Protect Children's Innocence Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, the bill would subject doctors, nurses, other medical providers, and even parents to up to 10 years' incarceration in Federal prison and up to $250,000 in criminal fines for providing gender- affirming healthcare like hormone therapy to minors.
They want to criminalize more than a dozen different evidence-based medical treatments and procedures that are presently being recommended and used for gender dysphoria including the prescription of puberty blockers, which are commonly used by families for young people who are not trans but who face all the medical and social problems associated with early-onset puberty.
The gentlewoman's bill would engineer a massive invasion of the privacy rights of families engaged in medical decisionmaking in America. I thought a belief that families should be able to make their own decisions for their own children was something that united Liberals and Conservatives.
These are hard and often agonizing decisions that loving American families in our country face. Our colleagues now want to invite the Federal Government to come barging into the family dining room and in the doctor's exam room like a raging bull in a china shop.
Does anyone believe the Freedom Caucus and President Trump love America's children more than their own parents do or that they can make better decisions for tens of thousands of American children than their own parents? I can't understand the logic of it.
At a time of skyrocketing healthcare costs--which our colleagues will do nothing about except perhaps a handful of them who have crossed over to join us today in a discharge petition--at a time of skyrocketing healthcare costs, grocery prices, and housing, not to mention the recent news of escalating unemployment higher than the last 4 years, does anybody think that what the American people need right now and are looking for is a Federal law authorizing FBI agents and government prosecutors to investigate doctors, nurses, hospitals, and parents for providing AMA-recommended medical care to children?
The politicians that have brought America to a point of crisis in healthcare coverage for millions of Americans--and can't seem to do anything about it--cannot be trusted to make the most intimate and fundamental decisions for the physical, mental, and emotional well- being of America's children. Let us leave it to people's parents. Let us leave it to the families.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, at a time when our colleagues are perfectly content to see millions of Americans lose their health insurance, when they do nothing to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that millions of Americans are depending on, at a time when they are happy to throw millions of people off of Medicaid coverage, they decide to change the subject in order to vilify and demonize a small minority.
That is a time-honored tactic in the authoritarian playbook, to pick a small minority of citizens--here, we are talking about around 2 million people who are transgender in America--and scapegoat them, dehumanize them, demonize them, satanize them, take away their basic freedoms, and even deny their very existence.
It is happening to gay people right now in Putin's Russia and in Orban's Hungary. It is happening to Uyghurs and Tibetans in China. It is happening to Christians and free-thinkers in Pakistan. It is happening to Muslims in India. Now, it is happening to trans people in America when they are happy to attack them, vilify them, and try to destroy their community. If they purport to be acting in the name of the trans community, why is it that the trans community opposes their legislation so strongly?
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentlewoman from Oregon.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, we know that the proponents of this legislation are certainly not speaking for the families that have to deal with this problem because all of them are lobbying against this. They are saying that the last thing we want at this point is to send the FBI and Federal prosecutors in to deal with the problem. Let them deal with it. Well, perhaps they are speaking from medical authority? No, not at all.
Look at the letter that was just sent to Members of Congress. ``We, the undersigned medical professional organizations, write in strong opposition to H.R. 3492 and H.R. 498. These bills would criminalize and dismantle healthcare for transgender young people and as such represent a direct threat to patient welfare. We urge you to reject these extreme proposals.''
Look who signed this: American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American Psychiatric Association, and so on.
The leading medical authorities in the country are saying: Hey, we can work this out at the State level.
The gentleman referred to California. There are States that are regulating in the field as they regulate lots of different kinds of medical treatments and procedures. Suddenly, we are going to turn the United States Congress into a super-medical licensing board for the entire country?
This is why our colleague from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Roy, raised the question of whether this is even constitutional. Where is the Federal jurisdictional nexus for us to be overriding State medical boards in order to bulldoze into people's living rooms and their kitchen tables to usurp the family decisionmaking process of Americans across the country?
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Salinas).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter), who is both a mom and a doctor.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Frost).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Every major medical and mental health association in the United States of America, representing 1.3 million doctors--the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association--all reject this legislation that is being advanced here. They all support gender-affirming care according to the most up-to-date science and medicine.
So if they are not speaking for the transgender community, which certainly they are not; if they are not speaking for all of the families and parents who are involved, which certainly they are not; if they are not speaking for the medical community and the scientific community, who indeed are they speaking for?
They describe the position that these medical associations have as satanic. I mean, are they looking for an exorcism to deal with the reality of lives for millions of people in the country?
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hoyle).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, we are invited to believe that the United States Congress is not only more competent to make medical decisions for America's children than their own parents, but that the United States Congress is more competent than all 50 State legislatures to run medical practices within their States.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier), who is both a mom and a pediatrician.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.
Madam Speaker, it is outrageous for the government to commandeer those decisions.
Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to all vote ``no.''
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Mr. RASKIN. Balint).
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.
Madam Speaker, we obviously disagree vehemently on this bill, but this may be the last time that I get to share the floor with the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia. I thank her for her hard work and her thoughtful comments in CNN news recently which moved me when she said: ``I would like to say, humbly, I am sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It is very bad for our country. It has been something I thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.''
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and wish her and her family all the best in her future.
Having said that, on the gentlewoman's bill, Madam Speaker, there are lots of people in the country who are not getting their kids vaccinated for different reasons and for different kinds of illnesses. A lot of people in the country reject that and oppose that, and perhaps the vast majority do.
Does that mean we should come forward with a bill to the United States Congress to say that we are going to put in jail any parents who don't vaccinate their children because we think they are making the wrong decision for their children?
In other words, we know better than the parents do, and we know better than the doctors do. We know better than the medical associations do, and we know better than all of the States do.
Madam Speaker, I think that would be an absurd abuse of our power and, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) has been saying, a very questionable deployment of Federal power, given the fact that the United States Congress has limited powers that are supposed to deal with actual national and Federal issues, which is why medical care has always been left to the States to deal with.
This is like a bulldozer going into everybody's house if you happen to be dealing with this particular kind of medical crisis. You don't have to agree with any particular decision that any particular family or set of parents have made. All you have to do is respect their right to make decisions with and for their own children. That is all that we are talking about.
Do you know who is on this side and opposed to this legislation? Medical associations, like the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association, representing more than a million doctors in the country, are saying: No, don't let the politicians start finger painting all over the protocols for dealing with an actual medical problem that millions of people have had to deal with in our country.
We will stand with the families. We will stand with the doctors. We will stand with the medical associations. We will stand with the States. We have got enough real work on our hands.
Let's just try to get medical care and medical attention to the people of America. Millions of people are losing their access to health insurance and to Medicaid. Why don't we try to deal with that before we barge into the doctors' offices, and the living rooms and kitchen tables of America to try to take over what is a fundamentally private and personal decision that we should be trusting families to make for themselves?
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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