[House Report 109-51]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
109th Congress Rept. 109-51
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
1st Session Part 2
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CHILD INTERSTATE ABORTION NOTIFICATION ACT
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May 5, 2005.--Ordered to be printed
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Mr. Sensenbrenner, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the
following
SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT
together with
ADDITIONAL DISSENTING VIEWS
[To accompany H.R. 748]
Pursuant to clause 3(a)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the
House of Representatives for the 109th Congress, the Committee
on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 748) to
amend title 18, United States Code, to prevent the
transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws
relating to abortion, and for other purposes, herein files a
supplemental report on the bill.
On April 21, 2005, the Committee on the Judiciary filed
House Report 109-51, relating to H.R. 748, the ``Child
Interstate Abortion Notification Act of 2005.''
This supplemental report amends the headings that described
Committee amendments offered to H.R. 748 that were subject to
roll call votes at pages 45 through 49 of House Report 109-51,
Part 1. The following descriptive headings of amendments
offered to H.R. 748 have been modified.
VOTE OF THE COMMITTEE
In compliance with clause 3(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, the Committee notes that the
following rollcall votes occurred during the Committee's
consideration of H.R. 748.
1. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have allowed
anyone subject to prosecution under the Act to challenge the
adequacy of a judicial bypass provision provided for under
State law in federal court. By a rollcall vote of 11 yeas to 16
nays, the amendment was defeated.
2. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted
any grandparent or adult sibling of a minor from the Act. By a
rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was
defeated.
3. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted
any taxicab driver, bus driver, or those in the business of
professional transport from the Act. By a rollcall vote of 13
yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.
4. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted
from the Act those who did not commit an offense in the first
degree. By a rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment
was defeated.
5. Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have
exempted from the Act any clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or
first cousins, and would require a study by the Government
Accounting Office. By a rollcall vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays,
the amendment was defeated.
This supplemental report includes additional information
that describes amendments offered at the markup of H.R. 748,
the ``Child Interstate Notification Abortion Act of 2005.''.
AMENDMENTS OFFERED AT COMMITTEE
Amendments offered at the Committee on the Judiciary markup
of H.R. 748 would have had the effect of creating blanket
exclusions from the criminal prohibitions in the legislation
without any exceptions for those who would commit statutory
rape or incest. The loopholes those amendments would have
created could have been exploited by the very sexual
predators--that is, those who would exploit vulnerable young
girls and commit statutory rape or incest--whose conduct the
bill is designed to bring to light. All of the amendments
offered would have carved out exceptions that could be
exploited by sexual predators who sought to destroy evidence of
their crimes by secretly taking a minor, without her parents'
knowledge, to another State to have an abortion, contrary to
the purposes of the legislation.
The amendments offered by the minority would have created
blanket exclusions for certain large classes of people who are
not a minor's parents. Those classes of people were ``taxicab
drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional
transport,''\1\ ``clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first
cousins of a minor,''\2\ and ``grandparents or adult
siblings.''\3\ If any of the people described in the amendments
offered became involved with a minor in a sexually abusive way,
they would have been flatly excluded from the criminal
prohibitions of H.R. 748, one of the primary purposes of which
is to prevent sexual predators from continuing to abuse minors
undetected.\4\ The amendments offered at the Judiciary
Committee markup of April 13, 2005, were directly contrary to a
primary purpose of the legislation.
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\1\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 101 (amendment offered by Mr.
Scott).
\2\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 112 (amendment offered by Ms.
Jackson-Lee).
\3\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 95 (amendment offered by Mr.
Nadler).
\4\That purpose is reviewed extensively in the Committee Report in
an entire section entitled ``CIANA Protects Minor Girls From Sexual
Assault.'' See H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 35-36.
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Similarly, if an amendment were offered to a bill that
would make it a federal crime to commit terrorist acts, and an
offered amendment would exclude conduct by, for example,
taxicab drivers, then that amendment would allow a taxicab
driver to commit terrorist acts without being prosecuted. In
the very same way, those who happen to drive taxicabs, or who
work in the business of professional transportation, should not
be free to commit statutory rape and transport a minor across
state lines to get an abortion without telling one of the
girl's parents. And brothers, uncles, or godparents, should not
be allowed to commit incest and then transport a young girl
across state lines to get an abortion so evidence of their
crimes are destroyed without telling one of the girl's parents
about the abortion. The amendments offered would have done just
that in just that way.
