably serene, and so the government engages in psychiatric torture.

The Falun Gong are one of a wide array of religious faiths and spiritual groups in China, yet members of Falun Gong are the majority of all reported cases of torture and half of China's labor camp population--well over one hundred thousand of them.

Many of the Falun Gong have fled to America, and the government has followed them here, cyber-attacking their American Web sites, installing agents in their midst, and raising crowds to harass and beat them, as happened last year in New York.

Mr. Speaker, one of the invaluable things about this resolution is that it officially documents this Chinese-government sponsored violence on American soil, exercised against American citizens.

We need to learn more about whether our government is doing everything it can to protect the Falun Gong here in America.

I was in China last July, trying to visit human rights activists in the run-up to the Olympics. I remember going into an Internet cafe and trying to look up Falun Gong. You know the story: nothing. Search engines had been doctored. I wonder, if I were not a U.S. Congressman, would that search have gotten me identified, tracked, and tortured? After all, even foreign journalists who ask about Falun Gong have been arrested, and some have been beaten.

And would U.S. companies have been involved in identifying me? Sadly, we know it for a well-documented fact, from a six-hour hearing I held in 2006, that some leading U.S. IT companies are involved in censoring the Chinese Internet and turn over personally identifying information to the Chinese Internet police, making it possible to track and imprison dissidents.

I mention this because many members of Falun Gong are great heroes of Internet freedom. Several members have come to my office and demonstrated how they help millions of Chinese men and women break the so-called ``Great Firewall of China'' with which the Chinese government tries to cut its citizens off from the global Internet.

Mr. Speaker, Falun Gong practitioners have been great witnesses of courage and peace. Again I thank Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for introducing this resolution.

I want to thank my good friend and colleague Mr. Pitts for his leadership, and for that of all of those who have spoken. Doc, thank you for your eloquent words. Mr. Fortenberry, Mr. Cao and Jean Schmidt.

I do want to welcome His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church of America, here, and his brother bishops. They are most welcome, and I thank them for their incredible stance in favor of the sanctity and sacredness of all human life, from womb to tomb, and that we all need to act as our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

Matthew 25, where our Lord said, Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do likewise to me. His Beatitude Jonah lives that, as does his church and as do, God willing, all of us. But they do it in such a superlative way, and I thank them for their example. It is awe inspiring.

Mr. Speaker, I have been in the pro-life movement for 38 years, in the greatest human rights struggle on Earth, the right-to-life movement. What I still don't get is this: How can so many seemingly smart, sane, compassionate, and accomplished people, especially in politics, support, promote and--if President Obama has his way in the pending health care legislation--lavishly fund with public dollars the violent death of unborn children and the wounding of their moms by abortion?

Is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence against children, a pernicious form of child abuse, falsely and aggressively marketed as choice, a human right or as health care? How long will we permit the pro-choice cover-up and the bogus safety claims to misinform, especially in light of the reams of evidence documenting serious injury to women who abort?

Abortion, safe? What unmitigated nonsense.

Women have been profoundly ill-served by the all-too-familiar pattern of denial and deception so skillfully employed by the abortion industry. Women deserve better. They, at the very least, deserve the truth.

Mr. Speaker, years ago a friend of mine, Dr. Jean Garton, wrote a book which included how her young child unexpectedly walked in the room as she was preparing a lecture on abortion. Her 3-year-old child took one look at the badly bruised and battered body of the aborted baby on the screen and shouted: Mommy, who broke the baby?

That young child saw the brutality of abortion with unclouded comprehension. That child was unencumbered and unaffected by the deceptively clever and preposterously misleading propaganda dished out by the multi-billion-dollar pro-choice industry. That child saw, and knew immediately, that babies are smashed and broken to bits by abortion. And with alarm, that 3-year-old boy wanted to know who did it.

Last fall, like that young child, Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director in Texas, with 8 years at that facility, watched an ultrasound image of an abortion in progress on a 3-month-old unborn child. Like the victimized baby on the ultrasound monitor being dismembered right before her eyes, Ms. Johnson was crushed by what she saw. Self-described as ``extremely pro-choice,'' but now pro-life, she said she watched an unborn child crumple before her very eyes as the infant was dismembered and vacuumed to death by a hideous suction device 20-30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. She said: I could see the baby try to move away. In a startling moment of truth and clarity, she said, I just thought, What am I doing? Never again. And she walked out the door of that abortion mill.

