Tax Convention with Chile

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. It is becoming all-encompassing, infecting conversations that we have in the Senate on everything from the military to the Department of Veterans Affairs to phantom State laws that don't even exist.

Judges have to bow their policy objectives if they want to be appointed in this administration. Or those who are already on the bench, if they don't bow their policy objectives, if they don't bow to the abortion-centric, abortion-obsessed culture on the left, then all of a sudden, they are going to face these baseless attacks to their credibility and even threats of violence.

This bill, properly understood, really should be called the ``Freedom to Traffic Act.'' You see, to my knowledge, no State--not a single State--has enacted a law restricting an adult's right to travel across State lines for purposes of an abortion or otherwise. I am not even aware of a single State considering such a thing.

And if a State were to even consider it, they wouldn't do it. And if they did do it, social law would undoubtedly be struck down as unconstitutional on one of at least several grounds, including the fact that the commerce clause, article I, section 8, clause 3 of Constitution has interpreted by the Supreme Court--among other things-- to prohibit any State from treating an article of commerce--including a good, a person, a thing--in interstate commerce differently based on its origin or designation, out of State or outside the United States.

States can't cabin their own residents or anyone inside their own State boundaries. That is well-understood. So they don't have that authority. But more importantly, we are dealing with a phantom problem, a phantom law that does not exist. There is not a single State law out there that restricts an adult's right to travel out of State for an abortion or otherwise.

What some States do have, and perhaps that is what is causing the confusion here, are some laws to stop the trafficking of children across State lines to obtain an abortion without notifying their parents.

This is well-established. We have laws on the books prohibiting the trafficking of minors across State lines with good reason. This is very different than what was implied as a reason why we need to pass this bill here today. It just isn't true. Those laws don't exist. They are not on the books. They are not even being considered to be placed on the books.

These laws are aimed to stop the sexual abuse of children by prohibiting their adult abusers and those in the abortion industry to help facilitate that abuse by transporting them across State lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion and thus hiding the fact that they got an abortion from their parents.

There are good reasons for these laws. In 2004, for example, the 14- year-old daughter of Marcia Carroll was taken by her boyfriend's family from their home in Pennsylvania, where they lived, to New Jersey--New Jersey, where parental consent for an abortion was not required at the time. There, once in New Jersey, they threatened to leave her in New Jersey unless she got an abortion, which she did, under duress, under coercion, afraid. The grief and devastation crushed this 14-year-old girl and her family, who had agreed to keep the baby.

This so-called Freedom to Traffic Act would hamper the ability of States to punish such criminal and cowardly actions. I don't think there is anyone here who can defend that--trafficking a child across State lines for purposes of obtaining an abortion.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident--far from it. We know from undercover videos, testimony from other courageous victims and reports from former employees that Planned Parenthood actively works to hide these child sexual abuse instances--covering up for adult abusers by providing their child victims with abortions and failing to report abuse.

This, again, is another thing that happens. Not only do we distort the facts, not only do we distort the status quo of the law in this country, but we also distort key facts when people become obsessed with abortion, and they see abortion as if it were, somehow, an unmitigated good.

This bill was just barely introduced in the Senate--I believe as recently as yesterday. This bill has not been through any committee. It has not been marked up in the committee of jurisdiction--the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve. But Democrats think we should just pass it anyway. I guess maybe they are channeling the now infamous words of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she said ``We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.''

This isn't how we legislate, and we certainly shouldn't be legislating when we haven't reviewed the bill, it hasn't been through committee, we don't know what it says, and the bill's proponents are badly mischaracterizing what it does and why we need it.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is important to point out that this legislation makes no distinction between those covered by it, whether they are children or adults, and that is my whole point, is that one of the problems with this is that it would block the effectiveness of State statutes that are there to protect children against interstate trafficking for the purpose of getting them abortions in another State without the knowledge or consent of their parents. That is an issue.

Yes--and I do maintain--I am not aware of a single State law that prohibits a woman from traveling out of State, an adult woman from traveling out of State. If such a law exists, I am not aware of it, and if it exists despite my nonawareness of it, it is unenforceable. It would be deemed invalid instantaneously. You can't do that.

