Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to call to the attention of the House of Representatives the following article written by Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach. Rabbi Zoberman's editorial appeared in the Suffolk News-Herald on March 18th.

Divinity, Diversity, Dignity Bound Together

This is a time of decision beclouded by political

partisanship and posturing at home and in the United Nations.

Going to war for a democracy is not an easy undertaking as it

would be for a dictatorship. The value of human life weighs

heavily upon decision-makers in a nation such as ours whose

guiding concern is the individual's welfare. That is contrary

to a totalitarian regime where the individual is not an end

in itself but a means to goals serving the interests of an

autocratic ruler. There is thus a vast difference between the

conduct of George W. Bush and that of Saddam Hussein, both

representing diametrically opposing systems of government.

America is on the verge of confronting Iraq primarily for

the sake of eliminating a growing danger to the world by a

leader who proved that he would not hesitate to use mass

destruction weapons even against his own people. Hussein has

not given up his dream of gaining hegemony over a region rich

in oil to be used for his own megalomaniac purposes as he

seeks to establish a nuclear option. He has only become

emboldened to get his way by his past defeat in the 1991 Gulf

War and consequent limitations posed on Iraq by the United

Nations. A wounded and humiliated lion is more dangerous than

an uninjured one. History taught us that dictators do not

willingly relinquish power.

No doubt, the evil of 9/11 created a greater urgency to

respond to forces undermining the world's stability,

propelled by the global terrorism of uncompromising militant

Islam assailing the West and its values. It begrudges our

superior standing and their own longstanding inadequacies.

Its aim is tragically not dialogue but a deadly duel they are

bound to lose. Al-Qaida, now on the run following their

defeat in Afghanistan, was too successful for its own good.

It will be relentlessly pursued. Imagine if Osama Bin Ladin

invested his large finances in promoting cultural exchange

between civilizations! Hussein contributes to terrorism in a

variety of ways, including generous monetary rewards to

Palestinian families of suicide-homicide bombers who have

terrorized Israel, the West's frontier, for over two years,

wrecking havoc that no nation would have tolerated so long.

The last terrifying terror act in Haifa was in the

neighborhood where I grew up and it was Bus #37 and the stop,

which I used only a month ago. My sister, a ``Reali'' school

counselor, lost two young teenage students among the fifteen

dead.

Another hopeful democracy in the making in the Middle East,

the first Arab one, alongside Israel's inspiring example,

would bode well for an essential transformation of a critical

part of the world once blessing humanity with the vision of

the sacredness of each human life and now breeding those who

violate it in God's name. America standing up for itself

would have a sobering effect on those who believe that it has

grown too weak to be the world's leader. That is a dangerous

scenario we cannot afford.

Power to defend what we rightfully cherish, touching upon

our very security and basic way of life, is not to be

snickered at. As son of Polish Holocaust survivors I know

what the absence of power meant to the Jewish people in our

darkest period. Let us take pride in our hard-earned power

and in Hampton Roads' leading role in our nation's military

mission for freedom's sake, pledging to support all our

heroic servicemen and women as well as their families

awaiting their safe return. Eleven members of my own over 300

family unit synagogue are in the Persian Gulf arena. At this

trying juncture for humanity, America is called upon once

more to assert that divinity, diversity and dignity are bound

together.

Mr. Speaker, I comment Rabbi Zoberman for his timely and thoughtful statement. As we appear on the verge of war with Iraq, Rabbi Zoberman's words serve as a strong reminder of the differences between the United States and the evil Iraqi regime.

Mr. Speaker, I first would like to thank the distinguished chairman for his hard work on bringing this bill forward.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a number of things today, including from my good friend from North Carolina who mentioned that he had failed to see a situation where a malpractice case crossed State lines. Yet the case law in his own State contains many cases just like that.

As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court in North Carolina has actually ruled that if a patient leaves North Carolina, where they have no cap, travels to Virginia and are treated by a doctor there who thinks he has the protection of a malpractice cap, they can actually be sued in North Carolina, and the Supreme Court there said no cap applies.

Mr. Speaker, I have worked on this crisis, which I believe is indeed a crisis in health care and access to health care, for over a decade now, and every single time this issue is debated I see the opponents of this type of legislation coming in and they try to paint these faces.

On the one hand, they will show a victim of the most egregious scenario, and certainly those victims do exist. On the other side, they will show a portrait, mental, if no other way, of a doctor who is the most egregious kind of doctor.