I will never forget, my wife, Marie, and I, right outside the Supreme Court, met a group of women called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. These women were telling their stories, very, very powerful stories about how they had been hurt emotionally and physically by abortion.

One woman told the story how as she was actually on the gurney, in the process of getting an abortion, and the doctor, the abortionist said: It is trying to get away. Being only partially sedated, she heard all of that. She shot up quick and she said: Get me out of here. And they said: It is too late; the abortion has already started. But the child instinctively was trying to get away.

We also know from people like Dr. Alveda King, one of the founders and leaders of a group called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a courageous woman, who has had two abortions. Dr. King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King and she now says, How can my uncle's dream survive if we murder the children? Dr. Martin Luther King talked about inclusion, the politics of inclusion, not disenfranchising someone by reason of their age or condition of dependency or race or by reason of their sex. She now heads up a group that reaches out to women who have had abortions and have suffered and offers the path through faith, through God, and through friendship to come to a sense of reconciliation and restoration as a result of the trauma of abortion.

As Abby Johnson, the abortion clinic director at Planned Parenthood, said as she walked out, ``never again,'' but never again comes too late for the approximately 52 million babies who have been slaughtered in Planned Parenthood clinics and abortion mills throughout America since the infamous holding of the United States Supreme Court in 1973; 52 million babies lost. It is staggering, stunning, and beyond tragic.

But it doesn't have to come too late for the millions of other children who face extermination today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, if we awake from our slumber, from our indifference, from our callous attitude and start to truly combat the cruelty and injustice of abortion.

The longer I am in the pro-life movement, just like the example of Dr. Alveda King, who is like so many other silent-no-more women, speaking out and doing so courageously, there is even more to the pro- choice cover-up than just dead kids.

Abortion hurts women, physically, psychologically, and the data strongly suggests that it even mal-affects children subsequently born to women who abort. Last year the Times of London reported: ``Senior obstetricians and

psychiatrists say new evidence has uncovered a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no previous history of psychological problems.'' They found that women who have had abortions have twice the level, twice the level, of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who have given birth or who have never been pregnant.

In 2006, a comprehensive New Zealand study found that 78.6 percent, almost 79 percent, of the 15- to 18-year-olds who had abortions displayed symptoms of major depression compared to 31 percent of their peers. And it also found that 27 percent of the 21- to 25-year-old women who had abortions had suicidal ideations compared to 8 percent of those who did not have an abortion.

I say to my colleagues: there are at least 102 studies that comport with those findings of psychological harm to women who abort.

Serious questions also remain concerning the link of abortion to breast cancer. Despite the fact that more than 28 studies from around the world, including the United States, have shown that procuring an abortion significantly increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30 to 40 percent, the abortion industry cover-up has largely succeeded in the unconscionable suppression of those facts.

Nevertheless, according to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 2009 was a pivotal year in the debate about the abortion-breast cancer link. Three studies were published from Turkey, China and the United States which matter of factly demonstrate the abortion-breast cancer link as one of many breast cancer factors.

For example, the recent U.S. study by Jessice Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrated that an abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40 percent. Why isn't that emblazoned across the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post? Forty percent. Study co-authors included Janet Daling and Louise Brinton. Amazingly, Brinton was a chief organizer of a 2003 National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop denying the link. Now a study that she co-authored reiterates the link and reports it as consistent with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor for breast cancer.

And now even Time magazine, among many others, has finally reported on another suppressed fact, suppressed by the pro-abortion industry, that abortion adversely affects the health of subsequent children born to women who abort.

A total of 113 studies demonstrated an association between abortion and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies. Studies have indicated that the risk of preterm birth goes up 36 percent after just one abortion, and a staggering 93 percent after two or more abortions. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 36 percent after one and 72 percent after two or more abortions. Prematurity and low birth weight, as we all know, are leading causes of disabilities in children. Abortion not only affects the child who is aborted; it affects in a very negative way children born, brothers and sisters born to that same mother in subsequent pregnancies.