But what this would do, since it makes no distinction between children and adults, is it would halt the operation of these States' State laws designed to protect children from interstate trafficking for the purpose of obtaining an abortion, which is very often necessary in order to conceal child sex perpetrators and child traffickers and what they are doing.

Now, my colleague and friend from Nevada, the distinguished Senator from Nevada, referred to this--kept characterizing the ``far right.'' Now, to my knowledge, nearly every Republican in this Chamber is pro- life. There are a few variations along the way, but nearly all of us are pro-life. To call all of us far right is excessive, and it is unfair. It is unfair especially because there is a mischaracterization also of why we believe what we believe. At least I can tell you what I believe about this.

She refers to States' rights. I never call it that. Why? Well, because States don't have rights; States have authority. Authority is sort of the inverse polar opposite of a right. A right is something that you have that protects you from actions by the State, by the government, protects you from the authority of the collective, coercive force that is government. So they aren't States' rights; this is State authority. And that is really how we arrived here. That is really where we have been for the last half-century.

While people are, on the left, bemoaning the depravation of a right, I challenge each of them to tell me where in the Constitution it talks about abortion. Of course, the word ``abortion'' doesn't appear in the Constitution, but what part of the Constitution actually confers that right? That is the problem we are getting at here, and that is what I would like to address here for a moment.

You see, because in Washington, it sometimes starts to feel like we are up against an immovable object and where progress is measured in inches and then victories are sparse and hard-fought, and occasionally the tides turn and something significant happens and there is a seismic shift.

One year ago, we experienced such a seismic shift when the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. But to fully appreciate the significance of that historic moment and that decision, we must first understand the journey that got us to this point in the first place. So let's rewind the clock 50 years, all the way back to 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Roe v. Wade, a decision that--to say that it legalized abortion doesn't really capture the image. It centralized power in Washington, DC, over abortion policy decisions, and then it kept that power not in the legislative branch of the Federal Government based in Washington, DC, but across the street at the Supreme Court in nine lawyers wearing black robes who have been sworn in as Justices, by removing the American people's ability to make decisions through their duly-elected lawmakers regarding abortion. It was a moment that completely reshaped the American people's ability to impact abortion policy.

So for nearly five decades after that decision, this power to determine abortion policy rested ultimately with the Supreme Court. Sure, the Supreme Court would leave enough wiggle room to leave the impression that lawmakers--primarily at the State level, of course-- could make law, but the Supreme Court was constantly inventing and reinventing what the standard was, what was and what was not a permissible restriction on abortion.

You see, this is what happens when you make up a nonexistent constitutional right, when you just decide that something is really important, that you feel so strongly about it that it must be in there, that it has to be in the Constitution because it is so important. When you take away the constitutional text from the words of the document, all of a sudden, you are left in this sort of no-man's land where you have to make things up as you go along.

The result was chaos--49\1/2\ years of chaotic manipulation at will of the law. A State would do one thing; the Supreme Court would strike it down. Another State would do something slightly different; the Supreme Court would uphold it, sometimes changing the standards along the way.

But in Dobbs, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional importance of keeping the power with the people, affirming that they have a legitimate interest in protecting the lives of the unborn and that they possess the authority to enact laws that reflect their values.

You see, remember a moment ago when we talked about the difference between authority and rights. They are the opposite of each other. Rights protect you from authority.

So when the Supreme Court decided as a matter of policy that it was so passionate about abortion in 1973 that it had to be in the Constitution, they effectively wrote it into the Constitution even though it is not there. They made it utterly impossible for people's elected representatives--either in their State legislative bodies, entities of local government, or, where appropriate, in Congress--to make most of the laws, and ultimately those were all subject to the will and the whim and the caprice of the Supreme Court. They did that because they deemed it part of the Constitution. But when you just deem something a part of the Constitution, that doesn't make it a part of the Constitution.

I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who once asked rhetorically the question: If you call the tail of a dog a leg, how many legs does the dog have?

He asked the question.

Someone answered: Five.

