May 23, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 87 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S3068-S3069]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                ABORTION

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to speak about the recent uptick 
in State efforts to criminalize abortion. These proposals, which have 
been passed in eight States just this year and that have been proposed 
in many others, impose harsh criminal penalties on women who have 
abortions or on doctors who terminate pregnancies.
  The laws deny women the freedom to make their own healthcare choices. 
Therefore, they clearly violate the constitutional protections 
established in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. In fact, many of the 
proponents of these laws openly advertise them as being part of a 
strategy to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and to 
return to the days when States used the criminal law to punish women 
and doctors for contraception and abortion.
  Abortion is a contentious issue. People feel so strongly about it. I 
understand that. I feel strongly about it, too. It can sometimes appear 
that there is little common ground between people who call themselves 
pro-choice and people who call themselves pro-life, but there is common 
ground among so many of us. For example, Americans with many different 
views on abortion overwhelmingly believe that Roe v. Wade should remain 
the law of the land. More than 70 percent of Americans support the 
decision and believe it shouldn't be overturned.
  People understand that, whatever they think about abortion for 
themselves and their own families, they do not believe the State should 
make the decision for every woman. Women should be able to make their 
own decisions about pregnancy, contraception, and abortion without 
State interference, and appropriate regulation of abortion, just as of 
other medical procedures, especially late in a pregnancy when a fetus 
could survive independently, is allowable as long as the life and 
health of the mother receive careful protection.
  In addition to the support for Roe v. Wade, there is also common 
ground based on data about strategies that work, and I want to offer a 
common-ground perspective on this issue. There is a way to dramatically 
reduce abortion in this country that both pro-life and pro-choice 
should embrace. It is a strategy of compassion. Let me start with a 
noteworthy fact that is almost never mentioned.
  During the last 25 years, which is the time I have been in elected 
office, the abortion rate in this country has been cut in half. This is 
remarkable. You never hear this discussed. By 2015, during the Obama 
administration, the abortion rate in the United States was at its 
lowest level since Roe v. Wade became law. In fact, if you were to just 
measure it by the data, you could argue that the Obama administration's 
years were the most pro-life period since Roe v. Wade.
  Why has this happened?
  While there are a number of reasons, the most important one is this: 
The rate of unplanned pregnancies is decreasing. Teen pregnancies are 
decreasing. If the number of unplanned pregnancies goes down, the 
abortion rate goes down. There is a direct connection between unplanned 
pregnancies and the abortion rate.
  So here is the strategy that should unite everyone: Reduce the number 
of unplanned pregnancies. Could anyone be against that? Reduce the 
number of unplanned pregnancies.
  The good news is that we know how to do it. When women have better 
access to affordable healthcare, including better access to 
contraception and better access to comprehensive sex education, the 
number of unplanned pregnancies goes down, and the number of abortions 
drops. We know that more women have access to healthcare and 
contraception today than in the past. The passage of the Affordable 
Care Act and the 36 States that have expanded Medicaid have provided 
millions of women with healthcare, so many of whom didn't have it 
before, including preventive care and contraception access.
  Comprehensive sex education for young people also equips them with 
information that is necessary to avoid unplanned pregnancies. Some 
young people decide to delay becoming sexually active, and that is 
great. Some make better choices about contraception to avoid pregnancy, 
and that is helpful. So education is a key factor as well. Whatever we 
call ourselves--pro-choice, pro-life, or anything--if we want to keep 
reducing unplanned pregnancies and, thereby, reducing the abortion 
rate, guess what. We know just how to do it: Make sure kids get 
comprehensive sex education so they can make more responsible choices, 
and keep working to expand healthcare, including access to 
contraception for women. This is the compassionate way to bring down 
the abortion rate. It supports women, trusts their decisions, and 
succeeds in reducing unplanned pregnancies.
  Yet here is something that puzzles me. The GOP legislators all across 
this country have generally opposed, quite bitterly, those proven 
strategies, and so have many in the pro-life community. The GOP has 
fought the Affordable Care Act every step of the way, and it now stands 
squarely behind the effort to repeal the act entirely and

[[Page S3069]]