All of this begs a very serious question, Mr. Speaker: Why then is the Obama administration expanding this vicious assault on women and children often by massively subsidizing pro-abortion nongovernmental organizations around the world and in the United States to do the dirty work, to do that in the U.S., Africa, Latin America, everywhere?

You know, I said at the opening, How could so many seemingly sane, smart, compassionate politicians buy into the big lie? Well, maybe some politicians aren't so smart or compassionate after all.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to a stalwart in the pro-life movement, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

If I could with my friend and colleague, and I thank him for his eloquent statement, you mentioned the statements made by Justice Ginsburg. Not only did you not take them out of context, because they were very troubling to me and I think many people--who are ``those people''?--but it also follows a line of thought that predates her.

Margaret Sanger, as you know, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenist. In the twenties and the thirties she wrote extensively against minority populations, against Africans, against Catholics, against people who didn't look just like her. And I have read her books. One of her books is known as The Pivot of Civilization. And in that book, chapter five is called The Cruelty of Charity. The Cruelty of Charity. And she makes a case that is pathetic and sickening that somehow we ought to not provide maternal health care to indigent women, to poor women who happen to be of color or of some other minority status that she deems to be unacceptable. The Cruelty of Charity.

That organization, Planned Parenthood, kills 305,000 unborn babies in their clinics every year. And I would hope my colleagues, and I really believe it is time to take a second look at Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse, Incorporated. They like to say that the abortion part is only 3 percent of what they do. Of course killing a baby versus handing out a condom hardly are equivalent in terms of actions. And they count just about everything else to get that number low. Three hundred five thousand abortions.

Some people have gone undercover and discovered, to their shock and-- maybe not shock, but certainly to their dismay--that there is a racist attitude in those clinics where these undercover individuals have gone. And it is very disturbing. But it is all reminiscent of its founder, who had such a jaundiced and prejudicial view towards minorities. And that was Margaret Sanger.

I would also add that our distinguished Secretary of State got the Margaret Sanger Award last year. I did a floor speech on this and said how can it be that the Secretary of State of the United States of America is in awe of a eugenicist? Because in her speech, and I read it on the State Department Web site, she went on and on about how the work of Margaret Sanger remains undone. Margaret Sanger was a self- proclaimed eugenicist, who felt that certain individuals, and that would include the disabled, their lives are not worth living or protecting. They are throwaway human beings. And I have asked the Secretary of State to give that award back.

I yield to my friend from Ohio.

Thank you very much.

And these really are growing numbers of people. The polls certainly reflect it. By over a two-thirds margin the American public have said, in virtually every poll, they don't want abortion in health care, in ObamaCare. They absolutely do not want it in there. It is one of the reasons why ObamaCare is on such thin ice, if you will.

I would want to say to my colleagues something else. There is a reappraisal going on in America. I remember when I got elected in 1980, I would go out to the high schools and schools throughout my district, and whenever the issue of abortion came up, it was very hot and it was very often very antagonistic to my pro-life position. I began to see changes in that in the nineties and after the year 2000. There has been a dramatic shift among our young people in favor of life.

Every one of the young people that you and I, Jean, and others might see in our schools, one out of every three of those children had been killed by abortions. One out of every three. Next time you are in a classroom count desks, one, two, missing child killed by abortion. And for every child that is killed by abortion there is a wounded mother in great need of reconciliation and embrace and love.

And that is the part of the pro-life movement that I have always found so absolutely appealing. It is a nonjudgmental movement. It loves even the abortionists who are killing the children so maliciously each and every day. We have embraced so many former abortionists, former clinic workers, like Abby Johnson, who left Planned Parenthood last year, walking out the door when she finally saw an abortion on a screen. She watched it and said, ``Never again. I can't be a part of this any more.''

Probably the biggest change of heart in the entire pro-life, of the last 40 years, was a man by the name of Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Dr. Nathanson founded NARAL. He, Betty Friedan, and Lawrence Lader founded NARAL, one of the biggest pro-abortion groups. We all hear them in our mail and as they lobby Capitol Hill. He founded it. He was a primary abortionist in New York City, ran the largest abortion clinic in all of New York City. In the 1970s, he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I have presided over 60,000 deaths.'' He quit and then he became a pro-life leader. I have met him many times. He is smart, he is articulate, but he was so terribly misguided, somehow believing he was doing right when he was doing so egregiously wrong.