He said: No. Wrong. It is still four. Just because you call the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. The dog still has four legs.

This is still the Constitution. There still is nothing in here that says, by the way, that people can't make laws to protect the lives of the unborn unless the Supreme Court decides that they are permissible based on its own meandering standards ultimately untethered from the text of the Constitution or from 400 years of Anglo-American legal and jurisprudential tradition.

So in Dobbs, they restored this power back to the people. In Dobbs, it reaffirmed the fundamental belief that every human life is sacred, and every human life is deserving of protection. In Dobbs, the Court recognized the decisions of deeply personal and morally significant matters should be made closest to the people they affect.

Unfortunately, in the wake of Roe, we have witnessed a really dark chapter in our Nation's history. This decision wrongly declared that abortion was a right, despite no mention of it anywhere in the Constitution. A decision ushered in a new era, one that forced us to tolerate some of the most barbaric of practices: late-term abortions, gruesome procedures that practically no American supports became a stain on our society.

Even as those cases were litigated, the gruesome procedures were described, some of the most hardened lawyers could barely tolerate mentioning or even listening to the words describing the procedures.

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Mr. LEE. Sure. I anticipate I will be finished within 5 minutes.

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Mr. LEE. We refuse to accept this as the new status quo. We knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The Dobbs decision brought us a glimmer of hope. It reaffirmed the fundamental belief that every human life really is sacred and is deserving of protection and is capable of being protected within our constitutional system.

Finally, we are empowered to exercise our constitutional prerogative and resume our efforts to protect the lives of the unborn and end these unspeakable horrors.

And so this issue of States' rights--again, these are not States' rights. That is oxymoronic. And we call it federalism, State authority. So this victory of Dobbs, it is not just a victory for States' sovereign authority; it is also a victory for humanity because when we are told by the judicial branch of government, contrary to fact that the Constitution tells us that we cannot, may not, must not protect unborn human life, that really does grave damage to humanity.

The victory in Dobbs is a reminder that we can't afford to turn a blind eye to the moral and ethical implications of our laws. We must proceed in a way that protects the innocent and defend against the atrocities allowed under this lofty-sounding but ultimately barbaric platitude of choice.

Even with this victory, we still have a long way to go. Contrary to the assertions of many on the Democratic side of the aisle, the Dobbs decision did not make abortion illegal. It did nothing of the sort.

While many States have passed laws that protect preborn children--and I applaud them for doing so--others have expanded their abortion laws. Late-term and partial-birth abortions are still a reality in many States. This isn't something that I celebrate. I disagree with those laws. But I don't live in those States. And the important thing is that the people in those States are making those laws. And most of the time, it is in the States, and not here in Congress, where things not rendered Federal by the Constitution should be decided.

As we approach the 1-year anniversary of Dobbs, I believe we are dutybound to remember the millions upon millions of innocent lives lost, the pain and suffering endured, and the resilience of the men and women who fought for those who could not fight for themselves, who have no voice and therefore had to have others speak on their behalf.

We should be inspired to build a society where every life is cherished, where compassion triumphs over convenience and cowardice, and where the horrors of abortion become a distant memory, especially the horrors of abortion forced upon us by a judicial oligarchy utterly untethered from the text of the Constitution.

The Dobbs decision represented a turning point the moment when we said: Enough is enough. Now we are positioned to acknowledge that every life, from conception to natural birth, deserves our protection and our compassion and our care. And, yes, in some States they are going to do that differently than in others, but the fact that they are going to do it differently in one State or another doesn't mean that they don't deserve protection.

So as we celebrate this milestone, I hope we can remain committed to this cause. Let us never forget the horrors hoisted upon us by Roe and the significance of the Dobbs decision in restoring sanity and compassion to the laws that guide our Nation. Together we can forge our future, where the rights of the unborn are safeguarded, where the dignity of every human being is cherished, and where the dark days of the past remain only as reminders of our resolve to create a better world.

In the face of adversity, remember that change is possible. Remember that we possess the ability to achieve great things. Our Nation's health and strength lie in the people's hands, and together we can shape a future where every life is valued.

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