strip healthcare away from millions of women.
  The GOP fights against contraception access. Many in the GOP fight 
against comprehensive sex education. Instead, they push abstinence-only 
sex education curricula that doesn't work. If the GOP succeeds in 
killing the ACA and in reducing contraception access, the number of 
unplanned pregnancies will increase, and the abortion rate will 
increase. How is that pro-life?
  The GOP is now embracing a different strategy--making women and 
doctors criminals. This is the key unifying cruelty to these recent 
State laws. GOP-controlled States are racing to see who can have the 
cruelest criminal laws--a complete ban on abortion at 8 weeks of 
pregnancy. No, how about a complete ban on abortion at 6 weeks of 
pregnancy?
  In Alabama, there is a ban from the second the pregnancy begins, from 
the second there is a fetus in utero, and there are no exceptions to 
someone who is the victim of rape or incest. Think about that. Alabama 
forces a 13-year-old who was raped or was the victim of incest to bear 
a criminal's child under pain of criminal prosecution and punishment--
imprisonment--for the doctor.
  Wait. Let's get tougher still.
  In Georgia, women who terminate pregnancies could receive life in 
prison under a bill that was recently signed by the Georgia Governor. 
There is some confusion here. Prosecutors argue about whether the 
technical language would subject a woman who has an abortion to a 
first-degree murder charge. The sponsor of the bill, now that it has 
been signed, is backpedaling, saying he only intended for women to be 
prosecuted under a separate criminal abortion statute that carries a 
maximum sentence of 10 years. He apparently believes that subjecting 
women to 10-year prison sentences rather than to life sentences for 
murder is merciful and lenient. No woman exercising her constitutional 
right to make her own healthcare decisions should be threatened with a 
prison sentence of even 1 day.
  The GOP could go further.
  A Texas bill filed last month would have allowed the death penalty--
capital punishment--for a woman who seeks an abortion. The bill failed, 
but the bill wasn't a surprise from the party whose President admitted 
during his campaign that a woman who has an abortion must suffer a 
punishment.
  So the GOP's strategy is for more criminal laws, more prosecutions, 
and more sentences--put more women in prison, and put more doctors in 
prison. We already have the highest incarceration in the world--five 
times higher than Canada's and 70 percent higher than Russia's. Guess 
what. So many of these GOP proposals would push us even further, and 
the next big group going behind bars could be women and doctors.
  These criminal laws don't bring about a culture of life. These 
criminal laws don't bring about a culture of compassion. They succeed 
only in demonizing women, robbing them of their dignity, and intruding 
upon the most private aspects of their lives, and they demonize the 
doctors who care for these women.
  Do Americans want a society that labels women's healthcare choices as 
criminal? No.
  Is there any proof that criminal penalties for abortion will reduce 
unplanned pregnancies? No.
  Is there any proof that criminal penalties for abortion will reduce 
the number of abortions? No.
  That is what I mean about the choice we face as a society. We can 
pursue a path of compassion toward women and be secure in the knowledge 
that better health and contraception access and comprehensive sex 
education will reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions, or we can 
pursue the path of criminalizing women's decisions with there being no 
evidence that the strategy will have the effect of reducing unplanned 
pregnancies and abortions.
  I have focused most of my attention on the issue of unplanned 
pregnancies. Of course, some planned pregnancies end in abortion, too. 
Most often, these pregnancies involve severe maternal or severe fetal 
health issues that are emotional and tragic for all involved. 
Certainly, compassion toward these families and not criminal 
prosecution is the right answer. This question--do we use a 
compassionate strategy to reduce unplanned pregnancies or do we 
criminalize women's decisions?--is the fundamental difference between 
the Nation's two political parties on this very important issue right 
now.
  I am firmly in the camp of compassion. If we support women and trust 
women, we can keep making significant progress toward a goal we should 
all share: fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, let me say how much I agree with the 
Senator from Virginia. I endorse completely what he said. I would make 
one amendment. Instead of just the compassion approach versus the 
criminal approach, it is the commonsense approach versus the criminal 
approach as well.
  I do believe that the point has been made and demonstrated by what my 
colleague said here and what he has said in previous meetings that when 
we invest in family planning and sex education and good healthcare for 
women, we have fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions, period. 
Those policies that militate against that just increase the likelihood 
of abortion.
  Let me also add something that I think pro-life and pro-choice should 
agree to come to terms with in unity. How in the world can we live in a 
country--the United States of America--with all its wealth and all its 
expertise, and have in the last 25 years the worst incidence of 
maternal mortality in civilized countries around the world? More women 
are dying in the United States giving birth today than 25 years ago. 
Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, wouldn't you agree this should 
be a high priority of our government--both parties--to reduce maternal 
mortality here in the United States?
  I might add that infant mortality is still unacceptable in the United 
States. The rate of it is unacceptable.
  Couldn't we agree, pro-life and pro-choice, to come together behind 
those two?
  I am a cosponsor of a bill introduced by Congresswoman Robin Kelly of 
Illinois that she aptly entitled the ``MOMMA Act,'' which will try to 
deal with maternal mortality issues, particularly as they relate to 
women of color. And the irony, the surprise is that when you read the 
data, the incidence of maternal mortality among women of color does not 
track with poverty and education. It is a racial issue for reasons that 
are hard to explain, but she addresses it, and I have joined her in 
that effort.
  The other point I would like to make is this: My colleague from 
Virginia has talked about efforts in State legislatures that have gone 
to extremes. What I call the Alabama two-step is the second step in 
that process.
  We spend our time day after day, week after week putting men and 
women on the bench who were proposed by the Trump administration and 
pushed through as quickly as possible by the Republicans in the Senate 
who, frankly, are waiting for the day when they will have a chance to 
endorse, approve these statutes my colleague has described, which are 
extreme by any definition. That, to me, is problematic and troublesome 
for us as a nation, that we are moving toward that possibility.
  I see that the Senator from South Dakota is on floor, and I believe 
he has a request to make.
  I would like to ask unanimous consent, after his request, to be 
recognized again.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.

                          ____________________