The incidence of statutory rape in this country is
shocking. As a recent presentation given at a U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services Conference on the Sexual
Exploitation of Teens showed, of minor girls' first sexual
experiences, 13% constitute statutory rape.\5\ Further, the
younger a sexually experienced teen is, the more likely they
are to experience statutory rape. Of sexually experienced teens
age 13 or younger, 65% experienced statutory rape. Of those age
14, 53% experienced statutory rape. Of those age 15, 41%
experienced statutory rape.\6\ Also, blacks and Hispanics are
more likely to experience statutory rape.\7\ Creating blanket
exclusions in the bill for large categories of people would
create a loophole in the legislation that statutory rapists
could exploit.
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\5\Kristin Moore, Ph.D. and Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D., ``A
Demographic Portrait of Statutory Rape,'' Presentation given at the
United States Department of Health and Human Services' Conference on
the Sexual Exploitation of Teens (March 23-24, 2005) (defining
statutory rape as occurring when teens aged 15 or younger have sex with
a partner 3 or more years older).
\6\Id.
\7\Id. (Hispanic, 17%, black, 16%, white, 11%).
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Regarding family incest, one recent law review article\8\
summarized the research regarding the prevalence of sexual
contact among siblings as follows: ``Brother-sister sexual
contact may be five times as common as father-daughter incest.
A survey of 796 New England College students revealed that 15%
of females . . . had a sexual experience with a sibling.''\9\
Further, among those reporting sexual abuse, the incidence of
abuse by cousins ranges from 10% to 40% among various
studies.\10\ And 4.9% of women report an incestuous experience
with an uncle before the age of 18,\11\ and 16% of rape victims
are raped by relatives other than their father.\12\ Carving out
exceptions to the criminal prohibitions of H.R. 748 for adult
siblings, cousins, and uncles would not protect young girls who
are made victims of incest by their adult siblings, cousins, or
uncles.
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\8\Victor Vieth, ``When the Child Abuser is a Child,'' 25 Hamline
L. Rev. 47, 51 (2001).
\9\Vernon R. Wiehe, Sibling Abuse: Hidden Physical, Emotional, and
Sexual Trauma 50 (1990).
\10\See A. De Jong, Sexual Interactions Among Siblings and Cousins,
12(2), 271-279 (1988).
\11\See Russell, Diana E.H., ``The Incidence and Prevalence of
Intrafamilial and Extrafamilial Sexual Abuse of Female Children,'' in
Handbook on Sexual Abuse of Children, edited by Lenore E.A. Walker
(1988).
\12\See D.G. Kilpratrick et al., Rape in America: A Report to the
Nation (National Victim Center 1992).
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Further, pregnancy as a result of all these crimes is all
too common. As one Pennsylvania court has pointed out,
``Twenty-five percent of incest victims become pregnant. The
ratio is greater among victims of incest than those of rape
because incestuous conduct is usually long term and progressive
whereas rape is usually a one time occurrence.''\13\
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\13\Fischner v. Department of Public Welfare, 482 A.2d 1137, 1143
(Pa. Commonwealth 1984).
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Another amendment offered at the Judiciary Committee markup
of H.R. 748 would have created an additional layer of Federal
court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape
conviction under the bill.\14\ That amendment would have
created an opportunity for a sexual predator to escape
conviction if they could make a showing to a federal court that
the judicial bypass provisions of a state law were somehow
ineffective or somehow violated confidential information
related to a minor's pregnancy. If a sexual predator made a
showing to the court on either of those issues--neither of
which would expose the sexual predator's crimes--then that
sexual predator could completely evade the requirements of H.R.
748, which are designed to expose sexual predators and prevent
future sexual abuse.
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\14\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 90 (amendment offered by Mr.
Nadler).
