Child Custody Protection Act--Continued

CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT--Continued -- (Senate - July 25, 2006)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. DURBIN. The bill creates a civil cause of action the parents can bring. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania believe that in one of those rare, tragic cases of incest and the father is the reason for the incest, he should be allowed to bring a civil cause of action against the person who has transported the victim?

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Nevada has an amendment which is going to take care of that situation. I will defer to him, if he would like to answer that question on how the amendment would work to preclude that problem.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Pennsylvania has expired.

The Senator from Nevada is recognized.

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

I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Kansas.

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

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

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

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

I have tried to put myself in a situation that I would want my Senator representing me. I try to say, okay, I am an average person, how would I want my Senator representing me? I happen to be the father of a little girl. We have three kids. Our middle child is a little girl. She happens to be with me this weekend in Washington. In the coming years, as she matures as a young woman, I think about if some 20-year-old preyed on her when she was in her teenage years and got her pregnant and then somehow, because we had a parental consent law, which I hope we do someday in Nevada, and the 20-year old said: I won't date you anymore unless you get a secret abortion.

He thinks: I will convince her somehow, manipulate a very vulnerable young woman. I will convince her that I won't see her anymore if she doesn't get the abortion--or whatever means needed to persuade her to get an abortion. If there is a parental consent law in my State, I will decide to go someplace else where they don't require it. In other words, he gets around the will of the people of the State of Nevada or any state that requires parental involvement.

In a case such as that, I would be totally devastated as a parent because I would not be able to help my daughter through this time because I would not even know about it. I would not know if she had a complication from the surgical procedure of abortion. I would not know--if she had a complication in the middle of the night and she started bleeding--that I should be watching for something that could be going wrong. If she had a fever, I would probably say: Honey, we will get you some Advil or Tylenol. And maybe I would hold her for a little while. And she would be afraid to tell me what was going on and, without me knowing, that could develop into very serious complications overnight. Complications that could even be life threatening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think this is a bill Americans can come together on and find common ground. I have mentioned before there are good people on both sides of the abortion debate with deeply held beliefs. I believe life begins at conception and that child is a child

and has a soul from the time they are conceived. That is why I believe that same child deserves protection throughout their life. I also know that people look at it differently on the other side, and they too have deeply held beliefs.

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

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

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

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

I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

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