Mr. Speaker, that is not the true face of this legislation, not the true face of this problem. Let me give you three of those faces.

One is the young internist who tries to save the life of a patient who can no longer breathe, and is actually getting on a helicopter and traveling to a hospital with that patient. At the end, even though they have committed no malpractice, they end up in litigation for almost 4 years. At the end of the process, the doctor looks at you and says, I did nothing wrong, but for 4 years I had a cloud of litigation over me, worried about whether I was going to lose my home and everything I had.

It has the face of the emergency room physician who has been working for 8 hours, and all of a sudden responds to a code outside of the department with a dying patient that he cannot pull one more miracle out of the hat on, and that patient dies. He is brought into that litigation just as a shotgun approach, and, after 3\1/2\ years, even though he has no award against him, his malpractice premium has gone up 70 percent.

Mr. Speaker, it also has the face of a family practitioner, an African American practitioner who I met with just a few months ago, who 2 years ago his premium was $30,000. Last year it went up to $100,000. This past year it went up to $230,000. Mr. Speaker, he closed his doors. The difficulty is not that he is no longer in that office; the difficulty is when all of the patients he serves knock on that door, he is not there to open it again.

Mr. Speaker, the difficulty with not passing this bill is the fact that all of those patients would no longer have access to health care. That is why it is important we get it passed.

Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank the chairman for yielding me time and for his hard work on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, as a cosponsor of the bill before us, I am pleased to see the House quickly acting on this important bill. Today we are taking an important step in affirming the uniqueness and dignity of every human being.

Human cloning represents the first footstep into a dark wilderness from which we may never emerge. University of Chicago Professor Leon Kass, who is also the chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, has written that human cloning would be a fateful step toward ``making man himself simply another one of the man-made things. Human nature becomes merely the last part of nature to succumb to the technological project which turns all of nature into raw material at human disposal.''

The last century and a half is blood-soaked with examples of what happens when men are subjugated to the will of other men. In our vain quest for immortality, will we simply regard cloned babies as meaningless blobs of cells and tissue mass that we can dispose of without any burden to our conscience?

For those who say we should create embryos for medical research, my own father suffers from Parkinson's disease. While I recognize the agony of so many Americans with devastating illnesses and injuries, we must search for ways to ease their suffering without destroying human life. We must promote methods of scientific research that increase our quality of life without forsaking the value of human life in its most vulnerable form.

Cloning diminishes human reproduction from a loving act between two parents to a cold exercise of producing parentless children. Life is a gift. It is not ours to manufacture to our predetermined criteria. I shudder to think of the consequences of turning the creation into the creator.

If we allow human cloning to proceed as a mainstream scientific endeavor, we may soon find out what C.S. Lewis meant when he observed, ``Man's conquest of nature would result in the abolition of man.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the outstanding career of Colonel Edward S. Jones who is currently the Comptroller for the Defense Commissary Agency at Fort Lee, Virginia. Colonel Jones will retire after 29 years of distinguished service in the U.S. Air Force and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his selfless service to both the Air Force and to the United States of America.

Commissioned in 1974 as a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, Colonel Jones has served in comptroller positions at all levels of the Air Force: wing, major command, headquarters, unified command, and finally, defense agency.

Colonel Jones' list of prior assignments includes: Director of Financial Management, Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Ga.; Deputy Director of the Operations Center and Deputy Director of Resource Management, Headquarters, Defense Commissary Agency, Fort Lee; and Chief, Integration and Accounting Branch, Comptroller Division, Directorate of Acquisition and Resources, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., and Executive Secretary to the Air Force Commissary Service Board of Directors, the Pentagon, Washington, DC.

A graduate of the Valdosta State University, Ga. holding a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, Colonel Jones also holds a Masters of Business Administration from Golden Gate University, San Francisco. His military education includes the Air War College, Armed Forces Staff College, Professional Military Comptrollers School, Air Command and Staff College, and Squadron Officer's School.

Colonel Jones' awards and decorations include: the Defense Meritorious Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Air Force Meritorious Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Air Force Achievement Medal, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Air Force Organizational Excellence Award with two oak leaf clusters, American Defense Service Medal, Air Force Overseas Ribbons, and the Air Force Longevity Service Award with five oak leaf clusters.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that you join me, our colleagues, and Colonel Jones' many friends and family in saluting this distinguished officer's lifetime of service. Colonel Jones is the very embodiment of patriotism and it is fitting that the House of Representatives honors him on this day.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize four outstanding individuals who helped me resolve a matter involving one of the youngest constituents of the Fourth District of Virginia.