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The final amendment offered would have exempted from
prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who
could be prosecuted under the bill. That amendment would have
excluded from the bill anyone who did not ``commit[] an offense
in the first degree.''\15\ The consequences of adopting that
amendment would have been to allow anyone who aided or abetted
a criminal who ran afoul of the criminal prohibitions of H.R.
748 to instead get off scot-free.
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\15\H.R. Rep. No. 109-51 (2005) at 107 (amendment offered by Mr.
Scott).
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In sum, the effect of the amendments offered would have
been to exempt cab drivers, other professional transporters,
and certain relatives who aren't parents from the criminal
prohibitions of H.R. 748, and that would have prevented parents
from knowing when those perpetrators of statutory rape or
incest were secretly taking their children across state lines
for an abortion to destroy evidence of their crimes.
This supplemental report also adds the following additional
text at the end of the Additional Dissenting Views.
ADDITIONAL DISSENTING VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVES CONYERS
I understand that some contend that certain Democratic
Amendments offered at the markup of H.R. 748 would have
protected sexual predators.\16\ This is not the purpose, intent
or effect of the Amendments.
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\16\The five amendments in question are Nadler Amendment No.11-16
(allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a
Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state's parental notice
laws if this remedy is not available in the state court); Nadler
Amendment No.12-19 (exempts a grandparent or adult sibling from the
criminal and civil provisions in the bill); Scott Amendment No. 13-17
(exempts cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business
transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill);
Scott Amendment No.12-18 (would have limited criminal liability to the
person committing the offense in the first degree); Jackson-Lee
Amendment No. 13-20 (exempts clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first
cousins from the penalties in the bill).
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First, it is important to note that the term ``sexual
predator'' is not included in the text of any of the Democratic
Amendments, nor is it included in the text of the legislation
itself. In addition, the term was only used on a single
occasion during the substantive consideration of the
legislation at full committee, very briefly during debate on
the second Scott amendment.\17\
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\17\See Mr. Chabot's remarks on page 107 of H.R. Report, No. 109-
51.
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Second, I believe it is incorrect to assert, for example,
that the bill creates a loophole for grandparents or taxicab
drivers under the amendments. In the highly unlikely event that
a grandparent or a taxicab driver had engaged in sexual
relations with a young woman, the amendments would not have let
such individuals off the hook for their acts. That is to say,
they would be separately and independently culpable for the act
of rape, statutory rape, or incest, with or without the
adoption of these amendments.
Third, the amendments simply reflected good faith efforts
of Democratic Members to carve out from the provisions of the
legislation certain categories of individuals who were not
sexual predators, but were simply acting out of the best
interests of the young woman involved, For example:
When Mr. Nadler offered an amendment to allow a
subject party to challenge the adequacy of judicial bypass
procedures, he did so because of his knowledge that quite
frequently judicial bypass procedures do not operate to allow a
woman who has been raped by a parent to find an objective and
independent legal forum to obtain a waiver.
When Mr. Nadler offered an amendment to exempt
grandparents and adult siblings from the scope of the
legislation, and Ms. Jackson Lee offered an amendment to exempt
clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first cousins form the
legislation, they did so because they understand that quite
frequently a trusted relative or clergy member is turned to by
a young woman who is scared of or cannot trust her parents.
When Mr. Scott offered an amendment to exempt
taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or those in the business of
professional transport from the legislation, he did so because
he did not want these innocent common carriers to be caught up
in legal danger as the result of the actions of an overzealous
prosecutor.
When Mr. Scott offered an amendment to exempt
individuals who did not commit offenses in the first degree, he
did so to insure that the legislation focused on those who
acted with specific intent to violate the law, as is ordinarily
the case with our criminal laws or to be prevented from simply
doing their jobs in transporting individuals across state
lines.
In each of these cases far from protecting sexual
predators, the amendments were designed to make it easier for a
young woman who wants to obtain an abortion from being able to
do so without being forced to seek the permission of a parent
who is himself a sexual predator. I believe the amendments were
straightforward and justified, and would have provided
important improvements to the underlying legislation without
opening up any additional loopholes.
John Conyers, Jr.