Mr. Chairman, we consider today legislation that is at once another flagrant violation of the Constitution and an assault on the health and well-being of young women and their health care providers. Some States have chosen to enact parental notification and consent laws. Some, like mine, have considered this issue and decided such laws are not good for the welfare of young women and have declined to enact them. This bill would use Federal authority to impose the restrictive laws of one State on abortions performed in another State. It would, in effect, make a young girl carry the law of her State on her back wherever she goes.

Mr. Chairman, I know of no law that has attempted to do this kind of thing since the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850s. This bill would make criminals of grandparents, boyfriends, brothers, sisters, and clergymen and women who try to help a young woman, a young woman who had a fear or alienation and thinks she cannot confide in her parents.

It would even apply to a case such as that of a 13-year-old from Idaho, Spring Adams, who was shot to death by her father after he found out that she planned to terminate a pregnancy, a pregnancy he caused by his act of incest. Under this bill, he would have the parental notification or veto right.

This bill is radically different from previous versions. If you voted for this bill in the past, look again. It would now, for the first time, jail doctors. It would now, for the first time, require doctors to know the laws of all 50 States. It would now, for the first time, require a doctor to fly to the young woman's home State and ring her parents' doorbell before treating her. Even if the young girl's State of residence and the doctor's State have both decided not to enact parental notification or consent laws, this bill would impose a new Federal parental notification law that is more Draconian than the laws of most States. 

This bill imposes a 24-hour waiting period and does not waive that requirement even if the parents accompany the young woman to the abortion doctor and even if a delay would threaten her health. That is not only unconstitutional; it is immoral. Congress should not be tempted to play doctor. It is always bad medicine for women.

In an ideal world, loving, supportive and understanding families would join together to face these challenges. That is what happens in the majority of cases, law or no law; but we do not live in a perfect world. Some parents are violent; some parents are rapists. Some young people can turn only to their clergy, to a grandparent, a brother, a sister, or some other trusted adult. We should not turn these people into criminals simply because they are trying to help a young woman in a difficult or dire situation.

This bill is the wrong way to deal with a very real problem. It does not provide exceptions to protect the young woman's health. It does not provide exceptions where a parent has raped a young woman. It even allows the rapist to sue the clergyman or the doctor who tries to help the doctor deal with the effects of the rape committed by the rapist. It allows the rapist to sue the doctor and gain from his crime.

I urge my colleagues to reject this legislation on both constitutional and policy grounds. If only for the sake of humanity, I urge Members to join in providing the needed flexibility for the most difficult real-world cases involving the lives of real young women. We owe them at least that much.

We also owe the States the respect to note that some of them have passed such laws, some have not. Why should we impose these laws in States that have not done it? Why should we tell someone in one State because you came from another State, you are subject to the laws of that State wherever you go. We do not do that in this country generally. We are supposed to be a Federal Republic, although increasingly in this House we seem to forget that. I urge rejection of this bill.