Jacquelyn Dominguez is the one year old daughter of a servicemember stationed at Ft. Lee. Jacquelyn was born with Cystic Hygroma on the right side of her neck. At the time of her birth, the cyst was diagnosed as ``free floating.'' Last September 2002, the Army flew the family to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, for Jacquelyn to be seen by a specialist. The specialist did several MRIs and determined that the cyst was growing inward on Jacquelyn's neck, cutting off her breathing. The best option for treatment on this tender child would be an experimental drug, Picibanil Sclerotherapy, also known as OK 432.

It is not standard procedure for medical health providers to provide for experimental procedures. It is certainly not standard for them to read, and reread, and reread the rules again until they can find an exception. These four individuals, who neither I nor my staff had ever met before the plight of this little girl, took on my cause and made a difference.

They helped me save this little girl's life. For that I, and Jacquelyn's active duty family will always be grateful. It is at this time that I would like to recognize Ms. Mary Dix, Vice President of the Uniformed Services University of Health Science (USUHS), Colonel Charles C. Partridge, the Legislative Counsel for the National Association for Uniformed Services (NAUS), Dr. Stephen K. Scroggs, Ph.D., the Vice President of Government Affairs at Sierra Military Health Services, and the most valuable player of this team, Ms. Christine Van Cleave, of TRICARE Management Activity--Aurora, Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that you join me, our colleagues, and Jacquelyn Dominguez' family in saluting these four outstanding Americans. Their willingness to help young Jacquelyn is the very embodiment of our country's spirit, and it is fitting that the House of Representatives honors them on this day.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor a woman who leads her community in advocating reading and education, and has spent thirty years building an exemplary library system in her community.

Since 1973, Margaret ``Peggy'' Stillman of Chesapeake, Virginia, has worked to improve the quality of life for the citizens of Hampton Roads as a librarian at the Chesapeake Public Library. Ms. Stillman's dedication to enhancing her community's joy of reading and access to information and resources is outstanding.

In addition to her service to the library, Ms. Stillman chairs the Library of Virginia Board, and serves as the Chairman of the Library of Virginia Building Committee. Ms. Stillman has also dedicated time and service on the local boards of the American Cancer Society, American Red Cross, and Chesapeake Chamber of Commerce.

Amidst all of her obligations, Ms. Stilhnan is known for her love of and commitment to her wonderful children, Lindsay and Walker.

Her loyalty and willingness to do all she can to help everyone is unfailing. No one deserves the distinguished honor of being named Woman of the Year for the Women's Division of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce-Chesapeake more than Peggy Stillman.

Mr. Speaker, please join me in honoring Margaret ``Peggy'' Stillman, for her commitment to literacy, service, and compassion for her community.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor a friend and advocate of the museum arts. Wilson Greene of Petersburg, Virginia, will be sworn in tonight to serve as a member of the National Museum Service Board. Mr. Greene will serve as one of fifteen members of this advisory board of the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. As a member of the National Museum Service Board, Mr. Greene will work to ensure high quality museum programs and services to the public.

Mr. Greene has been the executive director of the Pamplin Historical Park in Petersburg, Virginia since 1992. Previously, Mr. Greene served as President and CEO of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War sites, for which he serves on the National Advisory Board. Mr. Greene has also worked for the National Park Service, serving at several significant historical sites.

Wilson Greene's devotion to academia is apparent as well. Mr. Greene has been a faculty member at several institutions of higher learning including: Mary Washington College, Germanna Community College, and St. Bernard Community College. Mr. Green is also the author of more than twenty-five publications dealing with Civil War and Southern History.

Based on his years of public service with the National Park service, commitment to education, and overall enthusiasm for the study of

history, I am confident Wilson Greene will serve as a valuable member to the National Museum Service Board.

The Commonwealth of Virginia deeply appreciates Mr. Greene's service and his passionate interest in helping Virginians and all Americans to better understand the very important story of our nation's past.

Mr. Speaker, please join me in honoring Wilson Greene, for his recent appointment to serve as a member of the National Museum Service Board.