You know what helped bring him to the pro-life side? He began doing microsurgeries. He began working at St. Luke's Hospital in New York. In one room they would be doing everything humanly possible, taking heroic methods and actions to mitigate disease and disability in unborn children, including blood transfusions. And in the other room they were putting in high concentrated salt solutions and other chemicals, poisons, or dismembering the child piece by piece. And he said it is schizophrenic. That child is either a patient, a human being, or he or she is not. And he came down on the side of life.

Add to that the enormous deleterious damage being done to women, which I said earlier in my comments has been documented over and over. Mental health consequences, consequences to subsequent children that are profound and lifelong. The problem of breast cancer. And believe me, the abortion lobby will continue to say it is not true. They will pull out some two or three studies that suggest that it is not true against the huge evidence that

suggests otherwise. And if you want to believe that, then believe what the Tobacco Institute used to say in the sixties and seventies, that there was no linkage of tobacco to lung cancer. They got away with that for decades. The abortion lobby and the industry that makes billions of dollars is getting away with that right now. And we wonder why the sad fact that some of those women who are now marching, some of the survivors, thank God of breast cancer, thank God, but some of those have been precipitated and caused by that abortion. And again, that is 28 studies and counting that have clearly posited that as a very significant negative outcome.

But Dr. Nathanson, he should be the model for politicians. If he can get it, if he who was right there, the one who said, who came up with the idea that women were dying from illegal abortions in America at the rate of 5,000 to 10,000 per year. And you know what he told us in his book when he wrote it? He said, ``I made it up.'' Dr. Nathanson made up that figure, and was shocked and surprised how easily and how gullible the media was and politicians to just take that bogus number and regurgitate it over and over again as if it had a foundation in fact.

The real number, according to the Center for Disease Control, in 1972, prior to the legalization of abortion on demand, was under 40 women. Forty too many. But women are dying today from legal abortions. And let's not forget that. Maternal mortality, we want to cut that and help women with difficult and crisis pregnancies here and around the world. But you do it with essential obstetrical services, you do it with good birthing practices, especially in the developing world, where maternal mortality is a problem. You don't do it by killing babies and wounding their mothers.

I would like to yield to my friend, Mrs. Schmidt, for any final comments.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 1008, which recognizes and honors the dedication and academic excellence of Catholic schools in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. Catholic schools provide each and every student with a quality education and life skills training through the commitment, professionalism, and faith of their teachers and administrators. I would like to thank Mr. Lipinski for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the Floor and I ask my colleagues to join me supporting its passage.

The impact of Catholic education in the United States is tremendous, as over 2 million elementary and secondary students, including more than 100,000 students in my home state of New Jersey, continue to receive a values-added education with an emphasis on academic excellence, advancement beyond high school, fundamental morals and community reinvestment. The graduation rate for Catholic school students is outstanding at 99 percent with 97 percent of these graduates choosing to continue their education through college studies.

The week of January 31, 2010 to February 6, 2010, marks the annual national celebration of Catholic Schools Week. An event which began in 1974, this year's theme of ``Catholic Schools--Dividends for Life: Faith, Knowledge, Discipline, Morals,'' exemplifies the broad spectrum of Catholic education. Students are taught to strive for scholastic excellence, the importance of an integrated focus on the transcendent importance of God, the skills of personal and academic discipline, and to recognize and defend moral imperatives.

Catholic schools, Mr. Speaker, are an integral part of our nation's commitment to education and serve a cross-section of American students. Catholic schools have a rich history of welcoming, serving and educating new immigrants. With close to 30 percent of Catholic school enrollment from minority backgrounds and approximately 15 percent from non-Catholics; it is evident that this extraordinary institution meets the needs of a highly diverse group of young people.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a few words which sum up the unique and extraordinary vision of Catholic education from a 1972 pastoral message by the National Conference on Catholic Bishops: ``Education is one of the most important ways by which the Church fulfills its'' commitment to the dignity of the person and building of community. Community is central to education ministry, both as a necessary condition and an ardently desired goal. The educational efforts of the Church, therefore, must be directed to forming persons- in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important not only to his solitary destiny, but also the destinies of the many communities in which he lives.''

Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important element of faith-based education which serves alongside America's public and private schools to strengthen and reinforce our education system.