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AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000 (House of Representatives - June 08, 1999)


[Page: H3798] GPO's PDF

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one point. 

I do not think this would be as much of an issue if we did not use embargoes like we have in this recent administration, and talk about sanctions, they are embargoes. No one likes to use that term because in agriculture that has real connotations, has real effects. 

We remember the Nixon embargo, the Carter embargo, how that devastated the agriculture. This, in fact, is what we are talking about, our embargoes, and in the last 80 years there have been 120 embargoes put forth by this country and other countries, and in fact over half of them have been put in place in the last 6 1/2 years. 

So my colleagues can see the dramatic impact this has had on agriculture in recent years, a major reason for the decline in prices today, the fact that 40 percent of the world's population today is under some type of embargo from the United States, and it is extraordinarily destructive to agriculture, to free trade and our position in the world market. 

AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Amendment offered by Mr. Coburn: 

Insert before the short title the following new section: 

Sec. . None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used by the Food and Drug Administration for the testing, development, or approval (Including approval of production, manufacturing, or distribution) of any drug for the chemical inducement of abortion. 

Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 2 hours and that the time be equally divided. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New Mexico? 

There was no objection. 

The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman wish to designate with whom the time will be divided? 

Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, no, we do not. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to control one-half of the time, 1 hour, and allow the opposition to control one-half. 

The CHAIRMAN. Any Member seeking to control 1 hour in opposition? 

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, yes, we will on this side control the 1 hour in opposition. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) will control the 1 hour in opposition. The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) will control the 1 hour in favor. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 

Mr. Chairman, we are going to hear a lot of debate this afternoon and statements about the intended purpose of
this amendment. I want to say from the outset that this amendment is not intended to have an effect on any drug
used for any purpose other than that which is specifically spelled out in this amendment. 

The taxpayers of the United States spend a great deal of money each year in funding the Food and Drug Administration. There is something terribly wrong when we ask the taxpayers of this country to spend money in a way which is designed to give the Food and Drug Administration the ability to research and approve drugs that are designed to kill unborn children. 

Now let me say that again. The purpose of this amendment is to limit the FDA's ability to approve any drug which has its sole purpose to eliminate and terminate an unborn child. 

This should not be in a debate about abortion, and I do not intend it to be. It is about how we use taxpayers' money and for what purpose should that money be used. 

Abortion is legal in this country. I recognize that. But allowing a Federal agency to spend taxpayers' dollars to perfect and approve a method under which we take life to me seems totally irreconcilable with the fact that our whole country is supposed to be about the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of freedom and the pursuit of life. 

So this amendment will not block Cytotech from being used in other medicines and in other ways, it will not block RU-486 if it has an intended purpose for giving life, saving life, prolonging life. It will not stop any utilization of FDA funds in terms of that effort. Its sole purpose is to say to the FDA none of their money should be used in a manner which will enhance the taking of unborn life. 

It is a very simple proposition. Whether one believes in abortion or do not, both sides of this issue believe that we have way too many abortions. None of us think that abortion is a great thing. There are not many people who have been through an abortion who think an abortion is a great thing. 

So I want to move our debate not to the issue of abortion, but whether or not we can in good conscience utilize taxpayer dollars to perfect drugs to kill unborn children. That is what the debate is about. It is not about whether or not somebody can have an abortion; we all know that that is possible. 

[TIME: 1430]

Regrettably so, from my viewpoint. But, rather, the debate is about protecting unborn life from unwise use of Federal taxpayer dollars. 

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and yield myself such time as I may consume. 

Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman knows, on many votes we share similar values, a similar point of view, and this Member certainly does not have a voting record of supporting Federal funding for abortion. I have read carefully the gentleman's amendment. I think it is a bit different from the one the gentleman offered 1 or 2 years ago, if I recall. 

I think that the wording of the gentleman's amendment has a worthy purpose. The problem is, I oppose the gentleman's amendment respectfully for three reasons. First of all, on the basis of science. 

I do not think that we can really say with certainty and the kind of broad language that the gentleman has included in his amendment that you know for certain what every drug will be used for. I do not have a Ph.D. in science myself, but certainly in the area of medical science, if I think about the decade of the brain that we are now working our way through and all of the discoveries that have been made, for example, in the area of mental illness, most of them by accident; in places like France, for example, where patients were on operating tables,
and in order to alleviate pain they were using certain types of pain medications, and, all of a sudden, they discovered, my gosh, why did that work to help to diminish hallucinations and other conditions relating to mental illness? 

We certainly are in a period of time now where many of these medications that were by accident discovered to have application for the remediation of the symptoms of mental illness are being worked on, and medical science is at a new horizon in terms of hopefully finding answers for the millions and millions of people that suffer from those illnesses. 

I think similarly to some of the lab experiments that have been done, even the discovery of the X-ray itself was an accident. They did not go in there, I think it was Mr. Roentgen, was that not the name, to actually discover x-rays, but it happened. All of a sudden we have a major technology like that that has been used around the world now because of the ability of science to probe into the unknown, but then to figure out practical applications. 

I think the gentleman's desire to limit abortion is a very worthy objective, and I do not think anybody on this side of the aisle would disagree with the objective. The problem is that you cannot really say to medical science that you are going to know for every drug or every chemical that FDA reviews, you are going to know that it would have an end result that you are talking about.